The focus of my quilt block is this hand embroidered in the colors of the Mexican flag. Many Mexican migrants are not treated well, however, indigenous Mexicans face far worse treatment. In the ethnography, Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies, by Seth M. Holmes, he describes this social hierarchy where jobs are distributed from best to worst based on one’s ethnic-racial status. The indigenous Triqui workers are assigned the job of berry picking. This job requires that the worker is crouched down in an unnatural way for extremely long periods to pick the fruit by hand. This job is physically enduring and is physically deteriorating. Therefore, I chose to represent the work that the Triqui migrants do by embroidering a hand with fruit falling from the hand. The fruit represents the mental stress that the Triqui goes through picking berries. As I am focusing on indigenous migrant workers, the fruit is important in my quilt to represent them. Choosing a different kind of fruit would have not represented the indigenous workers, therefore the choice of berries is important to the specific topic of my quilt.

I chose to include this quote by Seth M. Holmes which reads, “American society gains much from migrant laborers and gives little back beyond criminalization, stress, and injury.” This quote is short enough to fit onto my quilt block, yet powerful enough to send a message to the viewer about the mistreatment of migrant laborers. I wanted to include a quote to drive the meaning of my quilt block home to the audience. Additionally, I did not the writing on my quilt block solid so that it would not take away from the image I tried to create with the hand, fruit, leaves, and border. As I still wanted to include the quote, I stitched it, so the viewer understands that there was writing and then take a closer look. Finally, the quote is finely stitched onto the quilt with a white background to go along with how the hand is stitched on as well.

The U.S.-Mexico border starting from California is included in my quilt block to represent how the migrant laborers must cross the border which is extremely dangerous and sometimes deadly. Holmes finds out that the migrant laborers are not just crossing the border to raise their economic status, but they are forced to because they have been left without work in Mexico due to international policies such as the North American Free Trade Agreement. Holmes states that it would be riskier for them to stay in Mexico where there is no work than to take a chance and try to successfully cross the border. Therefore, I decided that crossing the border for these migrants was an important aspect of this problem and important to include in my quilt as I am trying to bring awareness to this topic overall. I further hoped that representing the U.S.-Mexico border starting from California and moving down to Texas would allow the viewer to understand that I am focusing on Mexican migrants. I chose rope as the material to broadly represent the border negatively. Some people may see the use of rope to symbolize being bound, chained in a way, restrained, stuck, and so on. The exact interpretation is all up to the viewer and what they imagine when they look at my work. Finally, the green background and stitched-on leaves are to represent the fields that the migrants work in. I included just enough leaves to represent this and not take away or overpower other aspects of my quilt.