The Broken Village: Coffee, Migration, and Globalization in Honduras

I assigned this book for my undergraduate class in Latin American politics and it triggered insightful, thoughtful, probing reaction papers from the whole group. I think Reichman has provided a wonderful study in making original and insightful connections between his close ethnographic portrait of social behavior in one town while contextualizing that town within its larger framing conditions -- the national economy and transnational (migration) politics that have "broken" its social cohesion. The resulting study is intriguing, as well as readable and accessible as it delves into tough questions of social conservativism, sectarian politics, migration tensions and the social dilemmas that arise from all this. (A separate chapter on the Evangelical and Catholic churches might be useful for those looking for comparative studies in this area.) For insight into one well-spring of the northern migration, A Broken Village is a valuable read, even a must-read. It's certainly a great asset in helping students and any serious readers grasp the bigger picture regarding one of our most tense public debates, otherwise rife with stereotypes, simplifications and ignorance.

I purchased this book for school as it was part of the course syllabus, however I thoroughly enjoyed it. The book vividly paints the picture of “La Quebrada,” a pseudonym used to mark a rural Honduran town whose crippled coffee economy led to a dependence on labor migration to the United States. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in Honduras and supplemental interviews with migrants and key informants in the United States, Reichman immerses the reader in the issues that face migrants, their families, and the community as a whole. Throughout the book, he follows the experiences of individuals in La Quebrada, expertly situating these unique personal accounts into a theoretical context that illustrates the sociological foundation of life in a town both plagued by and dependent on emigration. In an excellent use of the sociological imagination, the author uses ethnographic methods and in-depth personal interviews to place the unique migration experiences of subjects within the macro-level forces of market liberalization and globalization that push and pull people across borders and away from their families.It's a very riveting read and definitely an interesting discussion on Free Trade products. I would recommend to anyone, even those who are not going into anthropologic studies.

Fascinating read, it really helped me gain a better understanding about the underlying changes in global policies that have led to the currently immigration patterns in the world today.

A good read

Not the book I was expecting because the author deals with coffee, immigration, religion from a sociological and anthropological level. Although I was looking for for aspects of coffee history. I learn a great deal on the immigration crisis in the United States and especially how the people of Honduras fit in. Not an easy read but a worthwhile one.

It is not easy finding good case studies for college undergraduates these days. Too much of what anthropologists and other academics produce is theoretically opaque, insignificant or, if it’s good, too long and detailed for one to two weeks of reading assignments. So I am overjoyed to find Daniel Reichman’s “three-fer” that can be used to launch discussions of peasant agriculture and fair trade, the evangelical Protestant boom in 3rd World countries, and migration to wealthy countries for work.At 177 pages of text, The Broken Village is a model of economy. The author is even good at sketching the personalities of some of his key informants in the pseudonymous coffee-growing village of La Quebrada, Honduras. The contrast between the coffee economy and the migrant economy, and what the two have in common, is enlightening. Anyone who needs an introduction to Honduras or why so many Hondurans want to come to the US will also find The Broken Village enlightening. Interestingly, while some migrants are economically desperate, many are not. Fellow anthropologists and sociologists, let’s publish more books like this.