Shut out of DACA, and traditional jobs, young immigrants start businesses to get ahead [latimes.com]

There's an erroneous impression that (im)migrants typically become permanent financial/resource burdens. Many are rightfully desperate human beings, perhaps enough so to work very hard for basic food and shelter.

And I've found they do want to work and not be a societal burden. Such laborers work very hard and should be treated humanely, including timely access to Covid-19 vaccination and proper work-related protections, but often enough are not.

Where I reside, I have noticed over decades the exceptionally strong work ethic practiced by migrants, especially in the produce harvesting sector. It's typically back-busting work that almost all post-second-generation westerners won’t tolerate for ourselves.

I have noticed over the decades that the strong work ethic practiced by new immigrants and migrants is exceptional, particularly in the produce harvesting sector. It’s hump-busting hard work that almost all second or third (and so forth) generation Westerners won’t tolerate for themselves, myself included. Every time I observe them I feel a bit guilty, since, considering it from purely a human(e) level, I see not why they should have to toil so for minimal pay and not also I?

I can truly imagine such laborers being fifty to a hundred percent more productive than their born-and-reared-here counterparts.

To be clear, I’m not implying that a strong work ethic is a trait racially genetically inherited by one generation from a preceding generation, etcetera. Rather, it’s an admirable culturally determined factor, though also in large part motivated by the said culture’s internal and surrounding economic and political conditions.

Also, I don’t support domestic businesses exporting labor abroad at very low wages, especially if there are unemployed nationals who want that work, something I feel is an unethical yet government-sanctioned business practice. Still, I too often hear similar complaints that are actually based on thinly veiled bigotry.

As for migrant workers, I believe that once they’ve resided here for a number of decades, their strong work ethics and higher-than-average productivity, unfortunately, gradually diminishes as these motivated laborers’ descendant generations’ young people become accustomed to the relatively slackened Western way of life.

One can already witness this effect in such youth getting caught up in much of our overall urban/suburban liberal culture — e.g. attire, lingo, nightlife, as well as work. ... I’ve also found that Western ‘values’ assimilation often means the unfortunate acquisition of a distasteful yet strong sense of entitlement.