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Sending money homeFew human actions are nobler than leaving home to work in difficult and unfamiliar surroundings to send a portion of the paycheck back to family members. That scenario is being played out today all over the world as people gravitate to foreign jobs, while leaving desperate relatives behind, in acts of human compassion that may be the difference between life and death for the family in the home country. We spent a week on board a cruise ship to celebrate 35 years of marriage and to get away for a vacation after a busy and stressful spring and summer. The ship sailed from Boston with registry in Nassau. It is Norwegian owned but the crew had few Scandinavians. They were mostly Philipino, Indians and Hispanics. In my usual political incorrectness, I said that I'd located the Iowa packing plant illegals; they'd lost their knives but been given towels, instead. Some cook and clean and others drape the towel over their arm and wait tables. In talking with those who speak English, it is clear that they are not career seamen and cabin stewards but refugees from lands where poverty abounds while jobs do not. I am not implying these people are illegal, but the same system that sources people for "jobs we won't do" in our factories and hotels is also finding people for the cruise line industry. These workers possess several attractive characteristics; they are quick, young and cheap. The stories of their lives are heart wrenching, as a Philipino girl said she left her four-week-old baby with her mother and sister so she could work for nine months on a cruise line. Others long for home but get six unpaid weeks off before their next tour. The implications are obvious and not unlike those of people in our own rural region back in the 1930s. An old farm broadcaster from Oklahoma City would regale us with stories of himself and his cousin installing a box on the back of the family Model T and taking the cash pooled by two families to head west and look for work. When they arrived at Grand Canyon, he found work as a mule skinner while his cousin became a cook. Their mission was to send money home, so they lived very frugally and provided as much as they could for their kinfolk who had deep admiration for their actions. Now, 80 years later, young people around the world face the same situation. Why? Why should anyone have to endure the indignity of being willing to work without the opportunity to work at a living wage? There are two answers: one is social and the other is economic. The social answer is that governments of many countries don't see it as their obligation to encourage employment for their citizens. On this cruise, you could tell who they were since no Americans, Brits or Scandinavians were on the ship unless they were officers. There were plenty of brown and black people, however, and publicly they seemed to completely accept their station in life and were joyous in their interactions with passengers and others on the crew. This brings up the economic reality: enterprising entrepreneurs source people just like they source coffee, tea or green beans. Once a minimum standard and pay scale are established, then those who wish to sign on can be found all over the world and assembled to do the job. The problem of this system is that immigration policies prevent the workers the opportunity for citizenship in the country that draws them for their labor. In American history, many nationalities came to America to flee poverty and oppression. We economically and socially oppressed them for one or more future generations but most gained the opportunity to be citizens. Today our businesses beckon the many but our immigration policy only welcomes the few. We talk one game (border fences and strict immigration quotas) and play another one (come and work illegally and we'll pay you enough you can live and send some home). I find this hypocrisy my greatest disillusionment with America today. We developed our government and society based on the needs of the many and the rights of the few. In many countries, there is no consideration for the needs of the common person. Aren't we better than that, when those people have been lured to our industries to allow us to keep our standard of living up and our costs down? In these refugee workers, I am amazed at the resilience of the human spirit even when governments and most citizens seem blind. It also shows that, when opportunities are limited, the bold and resourceful rise to meet the needs of their families and seem to gain a sense of accomplishment and belonging in doing so. Neither presidential candidate has a platform for immigration that comes close to addressing the immensity of the problem. Fences on the Mexican border, ICE raids on the interior and state laws penalizing employers don't address the millions of undocumented (illegal) immigrants living in the United States or the poverty in their home countries. Does it all come down to money or is there a moral obligation not unlike abortion or slavery that enters into trafficking in human labor? Editor's Note: This is Ken Root's 34th year as an agricultural reporter. He grew up on a small farm in central Oklahoma and started his career as a vocational agriculture teacher. He worked in Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri as a broadcaster and was the original host of AgriTalk. He has also been the executive director of the National AgriChemical Retailers Association in Washington, D.C. and the National Association of Farm Broadcasters in Kansas City. Ken is now the lead farm broadcaster at WHO and WMT Radio based in Des Moines, Iowa. He has been a columnist for HPJ and Midwest Ag Journal for seven years. Advertisement
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