para vivir, trabajar

For years, white flight fed the town's growth, the river that divided one old county from the next maybe even feeding that movement, making the more western territory seem just that much more separate, just that much more safe, just that much more secure. If only there were a drawbridge, as there was certainly a not-so-secret code explaining who was welcome and who was not. So much of a code that it never would have occurred to those fine white folks that any kind of immigration from the wider world would have anything to do with them. But, time and progress march on, though, further and further west, even to towns not so fortunate as to have their own moats (save for those who dig their own out of the fertile floodplain soil), eventually making this old river town a bit more of pit stop than a destination.

But as the white people move on to places with bigger subdivisions and fancier strip malls (no accounting for taste), the interstates keep rolling through and the restaurant dishes still need to be washed, and the toilets still need to be scrubbed, and the grass still needs to be mowed, and the food still needs to be fried, and the laundry still needs to be washed, and the motel beds still need to be made, and the carpet still needs to be laid, and the shingles still to be nailed, and the tables still need to be bussed, and the rent becomes affordable, and the apartments are available, and the accessible neighborhoods are mostly livable--the immigrants, hardest working people in America, as far as I can tell, arrive. Are there. And will stay, despite any piece of legislation, including the current proposal that seems to prefer they didn't exist. And the same patterns that have fed the town for years continue, though the complexion and the accent begin to change. It's the most American story there is, really, though some people around there think it's brand new.

Leave it to Congress, where no reality is so real that it can't be gussied up, outright ignored, or compromised out of existence, to design a proposal that rewards immigrants with education and sophisticated job skills despite the fact that our economy is built on the backs of people with neither of those things. That's not the only flaw in this week's surely short-lived plan, of course, but it is one of the highlights. Just as a certain faction of this old river town enjoys its restaurants and lawn care and expert, cheap roofing when the hail storms sweep through but gets a certain narrow-eyed look when changing demographics, barely noticeable as they are, are pointed-out, so many Americans want cheap chicken from Tyson and cheap oranges from Florida and a college-educated third-generation Guatemalan-American to harvest them both. That's just not how it works, either now or in the past.

This, however, is how it works, or how it will work, and, perhaps, what we should really be alarmed about, because it does represent a future that is different than the past:

"The Labor Department estimates that 37 percent of all new jobs in the next decade will be filled by people with a high school education or less. Of the 10 occupations expected to see the largest job growth, only two require a college degree. On-the-job training is usually enough for the other occupations, like retail sales clerks, home health aides and food service workers, the department said."

Welcome to America! Crappy jobs for everyone! Even the Americans. Forever! No way up, no way out. But don't forget to blame the brown person to your left.