Amongst the varied points raised in Peter Kwong’s “What’s Wrong with the U.S. Immigration Debate?”, stands an issue that is touched upon seldom: the ever-increasing ethnic disunity created between documented and undocumented individuals of the same race through the passage of legislation and the continued exploitation of said legislation. These laws are many and far between, but the policies of guest worker programs, most notably the Bracero program, shall be highlighted to emphasize the competition-fueled partitioning of Mexican communities and Asian communities
The Bracero program, dutifully coined after the Spanish term for manual laborer, attempted to atone for the lack of laborers during the mid 20th century. In doing so, Mexican laborers were contracted temporarily to the United States. These workers were subject to minimal wage, approximately 30 or so cents an hour, and were guaranteed basic human necessities during their stay. These individuals were not considered to be Americans citizens and were excluded from traditional American freedoms as such (Kwong 304). Throughout the entirety of this program, rooted manual laborers of the United States were in fierce competition with these temporary manual laborers. U.S. born Mexican laborers prominently worked within the agricultural economy of the United States and faced an exponential decrease in wage once cheaper work forces were found in Bracero workers. An antagonistic relationship forms between these two ethnic subcategories: native workers are unable to sustain themselves through their daily work practices while Bracero workers face discrimination for the financial opportunities provided to them, albeit not in the soundest conditions, by the United States. This precedent of cultural disunity escapes the confines of the 20th century and finds solace in the recent to present-day Chinatown.
Newly migrated citizens often join pre-existing ethnic communities to offset a portion of the difficulty associated with immigration: potential language barriers, a lack of support groups, and the inability to acquire jobs due to the aforementioned barriers. Employers capitalize on the latter by exploiting a legislative technicality; correspondingly, legislation has been passed that follows the notion that employers are not allowed to hire undocumented workers. This law differentiates between two subcategories of race: illegal and legal. If an employer is to purposively blur this line, then he or she will have access to a relatively large workforce who among themselves are competing for job placement. Once competition rises, both labor conditions and wage diminish. Kwong highlights this shift by recounting the experience of Mrs. Tang (307).
“Mrs. Tang, a schoolteacher in Guangdong Province who had immigrated to Brooklyn in the early 1980s, recalled at that time, she worked eight hours a day and earned $40 to $50 a day. Today, with competition from the Fuzhounese, she slaves twelve hours a day to make a paltry $30.”
Individuals who could once fight for proper workplace treatment are forced into this unfair treatment by two forces, lest they find another job source: employers who are constantly employed and, inadvertently, immigrant workers who are able to make ends due with such treatment. Given this, a large scale anti-immigration sentiment forms within a populace. Asian Americans who would once look favorably upon immigration in hopes of expanding their ethnic community, now look at immigration with disdain. These citizens, many of who are manual laborers, are subject to pre-labor law typified work, indicative of sweatshop-like conditions, slashed pay, and unsteady employment. To phase out the cultural divide imposed upon ethnic communities by legislation, this legislation must be amended to arrest exploitation.
