Chapter Summary Of Heartbreaking In Sherlock Holmes 'Oaxaca'

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Washington, California, and Oaxaca for both his fieldwork and to visit his Triqui friends. Holmes explained that early in his fieldwork he realized that an ethnography of suffering and migration would be incomplete without witnessing firsthand border crossings because it’s a very significant site of suffering for Latin American migrants. (Holmes, pg. 9) Holmes was warned of robbers, armed vigilantes, rattlesnakes and debilitating heat. He was also warned by lawyers about death by dehydration and sunstroke, death by kidnapping, as well as the possibility of being mistaken for a coyote and charged with a felony. So, he was well aware of all of the dangers and risks that went along with crossing the border but he knew that border crossing was a principal experience of sufrimiento (suffering) that he should understand firsthand. (Holmes, pg. 9) Eventually, he found a group of Triqui people that would allow him to cross the border with them he soon …show more content…

Holmes exposes how health care providers inadvertently add insult to injury by just blaming the migrants for their ailments instead of recognizing how the migrants are actually the victims of deeply-rooted structural inequalities. (Holmes, pg. 28 and 110) Holmes described the illness narratives of his Triqui friends Abelino, Crescencio, and Bernardo, considering the effects of the different expressions of violence at work in migrant farm labor. He continued to explain the stories of Abelino’s knee, Crescencio’s headache, and Bernardo’s stomach pain as these individuals interact as patients with health professionals in Washington, California, and Oaxaca. He really makes an effort to explore both the structural factors affecting migrant health care and the lenses through which health professionals perceive their migrant patients. (Holmes, pg.