Thread: The truth about Mexican Illegal Aliens

I presented this story once, and apparently it got pulled, so I will try to be more tactful in making my point. Approximately 3 years ago, my husband and I moved from Pennslyvania to California because of a job opportunity for my husband. This was in Visalia Ca. We could not afford to move into the city at the time, so we found a very nice house to rent on the outskirts of the city. A place called Woodlake, Ca. Our Landlady was a white woman who worked as a secretary at the High School there. She had informed us that the small city of Woodlake was 87% Mexican at the time. Being from Pa, I thought nothing of it, because I get along with everyone, but personally had never met anyone from Mexico. It was a nightmare that I will never forget. She neglected to say that many of them were illegal, and that when some of these people were released from Prison, that they were sent to this town to work. I can truly say that I saw more and actually took part in how they live, than anyone in this forum. It was not a safe place. Many times my husband and I heard gunshots in the back alley where most of the drug exchanges occured. The Mexican woman who lived 2 doors down, and who owned a Mexican restaurant would go with her white paneled truck to the border and pick up illegals and hide them in her attic, and keep many of them in her truck to live. They would come out at night and sit under her trees and talk and laugh, but you would never see them in the daylight. The grocery store in that town catered to the Mexican culture, although it was owned by an American man, who owned a chain of supermarkets, and a huge horse ranch. The prices were so high due to the theft that took place every day, which I witnessed first hand. There was a Catholic church a block away from my home.They only had one mass in English, and it was very early in the morning. There was a Mexican family who lived directly across from the church, and every Sunday morning right after church, the partying began, and by nightfall, the police were there. I liked to go in my back yard to suntan, but the music was blaring all the time in the summer. No matter what time of day. Needles to say, once our lease was up, we moved up a bit to a town nearby called Exeter, Ca known for its murals. I took a job working for an elderly woman who owned a small orange and peach ranch. She would have pickers come seasonal to harvest the fruit. I can tell you that most of them were illegals. She said that she paid them $5 and 15cents an hr, but that the bosses of the crews got a bit more. Yes they sure did work hard, but they were NOT paid by the hour, they were paid by the crate. She told me that no rancher will pay by the hour because the work will not get done in time. I told her that I felt that this was called "glorifyed slavery" and she agreed but this is how the farmers make their living. Almost all of the ranchers in this particular area are millionaires. That is a fact. Americans could be doing this job with better pay. Its not an easy job but nothing comes too easy for some of us. Its just a big lie that there are jobs out there that americans won't do. The rich people are happy and don't have to deal with or look at the problem with illegals. The all have the greatest security systems money can buy. I know. I was there.

It is true. Many farmers get government subsidys for their crops and claim to have hired legal help.

I was told a sob story by a rich whit guy yesterday about how his brothers avacado farm in California would just disappear without illegals. He told me his brother couldn't pay normal legal wages or taxes on his employees. He asked "who will pick the avacado's when you kick out the illegals?" I replied "Looks like your brother is gonna have a lot of picking to do."

The high price of food and theft - why didn't that click before?

We were wondering why food where we are staying now was 25% higher than it is in our very small town. Very interesting.

I have told this story before, maybe I won't bore too many.

My husband's family were migrant farm workers. They picked cotton, fruit, and harvested greens, etc. from the Rio Grand Valley to California. They worked mostly in the Valley and in AZ in the cotton fields.

About 2 years ago, we spent 9 months in AZ, working. On days off, we would take drives in the countryside. HE would point out , "I picked cotton in the shadow of that mountain", "I picked cotton right there where that housing project is", "I monitored the irrigation pipes in that field."

As I listened to him talk, I thought about children picking cotton from the age of 7 on - and of the farmers who took advantage of this. (Now I realize the parents put them there and am not letting them off the hook).

But if you had gone to that farmer and told him he could no longer work children in his fields, I am sure he would have assured you that he would go broke without that labor. He would have assured you that cotton shirts would be $200 without that labor. He would have assured you the cotton industry would dissappear without that labor.

Somehow the farmers learned they could make plenty of money using mechanical pickers. Cotton is still being raised out there.. Not as much as it is much more profitable to sell the land to developers than it is to farm it.

But farmers are still in business and children are in school or doing other things children should be doing.

Without cheap (to them) labor, I think America would invent more ways to do the work mechanically. Just think of the changes in American agriculture in the years gone by. We have mega tractors that look as if they could plow an acre at a time,

equipment that can be pulled by a tractor and one man can plant acres of tomatoes, and other plants, where it once took dozens.

When we were young, the adjoining place had a pecan 'bottom'. Every year people in the community would go 'pecan threshing' . You took a long, very long pole and threshed around in the trees to knock down the pecans, then picked them up. Many people got paid in money and many did it on the 'halves' to get their winter pecans.

Now one man takes a tractor with an arm-like mechanism, locks onto the trees, it gives it a good shake - he then hooks a 'vacuum cleaner' on his tractor and vacuums up the pecans. What took many, many people now can be done by one man.

And of course, milking cows.

I don't know all the various ways farming has become mechanized - but more can be done. It won't be when there is cheap labor.

The availability of cheap labor will stifle the innovation in the farming industry.