Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : The Citizens Manifesto -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: combjelly who wrote (14)	6/11/2005 3:35:30 PM
From: neolib	Respond to of 492

Your views on illegals are one of the reasons why this board exists. You make good points, but we need working solutions. I personally have a problem with controlling illegals, the ones I have met work hard and deserve a break. But we have our own unskilled that need to be helped. We need a solution to this. Very true. In the agriculture region I live in, Hispanics started arriving about 20 years ago. They are damn hard working and very nice people. Prior to their arrival, ag work went to whites, especially younger ones starting out their working carriers (high school & college kids) as well as folks that didn't go own to college or didn't complete HS. Now 99% of all ag field work is Hispanic, and the poorer whites have been displaced from those areas. The displacement is for two reasons as near as I can tell: 1) racial on the part of whites who now view manual ag work as "hispanic" work and 2) racial on the part of farm owners who view whites as inferior manual workers. Until just a few years ago, the whites seemed to have circled the wagons a bit, with higher level jobs being reserved for whites. The local city, banks, businesses, etc had very few hispanic employees. But starting around 2002 or so, that has shifted dramatically. The younger hispanics entering the workforce have good English skills, and many more of the customers are now hispanic, so being bilingual is a plus. Very few of the whites in town are bilingual. My local Bank of American is now over 50% hispanic behind the counter up from none 3 or 4 years ago. During the last 5 years, the displaced whites moved heavily into construction related industries. Now the hispanics are moving into that as well, but this time as owners of small businesses (painting, sheetrocking, landscape etc). The poorer whites now seem to be sprouting meth labs. BTW, another very interesting dynamic I have witnessed is the vehicles in ag workers drive. When I first moved here a decade + ago, the migrant worker vehicles were old, beat up pickups & low riders. Minimum wage is now over $7/hr in both Oregon & Washington. The vehicles parked in orchards thinning apples now look no different from those driven by the orchard owners. Brand new Cadillac Escalante SUVs, with the one addition of spinning hubcabs, 3/4 ton Dodge Ram pickups, etc. Low riders have vaporized, I suspect it's the equivalent of having a "kick me" sticker on your back. BTW, I'd say the economic improvement I see in the local hispanic community is a very strong endorsement of raising the minimum wage. The ripple kick from that in terms of consumer spending would be worth a good academic study.