Why Immigration Reductions Are Bad
Posted: August 4, 2017 Filed under: Uncategorized 2 Comments
This week I have had a side-by-side study in immigration. We have had two major projects being done on our house at the same time. One is the repairing of rotted wood and repainting of all the trim and wood surfaces on the outside of our house. The second is the replacing of the roof on the old section of our house.
My painters are a nice family from Mexico who have lived and worked here for very long time. The roofers are an old Durham company who actually put the roof on our addition 21 years ago. All the men sent by the roofing company were American.
The painters found a number of areas of rotted wood that required a carpenter to fix. Since our carpenter, Joe, has retired I asked them if they had someone they worked with who could do the work quickly. They called a fellow Mexican carpenter who came with his son and did excellent work.
Here is my experience with these various crews this week. The painters showed up when they said they would, worked diligently, took no breaks except for lunch, which they microwaved in my yard and ate so they did not lose much time going someone else for lunch, they cleaned up everyday, did perfect work and charged me very fairly. They even cleaned up messes that were not of their making. The painters worked from eight until six everyday.
The roofers came late, which was a blessing since they said they would start at six in the morning, they made giant messes and left them, they trampled my gardens, they left nails in the grass, driveway and walkway, they took many breaks for half hour stretches, and they left before lunch and never returned on any day. I know that roofing can be hot and hard work, but as far as I saw no one was on my roof more than four hours a day. They promised to be done today and were not because they did not have enough shingles to do the sunroom roof, but they left at ten in the morning and were not sure when they will return.
I know we have a president who wants to make America great again, but as far as I can tell it is up to each American to make themselves great and the country will follow. The Mexican painters and carpenters I had working at my house were so far superior to the American roofers. I am comparing apples to oranges because the painters and the carpenters were the owners of their own businesses and the roofers were employees, but I never once saw anyone from the roofing company who could be considered an owner or management. I also never had any proactive communications from the roofing people.
I want to support American business, and local business, but if given the choice as far as work at my house I probably would chose Mexican workers if I could get them. Now this is not a blanket statement. I love my American plumbers and American electricians, but they are old and from the good work ethic school.
I am worried about the pipeline of good workers that Donald Trump is trying to prevent from coming to this country being cut off. Our history has been one where people who are trying to have a better life through hard work come to America to make their fortune. We need those people. Some of the people who have been here for generations are not that interested in working hard.
Well said !!
Dana – Thank you for your thoughtful piece.
Your anactodal experience is in fact
reflective of our national historical
experience with immigration.
Historically, America has reaped
immeasurable benefits from each of
the wave after
wave of immigrants who have flowed into
our country.
And historically, each wave of
immigrants has been resisted and
resented
by the people who had preceded them in
joining our nation – including the
immediately preceding group or
nationality of immigrants!
So what is happening now, although
sad and regrettable, is nothing new.It is just the
newest chapter in a repeating phenomena.
It’s explanation lies in one of the negative
aspects of human nature – our instinctive
fear of “the other”.
There is no real debate over immigration because the opposing views are speaking different languages.
From a rational standpoint America
continues to be enriched by this most
recent cohort of Hispanic immigrants.
The folks resisting immigration are
reacting to, and expressing emotions.
It’s Ego vs Id (in the Freudian construct)
and never the twain shall meet.
Eventually this newest addition to the
American fabric will join and be assimilated the just like then many other
waves of other immigrants who have
preceded them.
This process has made a country
which was founded on a brilliant and, at the time entirely new, – indeed at revolutionary – group of ideas about the relationship
between a country’s people and their government – into a polity equally
Extraordinary in its demographics.
The American population is like a
geological structure created by layer
after layer of different ethnic and
racial groups laid one on top of the other. Except that our demographic construct has melded those layers together,
creating a single American citizenry which nevertheless features the richness of a
diversity of cultural contributions
gifted to our shared national
community by each new group of citizens.
This process has , and will continue,
to make this country something
Unique to human history – the 1st and
only truly multi-ethnic, multi-racial,
multi-religious country in the history of humankind.
Oh there have been prior kingdoms or
empires where one ethnic group has
ruled over others; but there
has never been any other
country where being a member
of the body
politic – a citizen – has not depended
on your ethnicity.
As such America is sui genaris. And the best ideas for andvreality of what a country should be.
America is not defined by ethnicity –
or for that matter by borders- America’s
having changed numerous times.
To be an American means that you
believe in and adhere to certain core values.
Nothing more, but just as importantly,
Nothing less, is required.
As such it serves as the political
model for a world of multiple ethnicities.
It really is the shining city on the hill for
the world to aspire to and emulate.