“A Gringo in the lettuce fields” by Gabriel Thompson is about him working in the lettuce fields. He challenges himself to the work for two months. To the readers the purpose seem to be that he is trying to prove that its not easy. He starts as off by telling us that his in Arizona. He describes his surroundings by plainly stating how the sky is very blue and how close it is to Mexico. Thompson goes into how the work is affecting is physical body. To exclaim is point he introduces Manuel. It was kind of a comparison to how the work tires your body. Manuel tells him if you can last a week you will be fine. Which ties back to the fact that his already exhausted on the third day. Thompson then talks about his speculations about the works. He thought …show more content…
It also takes a toll on your body. Most ‘Americans’ would not want to do it. Gabriel Thompson’s essay is written in an observational point of view. Thompson tends to give his action and what he feels physically to his reader.That's because he wrote the essay as a participant instead of a speculator. Thompson choice of what role as a participant is important it makes it reliable to the readers; it emphasis on how the work is hard and not as simple as most Americans imagine it to be. If Thompson was a spectator he would have just stated what the workers were doing and how hard it seems but it would not have felt as personal as when he was doing it. His role as a participant lets the readers explore on what point his trying to prove. The readers could feel the intensity of work. Thompson shows himself as a beginner in the field as a participant his intended audience were probably in the same spot as him. To ridicule the fact that the job is as simple as most people say it is. He uses Senator John McCain stir when he told the union workers to go work in the lettuce field for Fifty Dollars an hour in 2006. By adding this example Thompson is basically stating that most people wont do the work even if they were given higher
The progressive era can be defined as a time of political reform that swept across the United States from city to city in order for workers in factories, such as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, to be given better working conditions. Many major cities across the United States took place in the Progressive Movement but one city was a major contributor to the era. This city was none other than New York City. The major players during the New York Progressive movement were people that were parts of Tammany Hall, Middle-class women reformers, and the outcome from the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire. Tammany Hall (often described as a political machine) was a group of politicians that resided in New York City, and that were often associated with
In “A Gringo in the Lettuce Fields,” Gabriel Thompson spends about two months cutting lettuce in the hot fields of Yuma alongside immigrants laborers. At first glimpse, the immigrants thought he was either crazy or an undercover immigration agent ready to deport them back to their home country. But within a few days just outside Watsonville, Thompson got to know some immigrants and sensed the backbreaking, harsh conditions work of these immigrant laborers. He would then get physically drained, and never became good enough to keep up with the machine that puts along with the rows of lettuce driving the pace of the crews. Thompson, in the end, shines a bright light on the underside of the economy, exposing injustices endured by low-paid laborers
Author, Annie Dillard, in her passage, “The Stunt Pilot,” explains how her attitude towards her understanding of art changed after meeting stunt pilot, David Rahm. Dillard’s purpose is to explain how meeting Rahm and seeing his performance transformed her, and helped her to understand what it means when work becomes art. She adopts a tone of awed appreciation in order to convey to her audience of highly literate adults how profoundly Rahm affected her. Dillard begins with a factual and objective style that sets the pace. Dillard introduces Rahm, and informs her audience that he “lived in Bellingham...a harbor town...in Haro Strait” while she lived “between the stints on the island.”
In The Harvest Gypsies, Steinbeck also describes decreasing morale in the displaced farmers as he says “the dullness shows in the faces…and in addition there is a sullenness that makes them taciturn.” The difficulty of finding adequate work to support a family during the Dust Bowl was extremely high—and as the work was competitive, these farmers implicated the work ethic that began at the beginning of the 20th
For different people, comparable situations do not always reproduce the same end results or leave the same impressions. Rather, the resulting conclusion is often highly variable. As is the case of two labors featured in the poems, My Father’s Lunch” and “The life of a Digger”. While Erica Funkhouser’s speaker, Henry, experiences injustice and lack of reward for his hard labor in “The Life of a Digger,” Margarita Engle’s speaker experiences prosperity and remuneration for their father’s hard work in “My Father’s Lunch.” Each author uses the setting of a laboring man’s lunch break to demonstrate the ramifications of a hard day’s work and the rewards or lack thereof for their efforts.
In the article "In the Strawberry Fields", Eric Schlosser uses an abundance of rhetorical strategies to influence the audience. "In the Strawberry Fields" is honest and gets to the point of the illegal immigrants working. His in depth description of the migratory workforce in California proves how farmers who pick strawberries for a living are the lowest-paid, and hardest working, which makes it an unfavorable job amongst farmers. The author uses eloquent details to get the message across that California has also become one of the most dependent states to have the availability of cheap labor. He descriptively details the backbreaking work migrants perform and the financial unsteadiness to make readers aware of their hardships and motivate a
John Steinbeck, in the novel, Grapes of Wrath, identifies the hardships and struggle to portray the positive aspects of the human spirit amongst the struggle of the migrant farmers and the devastation of the Dust Bowl. Steinbeck supports his defense by providing the reader with imagery, symbolism and intense biblical allusions. The author’s purpose is to illustrate the migrant farmers in order to fully exploit their positive aspects in the midst of hardships. Steinbeck writes in a passionate tone for an audience that requires further understanding of the situation.
In the essay "A Gringo in the Lettuce Fields," Thompson tells us about his errors and reminds us that he is an outsider. I believe the reason for this is because there is so much misconception that immigrants just come to America to take away these jobs from Americans. I also believe that immigrants know that Americans believe this to be true. With that being said, I think his target audience are both Americans and the immigrants doing this type of work. I think there is somewhat of an ignorance when it comes to understanding what this type of work entails and the damage it does to ones body.
Thus, Sinclair’s purpose of writing The Jungle failed to bring readers to advocate for the rights of workers trapped in the low wages, unsafe working conditions, and long hours of meatpacking factories, but rather, succeeded in opening the country’s eyes to the meatpacking practices that went on behind closed doors and the establishment administrations to protect the public from these unscrupulous
Humor causes the audience to be more drawn to her narrative. Additionally, Ehrenreich establishes pathos by describing the inhumane working conditions in which many Americans must endure in order to survive. Employees are fearful of losing their jobs if they do not meet the certain demands of managers who unfairly exert control on them. This all can result the audience to feel empathic towards not only Ehrenreich, but others who are forced to work under these conditions. Ehrenreich’s narrative proves to be compelling and successfully is able to get the audience to recognize the hard work of low income individuals.
Immigrants would do as many jobs needed and any work to survive, and help out their family that they had left behind. In the chapter 'Negocios ', which is the recollections of Papi first year in New York and his struggle to send money to his family, even if that meant he had no money left. Papi worked in two jobs between nineteen to twenty hours a day, seven days a week. He was so tired that his letters were filled with misspelling when he wrote to his family. Diaz depicts the first few years of the immigrant identity within this chapter.
He is a professor who specialized in literacy and learning. He also did a “study of the thought processes involved in work like that of his mother and uncle. I cataloged the cognitive demands of a range of blue-collar and service jobs, from waitressing and hair styling to plumbing and welding. To gain a sense of how knowledge and skill develop, I observed experts as well as novices. From the details of this close examination, I tried to fashion what I called “cognitive Biographies” of blue-collar workers.
Dr. Seth Holmes, who is an Assistant Professor of Public Health and Medical Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, was witness to the lives of a group of indigenous migrant farmworkers from the Triqui village of San Miguel in the mountains of Oaxaca, Mexico. Through participant observation as well as interviews with clinic staff, public health officials, farm employees, U.S. border agents, and residents of the farming areas, he paints a detailed picture of the true cost of fresh fruits and vegetables in this country. In Holmes’ account, by using the stories of real people, we learn that Triqui farmworkers deal with backbreaking work, racism, language barriers (most Triqui farmworkers understand little English or Spanish), and
In the short story “ The Circuit” by Francisco Jimenez, the lifestyle of a migrant worker is portrayed as discouraging. Migrant workers have to move often. After a long day of picking strawberries, Panchito returns home to find that “Everything [he] owned was neatly packed in cardboard boxes.” he “suddenly felt even more the weight of hours, days, weeks, and months of work.” (1) Moving often is discouraging because everything that you have built at your current location is taken away.
This research paper explores the marginalised identities and marginalised condition of black immigrants in White dominated society, London. Samuel Selvon was one of the early West Indian immigrants to Britain that began in 1948. Selvon classical novel, The Lonely Londoners is a novel of realism and it depicts the lives of the marginalized black immigrants in London. The novel The Lonely Londoners deals with issue of migration of the Caribbean to England between 1930 and 1950. It focuses on the large body of working class immigrants and the issue of marginalization.