Quoted Text

Immigrants still find plenty of jobs as citizens shun grunt work

BY DEEPTI HAJELA AND MICHAEL HILL
The Associated Press

    NEW YORK — Sleep is a rare commodity for Juan Cortez. Between nights spent clearing tables at a Manhattan nightclub and days running food to customers in a Bronx restaurant, the 42-year-old Peruvian immigrant worries more about finding time for shuteye than job security.
    More than 100 miles to the north in the Hudson Valley, Omar Guzman also isn’t concerned about staying employed. The 20-year-old migrant farm worker spends his summer days picking peas and cherries and by fall will be harvesting acres of apples.
    Even with the unemployment rate above 9 percent, the nation’s native-born jobless are looking at higher rungs of the labor market for their next career move. For immigrants like Cortez and Guzman, it means a degree of job security — but also more competition if they want to advance into jobs above bussers and barbacks, runners, dishwashers and crop hands.
    The phenomenon of Americans shunning farm jobs is nothing new — the influx of Mexicans and other foreign-born workers to fill vacancies has fueled a long, sometimes contentious immigration debate. Those labor dynamics seem largely unchanged this year.
    In one sign, farmers are still steadily applying for visas under the federal program designed to provide temporary farm workers where there are expected domestic labor shortages. Federal immigration officials received 5,574 so-called H-2A petitions from Oct. 1 through mid-June. The numbers could exceed the previous fiscal year if applications continue at the same pace.
    “Even as rural unemployment increases, U.S. workers regard farm work as beneath them,” said Jordan Wells, coordinator of the Justice for Farmworkers Campaign in Poughkeepsie. “Why do people work at McDonald’s and not the farm? There’s something about farm work that has been stigmatized.” ...........>>>>................>>>>..........http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r00601&AppName=1

Let's clarify, maybe some of today's younger citizens may shun from physical labor because they've had it so good for so long. Many of the older generation have dug ditches, put in septic tanks, and many have made a good living from doing hard work.  In this economy many people are actively seeking out any type of work to earn a buck to support their families and that  is why the immigrants are heading back to where ever they came from because they can't find work. This may be a good learning experience for this generation to learn the way previous generations have learned: the hard way, 1 put money away for a rainy day, 2 don't spend money on items that you don't have the money to pay for, 3 only buy items[houses] that you can afford to pay for on one salary, 4 nothing is permanent in this world including your job.

Most immigrants who came to this country were uneducated. But they came here with skills. Skills called "hard work". My grandparents were immigrants and worked at these so called "grunt" jobs. They came to this country "legally" with the hopes of providing a better life not only for their children but for their children's children. They succeeded.

I remember asking them why and how they could leave their parents, siblings and extended family to come to this country where they knew no one or the language. They told me that they came here for a better life. That America was the land of opportunity. That you were rewarded for your hard work and that nothing was free. They believed that with hard work, anything was possible.

Today we still have legal immigrants that are following in the same footsteps as past immigrants. I respect and appreciate their hard work. Their work, as with the work of past generational immigrants, have helped, not only their families, but help to make this country great.

Their future generations will reap the same benefits from their hard work, as ours did from the past.

I agree JoAnn but the difference with our ancestors is the fact that they were legal immigrants that had a great work ethic which they instilled in our generation, they paid taxes, cared for their families without the help of welfare, and built the greatest country in the world.

Now many (illegal) of them come to rob, rape and pillage our free welfare and health care too. Sad, but facts are facts.

Typical nonsense from the AP-what is the percentage of illegals are in the federal prisons? Over 40%. We are tired of paying for the crimes of illegal aliens. Deport them and let the host nation "house" them.

The greatest lie ever told to children, illegal or legal:

I work this hard so you dont have to

as for who was legal and who was illegal regarding our ancestors....remember this....Europe used to send their criminals here...
no names no papers no nothin'.....just dropped off......

as for the illegals in our prisons......why haven't we arrested the monkey on our back and put that in prison too......gambling
bribery, purchase of prostitutes, extortion etc etc........

I notice it only takes just a few post before people start using the word ARREST- Knucklehead thinking- easily found within a five mile radius of here-
Prison cost ?  between 20 and 50 grand a year-

College education ? about the same -

The 'arrest' is for the double talk government......pay attention Somebody.....re-read....

as for college edumacation....Great...I'm all for knowledge....but there has to be a mandatory class of how to put it to use....
I cant stand college 101 top rated thesis---"Well, we need to get x to y. I dont care how it's done, it just needs to get done."

you see, the "I dont care how it's done" statement leads to prison to.....or not if one is of the right color, upbringing, social class
popularity etc etc.......

or maybe the 'arrest' as is cardiac arrest, when one realizes who John Galt is.....