Cheap labor and the hidden American labor force.

[The Backlash Cometh]

Someone else on DU has written an excellent post which points out that there are people here who are willing to do menial labor, but just want a fair wage to do the work. And to allow illegal immigration to continue because of the excuse that we need cheap labor, is to create a slave labor. That reasoning you can find here and I agree with it:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x755628

I'm taking this a step further and I'm suggesting that we aren't in need of an open border with Mexico to continue perpetual immigration for an illegal, but cheap work force, because we have an entire culture of migrant farm workers already here in the United States who are ready to do the work. And they've been here for several generations.

The more established workers have a permanent base in federal subsidized housing. There's one I visited in Homestead a few months back which is very clean and has the necessary amenities. School, church and community center. We were shown around the area by a Mexican American woman who accompanied her father to pick crops up north when she was young.

They existed on federal housing which they paid year round at Homestead, but left it vacant when they lived out of their cars to follow the harvest. They existed year to year on the basics, living off of charitable donations from church, and of course, any federal assistance they could get. And because of their frugal decisions, the father saved enough money to buy enough land to farm. His sons now own the property and they live as farmers. THEY hire the migrant workers now and if there is any negative to this story, it's that they grew up believing that they only needed to learn how to ride a tractor so didn't go beyond a sixth or ninth grade education. They really aren't prepared to do anything else, but farm their land. But, they're the lucky ones.

I asked my guide how many of the Mexican American immigrants who come to this country make the leap away from the migrant worker world and into American society. She said she knew very few who did. They just follow the crops year to year and keep to their own kind and their own culture. That means, that you have Mexican-American migrant farm workers in this country who have been official Americans for more than a generation, but who feel more comfortable with Mexicans than they do breaking away from that culture in order to follow the American dream by getting a college education and settling into an uppity neighborhood where they can fight with their obnoxious, bigoted, privileged neighbors the way that I do, every day and...oh, oops, did I say that out loud?

Anyway, the point is that there is a subculture already in existence here. Real Americans who happen to have created their own subculture. They do not want to assimilate to "our" world by their choice. By American standards, they speak a different language and they're a bit too chauvinist, but they're filling in the need for cheap labor to pick crops. So we don't need a perpetual workforce of illegal aliens from Mexico, when we already have a legal one here and probably quite happy to have the work.

I'm just saying, that you need to recognize this subculture within America and accept the fact that they're not going to assimilate and it's their choice. They are technically Americans because they are now a generation or two vested in this country, but they are hidden people, existing on the fringes.

[Betsy Ross]

1. Not buying it.

Too many children of immigrant laborers do go on to higher education and jobs outside agriculture. It is the American way for the children of immigrants to do better economically than their parents. I think Mexican Americans are no different that other immigrants in this regard.

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. I was surprised to hear it too.

I don't expect anyone to buy it because it defies what we know about wanting and attaining the American dream. Certainly it doesn't follow my experience. My father was born to migrant farm workers but he did follow the American dream and he did do economically better than his parents, as expected. But his leap from poverty to middle class wasn't what I would consider a normal American experience. I've analyzed his success story and I believe he made that transition because, as tragic as it sounds, the death of his mother while he was still an infant forced his father to leave him and his siblings behind in Ohio to be raised by the grandmother. It was because my father was able to have roots in a community that cared about educating the children of migrant workers that he made the necessary connections to begin the transition.

But it wasn't easy. They gradually lost their Mexican roots and my father suffered from an identity crisis because he knew he wasn't a white American and never really allowed to fit in. He only bridged that gap when he married a Panamanian woman and followed her back to Panama. It was the combination of the support from my mother's Panamanian family along with a great job working for the U.S. Army in the Canal Zone, where my father found the respect he sought from both cultures.

A lot of factors were required in order for him to make the leap successfully. The main factor was getting a good education. That leap is thwarted when the children of migrant workers are not allowed to complete their education because they have to follow their parents to pick crops.

Think about it. They're not going to find respect in white American circles. Not as poor people. So they're going to bond with a culture that does offer them respect. Their own. That's where my father found it.

[Porcupine]

3. Fight the idea of the "substandard worker"

The one who will live on a low protien diet, six people to a 700 sq. ft apartment and no access to health or dental care. There's this image in the US that there are people somewhere that just don't deserve a living wage. Therefore we can expoit them and live like fat cats ourselves.

Well give it up. We insist that children should have a certain minimal standard of living. We insist that the elderly and the disabled should have a certain minimal standard of living. Yet somehow we cling to the myth that working people should expect to work 40 to 60 hours per week and not have a minimal standard of living.

There are many American DOGS that recieve better medical and dental care and eat food costing more per pound than your average WalMart worker. If you count the garages and exclusive dog runs behind mcmansions they have more living space. Your town has 3 or 4 vets for every person working in a free clinic. Count on it.

So we have to ask ourselves; are working people worth as much to us as dogs are?

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. Fight the idea of the "substandard American"

I can only speak of the migrant farm workers who have settled in the Miami area. You have to understand that in Miami there is an abundance of products that cater to the Latin American community. They aren't name brand products by American standards, but they are brands that do the job and they're inexpensive.

Also, they are nearer to agriculture and they eat food far more organic and healthier than we do. If I see anything that worries me, it's that they tend to over eat. But, as far as "poor" is concerned, they may not afford a plasma t.v., but they eat healthier foods than I do.

That said, health care in this country is deplorable. No question that we shouldn't compromise on this one.