Immigrant Voting

http://www.fresnostatenews.com/2002/March/RighttoVoteAbroad.html

Why is voting important for people in Mexican American communities? Our text discusses the importance of naturalized 2nd generation American citizens to vote to improve the rights of people trying to come to this country. This country was built on illegal immigration and has thrived on the destruction of others trying to do the same thing.
Bedolla talks about the socioeconomic status and the gap between Anglos and Mexicans. She touches on the relationship between lower income Mexican immigrants and white people. Class differences determine political power. People with money are always going to dominate political parties and Bedolla’s reasoning for voting is trying to lessen the gap. She explains how voting is generally lower in Mexican communities because of potential voters being uninformed. I agree with her about the importance of Mexican people voting. Not only are they helping themselves get rights but also immigrants entering the country.

Mexican Immigrant Workers and the U.S. Economy

Here is a link to what we have been recently reading and discussing in class. It shows how throughout history and even now Mexican Immigrant workers have almost no choice of where to work and very little employee rights. As discussed in Walls and Mirrors The United States has always needed a supply of labor for jobs that most people do not want to do. This reports compares to the books be detailing the value and necessity for foreign-born laborers.

Americans feel like these jobs are below them or they are too good to be involved in agriculture. Without this cheap exploited labor our economy would significantly drop. Manufacturing and services are becoming dominated with immigrants labor. People are complaining about immigrants but are not taking the time to realize their value and how much of a necessity they are to our economy.

http://www.ailf.org/ipc/ipf0902.asp