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As I spoke with a neighbor the other day who is in the midst of house construction, the changes in our country became ever more evident. One of the brick<\/a> columns<\/a> on his carport was crooked and the construction company<\/a> owner had sent a man to break down the column so the bricklayer could come in and reconstruct it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As the worker<\/a> began demolishing the brick column, my neighbor tried to stop him as he was breaking down the wrong column. The worker looked at him in confusion and muttered, \u201cno comprendae.\u201d He was from Mexico<\/a> and spoke no English. At that point, it was no longer relevant as to what language he spoke; the damage and consequent delay in finishing construction had been done.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I admit that I am quick to jump on the bandwagon about hollering and screaming that the borders need to be shut down. The Mexicans<\/a> are taking over more and more of the jobs meant for Americans \u2013 in their own country. I also admit to being the person, despite my mild temperament, who wants to slam the phone down when I get a recording that says, \u201cPress 1 for English.\u201d Nothing angers me more than having to press \u201c1\u201d because this is the United States of America<\/a> and our language is English!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Today, as I was walking down my driveway to pick up the mail, I looked over and observed two masons laying brick columns. They were Mexican<\/a>,\u00a0and my first thoughts again were another American job taken over by a foreigner. My second thought was there would have to be an American willing to lay bricks to take the job back, and obviously there wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n While I am still in favor of securing our borders and giving jobs to out of work Americans, I am not so na\u00efve as to assume an American wants the job. Isn\u2019t that one of the reasons there are so many foreigners working in our country today? I look around the area where I live and there are many, many Mexicans holding down construction jobs, mason jobs, and the grass cutting businesses are almost entirely made up of Mexican employees. My husband hired a Mexican to work construction with him. Before he went back home to Mexico, my husband and this man had grown quite fond of each other. He was a hard worker and willing to learn construction. On his visits home, he used his newly learned carpenter skills to improve his house and build a business for his wife.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n While he was an outstanding worker and emulated my husband\u2019s every move, he was unwilling to learn English<\/a>. Fortunately, my husband is fluent in French (this is Southern Louisiana with Cajun French culture) and is also able to communicate in Spanish<\/a> \u2013 otherwise, this working relationship would not have worked. During their lunch breaks,\u00a0my husband\u00a0would learn additional Spanish, but the worker had no interest in learning English, no matter how hard my husband tried to teach him a few words. My husband hired a Mexican because there were no Americans interested in doing manual construction labor.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A number of years ago, I worked at a local university. Students would graduate and eventually come back to work on their MBA. It was not unusual to hear them admit that they couldn\u2019t find a job that paid what they thought they were worth. They admitted to not wanting to start at the ground level and work their way up. It seemed like very few wanted to \u201cpay their dues\u201d, they wanted to be hired in management level positions straight out of school.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
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