This Labor Day: Hug an Immigrant
Edward Barrios Acevedo     [Photo]

The United States was built on cheap labor.

Whether it was indentured Europeans, Native Americans, Chinese immigrants, African slaves, or undocumented field hands from Mexico, in every generation since the first Europeans happened upon this continent, we have enjoyed the fruits of cheap labor.

Even today, the benefits are everywhere: From the Cobb salad I eat to the wine I drink, to the pressed shirt I’m wearing, to the roads I drive on, I have reaped the benefits more than I may ever be able to repay in a lifetime.

Today, mostly immigrants provide us with this cheap labor. Poor, armed with little English, they work the fields from the Carolinas to California. They bus the tables in Chicago and wash the dishes in Denver; they drive taxi cabs Washington D.C., and do countless other jobs across the country.

They work quietly, sometimes in the shadows of being undocumented laborers. Yet, they are worthy of a salute this Labor Day, perhaps even a hug. Whether from Serbia or Guatemala, immigrants from all over the world continue to come here for the opportunity to realize their dreams that may not have been possible in their own homelands.

They come wide-eyed and nervous from dozens of countries. Millions of them work menial jobs, educate themselves, and eventually start businesses, and –through some trial and error – chart their lives for the better as they slowly become part of this country.

People, with families like yours and mine, risk everything to come – by crossing hot deserts, channeling high seas in makeshift rafts, or being sealed in cargo containers with the hope and prayer that they will make it.

Perhaps their stories should inspire within us all that is good and honorable. What makes our land such an attractive destination for the world’s immigrants shouldn’t provoke fear or resentment among us.

But it does.

In the eyes of many, these newcomers are often despised and looked upon with great suspicion, vilified and stereotyped in every imaginable way.

It may be a rite of passage, but the same old recycled charges against immigrants today mount: They take our jobs, they’re dangerous, have way too many babies, they swallow up services – from hospital beds to schools to jails.

We have the same fear-mongering citizens’ groups popping up, now stamped with catchier names such as California’s “Save Our State,” always looking for a fight. The very best they offer is to incite the very worst within us.

Yet reality marches on – whether in our orchards and fields, office buildings, or construction sites, today’s immigrants, like those who came before, collectively hold the torch to what we’re all about: The land of freedom and of opportunity that is bound together by the philosophy that all people deserve a shot at happiness.

Perhaps the novelty of being in such an amazing country may fade over generations of assimilation. Perhaps the dreams evolve, become bigger, sometimes arrogantly. Having a minimum-wage job is no longer worthy.

I have seen the attitude often during my years as a high school teacher, where most students would not even consider joining the poultry processors in the south, or migrants in Midwestern slaughter houses or sweatshops in East L.A.

Though this country values hard work, we certainly don’t value hard-working immigrants. In fact, we often despise them.

The words we write, the groups we organize, and the hypocritical policies we legislate all point to a different heritage: to be nothing more than the places that our ancestors once left.

We can do better than this. Today’s immigrants will remind us how.

(Edward Barrios Acevedo is a freelance columnist, teacher, and counselor in Los Angeles. Email him at Edwardfactor@yahoo.com)

© 2005, Hispanic Link News Service
09/04/05
END