Week 6

LTS 360

Professor Galvez/ Professor Silva

Kevin Feliciano

[email protected]

Week # 6

How is the experience of Puerto Ricans labor migrants different from or similar to the experience of immigrants from other countries?

It was really surprising to know programs like the Farm Labor Program existed by that time. It seems like they had a very organized program where Puerto Ricans were able to work outside Puerto Rico without having to permanently move to the USA.  It had very good benefits like paid transportation, certified housing commodities for them to use while working, they would take English courses to help them with the language transition, health care and even recreational activities. What I first thought was the amount of money that requires to afford all this benefits. I just needed to read a little further to find the inevitable, the program didn’t last that long, it was too good to keep as long as anyone would want. It was quickly understood that it would require way less capital to pay for “temporary foreign laborers” such as Mexicans and Jamaicans. When I first started reading, I already understood that this program was not meant to last for a long period of time, I mean what was the end point, I genuinely don’t believe they were trying to help us just because, that’s is why is always tricky to be grateful or be cautious. Sometimes I feel blessed because I am a citizen of U.S. but sometimes, I feel ashamed of not having our own country, like the document explained, “we belong to the U.S., but we are not part of”, is really like a punch in the stomach, do I feel good, do I feel bad, should I want for Puerto Rico to be independent, would that be smart or beneficial for my people. I understand nothing is free in this life, but we should not be charged for freedom either.

Question for Feryal Khawar:

• If someone finds the double diamond a little bit too complicated to organize your thoughts, what another tool can we use?

How is the experience of Puerto Rican labor migrants different from or similar to the experience of immigrants from other countries?

One of the differences between Puerto Rican immigrant workers and  immigrants from other countries is that they are considered “colonial immigrants.” This means that colonial immigrants do not need to apply for a visa or change their legal status to vote in elections. One of the similarities of Puerto Rican immigrant workers is that they go through the same things as immigrants from other countries. For example, the economic conditions, they work in similar jobs, go to the same schools, etc. Another different experience is that the United States provided employment opportunities and negotiated the cheapest air flights between Puerto Rico and the United States. This reminded me of a movie I saw based on the Puerto Rican migration to the United States. The movie is called “La guagua aerea”. 

• Question for  Feryal Khawar:  Have you used the double diamond process or used a different method?

I read the second article.

• What is the relationship between capitalism, migration and labor? Is that a relationship that can be fair?

At least in a fully capitalist and industrially efficient society, no. Money isn’t really a material form of wealth, the intrinsic value of a dollar does not come from it the dollar itself, but the people who earn them. This is even more apparent in forms of wealth that are non representative, such as a gold coin, or even a leather sofa. The value we place in gold, and the reason we will pay for goods and services with it is because it is a representation of labor. To make a gold coin someone has to mine the gold from the earth, someone has to form and to shape it. To make a sofa someone has to cut timber, tan leather, pick cotton, someone has to refine, cut, stich assemble and stuff. The reason one values manufactured goods, or freshly harvested crops is the labor involved in their creation. Money and wealth are essentially a tradable form of labor, and in that way goods and services are the same thing.

Therefore countries don’t trade people, money, and goods. they only trade labor and those who can produce labor. Unfortunately due to supply and demand, not all labor is valued equally. One with a skilled job may not work nearly as hard as one with an unskilled job, but still skilled jobs always pay more. People by nature are not born with skills, and may not always grow up in an area where they are easily acquirable. This means that the more skills a position requires, the less and less people there are who one can hire to do it. This means people tend to be paid not by the difficulty of the work, but the scarcity of those who can perform it. It is far more grueling labor to work in a field picking tomatoes than to work in a laboratory doing experiments, but we pay scientists far more than tomato pickers. The simple truth is that there is far more of a supply of people able to pick tomatoes than operate lab equipment, and therefore employers are able to get away with paying those who work more worlds less for their work.

If we lived in a world where all jobs had equal qualified labor pools, everyone would likely be paid based on actual effort invested in their job; the amount of material wealth they can produce. But because of a variety of factors, there will likely always be unequal education and unequal opportunity given to people around the world, and until that changes I don’t think capitalism will ever be fair.

• How is the experience of Puerto Rican labor migrants different from or similar to the experience of immigrants from other countries?

  In the context of the United states, I think that compared across time the treatment of Puerto Rican immigrants seems at least somewhat similar to the treatment of many different nationalities at different times, whether it be Irish immigrants, or Italian immigrants, or others. Simply due to their numbers they are treated as a problem instead of people, and roadblocks are constructed to target them both in and out of the country.
  This is just what I glean from my point of view though. I don’t feel very comfortable speaking for an experience that is not my own.