Friday, July 09, 2010

A Small Observation About Migrant Workers

Yesterday I posted a video showing how some California migrant workers (aka illegal aliens) live. They live in squalid shacks in our canyons with no electricity or water. Since this is a coastal desert and we have no rivers to speak of, they're forced to wash themselves and their clothes in stagnant water. The video shows more such examples of the pitiful conditions under which there people live.

These people made their way to America and they stay here deliberately and without illusion. This has been going on for generations so that the incoming migrant workers aren't Candide looking for Eldorado, they're fully aware of what they will find when they get here. Further, they can turn around and go home at almost any time.

If conditions were better at home, they'd go back. Since many of them send money back to their families at home, "conditions" doesn't necessarily refer to their own, personal situation, it can also mean their judgment of their ability to provide for their loved ones. They believe they are better off here in those canyons than they are at home. It's something to think about.

1 comment:

Foxfier said...

The standard of living in the PI, on average, is lower than the US.

However, a LOT of Navy folks retire there, because a first class' retirement pay "is enough to live like a king." (Mandatory phrase, I swear.)

The folks on the crabbing boats deal with dangerous, painful, long-houred and nasty work-- because the pay is that good.

An alternate reason, and part of why handing out citizenship won't really solve the illegal problem....