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NPR has an August 23rd, 2018 story about the original "A-TEAM" (Athletes in Temporary Employment as Agricultural Manpower), a 1965 project to replace migrant workers with high school kids on summer break.
The year was 1965. On Cinco de Mayo, newspapers across the country reported that Secretary of Labor W. Willard Wirtz wanted to recruit 20,000 high schoolers to replace the hundreds of thousands of Mexican agricultural workers who had labored in the United States under the so-called Bracero Program. Started in World War II, the program was an agreement between the American and Mexican governments that brought Mexican men to pick harvests across the U.S. It ended in 1964, after years of accusations by civil rights activists like Cesar Chavez that migrants suffered wage theft and terrible working and living conditions.
But farmers complained — in words that echo today's headlines — that Mexican laborers did the jobs that Americans didn't want to do, and that the end of [the program] meant that crops would rot in the fields.
[...] the national press was immediately skeptical. "Dealing with crops which grow close to the ground requires a good deal stronger motive" than money or the prospects of a good workout, argued a Detroit Free Press editorial. "Like, for instance, gnawing hunger."
[One group] got paid minimum wage — $1.40 an hour back then — plus 5 cents for every crate filled with about 30 to 36 [melons.] [Students] worked six days a week, with Sundays off, and they were not allowed to return home during their stint. The farmers sheltered them in... "defunct housing" [according to one student].
Problems arose immediately... In California's Salinas Valley, 200 teenagers... quit after just two weeks on the job... Students elsewhere staged strikes. At the end, the A-TEAM was considered a giant failure and was never tried again.
[Stony Brook University history professor Lori A. Flores] says the A-TEAM "reveals a very important reality: It's not about work ethic [for undocumented workers]. It's about [the fact] that this labor is not meant to be done under such bad conditions and bad wages."
The kids gave up their summer vacations, worked in 110 degree heat six days a week, slept with no air conditioning, and ate subsistence rations, for nearly no benefit; it's no wonder the program was not a rousing success.
In tangentially-related news, the U.S. Libertarian Party published a press release the day before entitled "Immigrants Benefit the United States" that makes the blanket assertion "Immigrants, almost across the board, are a net value to the United States."
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @02:08PM (7 children)
I've been on both sides of this.
As a teenager I did some of these "jobs no one wants to do", including harvesting fruit, skinning mink, processing meat etc.
I worked side by side with the LATAM migrants and I found them to be exceptionally hard working.
This was during the early 1990s and I was paid minimum wage for these jobs which was ~$5.00 at the time. I could have gotten a job flipping burgers, but my parents wanted me to have a "bust yer ass to feed yer mouth" work ethic, and it worked.
During the summer I was 15 years old I went from just starting out, to being in charge of a team of 50 pickers.
This work is physically demanding and the workers aren't treated well at all. But why do they do it?
It's because you're not seeing the skilled workers come across, you're seeing the unskilled workers.
They can work in Mexico and earn the equivalent of $5.00 per day or they can earn it per hour here.
I now live in Mexico as an ex-pat. Because I speak American English and have a VPN that shows a USA IP address and live close enough to an airport to see clients quickly; I'm able to earn about the same as I would in the USA (I earn around $150k and I'm the sole wage earner in our family), but I live A LOT better than I would if I lived in the USA.
If I were unable to pretend to be in the USA, my ability to charge appropriately for my services would drop off dramatically. It's amazing how much a difference the flag on the side of you name makes in people's perception of who you are.
(I've had this happen before, didn't log in with a VPN and the service flagged me as foreign then cut my wages, I told them to piss off and had to send them my passport to prove I'm really American)
Anyone that thinks Mexico is a shit hole country, doesn't really know Mexico. It would be like looking at Detroit and calling the entire USA a shit hole country.
Skilled labor here in Mexico, such as computer programmers and sysadmins pay about a third to half what they do in the USA. The cost of living is dramatically reduced though. A person with a $25,000 USD annual income can live extremely comfortably in a nice neighborhood. There are beach front homes that start at $75,000 USD and are quite nice. Contrary to popular belief (even amongst Mexicans), you are much safer in Mexico than the USA. The per capita violent crime rate is lower in Tijuana than it is in San Diego and Mexico City supposedly the deadliest city in Mexico, has a lower incidence of violence than Chicago.
The unskilled labor and probably half the problems you see are coming from the public education system here. School is only compulsory until age 12. After which the parents have to pay for the child to attend school. Many parents are just now getting to the point where they can afford a Jr High and up to High School education for one of their children, but these schools can charge the equivalent of 4-6 months salary per child.
As a result, the educational opportunities are greatly reduced, thus increasing the supply of unskilled labor and putting a real pinch on skilled labor.
For someone to get an education beyond 6th grade, they really have to be dedicated to the ideal of an education and they have to pay for it, so they value it far more.
There is a saving grace though. Most families here have some sort of "family business". There is a strong tradition of entrepreneurship and parents get the kids in on it early.
This allows the children to experience the ups and downs of running a business, as well as the financial and logistics aspects.
These people put enormous effort into their family business, they might have one or two extended family members who cross to the USA on easy money dreams, but for the most part, the entire family is focused on improving the local community.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @03:03PM (6 children)
Mexico has developed massively since NAFTA.
I find that since then, it is almost unrecognizable to me (for the better).
Still, I think you are really downplaying the violence. It has gotten much, much worse over the past 20 yrs due to drug cartels. I won't bother listing some of the grisly murders and kidnappings; those are easily Googled. Entire town governments/police in cahoots with the drug gangs, doing killing for them for a cut of the drug $.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @04:18PM (3 children)
I don't think I'm downplaying it at all. These events make the news, because they're notable and newsworthy.
One or two people are killed each week in larger cities and towns no matter where you are.
I lived in Salt Lake City for years and nearly took a bullet from drive bys on two occasions.
Gang bangers shoot a cop in Mexico, it's national news and even makes the international news.
Gang bangers get in a shoot out with the cops in South Central L.A. and it's just a day ending in y. It might make local news, but it's unlikely to go any further than that.
Small town corruption in the is probably more prevalent in the USA than here in Mexico.
Alabama just had to pass a law to tell the Sheriffs they can't divert inmate food budgets at the jails to their own personal bank accounts.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/03/alabama-sheriff-uses-jail-food-budget-on-beach-house-legally.html [slate.com]
(report is from March and was catalyst)
Also in Mexico this is illegal...
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/7/18/15985810/jeff-sessions-civil-asset-forfeiture [vox.com]
One thing about Mexico that isn't in the USA, there really is white privilege here. It's alleged in to exist in the USA, but I never saw it. In Mexico though, racism is public and systemic.
As a white person I get hassled a lot less and am treated with an amount of deference and respect that they don't show to morenos (typical brown mexicans), and god forbid you're a black person, especially a black man.
I had a friend from Chicago visiting me here in a smaller town and he went alone to the tienda for some beer, same tienda I visit every day. Same tienda I had visiting WITH him the day before.
The owners called the cops on him and gave him the third degree, frankly that's the norm here and not the exception. :(
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @04:23PM (2 children)
Living in Mexico is killing my English skills though. Apologies for the typos.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @05:09PM (1 child)
No hay de qué.
But as for your remark:
"Also in Mexico this is illegal..."
So that means it doesn't happen, then. ;-)
This is Mexico. You have the criminals and then you have the govt/police and it is sometimes hard to tell them apart. (Apologies to the honest ones.)
I have lived in many Latin American countries, and I must say police corruption in Mexico has always been particularly bad.
The president had to fire entire cities' police forces and replace them with federal forces of his own the problem got so bad.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @05:11PM
I know the US is not immune to corruption, but everything is a matter of degree.
Overall, I don't think you will find too many who will say that the US is not ahead of Mexico on this.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday August 24 2018, @06:41PM (1 child)
Last year I heard that Mexicans were migrating back to Mexico faster than they were migrating from Mexico, primarily because Mexico has developed massively.
What's more, having a friendly, economically functional country on the southern border (eventually like Canada on the north) is good for US security.
Bowing off NAFTA is likely to undermine this
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @08:57PM
Try naming something El Presidente Trump *isn't* trying to destroy.
I agree with you. It's an investment not just in economics but also regional stability.