Purchase
A Year of Doing the Jobs (Most) Americans Won't Do
Nation Books
February 2010
On Sale: January 26, 2010
320 pages
ISBN: 1568584083
EAN: 9781568584089
Hardcover
Add to Wish List
Non-Fiction
What is it like to do the back-breaking work of immigrants?
To find out, Gabriel Thompson spent a year working alongside
Latino immigrants, who initially thought he was either crazy
or an undercover immigration agent. He stooped over lettuce
fields in Arizona, and worked the graveyard shift at a
chicken slaughterhouse in rural Alabama. He dodged taxis—not
always successfully—as a bicycle delivery “boy” for an
upscale Manhattan restaurant, and was fired from a flower
shop by a boss who, he quickly realized, was nuts. As one coworker explained, “These jobs make you old quick.”
Back spasms occasionally keep Thompson in bed, where he
suffers recurring nightmares involving iceberg lettuce and
chicken carcasses. Combining personal narrative with
investigative reporting, Thompson shines a bright light on
the underside of the American economy, exposing harsh
working conditions, union busting, and lax government
enforcement—while telling the stories of workers,
undocumented immigrants, and desperate US citizens alike,
forced to live with chronic pain in the pursuit of $8 an hour.
Comments
No comments posted.
Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!
| 
© 2003-2024 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy