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I was sitting at a family friend’s house one day, when I heard the cry, “they’re taking our jobs!” Annoyed that once again I was the last person to hear family gossip, I immediately set out to find out who “they” were and whose jobs “they” were taking, and most importantly, if “they” were taking my job.
I approached the stressed gentleman who uttered the complaint, and gave him my heartfelt sympathies on his having become unemployed. He asked me what the hell I was talking about, so I asked for clarification about the scream.
It turns out that “they” means “immigrants” and us means “Americans.” I wasn’t sure what the hell he was talking about, so I went on to investigate.
Immigrants, of the undocumented variety, generally do a great deal of the labor that nobody else wants to do. Farm labor isn’t exactly the type of work that attracts résumés from American-born individuals.
After my extensive research (see: common sense), I returned to the distressed gentleman with the basic facts. Unless you are an unskilled or semiskilled laborer, undocumented immigrants are not competing with you for a job. He then issued another cry about the need to protect unskilled laborers from immigrants. I ended the conversation there, realizing that I just wasted precious days of my life talking to a xenophobe.
Look, unskilled and semiskilled labor isn’t just threatened by immigration, it’s threatened by the march of time itself. Last I checked, the cashiers at supermarkets across the country haven’t been replaced by immigrants; they’ve been replaced by machines. Don’t shake your first at our new residents because there are no longer milkmen and icemen. Shake your fist at your refrigerator.
For the person whose job is genuinely at risk because of competition from lower-paid immigrants (like construction workers), the hard truth is that you have to turn yourself into a skilled worker. Immigrants aren’t entering the skilled labor market in large numbers. Self-improvement is the key. Retool yourself with an education or training in an in-demand specialty, and watch yourself no longer feeling threatened by immigrants, time, efficiency or anything else.
If you happen to have a profession in a field that requires an education or specialization, and an immigrant still manages to take your job, well then maybe he or she earned it.
About Eric J Cortes
I hate when people say that immigrants are taking “their jobs” do u want to compete with the immigrants come on do it go onto fields get a on your knees in 90 to 100+ degree weather and start picking grapes, tomatoes,lettuce understand!
I’m pretty sure american teenagers LOVE working on the farm picking up fruit and getting their hands dirty..
Damn Mexicans…. lmao
Exactly.
I think it depends where you live! I live in washington state, agriculture town ! Apples , cherries, pears etc…. and my husband is hispanic, we both applied same place to do cherries and guess what they called him! They wouldn’t hire me! And he belived it was because i was not hispanic! I use to work in the warehouses packing and sorting fruit, I can not get hired now, all hispanics working in them! One place actually looked at me seen I was white and said oh we aren’t hiring! I feel to say well maybe if you got rid of a non citizen you’d have a opening! But my husband has NO problems getting work, he is hispanic!
I have even heard the hispanics that are here legally complain they can not get jobs because of the illegals! DO your history, who use to do all this work back in the 60, 70 and 80′s! By the way I am white and I have picked fruit and berries! So yeah a few of us do like getting our hands dirty!
pro illegal immigration activists can’t really use that excuse anymore because times are getting tough and Americans are desperate enough to do just about anything these days. so that excuse no longer applies when jobs are not plentiful
It’s usually the snobs that complain.
Yeah, times are so freaking tough that regular American born working class and poor people – even middle class people will gladly do the work illegals do and take away from us. Look, I live in Long Island and there are a lot of out of work folk here with skills. I am going to give that work to residents of the area, who have family and roots here, and who are not transient or people who are not legal. This is not racism or hatred against illegals – it’s just sticking up for your home town and giving enterprise to the people who actually live there because they are citizens. Do you think Mexicans will give work to a bunch of illegal gringos that show up in their town looking for work and actually taking the local jobs away from the Mexicans? YEAH RIGHT! So why must we Legal Americans submit to the demands of the illegals and their activists? I rather have a naturalized American citizen doing this work than someone who is not from here and who doesn’t have any allegiance to this nation no matter what you pro illegal muckrakers say. The media and powers that be are always urging Americans that we should buy local and use local products and services – SO I want to use and help out LOCAL LEGAL people who are skilled, speak English, where born here in the community and who are not going to pump out anchor babies like rabbits, bring in hoards of family members from abroad, and send their money back to their families in a foreign country that doesn’t even like us. Get lost – another BL hit piece on how to further destroy an already stressed out United States! Enemies foreign and domestic can be found on BL.
I love how everyone thinks all immigrants are Mexican. Dumb ignorant people.
That has to be one of your nastier comments, Mario.
No all immigrants are NOT Mexicans – but a lot of illegal aliens are Mexican and from South and Central America. Legal immigrants can come from any nation as can illegal immigrants can come from any nation also. But the problem is not with the few illegal immigrants from Ireland, Norway, Canada, or Egypt, but actually with illegals that are mainly from Mexico and other Latin American nations. Sure, there are a lot of good people that are illegal from those nations – but Canadians are not starting drug and gang wars on our borders or committing identity fraud on levels never seen before. STOP CHANGING THE LANGUAGE and lumping illegals with immigrants. Illegals are not immigrants!
There was a time when this was true, but in todays economy, I’ve seen people take any job they can get, including farming, or day laboring. When the economy is better, yes who wouldn’t want an easier job (including illegals), farming is back breaking work, but if there aren’t any other jobs, I know many who would work these jobs to put food on their table and keep a roof over their head.
Wow Mario, just when I thought you might have relaxed a bit. Sad that no matter what, your hatred is clear as day.
Well, yes, Rebecca, they “would work these jobs” if they could. When you talk to farm managers who have hired citizens to pick fruit or clear fields or detassel corn – the most the workers last is maybe a couple of days. Most don’t last that long. Even people raised on farms used to hard work, don’t last. Managers have told me that frequently the last thing the would-be worker says over his shoulder is, “you couldn’t pay me enough to do this again!” This isn’t farming per se, it’s pure animal, grunt work. There’s a big difference.
Julia – that is not hatred – it’s reality and the facts. What is so hateful about wanting to give LOCAL people jobs and services as opposed to people who are illegal and breaking laws? You all just like to spew the hatred label and racist designation when you are cornered and know that people are beginning to catch up on your little scams and word games to change the language.
Margie, as a Latina who is a citizen but doesn’t have a college degree, I’ve done many years of back breaking work in my life (so has my Latino husband) fortunately we are proof the American Dream is still alive. I think your point has more to do with the work ethic of those people than whether they were illegal or not.
I rather say a nasty, hard, and realistic comment – like the 200 ton pink elephant that’s in the room and everyone knows about, but all refuse to speak of, than to listen to one of BLs fluff pieces on how illegal “immigrants” are good to the nation. In reality we are fighting for our lives culturally and economically as a United States citizens – and then some foreign mass comes here illegally (legally would be a different thing) demanding jobs and the same rights and benefits as the rest of the legal immigrant and resident born population! We must love all and practice charity and kindness, but after awhile what you all practice is cojones and fleecing the system.
There is nothing wrong with legal immigrants from any nation to come and live here and prosper and make this nation great – just don’t do it illegally, break the laws, burden the system, take away the jobs a local skilled worker can be doing, and demand that the United States acquiesce to your desires. THAT I think is NASTY and HATEFUL and very UNFAIR to do! Complain all you want – I am not the only one who thinks like this here.
How Incredibly Naive! Same old PRo-illegal Propaganda…Do you REALLY believe, for instance that an Illegal attending College OR an Illegal Given A Drivers license won’t want a JOB that a Legal U.S. Citizen would want?!? Anyone who doesn’t think these jobs wouldn’t be lost, Not Found or Much Longer in finding for the Legal U.S. Citizens is jUST simplt Incredibly Naive or simply Doesn’t give a Rats ass ab out poor working class Americans Or American Students…NOW you wantWork Permits for ILLEGALS attending College and Posting about Illegals doing UNSKILLED LABOR? You’re confused. Wrong wrong about either class of work but you still can’t have it both ways…
Yes a U.S. Citizen would Do ANY job an illegal could or would do…There is no such thing as “a Job that an American won’t do” especially for a living wage…Unfortunately illegals Depress wages (but you’re in denial of that too right?).
YES, very well said. Illegals DEPRESS wages!
What’s needed is a MEXICAN Sping!
Mario you are entitled to your opinions but they make you come across as a VERY uninformed person. You use a lot of unsupported assumptions for your arguments. There is a wealth of information on this topic. The belief that lots of people are migrating now is just not true. The slow economy turns immigrants off too. I honestly don’t know why you are even on Being Latino. You love to play devil’s advocate. Do you even consider yourself Latino? I really don’t care either way but it just puzzles me.
Mario dislike most latinos, I think he’s not even latino and if he is, hes self hating one.
Leticia you seem to be under the impression that All Latinos Stereotype Ourselves as Illegals or Pro-Illegal…”Why are you on being Latino?”? “Do you even Consider yourself Latino?” ? How Racist and Ignorant…Is that how you see us all?
Finally a reasoned, well thought out response to the hot button issue of jobs being “stolen” by immigrants!