This story comes from the heart and I think people will enjoy it as it is well written. Don't be afraid to leave a comment and spark up a debate. You could also check Trev's page out here http://www.myspace.com/machoeddie

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I'm a 1st generation immigrant. For those who don't know, that means I'm the first generation born in the United States. My dad came here when he was seven. I grew up watching the struggle of old world values and ideas trying to assimilate into a new society and found myself grateful to be an American and at the same time glad to be grounded in a culture with more than a few hundred years of history.

Racially speaking, I'm white with nothing but European ancestry, but I know what it is to be a minorty (if only an ethnic or religious one). I spent much of my life, as my parents did, trying to break into the well-established W.A.S.P. order of American society, only to find that I didn't fit and more so... I didn't want to.

For this reason, I recently made the choice to return to my working class roots and make my living in the blue collar world. I prefer it for many reasons, but mainly because I don't feel constantly estranged from the people and values of my environment.

But thanks to this decision, I also find myself right in the middle of the illegal immigration issue. I've heard my sister, who lives in California, bitch about the problem for years. But since it didn't effect me, I couldn't really relate. Who gives a fuck if there are Spanish speaking television stations, or if directions were now printed in two languages? I don't!

Growing up in old world culture, I was constantly aware of the United States isolation. Sure we're a tossed salad of various immigrant groups , but the next state over isn't a different country where they speak another language. And I firmly believe diversity has a real positive effect on an individual's psyche, perspective and overall consciousness... nothing like experience and exposure to counter ignorance and stupidity.

Back in the early 90s I lived in Mexico for a while. For the most part, I like the culture, but I was glad to come back to the U.S. My Spanish is a lot better than my Italian, and the familiarity with the culture and language has been nice as of late.

There are about 60 employees working at the company I work for. All except 4 of us are Mexicans and of those, probably 80 percent are illegal immigrants. Across the board, the illegals are hard working and anybody who's been around them knows they've got hilarious subversive senses of humor! Overall and without reservation, I'd say they are great guys. Much better than the bullshit yuppies I dealt with in advertising/marketing and the fucking soulless entrepenuears I encountered in sales.

But personal or cultural character is not a the crux of the illegal immigration problem. As is so often the case in the U.S., the diversions of racism and predjudice cloud the real issue. Illegal immigration, like most other social ills, is really an issue of class.

We live in a supply and demand economy. Increase the supply and you decrease the demand, thereby the value of a commodity. In this case the commodity is labor. For centuries, in the U.S. and througout the world, the working class has fought a constant power struggle against those who benefit most from their toils.

If I'm losing you here, let me get specific. In addition to other responsibilites, I do all the invoicing for my company because I am familiar with quickbooks. I know what items bills at, as opposed to what they cost. For example, a trackhoe bills at $165 an hour. The guy who's operating the trackhoe, who's time efforts and abilities are making the money, gets about 10 percent of that. Of course the rest is not all profit. There are maintence, fuel, insurance costs etc.

But there is PROFIT! My boss isn't putting up with all the headaches for fuckin fun and he shouldn't be. The guy built his company. He's not some silver spoon mother fucker. He's a high school drop-out, a smart businessman and a goddamn hard worker! He spent plenty of time in the trackhoe or digging ditches with a shovel, generating his own capital.

I've had my own business. I've sat at the top and made the most money and the most important decisions, while the people below me did most of the work. I made more than them, because I was responsible for them. My boss does the same and he deserves too.

I will proudly say that when I did have people working for me, I was always extremely egalitarian when it came to how people got compensated for their efforts. Keeping in mind supply and demand, I knew it was mostly my job to judge who contributed the most to the well-being and success of the company and to make sure that these people got back as much as the company could soundly afford. What's more important, I always tried to create opportunites for people who wanted to contribute and thereby allowed them to improve their compensation.

Admittedly, I could be ruthless about weeding out the non-contributors. I saw the business as a life boat. The people who rowed stayed in. The people who didn't, went overboard. But to counter this, I was also entirely realistic that I was, and should be, getting what I paid for. Back to the life boat analogy, I didn't expect the person who was surviving on half-rations to give or care as much as the guy who was well fed.

This more than anything is what makes the difference between a decent boss and an asshole. I've dealt with too many cock suckers who made double what I did and expected me to buy in as much, or often times more, than they did. FUCK THAT SHIT!

Anybody who's ever employeed me has gotten what they paid for and the same went for when I had my own employees. I never deluded myself that everyone should care about my business as much as me and the other partners. Realistically, I knew people were there for the paychecks and the paychecks determined how much they were there.

That's all a digression from the issue, but it's important to give some personal background, to help establish my perspective here as I'm taking the time to give it and you're taking the time to read it. There are too many idiots out there spouting off with no experience or only one-sided experience. Bottom line: I've read the books, I've seen the sides, I've done the time. None of this is being yanked fresh outta my ass.

So back to the issue. I think (not always but often) that it's fair and right for the man on top to make more. The issue is how much more? And how do illegal immgrants effect all this? I mentioned that a trackhoe bills at $165 and hour and that the guy making the trackhoe generate money takes about ten percent of this as wages-- in my company.

Union scale for a heavy equipment operator is just less that double that, meaning that in a pro-union state our operators would get compensated twice the amount for themselves as they are at my company. This amount was established and agreed upon during the ongoing and never ending power struggle between those who generate the capital and those who create the opportunites for them to do so.

Included in the union wages are also benefits, which increase compensation. My company offers no benefits above and beyond wages. So why is my boss able to pay less than half for the same services as he would in another state? Simple supply and demand.

Talk to the old timers, the guys who've been in construction since their late teens and early twenties and they'll all tell you the same thing-- "The Mexicans have ruined the industry." Is that racist or bigoted? Maybe, but that's not the issue. What they are saying is that illegal immigrants have diluted the supply and thus the demand and ultimately the value of what these old timers do and always have done to make a living.

Coming from where they come from and given their unstable status in America, immigrants (especially illegal ones) are less concerned about what's fair and more worried about just getting by. It's not all that bullshit we hear about them being grateful for what they've got, about them having something to compare to, and thus them appreciating more of what America offers, and Americans take for granted.

Again that's all diversion to make the legal working class seem ungrateful thanks to their underseved sense of entitlement! (It's not like this country and with all it's unprecidented wealth was built on their backs or anything, right?). To boil it down: the illegals are less powerful, so of-fuckin-course they're less demanding. And their weakness in turn weakens the legal working class.

No one can blame a person for wanting to improve their life and the lives of their family. Again that's not the issue, but another distraction. The issue is that an influx of illegal labor lends itself to exploitation and exploitation then spreads to those with the least amount of power within the system.

And from experience, I can tell you that it's all done very consciously. My current boss brags to me about going through the process of trying get to his illegals legal-- assuming I'm not intelligent or informed enough to understand how this affects me.

Sure it costs the boss money in the form of an attorney, which he makes the illegals pay him back of course. But interestingly, one of the qualifications in the process is for him (my boss) to prove that no legal worker wants the job that the illegal is performing, thus they should be given the right to work here legally.

This is "proven" by a classified that has to be run in the local paper advertising the illegal's job for a certain period of time. The rational being that if nobody takes the job, nobody wants it. Now here's where it gets shady, and purposefully so. Nobody checks to see if the job is being offered for the amount that they illegal is being paid. (Ask yourself why not?)

So my boss runs the ad for wages that are completely out of line with the job and far less that the illegal is making. Of course no one takes it! Thus he gets his evidence that no legal person is willing to do the job because they're too lazy, they're too spoiled... bullshit, bullshit and more BULLSHIT!

And it get's worse! Recently we had 9 illegals go through the process of becoming legal immigrants. Part of this involves returning to Mexico and being allowed to legally return. Of the 9, only 2 were allowed back legally. My boss says, "They don't cut them any slack. An unpaid parking ticket will keep them out!" Where he gets this info, I don't know. Probably straight out of his ass! Who knows if it was a parking ticket or something worse?

What's scary is that he doesn't know what kept the rejects from getting back into the country legally and worse, he doesn't really give a fuck. Within two weeks ALL the guys who were denied legal entry were back in the country and back to work with us!?!? Bad enough that somebody knew damn well they were illegal and hired them in the first place. NOW THE BOSS KNOWS THEY SHOULDN'T BE HERE AND HE JUST DOESN'T CARE!

Why? Well I'm sure he tell himself that they are good hard working guys who deserve that chance and that he's just a great fuckin christian American for providing them with it. But fuck him and his altruistic delusions of granduer. Fact is, IT MEANS MORE MONEY in his pocket!

How do I know? Because if he offered real wages, he'd have plenty of people interested to doing the work. In fact, there'd probably be a lot more capable, educated and legally employable people like me interested in doing blue jobs period. So why doesn't do it? Supply and demand. Paying less increases what he can take from the company and keep it viable.

But in my opinion, if he can't do business paying people a decent wage, then he either needs to take a cut what he's taking out of the business or he doesn't deserve to be in business in the first place.

And this is the problem. This is the issue. Not somebody from a third world country desiring a better life. Not the sense of entitlement from lazy spoiled legal citizens. Not racism or bigotry. All the above may be legitimate to some degree. But they are all by-products of the main issue. That people with the power (ie money), the prime movers, have the ability to manipulate the system in order to achieve unfair personal gains at the expensive of other's opportunity.

I've admitted that the boss deserves more. But does his ability to manipulate and exploit entitle him to even more? Is that a good business man or a fuckin crook? Look close enough and you'll generally find that the two are entwined. And even worse than these people being crooks is the bullshit invovled in society rewarding it, holding them up as pillars of the community, captains of industry, etc. They are the so called elite that we should all be thankful for and strive to be like.

What about the damage the manipulation and exploitation does to the economy? To the psyches and self-esteem of the exploited? What about the rage that's generated from this inequality? What about the ways in which this anger manifests itself?

The prime movers fuck people and are applauded for their ambition and resourcefulness. But let them stroll into the wrong dark alley, where they are no longer in a postion of power. Let them get fucked over when the power paradigim no longer favors them-- when the men with guns are no longer the ones paid to uphold the staus quo. And then we'll all hear about the horrible immoral violent souless cock suckers who did it. The sons a bitches who had the audacity to not conform to the values of a system that doesn't value them.

Issues are evolutions, folks. They don't just pop up. They are the responses of forces and wills driven by environmental factors and those who determine these factors. When looking at any issue, always ask yourself WHO is benefitting from the current situation and HOW are they bennefiting? Determine this and work from that foundation when forming an opinion. That way you avoid the distractions, the diversions, the by-products and see things for what they are.


The problem with illegal immigration is the assholes who exploit it and manipulate for their personal gain and worse, the system that allows and rewards it. These are the mother fuckers that should be shot at the border or anywhere else you can get them in your sights!

by  Trev Maviano