Poverty in the USA Just How Bad?????
- Thread starter windy
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In my view, the post below is totally wrong - nothing but a sob story. In the US, no one willing to work needs to starve. At least not when I left, three years ago.
I speak from experience. For years I was an interpreter/translator for an organization that provided free legal assistance to people below the poverty level in the DC area.
Many of our clients were illegal aliens who did not even speak English, but still managed to find and hold jobs. Initially they were preyed upon by their employers, but after a couple of years they found their footing, brought their families over, moved out of crumbling rental apartments (NOT SUBSIDIZED), bought modest homes and sent their children to school and to community colleges. Often, two or three families pooled their resources to buy a home, then gradually moved out as they got better paying jobs.
During my years as an interpreter I saw young Mexican guys arrive empty handed, start by raking leaves and shoveling out driveways, and in ten years end up with eight crews doing yard maintenance for three hundred homes.
I saw a Salvadorean man who had been sent to work in the fields at age six to support his widowed mother and two younger siblings. He didn't get a chance to attend school, so he never learned to read or write. He started working as a day laborer and ended up with a small linen supply company, serving local motels and employing a dozen people.
Sometimes I interpreted at inner-city schools' PTA meetings. Hispanic parents never missed a meeting and insisted on knowing exactly how their children were doing. US-born parent's often did not show up, despite repeated calls.
The US offers many opportunities for those who choose to go out and seek them out, instead of sitting down to feel sorry for themselves. There may be areas with fewer opportunities, but enterprising people go where the jobs are - they don't stay home waiting for employers to go knocking on the door, or for the government to support them.
I guess the main thing is that immigrants MAKE their own opportunities, while many Americans born in poverty (or in subsidized projects, sob, sob....!) feel ENTITLED to have opportunities, and expect the government to provide them.
Frankly, some don't realize how easy they have it, compared to the rest of the world. They sound like spoiled children: "GIMME... GIMME... GIMME....!"
I speak from experience. For years I was an interpreter/translator for an organization that provided free legal assistance to people below the poverty level in the DC area.
Many of our clients were illegal aliens who did not even speak English, but still managed to find and hold jobs. Initially they were preyed upon by their employers, but after a couple of years they found their footing, brought their families over, moved out of crumbling rental apartments (NOT SUBSIDIZED), bought modest homes and sent their children to school and to community colleges. Often, two or three families pooled their resources to buy a home, then gradually moved out as they got better paying jobs.
During my years as an interpreter I saw young Mexican guys arrive empty handed, start by raking leaves and shoveling out driveways, and in ten years end up with eight crews doing yard maintenance for three hundred homes.
I saw a Salvadorean man who had been sent to work in the fields at age six to support his widowed mother and two younger siblings. He didn't get a chance to attend school, so he never learned to read or write. He started working as a day laborer and ended up with a small linen supply company, serving local motels and employing a dozen people.
Sometimes I interpreted at inner-city schools' PTA meetings. Hispanic parents never missed a meeting and insisted on knowing exactly how their children were doing. US-born parent's often did not show up, despite repeated calls.
The US offers many opportunities for those who choose to go out and seek them out, instead of sitting down to feel sorry for themselves. There may be areas with fewer opportunities, but enterprising people go where the jobs are - they don't stay home waiting for employers to go knocking on the door, or for the government to support them.
I guess the main thing is that immigrants MAKE their own opportunities, while many Americans born in poverty (or in subsidized projects, sob, sob....!) feel ENTITLED to have opportunities, and expect the government to provide them.
Frankly, some don't realize how easy they have it, compared to the rest of the world. They sound like spoiled children: "GIMME... GIMME... GIMME....!"
LAtoBA said:
SaraSara said:
WELL SAID SARASARA!! First off, kudos for the work you did with immigrants (though illegal ones
) Still, I would prefer to have a country full of illegal immigrants that actually contribute to society then the "I'm entitled, take care of me" citizens (if you can call them that), that darmanad and LAtoBA defend and worse, make excuses for.
LAtoBA said:
Those poor little angels doing time in juvenile hall are juvenile delinquents - they ended up there not because they made "mistakes" but because they committed criminal acts.
If parents choose not to put in the time and effort needed to educate and supervise their children, it is only fair they should shoulder the cost of housing and feeding them while they are in a correctional facility.
As Ann Landers used to put it: "Who grew those vegetables"?
SaraSara said:
SaraSara,
No offense but you have no idea what you're talking about. How many projects have you visited? Kudos to your work with "undocumented" immigrants--I also worked with them when I was living in Atlanta. Unfortunately your post is simplistic and is a complete generalization about poor people in the US and those living in the projects. How many people do you know from the projects? And I'm not talking about in passing but people that you know on a first name basis. I still have family there, so I think I know more about them and the people that live there than you.
Again, generalizations. Yes, there are some poor people that feel "entitled", but there are many more who have never had the educational opportunities or home environment conducive to a head start in life.
By the way your take on "Hispanic" parents is, excuse my french, a crock of shit. You've obviously never visited the public schools in LA on the east and south side of town. The hispanic parents are just as absent in their children's lives as any other group of parents. Hence LA's problems with gang violence and teen pregnancy.....oh yes graduation and literacy rates as well. I'm sure you're aware that half the population is Latino.
The immigrant experience is just that--the immigrant experience. It's a phenomenon not just seen in the US but across the globe. Please don't compare apples to oranges. Immigrants that come to the US to seek a better life is something completely separate from citizens stuck in generational poverty. To compare the two is completely unfair and irrational.
I commend you on your work with immigrants, but come talk to me when you've done the same work with "entitled" Americans born into poverty. And I'm not just talking about interpreting PTA meetings.
By the way a sob story is an isolated event. But what I saw while I was a mentor in Atlanta, while living and volunteering in DC (by the way at the church I volunteered at....at least half of the needy were "illegal" immigrants), and what I've seen with my own family in LA and rural Lousiana is a reality. Sobbing or not is optional. The main problem I've seen is a lack of opportunity, a lack of education, and a completely screwed up home environment--the former being critical to success.
SaraSara said:Those poor little angels doing time in juvenile hall are juvenile delinquents - they ended up there not because they made "mistakes" but because they committed criminal acts.
If parents choose not to put in the time and effort needed to educate and supervise their children, it is only fair they should shoulder the cost of housing and feeding them while they are in a correctional facility.
As Ann Landers used to put it: "Who grew those vegetables"?
What an idiotic post. So children don't make mistakes Sara? Do you honestly want to sit there and believe that all teenagers have good judgment? Uh no. The only difference between these children and their wealthy counterparts is that they don't have the means to hire a lawyer that can make all that "nastiness" go away.
Choice? Huh? Do you think the parents sit there all day have Mai Thais and watching "Sex in the City"? Maybe some do, many don't. Many are single women (with little education) working to make ends meet so they can put food on the table. They're doing the best they can. Even in the best circumstances a household with a mother and a father is nothing compared to the power of influence gangs hold on impressionable young men. Wow you really have no clue. Please stick to your expertise on Argentina because you clearly haven't seen much of anything in the US when it comes to poverty. This is obviously something I'm very passionate about.
But please don't feel bad, most Americans don't have a clue either. They chant "those people feel entitled" over and over again to make themselves feel better about the blatant disregard of a particular segment of the population even though the closet they've gotten to these neighborhoods are through sensationalized Hollywood movies. On the bright side at least your pro-immigration.
jaredwb said:WELL SAID SARASARA!! First off, kudos for the work you did with immigrants (though illegal ones
Still, I would prefer to have a country full of illegal immigrants that actually contribute to society then the "I'm entitled, take care of me" citizens (if you can call them that), that darmanad and LAtoBA defend and worse, make excuses for.
Jared,
You don't even have a clue about the people I "defend". Stick to your Fox News specials on "welfare moms" and "illegal immigrants". Thanks.
LAtoBA said:
Those immigrants were stuck in generational poverty far worse than anything seen in the US. No one gave them any educational opportunities either - they just had to manage without them. But it is true that the right home environment is the key: the immigrants I worked with had strong family values, and that gave them and their children the edge.
I'm unfamiliar with LA, and can only speak of my own experience. Just as you speak only from your own experience. So, please, can that "you don't know what your are saying" tone - in my own area, I know as much as you do in yours.
However, you are right that comparing illegal aliens to American-born project dwellers is unfair - things are FAR harder for immigrants.
People born in the projects are American citizens, and enjoy many advantages undocumented, illiterate Hispanic immigrants could kill for. For one thing, they speak English. And, they are entitled to food stamps, and subsidized housing. Immigrants have none of those advantages, and yet they manage to thrive.
The don't have to hide from the police, and they can go to emergency room for treatment when they get knifed. Hispanic immigrants, even when documented, did not dare go to the police, their past experience with police in their home countries being so bad.
I forgot to mention that I also worked as a ride-along interpreter for the Alexanria police, assigned to cars patrolling Hispanic neighborhoods. I saw how scared the Latinos got when they saw our cruiser coming, even when they were picnicking in the park.
You seem honest in your post, and I apologize if mine offended you. By the way, calling my opinion on Hispanic parents "a crock of shit" was unnecessary - I thought your own post was precisely that, but did not say it. There's no percentage in hurling insults - they only make the insulting party look stupid.
SaraSara said:
I'm sorry but the difference is I've worked, volunteered, and lived in more than just "one area". My experiences are not just based on LA. That's the point I'm trying to make.
SaraSara said:
This is what I mean when I say I don't think you're properly informed on the issue. Illegal immigrants are entitled to things such as food stamps if there is at least one US citizen within the household, ie. a child born in the US from an undocumented immigrant. They can also qualify for other benefits as well.
SaraSara said:
I may have come across strong but you were making an ethnic/racial generalization that is simply not true.. My apologies if I came off a bit strong.
My post was based on a broad range of facts and experiences with poor Americans. Your post was based on your interaction with illegal immigrants not US born folks born into poverty. My problem is that line of reasoning always leads to, "If I, If they could do it.........then x,y, and z should be able to do it as well". That's looking at a social problem/phenomenon far too simplistically.
There were no US citizens in those households - not for the first couple of years, at least. The lawyers knew, and had me tell our clients, that they were entitled to a few things. The problem was that they were so scared of anything having to do with the GOVERNMENT that they didn't really believe us, and thus their lives were that much more difficult.
These people came from hill villages in Colombia and Guatemala, and they were the poorest of the poor - never had a proper diet, never even had running water. Many were were toothless at age forty.
They were so ignorant they could not even fill a form, and so trusting that they would sign anything we put before them. I took great pains trying to teach them to NEVER SIGN ANYTHING THEY DIDN'T UNDERSTAND, but it was uphill work. They were used to doing as they were told, and would sign where they were told. So they signed predatory rental agreements, and car loans at insane interest rates pushed by the dealers who sold them wrecks that self-destructed before the ink on the loan was dry, etcetera.
As to my making ethnic/racial generalizations, from what you say the projects in LA are full of people who came from Mexico, just as many of our clients did, so we are talking about the same people. Perhaps it depends on what kind of town they came from - people from small towns often have stronger family ties, and that helps hold them together in tough times..
Well, I'm sorry but I have to say it again: if such poor, ignorant people can make it in the US, anyone can. That may sound simplistic to you, but the unvarnished truth is often simple.
Anyway, I'm glad we have both cooled off and are having an interesting discussion instead of attacking each other.
Have you ever worked with Native Americans? I once spent four months driving and camping around the Four Corners area, and up and down the Rockies, and was appalled by the abject poverty I saw at the reservations. Even Window Rock was dismal.
These people came from hill villages in Colombia and Guatemala, and they were the poorest of the poor - never had a proper diet, never even had running water. Many were were toothless at age forty.
They were so ignorant they could not even fill a form, and so trusting that they would sign anything we put before them. I took great pains trying to teach them to NEVER SIGN ANYTHING THEY DIDN'T UNDERSTAND, but it was uphill work. They were used to doing as they were told, and would sign where they were told. So they signed predatory rental agreements, and car loans at insane interest rates pushed by the dealers who sold them wrecks that self-destructed before the ink on the loan was dry, etcetera.
As to my making ethnic/racial generalizations, from what you say the projects in LA are full of people who came from Mexico, just as many of our clients did, so we are talking about the same people. Perhaps it depends on what kind of town they came from - people from small towns often have stronger family ties, and that helps hold them together in tough times..
Well, I'm sorry but I have to say it again: if such poor, ignorant people can make it in the US, anyone can. That may sound simplistic to you, but the unvarnished truth is often simple.
Anyway, I'm glad we have both cooled off and are having an interesting discussion instead of attacking each other.
Have you ever worked with Native Americans? I once spent four months driving and camping around the Four Corners area, and up and down the Rockies, and was appalled by the abject poverty I saw at the reservations. Even Window Rock was dismal.