“It occurs to me that, just as the Carthaginians hired mercenaries to do their fighting for them, we Americans bring in mercenaries to do our hard and humble work. I hope we may not be overwhelmed one day by peoples not too proud or too lazy or too soft to bend to the earth and pick up the things we eat.” — John Steinbeck, writing in 1960 about French Canadians coming to Maine to harvest potatoes.
Sound prophetic? It should.
An estimated 12 million, or so, supposedly illegal immigrants are in the United States, often working at jobs U.S. citizens are not eager to take on. Dirty jobs. Hot jobs. Jobs that most locals shun as if they were the invention of the Devil.
In Allen County, we’ve Hispanics — who I’ve no reason to think aren’t here legally, their employers being good, honest folks — eager to rise in the wee hours of the morning to milk cows at Strickler Dairy, dart about roofs, with blazing sun overhead, putting on shingles and others working long hours in restaurants.
In his campaign for president, Donald Trump stated as fact that immigrants crossing into Texas, California, and the Southwest were a pack of thugs, murderers and rapists. Like most of what he says, that must be taken with a grain of salt.
Fact is the vast majority of immigrants, legal as well as those not, come to the United States because it still is considered the land of opportunity.
The suggestion that American-born folks are kept from jobs by those come wanting to work has no basis in fact. And, that Allen County is a pit of poverty, where jobs are not available and we’re on the verge of slipping into a fiscal abyss, defies logic.
Look to the Register’s classified ads today — any day — and you’ll find numerous offerings of employment. Those listed may not be what an individual is looking for, but something is better than nothing and stepping into the work-a-day world is a step toward a position more favorable.
Let’s don’t belittle or belabor someone who comes to our fair country, with documentation in hand or perhaps on the cuff, for wanting to better themselves and their families. That’s what made our nation as great as it is, even with occasional missteps that have happened along the way.
I heard of one of those workaholics put down for scrimping on living conditions so he could send home (Mexico, the case was) to family much of what he earned.
I found his care, concern and dedication admirable.
