Is it really all just about jobs?

(or as some say, Govt programs, giveaways, largesse esse?)

Grandson and wife are buying a house under construction and when they went out to check on it, they said the workers (drywallers) didn't speak a word of English.  Now that's not to say they didn't know what they were doing just because they were immigrants (no clue as to legal or otherwise since they didn't check green cards) but it sure is hard to communicate with them.  And all they were doing is asking if it was all right to look around.

Lucky for them they both teach in migrant cities and have a fair handle on Spanish.

Welcome back Chico

The Government programs would not come into play if the jobs provided a decent humane wage. It is the part time nature of the service and farm jobs that the illegals conspire with employers to steal.

That demand government programs as a crutch.

The government programs subsidize the thievery of the coyote employer.

Thank you Nancy.

I have brought up an issue you kow I am torn by.

I think there are too many Govt programs for everyone (not just "illegals")

I remember in the "old days" when the Bracero Program seemed to work. The Mexicans would come across to Imperial Valley and work the "season" then go back home. I always wondered if the proliferation of Govt programs over the ensuing years made it more attractive to stay longer and even bring la familia across next time.

While I was wondering that, my old man would send me out to build a basketball hoop for the Mexican kids that were already in his apartment bldgs. I hated those kids. He loved them. They'd see a tortilla laying on the pavement and just pick it up and eat it. They'd write "Lloyed Thaxton" (whoever the hell that was) all over the new sheetrock I had hung in Dad's rentals. One of them drove their parents home from the Mecca Cafe and smashed it right through the living room wall! He was all of eleven! They'd go back across the border and take my Dad's stoves, swamp coolers, anything they could. I hated them. My Dad loved them!

I never understood. Before he died my Dad told me about my Mom. Her history. I still didn't understand. I was just better than those Bracero's kids. Little Norberto ran around in filthy diaperss and had a metal thingy coming out of his hip that had a rubber "hose" attached to another metal thingy on his ankle... WTF is that crap? And when little Norberto picked up that old dried out  freckled tortilla laying there by the basketball hoop I'd just put in (while I had to miss B-Ball practice myself to do it) I was disgusted! Why did my Dad put up with this crap? What was it with these "people"?

When he died he told us all to keep his apartment complexes down there goin'.

My brothers and I couldn't wait two months -- sold those places down there in Imperial Valley. Somerton and Gadsden too.

I just remember him saying: "Son, everyone's gotta make a living. Those people are just like you. They were just born "across the canal" carnal .......  They can make money so we can make money. Thats the way it is....."

I thought he was nuts. Did for a long time. Still haven't totally figured him out but I'm a workin' on it................. Thinkin' I may have more "brothers" than I once thought......

BTW Tk, Dad was the opposite of a coyote esse

If that makes any sense to you

Chico welcome back

Chico in no way do I hate the Illegals    I do hate the fact they can come and stay without any commitment 

I have always been proud to be an American born in the USA and up till a few years ago our laws were in forced

When their crossings increased @ it's rate       even this Country couldn't handle that large of an invasion

I honestly couldn't say if they were white and were Baptist , Pentecostal and Republican's I would object so much

THINKING   HANG ON STILL THINKING

Ron

Welcome back OB

Ron.

Still thinking on it too mi amigo Ronaldo

Hey tambien Ling vato

The thing is Ron, I do not have the answers

Wish I did. I just can't help but think aobut all the Govt programs and medical and other social programs that we now have that didn't exist back then. The Braceros used to come across, work the season, then go back. They could make enough for a six to eight month  "siesta" and come back the next year.

I knew my Dad rented to almost Braceros solomente

Some of those kids were there year round it seemed.

I do know one thing

I detest the Mexican Govt for what it does to its people and I still think that is a large part of the problemo.

I always wondered why we had no money. Even when we sold all those properties we didn't get much.

Shoulda kept them

Justin,

I understand the difficulty in obeying the law and making a profit. I understand that land is valued ridiculously above it's ability to produce profit from another crop, outside of stick houses.

That does not change the facts.

My point is that a society must devalue the land. Before it devalues humanity.

My argument isn't with the farmer. It is also the dry wallers, the plumbers the electricians, who all devalue humanity in order that they make a profit. Those that hire illegals are coyote employers. (times have changed since your father turned the soil)

They then hide behind a make believe economy that they describe for their own personal benefit.

One the has no relationship to capitalism. One that Adam Smith would weep over.

Yes Chico I'm old enough to remember them and alot of white folks that moved from state to state

Just about the time you became friends they had to move

I remember see'ing Mexican's coming down the Grapevine in grove's and leaving when the season's were over

It was the best answer and would be a great thing today

I have been to Home Depot alot the last couple days and (Mt Vernon )  store has Mexican's with a tool belt on seeking work

I don't like the fact that today's "Latino's" or "Hispanics" or whatever the flavor of the month is

don't learn Ingles

It is just another refusal to assimilate

maybe thats why the Barcero's always went back for their half year plus "siesta" in Hidalgo o Jalisco o .......

things can never be like they were

We have changed. The "Braceros" need to change too

especially if they desire to avail themselvs of American programs and largesse esse

Justin,

They went back because there was a stigma applied to hiring them illegally outside the farming industry. That stigma was short lived. As soon as the first coyote employer appeared. It spread like the flu.

The increased population made for dire straits. Wages self destructed, resulting in wages today in the farming industry ½ of what I earned in the 60's.

When adjusted for inflation. Worse yet in the construction and service industries.

Americans are a good people. They offered hope through welfare plans. Coyote employers morphed these acts of goodness into a wage subsidy.

"They weren't hired back then outside farm labor"

Thats why I had "tios" that were cat skinners, etc. on heavy const projects. Even in the days of Lloyd Thaxton esse!

Right.............

I remember a guy goading me into a fight when I was in Cam Ranh Bay transit billets trying to DEROS back to the world esse

We had women on the base (esp in transit barracks=$$) that stayed through the night

We were drinking and this little *ahem* lady of the nacht got mad at some GI and pulled out a pencil with a long big a$$ needle in the eraser end. I immediately knew what that was for (they would let GI fall off to sleep up in highlands area and run needle through their ear and twist it around then be off into the night like a ghost) so I instinctivly "dropped her" with a little quick left hook. I've never hit a woman before or since.

So her big base "flyboy boyfriend" comes over when he heard about it and stood there castigating me  up one side and down the other. I took it for as long as I could. I then got up, rammed him like Ronnie Lott, smashing him into the sand. He curled up like an Armadillo and I broke two of his ribs trying to get him to roll over and let me at his flap face. You see, I have a weakness for being "baited". I promised to be better.

What was it Al Gore once said: "A tiger can't change his spots?"

We'll have to see.

(Oh, back to Cam Rahn. Two of the biggest blackest AF MP's you ever saw, picked me up, one under each arm and carried me to jeep and then little brig. I was there until next day when a WAC Lt came to see me. She told me she was going to hold me from DEROS'ing until that flyboy's ribs healed. First Shirt of some Signal Corps outfit I'd worked out with at base gym a few times stepped in and changed her mind. I'll always remember him for that -- another whew!)

yes, its a figure of speach Nancy, like kids say dude now

I type like I talk

Which may not be a good thing

maybe I should get that program that types what you talk for you (Dragon?)

of course then I'd spend half my time editing out palabras malas (cuss words), and even more espanglish, etc.

An interesting thing has happened in the U.S. Serious capitalists have decided the road to success is to keep proft privatized but socialize all the obligations (health care, unemployment insurance, and so on). Mexico's incomplete economy means not enough employment, or underfunded employment. Supply and demand principles means waves of immigrants are the inevitable result.

And why are they illegal? Because it's too costly and too difficult to be legal. You need a sponsor, and aout $20,000, to be here legally. And that's no guarantee. The process can takes months. Meanwhile, your kids are starving because you have no work, but there's work over the border.

What would Hayzeus do?

I am sorry that (unless I am misreading you like you evidently did me) you have misunderstood me completely Tah.

I was a kid. My Dad was the "landlord". El Jeffe!

I'm not sure what the "posse" comment is all about.

I was trying to say that all men are brothers and sometimes we don't know that until economic situation dictates same.

I guess I don't commo very well

and FTR Tah, I despise the words Hispanic and Latino!

They are meaningless except to politically correct pinheads

Tah

I know many  "Hispanic's"  that just want  to be called  Mexican!

I just want to be called

an AMERICAN!

You're right Chico. If the Native Americans would have stopped illegal immigration, there wouldn't be all us gringos here. Alas, the Native Americans didn't get the whole real estate holdings thang.

I'm against illegal immigration, but I certainly don't blame them for coming. Most of us white folks had ancestors who came over for the same reasons, only they couldn't sneak in since the water was a little wider and deeper than the Rio Grande.

I don't know if a fence is gonna do it, but something has to be done so we can document any foreigners coming in. Then there should be a worker program so they can come legally and do the things we don't want to. And I for one want them to get driver's licences if they are going to use our roads. Not a California driver license like the one we get, but a foreign national's license that shows they know the driving laws.

I've had foreign drivers licenses esse

They had a bunch of writing on them in Arabic, etc.

We always joked they said "Don't shoot me"

I always joked they said "Shoot me. Don't hurt me!"

You had to do diddly to get one.

I am against CA drivers licenses for illegals and any "foreign" licenses are (or will be) a joke.

But I don't remember inveighing against the gringos being here.

I consider myself one. But even if I didn't, why would I say that? I just think the culprits are much higher up than us little people.

I think the biggest culprit is the caste system in old mejico. And yes sf, you and your buds may not see it in your travels in Sud America but you are blind. Blind with drink, pesos, whatever....... but blind nonetheless

Can another revolution in Mexico be far ahead Chico???

Especially if we do manage to shut down the borders. Then the 1% of the elite who hold 90% of the wealth might get the Marie Antoinette hair cut. "No tortillas? Let them eat flan!"

Justin,

The 'International Drivers License', just like the one I had in Europe. Is honored in America.

Again this is an area where government types are trying to invent a need for a law. When a perfectly good one already exists.

I wasn't kidding about the kids eating tortillas off the asphalt anti

But a revolution would not be a bad thing IMHO

Bush's lost my respect with his treatment of Vicente Faux

But then I don't know all the ramifications and exigencies of command

I think about those little Norbertos every night

I care more about them than SEA kids

and I lost more friends for them.

Yes, I'd go for a revolution in old mejico. But I'd like to take over PeMex at the end of it. Then make sure a big cut goes to those kids running around in diapers with brown and even green things hanging in festoons from them...........

TINS