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I’ve talked to a lot of Mexican and Central American immigrants to the US a ver the years working in service, agriculture, trades, and transportation. I’ve neve
by ch4s3 4y ago
I’ve talked to a lot of Mexican and Central American immigrants to the US a ver the years working in service, agriculture, trades, and transportation. I’ve never once heard one of them say they thought of themselves as exploited, in fact many of them worked very hard to get here and encouraged family and friends to follow. That said, I’ve heard different things about the folks working in meat packing, just never first hand. I don’t want to make it sound glamorous, but people come, stay, and start families here for a reason.
- brewdad 4y agoYou can exploit someone to the edge of breakdown but it still might be an improvement over the life conditions they left behind to come to the US. That doesn't make it right however.
- ch4s3 4y agoIt seems to me that there is a habit of thought among some that leads them to believe any economic interaction they disprove of is exploitation. My experience from talking to the types of people in question is that they don’t think of themselves as being exploited. Would it be better for restaurants to collectively raise prices and pay better wages, probably but that could also mean fewer opportunities for people to get a toehold on the economic ladder. Not I don’t think acknowledging that trade off justifies absolutely any situation, I’m just pointing out that there is a trade off there. It provides a very real path into the labor market for people with limited skills who don’t yet speak the dominant language. Many economies don’t provide that on-ramp and have very high unemployment among working age immigrants. But as I said I’m open to the idea that the present arrangement is socially or even economically suboptimal.