2008 Woodie Awards
Farm labor debate digs up old dirt
Nick Stockton
Issue date: 4/19/06 Section: Opinion
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One of the finest works of American literature is the story of a poor, uneducated farm family becoming migrants in order to save themselves, at the eventual expense of their family unit.
But while Steinbeck's Joad family is celebrated for its poetic ideal of family unity, their contemporary Mexican counterparts who are reliving this life today are vilified as criminals.
There are various levels of outcry on the U.S. nationalistic side of the argument, ranging from the utterly ridiculous, such as total deportation, to the more rational view that the U.S. government should take efforts to force the Mexican government to step up to the plate and take care of its citizens.
Was there outcry in the '30s that Oklahoma and other states of the Dust Bowl needed to "take care of their own"?
Sure, but that outcry was not enough to dissuade the big farming corporations from their schemes of land consolidation and cheaper, mechanized labor.
The parallel problem exists in our current cross-border problem. There is the aforementioned outcry for the Mexican government to take care of its own.
Yet it is America's responsibility, as the world leader, to stand up to those in our own country who continue to patronize Mexico for cheap labor, trivializing the country's legitimacy.
It is these entities that hijack the Mexican economy and strand indigenous business opportunities.
In short, it is the means we use to achieve the high standard of living that we enjoy in America that drives down the opportunity for true indigenous growth in Mexico. This is the only real way to curb the flow of illegal immigration into the United States.
And it is ironic that it is this high standard of living that we look down from at the squalor below our border.
The idea that lower class workers are mistreated is not new, and the fact that they happen to be comprised largely from members of a cultural minority does not make this a race issue.
But while Steinbeck's Joad family is celebrated for its poetic ideal of family unity, their contemporary Mexican counterparts who are reliving this life today are vilified as criminals.
There are various levels of outcry on the U.S. nationalistic side of the argument, ranging from the utterly ridiculous, such as total deportation, to the more rational view that the U.S. government should take efforts to force the Mexican government to step up to the plate and take care of its citizens.
Was there outcry in the '30s that Oklahoma and other states of the Dust Bowl needed to "take care of their own"?
Sure, but that outcry was not enough to dissuade the big farming corporations from their schemes of land consolidation and cheaper, mechanized labor.
The parallel problem exists in our current cross-border problem. There is the aforementioned outcry for the Mexican government to take care of its own.
Yet it is America's responsibility, as the world leader, to stand up to those in our own country who continue to patronize Mexico for cheap labor, trivializing the country's legitimacy.
It is these entities that hijack the Mexican economy and strand indigenous business opportunities.
In short, it is the means we use to achieve the high standard of living that we enjoy in America that drives down the opportunity for true indigenous growth in Mexico. This is the only real way to curb the flow of illegal immigration into the United States.
And it is ironic that it is this high standard of living that we look down from at the squalor below our border.
The idea that lower class workers are mistreated is not new, and the fact that they happen to be comprised largely from members of a cultural minority does not make this a race issue.
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