Mexican New Yorkers a Steady Force in Workplace

Commenter:

My grandfather (on my mom’s side) immigrated here from Ireland in the early 1900s. Being uneducated and illiterate, the only work he could find was as a ditch-digger. He eventually found work as a ditch-digger for the Brooklyn Union Gas Company and worked as many hours as he could to support his family, including my mom, who was the oldest child. His dependability was rewarded when he was offered work on the gas company’s 24/7 emergency ditch-digging crew, a job which he held well into the 1950s. His work ethic was much like that of most immigrants today - aimed at providing food, housing and a better education than he had for every member of his family.

Immigrants aren’t the problem in America today. They aren’t the ones who pay people salaries which are so low that they force you to take a second job just to survive. They aren’t the ones who hire you for just under the number of hours per week which would qualify you for health insurance. And they aren’t the ones who outsource jobs to other countries so that they don’t have to pay any American workers a decent salary.

Immigrants, like the Mexicans discussed in this article, are the ones whose children - if we let them stay here in the United States - will be the doctors, lawyers, teachers and - yes - the taxpayers who will help this country thrive in the future. They are not our problem today.

Our problem lies with the millionaires and billionaires who own much of our country today and make most of their money off the backs of the men and women who actually do most of the work but, in the end, get less than a fair day’s pay for their work. These rich and ultra-rich people either don’t see the tragedy that their greed has visited upon our country or just plain don’t care. No, it’s not immigrants that we should blame for what’s happening in our country today!