Reading for March 12th, 2007

The reading for today is Chapter 12 out of Zinn entitled "El Norte: the borderland of Chicano America". It describes the move north of many Mexican and Latin American people to America and its effects on Mexico and the United States. It changed the Mexican infrastructure by forcing farmers to the cities to work factory jobs and shortly after the big move made the Mexican Revolution, pitting rival factions in a brutal war against each other.
Among other things, he talks about the railroad that entered Mexico and its effects on migration. Mainly, the idea that Mexicans began working a vast array of jobs was a main point. They had spread across the southern states and even to portions of Michigan and Illinois. Quoted from the text, Zinn describes the Mexican labor force as "usually assigned to the worst jobs and received the lowest wages" during the great immigration boom of the early 1900's. They often worked "contract to contract" so that opportunities were limited to them and could basically become slave labor.
The idea of the Mexican immigrant being poor is not a surprise to me during the early 1900's. What is interesting to me, however, that during the 2000's, this really hasn't changed. Mexican Americans pride themselves on how much work they can accomplish and how efficiently it is done. In the same token, the average American puts in very little work into their work. It would seem more reasonable to pay the hardest worker the most money to do their work efficiently. It is more profitable to capitalize off of the hard work of someone than to pay more money for less work. My question would be why are Mexicans paid very little even in this century?
This article basically solidified everything I thought about the treatment of Mexicans and Mexican Americans. I believe they are treated unfairly in the American culture. Where I do believe that there should be restriction on immigration, I believe that the Mexican natives that are present in the states right now should be treated better and given better jobs.