The New Slavery

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

Theodore Roosevelt said that over 100 years ago. Have our values changed? Roosevelt was the father of much of today’s secular progressive movement, but still his ideas on immigration ring true.

Now days when you think about slavery, you of course think of black Africans who were brought to this country against their will to work on plantations in the South and other places. But I submit to you that was not the first or last act of slavery in the US and in fact it is very much still alive today.

In Colonial America, some settlers used indentured service to obtain passage for an initial settlement, then were forced to work to pay off other debts and that was called bonded labor or slave bondage. A person enters debt bondage when their labor is demanded as a means of repayment of a loan, or of money given in advance. Usually, people were tricked or trapped into working for no pay or very little pay (in return for such a loan), in conditions which violate their human rights.

Invariably, the value of the work done by a bonded laborer is greater that the original sum of money borrowed or advanced and there was a promise of eventually paying off the loan but many times death came before full repayment. Many poor people found themselves in this condition early in our countries history. Poor people who could not afford land of their own often were relegated to working on others farms just to stay alive. People often found themselves in prison just because they could not pay their debts. Even today one could find themselves in prison for not paying such debts as child support or taxes.

Of course during this time there were the slaves working on plantations in the South. Many people assumed that slavery was done away with the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation but it did not end really until the Thirteenth Amendment on December 18, 1865. And, all that did was make it supposedly illegal but it did not really stop as I will explain.

With the expansion of the country west came the construction of the railroad systems. Much of the hard work was done by immigrant Chinese workers. These simple men were paid much less than white men of the day and were worked 6 days a week from sunup to sundown. Food, clothing and other supplies along the road, were purchased from the railroad at high prices thus forcing again a form of slave labor. They were paid but at such a rate that it really was slave labor.

Children and uneducated immigrants from other parts of the world found themselves working in poor and dangerous conditions for almost nothing. The practice in the textile and garment industries was so disgraceful that laws were finally passed putting a somewhat end to it. There are still cases of people being brought over to the USA thinking they are going to get a new life and job but finding themselves working in a sweathouse instead.

Today the slave owners or overlords are much smarter and have the backing of the government. They realize that they can’t legally get anyone to work for pennies a day here in the US, so they look for slaves to do the slaving in other poor countries. Places like China, Malaysia and Mexico come to mind. The slave owners (business men) point out that they are paying a good wage in that country and the people are happy to have the job. Well the businesses are happy to enjoy the profits on the backs of the slaves as well. The real losers here are the workers in our country who lost the job they should have had. We can make all kinds of economic arguments about why we need to do this, but no matter what is said, we are still not compensating someone for the work they are doing and to me that is not only slavery, but very unethical and dishonest and we should be ashamed of ourselves.

The biggest pool of slave labor today is the Mexican immigrant that are streaming over the boarders of our country. Don’t think for a minute that we do not, as a country, want this to happen. Oh you individually may think it is bad but the farmers and business people in the states that boarder Mexico talk a good talk, but they want that cheap labor that can’t easily complain working in their fields and stores. The politicians bluster and huff all the time about it, but they really know that they are not about to cut off their big farm constituents by really stopping the practice.

The workers are hard working good people and we do need them. We need them to get a fair wage for their work, get benefits, and most importantly pay Social Security and other taxes. Being illegal now they are just takers of the system not givers. We pay for their emergency health care, educate their children, and many other things that they should and would contribute to if they could afford it. They have no recourse but to be overworked at very low pay because if they complain they will be kicked out of the country.

Let’s face it, as a father I know how I would feel. You look across the Rio Grande River and see a US born child playing with a toy that cost more than you make in a year. You see how healthy and happy and what a life the US child has in his future and look at your own children and know that he or she will never ever be so blessed. I know I would do all I could to get that life for my kids, and I bet you would as well.

But becoming a US slave is a poor way to do it. We need to actively build a wall that they can’t get over. I am talking about having everyone in the country prove they are citizens. Issue citizens identification that can’t be, or at least very very hard to counterfeit. The penalty for counterfeiting could be a long prison term and or deportation. It may be just as easy as giving your SS number when you apply for a job. A data base could be accessed and if the name you give does not match the name and photo on the card against the data base you could not be hired. Fingerprint technology is already in place so that each persons fingerprint profile could be encoded on the ID card. When the person came in to apply for a job a simple device could scan the fingerprints of the person and if they did not match the encoded profile you would know you had a forged or stolen card even if the picture matched the applicant.

The hiring of non documented people could be made a crime and if convicted you could lose your business plus a fine and prison time. Believe me this would stop the practice. If the illegal's could not get a job the flow would finally stop. Like Teddy Roosevelt said they must be made citizens and have allegiance to only one country the USA, they must learn English and take all tests and fill out all papers in English. All broadcasts of entertainment and all business including banking must conduct business only in English. This is only fair and the best thing to do to inspire them to learn English. My ancestors were German. Nobody printed signs and labels at Wall-Mart in German just to get their business. There are other nationalities coming into the country and we are not bending over backwards to let them keep their language, only Spanish speaking people. This is discrimination at its worst. It is driven by economic selfishness.

However speaking in Spanish is not a bad thing and should be encouraged. For heavens sake, there are millions of people south of the US and around the world who speak Spanish. Speaking Spanish is a fact of life and will be from now on in the US as far as I can see. It is unrealistic to think it will stop and should it? Why not teach all our children Spanish in schools from kindergarten through college. Kids would pick it up and use it in a flash. Us older folks would have to put a lot of effort in it, so lets teach it to the young first. They could have the class completely in conversational Spanish. At my age I would love to learn Spanish and still may find a way to learn it. I have tried and failed in the past, but I am still looking. If all citizens could speak both languages there would be no problem and we would just except either language as normal conversation. We would be a richer nation for the effort. We still need to have English as our official language but have the use of Spanish if we so desire.

But we still have to concentrate on a way to have an absolute barrier to stop people from entering the country by crossing our boarders. For heavens sake what are we thinking? We have a department of Homeland Security, we are spending millions of dollars tracking terrorists, but a simple Mexican could just walk across the boarder with anything they wanted to bring into the country including a bomb or bomb making materials. What makes us think, if we can’t stop that, that we can stop a really bad group from coming here? We spend millions inspecting ports and airports, but they could just fly to Mexico and walk over unchallenged. Terrorists must be laughing their asses off at us stupid Americans.

What are we going to do about it? Our need for slave, Mexican labor, is allowing us to have a very great possibility that one day we will see a mushroom cloud over Disneyland. How are you going to like that? If we don’t get our do nothing representatives in government, to stop listening to the lobbyists and start doing what is good for the entire country we are going to see that some day, you can count on that sooner or later.