There have been several articles on the day laborer situation at the Glendale Home Depot store. SaveOurState.org and the new Minutemen claim the day laborers are simply illegal aliens who should be forcibly removed from our nation. Supporters of the workers, documented or not, say they are an integral part of our economy and need to be protected from the racist agitators.
I'd like to consider the larger question of why so many people from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and other Latin American nations come here to find work. My understanding is that the subsidies our government pays large agribusiness firms makes their industrial, chemical-ridden, sometimes even genetically engineered, produce cheaper than that grown by farmers in countries to our south. In essence, succumbing to the greed of corporations means Mexican and other Latin American farmers can't make a living on their own land. They come here because they have to -- the same reason most of our ancestors came here. Whether fleeing the Irish Potato Famine, Cossack pogroms against Jews, the Ottoman Turkish genocide of Armenians, or simply lack of opportunity to prosper where one was born, those who came to this nation with a willingness to work hard and participate in society have historically been welcomed.
