On November 4, 2008 Barack Obama
was elected president and he promised change specifically with how much of a
failure the immigration reform has been. As we discussed in class, the economy
recession forced Obama to put his focus on trying to fix the financial crisis
and put immigration to the side. In 2012, when he was re-elected he promised
once again to “continue” to improve the immigration saga. It is now 2015, and innocent mothers, fathers
and kids are still being deported all because they don’t have a piece of paper
saying “U.S Citizen”. In November 2014
though, Obama made changes to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)
program that would benefit some parents and youth a granted type of temporary permission
to stay in the U.S. This allows the
undocumented to work with exemption from deportation.
I
have worked in numerous restaurants working as a server. Each restaurant had
its own different atmosphere, procedures, cliental, coworkers and mangers. The
one thing that stayed consistent? The kitchen staff. Each kitchen staff
consisted of all Latinos. A good majority of which do not have citizenship and
use some type of work permit. Never have
I seen an African American or more than one Caucasians working in the back
besides at Applebee’s. The only Caucasian I have seen working in the kitchen
was slow, made frequent errors, late to work, and ended up getting fired. Now I
am not saying all Caucasians are like Ken, it just happened to be that he was a
bad employee but guess who took this spot? A Latino and boy the difference he
made was highly noticeable by the staff.
First
few days of the hiring, my fellow coworkers were making jokes about it. “Good
thing they hired another illegal, my tables can’t wait over ten minutes for an appetizer”
and “them Mexicans got some special hands. My salads were done before I even
ringed it in. I’ma have to start calling him Speedy Gonzales”. The servers were putting the kitchen staff
down, specifically the new guy, but yet praising him for doing his job
correctly or perhaps above the line and this is not something new. Each restaurant,
most of the servers discriminate the kitchen staff as if they were all criminals,
creeps, or fresh off the boarder wetbacks. When I could see dishes racked up
and the kitchen staff was too busy, I would help out and do some dishes to help
out the team. What do I get in return? A good job from my managers and from the
kitchen staff but the servers would crack jokes saying “oh hey Will, one of
them now?” as they leave another dirty dish on the sink. What does that even
mean? One of them? Yes I am Mexican as well, but that does not mean I have to
be in the kitchen to be considered Mexican. They discriminate the kitchen
workers without even personally knowing them.
Being
bilingual, I have gotten the chance to converse and really connect with the Hispanics.
Each has their own story on why they are here. One cook told me he has ten
years without seeing his parents and eight years saving up for a house to them.
He plans on leaving back within the next 2 years as he is close to reach his
goal of $10,000. Another told me he had been threatened to join Los Zetas
Cartel but escaped the danger and came here. Over 60,000 people have been
killed since 2006 and government is more corrupted than anybody else’s. It is time for a change, so innocent mothers,
fathers, and the youth of America won’t get thrown back to the place they had
left for a better life.
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