Seth Holmes
Holmes, the anthropologist-physician and author, positions himself as both observer and participant, crossing the border and working alongside Triqui migrants. His presence exposes the ethical tension of witnessing suffering while belonging to privileged structures that produce it. He becomes a bridge between worlds—documenting violence, confronting his own complicity, and challenging medical and academic institutions’ blind spots. Holmes functions as the narrative’s moral interrogator, constantly questioning how bodies become marked by hierarchy, racism, and political neglect.
Abelino
Abelino is a young Triqui farmworker whose chronic pain becomes emblematic of structural violence. His injuries are not accidental but rooted in exploitative labor conditions, racialized job placement, and relentless economic pressure. Through Abelino’s body, the book illustrates how systems transform biological suffering into an expected, invisible cost of cheap produce. He is neither victim nor stereotype; Abelino emerges as resilient, insightful, and deeply aware of the inequalities shaping his life.
Crescencio
Crescencio represents the emotional and moral burden placed on migrant men who must provide for families across borders. His injuries, exhaustion, and moments of quiet despair reveal how masculinity is reshaped by displacement and labor exploitation. Holmes shows Crescencio as thoughtful and proud, yet trapped in a cycle where returning home without money feels like failure. His story highlights how migration fractures identity, family ties, and self-worth.
Bernardo
Bernardo is one of the most prominent Triqui workers Holmes befriends, marked by humor, loyalty, and a practical survival instinct. He humanizes migrant labor beyond suffering by showing camaraderie, cultural pride, and the strategies migrants use to endure injustice. Yet his life also illustrates constant risk—police harassment, border danger, farm strain. Bernardo embodies the balancing act of vulnerability and agency, resisting dehumanization through everyday acts of dignity and care.
The Growers (Collective Figures)
The growers appear as a complex collective rather than villains: many express kindness yet remain embedded in a system that benefits from racial hierarchies and harsh labor divisions. Their contradictory behavior—friendly conversation paired with rigid structural control—reveals how exploitation persists not through individual cruelty but through normalized economic logic. Holmes uses them to show how “good people” can perpetuate harmful systems without acknowledging the human cost behind productivity and profit.
Medical Staff (Doctors & Clinicians)
Doctors and nurses treating injured farmworkers often reinforce structural violence through dismissiveness, racial stereotypes, and rushed biomedical assessments. Holmes highlights how medical institutions convert structural suffering into “noncompliance” or “pain exaggeration,” stripping migrants of credibility. These figures represent the power of medical authority to misinterpret or erase the social roots of illness. Their interactions show how institutions designed to heal can inadvertently deepen inequality when they ignore context, culture, and structural oppression.
