Restaurant confidential

The irony of all this is that given a chance these people might become good Americans, but they won't get that chance. They're too valuable as pawns to be cynically played by business interests, machine politicans after plantation-voters, mexican revanchists, ambitious rabble rousers. The one honest man in the dirty bunch is Bush, and he's a hapless fool.

Is part of the problem of getting blacks and whites working with Hispanics language? If a critical mass, maybe the majority, of the workers, as in this restaurant are speaking Spanish among themselves, how do a minority of white and black workers deal with that? I often wonder if the argument or fact that black and white workers wouldn't do a certain kind of work which Hispanics legal or illegal do is more related to their group exclusion for language deficiency than to a deficient work ethic or snobbery about a type of work. Just as lack of real fluency in educated English locks some people out of certain occupations, so the lack of real fluency in Spanish, not necessarily educated Spanish, must likewise lock some people out of certain jobs. How does an English only worker operate amongst a crew of Spanish speaking gardeners or house painters or construction workers? Even aside from the necessary communication of instructions as to what is to be done, the non-Spanish speaking worker is shut out from the simple camraderie which a passerby observes during lunch breaks of
house painters etc.

They have no choice but to expose themselves to exploitation and show up everyday, etc.Once the hispanics are here a few generations I doubt they'll be such good employees. Oh, that's right after a generation they join deadly gangs that torture and kill children.That's a high price to pay for reliable help.

My brother worked for many years as a construction foreman in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana. He would concur 100 percent about the Mexican work ethic.

On behalf of all black people everywhere I apologize. Certainly we are unique in holding a grudge over centuries and never moving on.

Wait. That's Northern Ireland. Or Bosnia. Or Cypress. Or...

Never mind.

Wow! We get to hammer illegals and African Americans using another's words, again.

Actually the post by Rod should be forced reading to young parents. The teaching moment is here and it's perfect. Your children will believe what they're told by their elders.

The perfect example of our nature as human beings believing what we're told is demonstrated by the difference between the attitude towards working hard exibited by Americans and immigrants. This is especially true of our African American citizens, not because they're black, but because since they're black they don't blend in as well as some other races seem to do.

Immigrants come here believing what they've been told. If you work hard in America you will get ahead. So they come here butt busting one oh one and two oh two because that's what it takes to make it in America.

Our poor are told that you can't beat the man. Working hard is stupid because no one ever gets ahead except the man.

I do manual labor for a living. I get dirty every day. I'm in the trenches you might say. I know the view from the driver's seat.

I love the Hispanic workers. I love them not so much because they make me money. I work by myself ninety nine percent of the time but my co-workers on most jobs are Hispanic because they're the ones doing the work. No, I love them because they respect the work. The only thing they respect more than the work is the person who does work.

On most jobs invariably a Hispanic worker will call me greedy. It used to tick me off. Now I accept it as perspective. From their perspective I do come across as greedy. Their culture expects those who get work to share the work. They're not asking for a handout or even a hand up. All they want is to work. So when they see me come on the job and I'm doing jobs mostly done by a crew of three or more they don't see and old codger with a couple of extra doses of testosterone still proving he can. They see a man being greedy and depriving a crew of the opportunity to work.

Monday I'll be building a poolside gazebo-pavillion in North Dallas. I'll be doing it with tools and equipment while most people in my trade would be it doing with people. There will be other crews on the job doing other things. Chances are most likely I'll be the only white guy getting dirty doing the manual work. The other white guys on the job will be watching the Hispanic laborers work.

I'd like to share one other observation of mine on the topic of work and immigrants. Invariably those who complain the loudest about our illegal Hispanic work force will mention in some manner or another our African Americans should be doing that work.

They don't complain about the Hispanic illegals affecting their own jobs. No, they get their skirts all in a knot because the Hispanic illegals are taking work that should be done by trashy whites and blacks.

Why was it necessary to include all the negative references to blacks? NOt cool Rod.

Because that's what the manager said. I wrote down everything he said from his experience. Do you want me to edit for political correctness?

Rod, this entire conversation and this restaurant, etc.......is in Texas. Of course this conversation could have taken place in Las Vegas, or elsewhere, so I only comments accordingly.

For such a brilliant man with an alarmingly engaging mind, you have a couple of blind spots where you are a brick wall: One is of course you Biblical recitations regarding the same sex issues, and that's cool. The other is plainly you total uncomprehending of the Mexican 'issue' in general, and in Texas, to whom Mexico is like a half sister, specifically. Because of your generosity here in your Beliefnet Blog, when we discussed your take on the Alamo and other relater Hispanic...aka Mexican... 'issues', I have an upcoming piece in your paper that speaks of and to you.

The legal issues of immigration aside, and that's a big leap admittedly,(although my entire life no one knew or cared who was or was not 'legal' from Mexico, our sister state, half sister, parent, depending on how far back one wishes to go. In any case, this man spoke the truth to you (just as that women did in Istanbul). Pay attention. One of the things that keeps us young is learning how much we do not know whereas resisting same and becoming (or remaining) rigid is what atrophies the soul and makes us certifiably 'old' before our time.
Only three things have propped up this economy in our city (as elsewhere): 1) Credit Cards 2) Home equity loans 3) Mexican labor.

Don’t shoot the messenger. Any longtime Texan knows that these people from Mexico have a work ethic that is the very basis of Conservative belief systems. Rock the boat with the PC ‘not all Black people’ crap all you will, but he said it best: I’m old enough to have watched my mother march so that Blacks could go to better schools, have chances. Now it’s 40 years later and they are still whining? I am the centrist Liberal here. And I know that the Black community has failed in stunning manner, and their failures have been unmasked by the Mexican immigrant population. Vincente Fox was crucified for stating the obvious. Don’t shoot the messenger a second time.

Three years ago I was penniless after a calamity. I pulled weeds in the dead of summer heat in an un-shaded estate in East Texas on weekends for $10 and hour. I have black neighbor children…teens…and I told them they too could do this for money while school was out. No takers. Yet the mother takes subsidies because she has 6 adopted kids. What’s wrong with THAT picture. Yet the Mexican pre-teens on my street: I pay them each $3 an hour to clean up my leaves…9. 10. 11 years old. They jump at the chance.

Tell me the restaurant you went to. I want to give this man my business since he took the time to make you listen to what I have tried to tell you more ways than one.

Much love, RG

I used to work two places with mexicans. I worked in light manufactoring. The mexicans that they hired seemed to work very hard. I have also worked with blacks and whites. I have never ran across a someone that was lazy and had a latan decent. However when i have worked with my whites Some people were lazey some where not. It goes the same with blacks.
But the place right now I work it seems that some of them do a half job. Their job is to breakdown air pallets and put boxes on to sids and srink rap them. Their some skids that they srink rap poorly. Somethies they put these these skids are on the A rack (the tallest rack) some of these sids do fall down. My Job is to pick orders from these racks many of times these skids have fallen down while i have attemed to get these skid down. I don't have the time to re stock the cargo on to another skid or the same skid

Is part of the problem of getting blacks and whites working with Hispanics language?

Caroline, you ask an important question, but there is a chicken-egg dilemma here that IMO trumps your question: immigrants will always be viewed with suspicion and dislike by some people. Some immigrants will always be unwilling to pay the "price" of assimilation by learning to be understandable (if not fluent) in the new language. The former will be as vocal about NIMBY as they can, drowning out the quiet and generous welcome others would offer. The latter will serve to reinforce the stereotypes the former blather about. In the end, it really just boils down to self-fulfilling prophecies.

Like Alina, I am first generation. Unlike Alina, my heritage is European; indeed, my family experience going back several generations is multi-lingual as a given. Their culture didn't see them as complete if they only knew their native tongue. Europe was like Manhattan: high density populations very close to each other (in relative terms, of course) with no real choice about isolation in a general sense. For Europeans, borders marked cosmetic differences, mostly.

In my never humble opinion, Americans are self-defeating in their insistence on assimilation. Multi-lingual families were the norm for several decades; it was actually rather rare for children to have parents who did not learn English. Most parents (like mine) reacted to the American English-centrism by seeing in it the same seeds for violence the escaped, and refused to raise children with anything but perfect American accents. Of the four languages in use in my parents families, I can curse in one, and almost follow conversations in another if the speakers talk slowly. My English, otoh, is flawless. (We shall avoid comments on my writing; I tend to muck it up deliberately. ;) )

By happenstance, I spoke this morning to a friend from south Louisiana, a white man. I asked him if there were any Mexicans living in his town (I know that town, and it's about half-black, half-white). He said yes, as a matter of fact they've been moving in slowly since Katrina. He's ambivalent about their presence. He said it's strange and unsettling to hear Spanish spoken in the stores, but it's been a blessing to have these folks around, because for the first time in a long time you can get manual labor.

I suggested that perhaps it's because the Mexican laborers will work for a pittance, which blacks and whites won't.

"No, that's not it," he said. "What I'm telling you is that the Mexicans are the only people who will work, period. I sold my cows a while back because I couldn't get reliable help on the farm no matter what wage I offered, and I couldn't do it all by myself."

I told him that unless conditions have changed since I last visited him and his town, there was a pretty large pool of black male unskilled labor around. He said it's still true.

"The Mexicans are doing jobs they won't do," my friend said. "You can't find black men to work these agricultural jobs, or to build anything."

"Is this a wage thing?"

"No," said my friend, exasperated. "It's like I told you: the Mexicans bust their ass working; whites and blacks don't. I don't much like the way things are changing around here, but them's the facts."

For what it's worth, that's the conversation I had. My friend is pretty conservative, but the reality of labor needs and the cultural change that has made whites and blacks unwilling to break a sweat in the fields or on construction sites are hitting him square in the face.

I think we can dismiss much of the "racism" reactions here. English is not difficult just for immigrants.

When a statement is clearly qualified for its original context and intended meanings, to imply or connote more from it is just plain ridiculous. Rod and Alina have absolutely no need to clarify or explain further. They were both as clear as it is possible to be in their intentions in their original text -- and that clarity leaves no room for an accusation of racism.

My advice: if you can't respond rationally to an actual statement and what it actually means, then please spare us the wasted bandwidth.

>I think we can dismiss much of the "racism" reactions here.

I'd agree since you don't seem to be reading the same blog I am. If you do a search the only time racism has been mention is in discussing the reactions of others.

My father detested black men because they made his life hell, even while he wore the uniform of his country.

I hate the white people who called me nigger to my face in Fayetteville North Carolina, even while I wore the uniform of their country. That's not all white people, just some of them.

Black people are split by generation about how they react to issues about the races. An 18 year old probably never thinks about it.

At 52, I am not looking for it under every rock, but I know it when I see it. My 82 year old mother had her life limited by what blacks were allowed to do, so she is in the no fan of white folks category.

Conservatives seem to be irritated by how little credit they get for coming to Jesus on the issue of the races. Well thanks, I remember your "Christian" schools used to keep white kids from going to school with blacks and Ronald Reagan's disparagement of Martin Luther King.

You will never convince me the Republican party has a thing to offer black folks, but then I am a Yellow Dog Democrat.

This country has virtually no racial strife by comparison to Ireland (IRA) or even Spain (ETA). Or are there marauding blacks blowing up trains and department stores I don't know about?

We have people who are rude to each other sometimes, or who grumble, but there is probably not a single black face among the militia types who are "protecting" our border.

>Charlie B.

Why haven't these superhuman workers, unburdened by 20% of the population being shiftless and ungrateful, raised Mexico far above the United State's productivity?

Or maybe living in communities where crime is rampant, the cops corrupt, and education opportunities hampered does make a difference in your general attitude.

BTW, the minimum wage in Mexico is around 60 pesos a day or about $5.50. You know I might even wash plutonium covered dishes with gusto for the equivalent of $500 a day.

Both respondents seem to make clear they regard Mexicans as a whole as noble Rousseauvian beasts of burden, still incapable after 500 years, though, of mounting a just and equitable society of their own in which they can thrive without falling prey to a decay in their general attitude from oppressions other populations have historically surmounted, albeit usually at a costly blood sacrifice to themselves.

It's strikingly ironic that the apologists for Mexicans here would be the most patronizingly ethnist, or, in our uncritical contemporary parlance of political opportunism, racist.

Then again, Carlos Slim Helú (Rod's likely next employer ), half-Mexican son of a Lebanese Maronite Christian immigrant TO Mexico, in one generation managed to leapfrog a nation and become the second richest man in the world, with no granted land, no special privileges, merely by buying and selling judiciously. Statistically, there should be at the least several dozens of subsequent Helús--all Mexican, part-Mexican, non Mexican--in a country as naturally rich as Mexico, regardless of education, regardless of corruption, but there simply are not. Well, actually, there are: they run the drug cartels.

So I think, regardless what good workers they might be--so are manufacturing robots--this legitimately begs the question as to what we might be giving up as a nation by so disproportionately larding our national population from this single and dubious source, merely so that, for example, 26-year-old Caucasian pups can impress their dates at Ghostbar by passing themselves off as "businessmen" because they can run a crew of illegal immigrants that can throw up residential fencing at $13 a foot rather than $24, the discount at which our good judgement can be purchased.

Charlie B.

Rod, you're trying (like so many others) to confuse the issue.

I'm not against legal immigrants. My wife is a legal immigrant (and now a naturalized citizen). I'm against _illegal_ immigrants. It's not really a difficult distinction to make, but half the pundits in the media seem to have trouble making it.

The bill our illustrious president keeps trying to shove down our throats is trying to do strikes me as analogous to taking a man who robbed a bank of $10 million a few years ago and suggesting his sentence be dismissed because since then he's invested the money and donated the proceeds to worthy charitable causes.

As for this...

---
'Is this a wage thing?'

'No,' said my friend, exasperated. 'It's like I told you: the Mexicans bust their ass working; whites and blacks don't. I don't much like the way things are changing around here, but them's the facts.'
---

...it strikes me as a load of crap. How much is the guy paying people to work on his farm? $100 an hour? $500 an hour? Or more like $5 an hour? The simple fact is that he cannot find people to work for him _at what he considers a reasonable wage_. If he offered a much higher wage (in the range he considers unreasonable), he'd find people jumping at the chance to work for him. (Heck, for $100 an hour, I'd come down there and do it, no matter how nasty the work seemed.)

It's _always_ a wage thing. Employers complain that they can't find anyone to fill the jobs they're offering, but they leave the second part unsaid: "...at the wages we're offering." If they want sympathy for their troubles, then let's hear a little honesty on their part first.