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From the article "Jessica is a proud first-generation Ecuadorian-American and a second-year Percy Ellis Sutton Search for Education, Elevation, and Knowledge (
by sien 5y ago
From the article
"Jessica is a proud first-generation Ecuadorian-American and a second-year Percy Ellis Sutton Search for Education, Elevation, and Knowledge (SEEK) student at Baruch College majoring in business management with a minor in law and policy."
Jessia is the American dream. First generation, got to college and writing like that.
Lots of Americans concentrate on what is wrong with America. There is value in that but it's really important to remember that America is still a place where immigrants can come and they or their children will really make it.
Good on them.
(BTW. I am not an American but I did live and work there.)
- rbanffy 5y ago> Jessia is the American dream. She's the one who made it, unlike thousands of others, who worked equally hard, and didn't. No family should have both parents working 12 hours a day just to survive, period.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoWho gets to define "made it"? Did the electrician or garbage truck driver who's parents came from just as much not also make it? Why is it implied in so many comments around here that anyone who didn't go to college and get a white collar job pushing papers/code/spreadsheets didn't make it?
- thehappypm 5y agoElectricians probably make more than half of the folks commenting on HN.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoThe "average techie" income curve is generally shifted higher than the "average electrician" bell curve though the shapes are different and there's some close areas and intersections.
- pessimizer 5y agoYou're the one who, when trying to come up with examples of people who other people would think haven't made it, came up with electricians and garbage truck drivers. What are you arguing here? That all people are equally comfortable and all jobs are equally good, and that implying that suffering is bad is demeaning to the people who suffer? It's like upside-down wokeness. While some people are arguing to put in wheelchair ramps, this is like instead insisting that implying that wheelchair users can't walk as well as everyone else is prejudiced.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoOh FFS. My point is that it's unrealistic to expect people to go from refugee to hedge fund manager in one generation. Refugee to stable blue collar is reasonable.
- kubb 5y agoNot only that, but when she graduates, she might not be able to get a well-paying job and subsequently find a home. She may well be living below the level of a factory worker from the 60s.
- jimbokun 5y ago> She's the one who made it, unlike thousands of others, who worked equally hard, and didn't. Data? Immigrants continue to do very well in the U.S., often succeeding to a greater extent than people born here.
- rbanffy 5y agoIs working 12 hours a day so you can afford to live what you’d describe as doing “very well”? I don’t know why you decided to compare immigrants to natives. I made no such distinction. Nobody, immigrant or not, should have to work 12 hours a day just to survive.
- c0balt 5y agoWhat's your argument/ statement based on? At least link a study after accusing someone else of misrepresenting a topic.
- ip26 5y agoIt took both parents working 12 hours a day. But the story appears to be set in New York City. Isn't living there a choice, not something they are forced into?
- black_13 5y agoExactly. And this story will be used to harm. Ppl will say „look they can just get out and collect cans from the side of the road“. I had a high school teacher that vilified ppl on welfare and said this. My parents and my siblings did this and my parents especially my mother and me are scarred by precarity. I hate the these stories they just do harm.
- elil17 5y agoThe writing in this article is incredible and I have nothing but admiration for the author and her family. But, to me, this situation is what’s wrong with America. Why are people who are clearly so hard working struggling to get by?
- HamburgerEmoji 5y ago
- arkis22 5y agowait till you realize what's happening in the rest of the world. where people work much harder and still don't get by.
- halfdan 5y agoThat's classic whataboutism. That doesn't explain away why it's that bad in the US nor does it justify accepting the status quo.
- smt88 5y ago"It's worse somewhere else" isn't relevant to whether it's acceptable in the US. The US has the resources to reward hard workers with financial stability. It also benefits from brain-draining other countries with this promise. If the US continues to slide away from the "American Dream," the brains and prosperity will end up somewhere else.
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y agoSo how much do you want to pay for bottle collecting? When you say "the US has the resources to reward hard workers", in this case you mean everybody who buys a bottle should pay more. Or how would you envision it to play out?
- zeckalpha 5y agoMany places use a deposit system, where if you return the packaging for recycling, you get your money back. This cuts down on litter, at no cost to those who recycle.
- throw8932894 5y ago
- cgio 5y agoSo you need to own a couple houses or businesses to be considered one who made it? I don’t have one of either, but I am somewhere where I feel I made it. Less of a safety net than if I owned a house of business, but then again those are too expensive to be pursued with no attention to alternatives and also provide a very porous shield from the crises.
- 0x0nyandesu 5y agoFor whatever reason HN nerds love stories about recycling even though this family is clearly poor and not making good financial decisions.
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y agoYeah we don't know if the parents even ever tried to find better jobs, or if they just found the one job and kept at it.
- lostlogin 5y agoThey funded their kid through school, they didn’t do that badly.
- cycomanic 5y agoAh yes the good old, being poor is a character flaw. There's plenty of evidence that being poor is primarily due to nothing else but lack of money. But the rich/middle class love to feel superior by saying people are poor because of bad financial decisions.
- 0x0nyandesu 5y agoI'm not saying it's a character flaw. I'm saying they held onto a job that wasn't optimal based on their other available options. They could have been middle class had they chosen another job. Down right negligent honestly since they clearly had no healthcare that entire time. One illness could have thrown them on the street.
- me_me_mu_mu 5y agoThe only people complaining are rich privileged people who get into top colleges because of daddy and mommy. Source: know a bunch of such people. Good thing about wealth generation is ultimately these low level buffoons get weeded out, they will never break past the low millions. They never knew real hardship so they can only go so far.
- kwinten 5y agoThe only people who complain about America are... millionaires? I can't follow your train of thought at all. Crazy if you actually believe this.
- me_me_mu_mu 5y agoFirst of all, I'm replying to someone. So, that implies you don't understand context. Read the parent I replied to, then read what I wrote. Sure, me using "THE ONLY PEOPLE" is a bit strong, but unless you're a machine you would understand the context.