Olmstead 1

Aidan Olmstead
UNST 126A
Professor Cramer
12 May 2016
A Land of Opportunity
People are driven by the pursuit of success and and the desire to do better for themselves
and their families. These motivators bring people to travel great distances for a chance at a better
life than that of which they may have lived. The United States of America has become a land of
opportunity for migrant workers to fulfill their pursuit of a better life for themselves and their
families. People travel from all over to the United States to find work, a majority being from
Mexico, Central America, and Cuba to find work to support their families and themselves. We
were visited in class by an organization, Voz, based in Portland, Oregon, and spoken to by
migrant workers and brought to attention of some hardships and reasonings behind being a
migrant, day laborer in the United States, and more specifically in Portland.
Voz is an organization based in Portland that gives migrant workers a much easier
opportunity to find work and to better the working conditions of migrant workers. The work is
handed out in a lottery style format so it is first come first serve, and many may leave without a
day of work. Voz has a list of jobs and as laborers name gets called, they are assigned a job for
the day, or potentially the week. It did not always use to be so organized though, for when they
had no building to run their organization through, they congregated on street corners and gave
jobs out this way. It is also sometimes difficult to get migrant workers to be involved for their
fear of deportation and exploitation by the people who hire them. For this issue Voz has come up
with a booklet to keep hours on so that they may claim any money that the employers may have

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failed to pay, and they also work to give the workers work visas so that they may work in the
country legally with no trouble. Finding work is not the only issue though. About 50% of the day
laborers that visit Voz regularly are living on the streets, and still find the energy and put forth
the effort to find work to help get back on their feet, or to send money back to their families
across borders. A common trait amongst the visitors to our class is that they work hard and
consistently for a chance to better their life or the lives of their loved ones, and made sacrifices to
do so.
During the discussion I was surprised to see the delight that talking to the class brought
these workers from Voz. The workers seemed eager and excited to share their stories, and tell us
of their experiences as migrant workers. I was also shocked to find out that even against such
harsh conditions, the 50% percent of the day laborers that are homeless still make an effort to
show up to Voz at 7am, the time of the raffle for jobs, to try and get work for the day. I was
moved by the efforts and sacrifices made by the migrant day laborers in order to make a better
life for themselves, or to give a better life to their loved ones. I was also shocked to hear that they
have so many issues, even as a legitimate organization, with the exploitation of their workers and
troubles with the payment due to their workers. It made me quite angry to hear that there are
people out there that take advantage of these workers and try to use them for work without
properly paying them as they had agreed. It was great to get an inside perspective into their lives
and what it is like to to be in such a situation.
In The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Enriquez speaks of families whom had
migrated to the United States in search of work to better their lives. The land of opportunity
brought these families and the workers we spoke to in class for the same reason, the support
themselves and their families. In the book, there are a some examples of the exploitation of

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workers both through their pay and sexually, which was also talked about by the workers from
Voz. Although there was no talk of sexual assault on the panel during class, there were a few
examples of pay exploitation brought to our attention by Cristian. He spoke about many
instances where they had to file claims to get the money for the worker that they deserved. There
was also racism touched on in the book and on the panel discussion in class. Cristian told us a
story of a man of the same descent of a man on the news who was found guilty of terrorist acts.
The man mentioned the worker had found interest in a gun magazine of the employers and this
furthered the employers suspicion of the worker. The employer called and complained over the
phone and proceeded to ask if background check were done on the workers before they were sent
out. Cristian explained how Voz is a non-profit and doesn't have the resources to give
background checks to the workers. The man was still quite uncomfortable with the situation and
not comforted by Cristians humanitarian efforts to better the working conditions for these day
laborers.
Voz, and people like Cristian, are working toward building a greater, more sustainable
community. A community that works together to help one another, give one another equal
opportunities, and help less fortunate people have more options for work and to better their
quality of life or the that of their loved ones. Their are a good amount of jobs out there for these
workers, and is great to see an effort to get these workers out and working to better their
situations. I would be interested to see if there are more organizations all over the nation, helping
to better the working conditions of these migrant day laborers and give them more opportunities
to find work. I am thankful to see such a progressive push for a more sustainable society, and a
fight for better treatment of migrant workers in the United States.