I was raised believing that America was the greatest country on Earth because its people were self-reliant, hard-working, honest, intelligent, creative, well-educated and generous. American workers are still said to be the most productive by far, many times more than their Asian counterparts including those in India, China.
I am now being told that 47% of our people pay no income tax; that billions a year are paid to ineligible people for unemployment benefits and earned income credit, programs set up to help those of us who were not quite as self-reliant. I am learning that many of our most successful Americans are hiding their assets in foreign countries to avoid paying their fair share of taxes while their money does not circulate in our economy.
My once-held beliefs about the American character are now also being challenged by our elected officials.
Representatives in the House and Senate are working hard to craft a comprehensive immigration policy. On the Senate side, eight members have cobbled together what they think might be a good plan. The plan disregards the fact that we have more than ten million Americans out of work and tens of thousands of high school seniors who want to get into the college of their choice; that most of our unemployed have limited education and needed skills and that we have a good number of well-educated scientists out of their normal work.
This plan is based on a thesis that Americans don’t want to do many jobs like working in hotels, restaurants, construction, domestic service, farming and gardening; are not smart or diverse enough for many colleges and graduate schools; are not qualified for high level scientific jobs and are not productive enough to provide manufactured goods or even customer services.
Based on these assumptions, the plan is to bring more temporary, unskilled workers in to work in hotels, restaurants, construction, domestic service, farming and gardening. The crafters of the bill want foreign students who go to American colleges to be able to stay to put their education to use here instead of their native land.
Is it true that our fellow Americans feel themselves too good to do the kinds of work must be “insourced” by document-free residents? Is it true that businesses are finding it hard to find Americans to fill their available jobs? Is it true that while American factory workers are said to be many times more productive than their foreign counterparts who are paid low wages and subjected to unsafe working conditions, it is still better to outsource our work? Are our colleges finding it hard to attract qualified American students or are foreign students needed to provide even greater diversity to what must be the most overwhelmingly diverse country on Earth since the Tower of Babel?
So what can we Americans do for a living and for ourselves? If we are unemployed and unable to find work in our field of choice, can we do this other work?
Can legal American residents do farm work, or can it only be done the document free as we have been repeatedly told? What did Cesar Chavez, born in Phoenix, do for farm workers? Did he set up a union for American farm workers to ensure that they had better pay, benefits and working conditions? Why did he do it if only the document-free could ever do the hard labor? Who did he unionize? Hello?
Can Americans with minimal education work in hotels, restaurants, supermarkets, construction sites, gardening and domestic work? Is it not this very population that is most likely to be unemployed and of minority status? (Black youth have a 42% unemployment rate and minority youth in general are at 20% while college graduates 25 or over have a 4% unemployment rate). Are these not the people in the greatest need for these jobs that are now being filled by those not here legally?
Meanwhile, why are we encouraging foreign students to enter our colleges? Why is it that high school students with perfect grade point averages and SAT scores can’t get into our top universities and graduate schools while the offspring of rich, powerful and/or famous foreign parents with much less to recommend them academically are accepted and accommodated? The current president of Egypt attended USC. What good did it do him except to let him meet some American coeds, albeit very short ones? Do we think that he has learned to love freedom of speech and to champion gender equality?
The senators’ comprehensive plan also would allow more scientists to come to work and eventually become citizens in our country. Do we not have enough well educated scientists? If so, why are so many being underemployed now, working as research assistants and post doctorate fellows? And don’t we have enough qualified college applicants to be science majors? Are our students just not intelligent enough?
And we need undocumented workers to do things we feel too busy to do like cleaning our own homes, maintaining our gardens, walking our dogs, caring for our infants, and to do the jobs unemployed Americans would not or could not do?
Is this true? I still don’t believe it or maybe I just don’t want to.
Where did we get the idea that certain work is beneath us? Who said that we cannot even bother to take care of our own everyday chores? What is wrong with vacuuming our carpets ourselves? Why do we have a dog if we pay others to walk it and we leave it alone all day while we’re away? Why do we trust a stranger who can’t even speak English to take care of our most precious ones or even our children, for that matter?
As I walk around my San Francisco neighborhood, I can't help but notice that all the workers speak Spanish, except for roofers who are usually Asian and speak Chinese or Korean and people who work at nail salons all of whom it seems must be Asian - Korean or Vietnamese.
I had electrical work done in my apartment to correct code violations and pass inspection. The American electrician spent a little time here and the rest of the time he had undocumented workers that he picked up for the days to have free reign of my apartment for three days and to do work that they had obviously never done before. I asked that their sloppy work be repaired and it was - by another group of workers who spoke no English.
I am beginning to wonder if Americans are becoming more like the ancient Romans who became too good to do any work themselves and became more reliant on what they called the “barbarians.” Eventually, the barbarians took over the empire. We now call those barbarians Germans.
I remember in 1991 when Kuwait was attacked by Iraq. They were defenseless and had foreign workers doing everything that needed to be done in their land. Were it not for Saudi Arabia and the U.S. intervention, Kuwait would have been Iraq’s Tibet.
I think of the Pinter play “The Servant” in which an effete aristocrat becomes ever more dependent on his servant until the servant becomes the master.
Is that the way we are headed? Do we feel too important or inadequate to be the self-reliant, independent, hard-working, creative people that we are cracked up to be? Are we too distracted by the echoes of our own narcissism to fully live our own lives?
Will we soon be hiring people to eat and digest our food for us or to eliminate our waste in our stead? Will these natural functions soon also be deemed beneath us?
I’d write more but the person typing these words and the other one who is dictating them told me that they are going on break and won’t be back until sometime next week between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. I would have asked them to stay longer but the typist knows no English and the person reciting this text is deaf.
It’s so hard to get good help nowadays.
