Market Communities : The Social Life Of ( Not )

This is an incredible story about a young Mexican boy who went through so much to achieve something he never thought he would. The tragedy of his infant sister’s death and an economic crisis in 1970s made him take this life changing chance – to cross the border to the United States. His cousin used to tell him that he would spend all his life working in the fields, Quinones-Hinojosa was ready to accept his fate, he did not know English language, did not have working permit, what else could he expect? So he started working in the fields, picking fruits and vegetables, pulling weeds until his hands were bleeding, hands that perform brain surgeries today. He discovered that being a poor immigrant without an education in a foreign country will make people treat you differently. At this point in his life, he decided to prove to

Jose Vargas tells the story of his life; from coming to America, finding out that he is residing here illegally, learning how to live with that, and finally to sharing with everyone that he is an undocumented immigrant. Jose has a difficult task in front of him, though. He must win his audience over to his side so that he can further his agenda of developing an easier path for undocumented immigrants to receive citizenship. There are many ways he could go about this, trying to skirt the topic of his illegal activities, but Jose is an intelligent man and knows how to influence his audience. He uses the story of his life to connect with others, and in connecting with them wins them over, even if only indeterminably so. In My Life as an

The resident workers’ fear and hatred of blacks and Italians and vice versa distracts them from their hatred of the company, and prevents them from bonding together as workers against the Company. The Company uses racism to their advantage by promoting it, and further prevents unionization of the workers by showing the union as something new, foreign, and untrustworthy. Unions are forbidden in the workers’ contracts, so the workers must meet secretly to discuss the possibility of one. Because they lack security in their jobs, the workers fear for their lives and creature “comforts.” The company promotes this fear by monopolizing housing, forcing workers to live in substandard housing and making sure that the workers know that if they should lose this housing, they have nowhere else to go, no place else to live. The company completely controls their physical lives, an indication of slavery. Keeping the workers in ignorance of their futures forces them to live in constant fear, allowing the company to easily gain and maintain control.

Next, I want to look at what cultural issues that Carlos’s case may need to be addressed. Like I said above, Carlos has had to deal with the racism of those around him. He gets along with his neighbors, but the town that he is in has a lot of discrimination. This could be due to the fact that he lives in a town in Northeast Nebraska. Within this town, Carlos is trying to find other jobs and has been applying, but he has had no luck. He believes this is because he is Mexican and it possibly might be. Mexicans or Hispanics get a lot of racial criticizing from majority of the United States. A lot of people think the only reason they are here is to steal American’s jobs, but little do they know, literally, is they are looking to support their families and do what is best for them. Carlos wants a solid job where he can bring his family to the United States to live happier. When Carlos is faced with

Freed from the constant fear of deportation, Alex moved his family to Los Angeles, where his family would better fit, given the large Hispanic population. In Los Angeles, Alex obtained a job with Pan-American Underwriting Company as a file clerk, making roughly $1000 per month. Alex worked there for twenty years, without receiving a promotion or raise, before finally being laid off without receiving any retirement benefits. My wife cries as she recounts how she helped her father to get a job as a delivery driver where she worked, after he had been laid of at Pan-American; she cries in a mix of emotions that include anger, embarrassment, shame, and deep anguish for her father’s wounded pride (Rock, 2011). Alex’s experience is like so many immigrants in the United States, where uncertain legal status combined with other factors, like language barriers serves to lock them into low-wage jobs that often lack benefits (Massey, Durand, & Malone, 2002). While living in poverty in the United States was an improvement over the situation in Guatemala, Alex’s status as illegal immigrant and poor command of the English language all but assured a life of poverty in the United States.

Jose’s father had always mainly worked construction jobs with other undocumented immigrants and Jose joined his father’s line of work because there were not many jobs available to him and he felt obligated to contribute to the family, “A second feature of the Hispanic American family is the emphasis on cooperativeness and on placing the needs of the family ahead of individual concerns” (Manning & Baruth, 2009, p.170). Jose dreamed of going to college and pursuing art or graphic design but even these simple goals were out of reach for him because of his undocumented status.

Immigrants around the world have come to this nation searching for a better sense of purpose and the chance to work for their families. I understood the need for these immigrants to work to make their source of income even more so from the field trip to SJSU. For Cesar Chavez, he saw the Catholic Social Teaching of the Dignity of work and rights of workers being disregarded. He and his fellow migrant workers couldn’t work with better equipment and therefore their health and safety were often jeopardized. Chavez spoke on behalf of the workers and worked to create the awareness of the issue by creating a community of union workers and working to make the lives

Tomas Rivera in “…And the Earth Did Not Devour Him…” depicts the harsh life migrant workers and their families endure to make a living. Extreme poverty and squalid working conditions debilitated the migrant physically, morally, and spiritually. Perseverance is shown throughout this story demonstrating the strength of character the migrants had in facing their turmoil’s. Rivera, depicts a troubled boy questioning his life and lamenting the plight he and his family live. Peace is given to the young man when he accepts his life. Through the use of conflict and symbolism, Rivera demonstrates the hardships faced by migrant workers, and the courage to endure injustice in exchange for a chance to prosper financially.

During Enrique’s home life he has dealt with many obstacles that shape his decision of setting forth into the United States. The average American will need to get an insight about the struggles and difficulties migrants like Enrique must face in their journeys north and what they endure in the United States after they arrive. Enrique’s hand of justice has been quite different than the average American because of the strong economic disadvantages, his childhood and family struggles, and his journey north to be reunited with his mom. In this essay I will begin to tell you about Enrique’s pre-birth/childhood, his neighborhood, and his journey in Honduras and the United States.

Furthermore, in the Richard Rodriguez’s passage entitled “workers”, was a young man and final year college student. This young man wanted to work during the summer but he was looking for a well paying white colored job to do in the Summer. Since he did not know what to do in order to get a summer job, without hesitation he was alerted by his friend about

Jurgis and his family are thrust into the polluting factories, toiling away for meager wages. Even as all of them work, including the children, it’s barely enough to scrape by to pay for rent and food. “Working harder,” as Jurgis says, only brings them closer to death. As the result of capitalist greed, workers are treated as only a means to an end, making profit while the workers scrounged up cents a day to make ends meet. Immigrants such as Jurgis were a seemingly endless supply, and employers manipulated this to implement cheap wages for long hours. All around Jurgis, his family members waste away; his wife, Ona, dies during childbirth because their family couldn’t afford a doctor inside the attic of a dingy house. One of the children, “wretchedly sick and undersized” [1, Ch. 13, pg. 91] was perpetually sick and dressed in shabby clothes and forced to crawl under heavy machinery. Furthermore, one particular scene describes Ona’s rape; if she didn’t sleep with her boss, Phil Connor, her whole family would be without work. Sinclair portrays capitalism as soulless and lacking any empathy for humanity.  Jurgis keeps “working harder,” [1, Ch. 1, pg. 14] but capitalism forces him to work harder and harder until he cannot work any harder. Jurgis then comes to be educated in socialism, where he is enthralled by the idea. His journey through the jungle has only brought him grief, and in the end he can only rely on himself. The people that have meant most of them have submitted themselves to capitalism or have died at the hands of their work. The economic system has failed him, the judicial system has failed him, and he had nowhere to turn. Socialism was his answer, and so after meeting Hinds, who educated him, his life turned around and gave him a purpose to fight for.

In order to support yourself it is more than likely that you will have to work with either your head or your hands. Many Americans choose to work with their heads; however not all Americans were always given a choice on how they wanted to work. Viramontes’ Under the Feet of Jesus and Rivera’s And the Earth Did Not Devour Him gave accurate descriptions to the types of situations many Hispanic families used to face when trying to support a whole family while working in the fields.In both Under the Feet of Jesus and And the Earth Did Not Devour Him, Viramontes and Rivera illustrate how depending on physical labor jobs created additional obstacles for migrant families.

The wealthy or hard working, are the ones likely to survive, while the rest struggle, or fight to survive. Similar to the novel’s depiction of competition in capitalism, workers today experience the same competition. The theory of social Darwinism, was one fitting for the conditions and systematic structures of the labor forces during the time leading up to the Progressive Era. The concept of the fittest, or strongest surviving, was a common trait of the capitalist systems. Those who were successful, were the ones who followed the system and worked hard. Jurgis Rudkus, demonstrated the epitome of finding a job as an immigrant, and making the most of the unbearable

In that day, they may think that they were relieved from the sorrow of segregation, but as long as the ladder of hierarchy - which has been shaped by ethnicity, citizenship, class and gender – mutely exists as a general perception, the migrant workers on the farm will always end up suffering from intensified ethnic conflicts, expanded social inequalities and tremendous, chronic physical as well as psychological

I wouldn’t really say my community as a whole has an impact on me as a person but people in around me have had a huge impact on me for who I am today. The people who have the biggest impact on me is defiantly my family and friends, I have done so many things with them that made me the person who I am today.