“Born worker,” by Gary Soto, is composed of a short story of how a lower-middle class boy, José, learns a lesson by involving himself with his cousin, Arnie, and his ideas. While most people around have the money to buy new things often, José’s family only has enough to survive; they must work to get rewarded. Arnie, however, is spoiled with many valuables inaccessible for José, and lacks integrity within himself. After saving the life of Mr. Clemens, José realizes that your actions speak for what you need to be proud of yourself for.
shows a young man who is forced to work to earn money for his family.
Although, Conventional wisdom dictates that the age at which children started work was connected to the poverty of the family. Griffith presents two autobiographies to put across her point. Autobiography of Edward Davis who lacked even the basic necessities of life because of his father’s heavy drinking habit and was forced to join work at a small age of six, whereas the memoir of Richard Boswell tells the opposite. He was raised up in an affluent family who studied in a boarding school. He was taken out of school at the age of thirteen to become a draper’s apprentice.
Imagine waking up and regretting going to work not because you don’t love your job, but because you are facing injustices at your workplace. When we apply for a job we expect to get hired and when we do, we are always nervous and anxious on our first day because we don 't know what to expect. In “Nickle and Dimed” by Barbara Ehrenreich, she is an undercover journalist that explores the impact of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act on the working poor in the United Sates. Ehrenreich explores the process of applications and the difficulties of being a low-wage worker in and outside the workplace. The process of applications could be scary as well as humiliating, in some cases. Sometimes, the application process seems unfair, and the workplace and its
In the story “The Children Couldn’t Wait” by Tomas Rivera, he speaks of a family that is working, and can’t get water whenever they want. They have to wait for their boss to come back to ranch in order to get some water to drink. Which that lead to a dramatic cause. Also in the story “Unknown” the family is poor and doesn’t have enough money for many things. In order to get them, they go to school because they know that it will give them a better future. The theme for this is “ Hard work is the price we must pay for success.” For me this felt like a story taught me to keep working hard because no matter how hard you work, you will get paid back with a positive. action.
The story takes place in Chicago with a group of immigrants. They have come to the United States only to discover that it is a cruel, harsh world, and the land of shattered dreams. The group first goes through many difficult trials and tribulations. The first big problem faced by the group is a marriage, which costs a great deal of money. The second ordeal is a very tragic death. After these one couple buys a house that is sold to them for three times its value. The parents and other groups then move into the house. One of the characters goes into the meat packing industry and this is where we find out all of the unsanitary details of the factory. Another character is a musician who is struggling to find work so his wife takes a job. After a while the character at the meat packing plant breaks his arm and is not received back once he heals. He learns at this that the owners do not care for their workers and will take you if you are new, but as soon as something happens they throw you out. It is at this point that the character talks to a Socialist ad he inspires him to begin traveling to the meetings. He returns to his job and becomes the manager immediately. After his first Socialist rally, he listens to mainly two people; one an ex-professor who has become a philosopher and the other an evangelist who has become a traveler.
In the biographical sketches, "Sam Walton /Jay-Z" writer George Packer summarizes how both these individual rose to fame, acknowledging their accomplishment, although there was a dark path to obtain it. Comparably, "Serving in Florida" Barbara Ehrenreich, details through her experiment, that living on minimum wage is a hazel and involves sacrifices and challenges to ultimately succeed and survive. Similarly, in the article "Class in America-2009" writer Gregory Mantsios answered the many myths that evoke the American Dream, to help us as avoid the horrifying truth in America; there is no American Dream. Indeed, although these writers present a distinctive scenario of individuals trying to obtain the American dream, all these writers portray that the American dream is not as simple as it is said.
Shipler concludes the book with these thoughts: "Workers at the edge of poverty are essential to America's prosperity, but their well-being is not treated as an integral part of the whole. Instead, the forgotten wage a daily struggle to keep themselves from falling over the cliff. It is time to be ashamed." No, it is time to move past the ideology and make work pay for all Americans.
Shipler, David K. “The Working Poor: Invisible In America”. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004.
The United States of America is a country that is known for giving its citizens some of the most generous personal freedoms and rights in the world. However, living in this country and receiving those rights is a privilege that not every person in the world gets to experience.
I was so desperate to find a way again to earn a living and maintain my legal status. I former co-worker asked me to try our luck in West Virginia because an employer of Spanforce Labor, LLC was sponsoring renewal of visas. We immediately contacted the company. They told us that they are in need of hotel workers immediately. They told us that my beginning salary was $10/hour and housing was free. But we were required to pay $750 for the visa renewal. We have no option but to pay. My visa was renewed under the petition of East Coast Labor Solutions LLC (why not spanforce?) with validity of 12/03/2009 to 08/01/2010.
...e persuasive and understandable. The most important lesson I learned in this article was to appreciate those people who provide services to us. They are work at poor conditions and are forced to work as a nonstop machine to fight for their daily living. According to work perspective, for majority of the time we do not stand out for others despite their innocence, “So why didn’t I intervene”? (275). we would just remain silent in order to keep our jobs. In this essay, Ehrenreich recounts how she felt guilty for not standing up for George when he was accused of stealing goods. This feeling of inability is common in low-income people, not well-educated workers limits their opportunities to find better jobs.
In this book, we get just a glimpse into some facets of the life of a low-wage worker. We never read of car repair issues or meet anyone who uses public transportation to get to work. We also never hear of childcare issues, often a major problem for single mothers. Overall, it was an in-teresting read. However, anyone can learn much of this same information and more by simply talking to the “invisible” people who serve us every day.
...as went from making $6.50 an hour to $19.00 an hour to overlook what he once was. I learned from doing this paper exactly how hard people outside of America had it because we have every opportunity to become something great without having to do much because he have to go to school and we have all kinds of government funding to go to college and no other country in the world has that. Americans also have the ability to make all kinds of money in there field of study and in Mexico if you are not born into the money you will not have it unless something major happens. Also in America we have unions to fight for what we as workers deserve and the benefits that we receive. Americans may not like each other sometime but we all agree that you should receive all the benefits and the money deserving of the job you do.
Ray Bradbury’s “The Veldt,” and Franz Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” are prime example of how Americans take advantage of the little things in life. In today’s society people do not realize how easy they have it and will never fully understand the meaning of hard work. The children in “The Veldt” are disrespectful towards their family due to their disconnection to reality, and abandonment from their parents. “Metamorphosis” displays how the parents take advantage of their son and all the work he does for them. Both short stories display the lack of respect and abandonment towards their family members whether it’s taking advantage of them or under appreciating them due to being oblivious to their surroundings.
The poem, “What Work Is” by Philip Levine is an intricate and thought-provoking selection. Levine uses a slightly confusing method of describing what work actually is. He gives the idea that work is very tedious, however necessary. It is miserable, however, it is a sacrifice that is essentially made by many, if not all able-bodied members of society. Many have to sacrifice going to a concert or a movie, but instead works jobs with hardly a manageable salary. This poem seems to have a focus on members of the lower-class or middle-class who live paycheck to paycheck and are unable to put money away for a future for their children or for a vacation and how difficult life can be made to be while living under this type of circumstance. Levine