Impoverished Immigrants

A few points that stood out to me in Migrating to Prison by Garcia-Hernandez, are the reasons why immigrants work in the United States and immigration prisons. To build our critical consciousness, we must understand the political histories and immigration incarceration that leads up to where things stand today. Garcia-Hernandez mentions, “With migration comes the possibility of wealth and pushed to the margins of society” (39). Having people migrate boosts the economy because more people are working at a cheaper rate than people who live in America would work for. Since many migrants come from other countries, they normally have little to no money to support themselves so they are desperate for any job that they can find. From this situation, many people in the past couple of years have become aware of this and are angry by how they are taking over the jobs that the people that are U.S. citizens should be having.

“The Bracero Program was formally designed to give employees the upper hand” (41). From this program, Garcia-Hernandez mentions that his grandfather experienced verbal abuse, long hours in the sun, and not being able to go use the restroom. They were tortured and seen as animals rather than humans. They were disrespected and many of the migrants stayed to work because it was a stable income. Understanding the way the U.S. sees immigrants is important because they are people just like the rest of us. Even though we may not have come from the same background, we have all gone through some type of trial that has impacted our lives in some way. We must be able to remember our struggles and understand the struggles that they are also going through. “It was as if braceros weren’t humans who build relationships with other people and who create attachment to places” (43). This saying points out the discrimination that immigrants face. The way the Mexicans were treated are also similar to the way the African American slaves were treated. Instead of being seen as a person, they were and sometimes are still seen as just a tool or equipment. This critical consciousness is especially important in nursing because we must see each patient as a person and not their disease. If we were to treat them as an immigrant or a slave then they will not be able to get the right treatment that they would need to better their health.

Although I do not have stories from NGS about the kids immigration or their parent’s immigration stories, I can understand the concept about how the migrants have been exploited for political and financial gain while being dehumanized. My grandpa on my mom’s side is a paper son, which means he immigrated to the United States illegally. This was challenging for him because he had to put a fake name and date of birth to come over. The job that he got after he came over from China was a cook in a Chinese restaurant. The pay was low and it was difficult for him to support himself. This is similar to the struggles in Migrating to Prison because people from Mexico went to the United States to work for cheap labor. After all, it helped support themselves and their family. Mexicans were “Pushed off their land and threatened with the most brutal of violence, Mexicans were relegated to a status of an “inferior racial other”- a source of cheap labor heaped at the bottom of the region’s racial hierarchy” (Garcia-Hernandez, 40). Many people came to America so that they can get a better salary. They weren’t expecting to be exploited for financial and political gain.

Soon after though, the Bracero program was taken away and Mexican’s were seen as illegal and not allowed to work in the United States. At the job that I work at, I interact with kids from Venetia and Davidson Middle School and would learn about how some of them are not able to get lunch during the day. They would come to this program so that they can get some food which is heartbreaking for me because they think that skipping lunch is not a big deal. From this detail, I am reminded from Garcia-Hernandez that “Almost one out of five children lives in poverty” (99). The statistics stands out to me because that is a 20% chance that a child will face poverty. I would not want anyone having to go through the travails of trying to survive with nothing.

Some of my friends that I went to high school had parents who are immigrants and it was difficult for them because they would always worry about what could happen to their parents. They would work outside of school to contribute money to support their family and help their siblings. I knew from this, that I was very fortunate and glad that I did not have to go through the struggles that they were dealing with. One of my friends’ grandparents were also trying to get their green card, but could not for some reason and had to go back to Yemen. This was painful for the family because they were all really close and her grandma would be going back without her family. The difficulties that undocumented immigrants contribute a great portion to society, yet the U.S. still does not want them. It is through Garcia-Hernandez’s book that the stories of immigrant prisons for kids and adults can relate to some of my friends back in high school. Although I never asked them about this, I know that this subject can be hard to talk about for them. “None of us deserve to be in prison” (Garcia-Hernandez, 167). We are all humans and should be treated for who we are. It should not depend if we are Americans because when we go to other countries, we are also immigrants.

In NGS, the program supports the kids in many ways. They humanize each kid by getting to know their names and understand who they are. Through this, they can connect to each student and help them with the subject that they may be struggling in. Many of the workers, if not all, speak Spanish so that they can communicate to the parents, which I find important because that is establishing a relationship. Through speaking the language that the parents are familiar with, they are humanizing them and making them feel welcomed into the community rather than just forcing them to speak a language that they are not comfortable with. If more people were to speak other languages, we would be able to connect to them and make them feel welcomed. In Migrating to Prison, although it was not a topic focused on, the Americans never attempted to speak in Spanish to communicate with them or to even treat them nicely when they working in the field.