Essay On Migrant Farmworkers

Critical Response 4

Migrant farmworkers, in the United States commonly facing structural violence, that’s committed by industries or their employers. Structural violence can be when a worker is prevented their basic needs often due to their identity or class status. Structural violence includes the health problems frequently faced by agricultural workers. Nearly all migrant workers are under rated for the field work they perform, and the work takes a toll on their body, and overall health. Migrant Farmworkers are mostly seasonal workers, where they can travel with the seasons, in order to acquire money to survive. “Much of the structural violence in the United States today is organized along the fault lines of class, race, citizenship, gender, and sexuality.”(Pg 43) The pay from these jobs aren’t much either with low pay, and no health benefits as described by Seth Holmes. Due to their social ranking, race, and citizenship the migrant workers are oppressed, and are being taken advantage of.
Agricultural workers perform dangerous
An example of their race being connected to the structural violence is, “Here a medical index developed among one ethnic group and class is applied normatively to another group in such a way that the patients are de fi ned as abnormal, monitored, and, at times, shamed for their assumed behaviors. This practice is an example of structural medical racism and classism at work.”(Pg 147) Medical institutions consider that since these workers are mexican, and are migrant workers they are to blame for their health conditions. Society stigmatizes mexicans, as kids who are too lazy to learn english, while on the other hand the migrant workers are absolutely the opposite, they want to learn, and have made various attempts, although work always takes up most of their