The book Transitional Tortillas by Carolina Bank Muñoz, sheds light on the issue of the mistreatment of workers in tortilla factories. By comparing the working conditions in two factories, the author is able to gain insight into the personal lives of various workers. As the story unfolds, the unfair treatment of workers is revealed and the need for the world to know about these situations becomes obvious.
In Transitional Tortillas, Carolina Bank Muñoz explores the lives and relationships found in two tortilla factories. Although the two factories are owned by the same company, Tortimundo, one of which is located in the Hacienda, California, while the other is located in Hacienda, Mexico. The factory located in the United States, which
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By comparing the two factories to one another, the author is able to highlight the lives of the factory workers. The reader is able to gain insight into how the country, state policies, and labor market conditions affect the factories as a whole. As the author digs deeper into the factories separately, the individual lives of the workers are revealed and explored. The reader has the opportunity to see how race, gender, and class affect both working conditions and employees alike. Another strength of the book is the balanced view the author gives through her assessment of the four different workers. The workers stories are well researched and an influential eye opener to the conditions and situations that these workers face every day of their lives. A weakness of the book, however, is the opinionated view of the United States government. Muñoz seems to come off as believing that the only reason these people are in such poverty is because of the policies enforced by the US government. The author only momentarily touches on how the Mexican government also severely affects the people and the working conditions they face. While the United States does in fact contribute to the problems these people are experiencing, more could be said about the nature of the Mexican government as well.
This book is in fact a good contribution
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The topic of working conditions in tortilla factories was a topic of conversation and we even had a reading on the same subject. In the class lecture on immigration, we discussed how “immigrants can be controlled by threatening to report them to immigration officials, which can result in deportation” (Class notes, 10/06/2014). This problem can be seen in the book, especially in the case of the undocumented immigrant Jose. He is forced to take the most undesirable shift at the factory because his managers hang his illegal immigration status over his head. “Managers constantly remind him that they have taken a risk in hiring him and that they cannot adequately protect him unless he works the night shift” (pg. 2). Jose is afraid of being deported and therefore will not stand up for himself in such an unjust situation. He is not paid the same as people doing the same work as him, he does not receive raises in his salary, he is not promoted, and he is denied shift changes. “He is treated like a second-class citizen in the workplace” (pg. 2). Unfortunately, none of this will ever change for Jose because of his immigration status and the power that gives his employers. Undocumented immigrants across the country are treated unfairly by their employers purely because of their lack of citizenship. Employers are essentially
Being a neighbor to the maquiladoras industry for a very large portion of my life, never stopped to wonder what was the purpose of the maquiladoras? How do maquiladoras relate to cheap labor and low economic opportunities? Can the pros and cons of the maquiladora industry affect the global economies? Could our health be affected by the maquilas? Also, regarding the placement of these industries- does it affect the infrastructure of our border cities?
In chapter 1 starts by mentioning about a documentary called “Harvest of Shame” this did not only open the audience eye on how food is produced and grown in the United States, but also the condition of the worker work in and how hunger is such a big deal. The document had a sequel called “Migrant.” “Migrant” talked about the abuse labor in Florida in the citrus groves. This bad press made those companies want to fix their problem and fix their working conditions. Well that’s what they said but it really took two years to make these changes because they were being threaten to being boycotted for there labor situation.
The two texts, “Deportation at Breakfast,” by Larry Fondation and, “Mexican Migrant Workers in the 20th Century,” by Jessica McBirney are both set to portray the hardships and opportunities the Mexican/ Mexican-Americans faced. In, “Deportation at Breakfast,” the narrator witnesses the chef get deported. This causes him to take over the diner. Also, the text, “Mexican Migrant Workers in the 20th Century,” the migrants get to start a new life in a new country, however, they are treated with little to no respect. Both of the central ideas of the texts are based around these opportunities and hardships, and will be discussed later in this essay.
Sills explains how it is determined whether the company outsources production of a certain product or make it in America. Sills tells Davidson: “the main thing I think about is survival.” Parts that need skilled workers have to be made in America to assure quality. Standard Motors needs the highly skilled workers from the United States to assure quality of their parts, so “even if Mexican or Chinese workers could do Maddie’s job more cheaply, shipping fragile, half-finished parts to another country for processing would make no sense.” Parts that don’t need to be high quality are outsourced because the company simply can’t afford to make everything in the United States.
Alexis Adan 12/4/2014 CH150 T,TH 9:35- 11:00 The Aztec pantheon was a very important and vital concept for the Aztec empire since their religion was born from fear of nature and fear of the end of the world. The death of a sea serpent was actually the cause of the universe’s birth. The Aztecs believed the pantheon attempted to create the world five times.
Revolts, struggle, famine, these are a couple examples of the hardships that lower class and immigrant families and communities face. In the novel "Under the Feet of Jesus" by Helena Maria Viramontes, the relentlesss battle of the marginilized takes center stage, while Viramontes crafts a haunting narrative that immerses readers in the heart wrenching class struggle of farmworkers. Through vivid representations, Viramontes' novel UTFOJ powerfully captures the experience of migrant farmworkers, portraying their lives as an example for class struggle and the potential for revolutionary change. Viramontes powerfully captures the experience of marginilized migrant workers through representation of tar pits. The tar pits in the novel represent the class struggle inherent in farmworkers lives.
Alejandro Morales's novel, The Brick People, a polyphonic historical text that illustrates the complex dynamic of the Simons Brick Company and it’s Mexican employees. The structure of the factory developed from humble factory to a utopian village, where the Simons family held the power. Through forming a “model society” the Simons brothers were able to isolate and control the inhabitants within the town, creating an evident shift from utopia to dystopia as the amount of cultural transactions and disjunctures continue to rise generationally. Morales analyzes how themes of hierarchy and power transverses different ethnoscapes externally and internally. The external structures of hierarchy that are obvious are between the Simon brothers and their
The documentary “Invisible Indians” argues that the Mixtec indigenous people of Oaxaca are both misunderstood and mistreated, when they are fighting to be seen and heard. Throughout the film, examples are given of how the Mixtecs are exploited for cheap labor forces, getting little to no benefits all for the hope of not only achieving a better life for themselves, but also to provided for those who they left behind in Oaxaca, as they travel north. The documentary starts off by describing some of the push factors that have driven the Mixtecs out of Oaxaca, so that the viewer can have a more indebt understanding to why the Mixtecs are here and what they are working towards. As stated in the beginning of the film, the Mixtecs have for years been
A maquiladora is a foreign company in Mexico. They are owned by the U.S Japan and European countries. They have attracted foreign countries because of their tax benefits. The function of a maquiladora is the U.S companies gives them their raw materials for them to assemble and export the finished product. Some of the human rights maquiladoras are that the government fails to help women from discriminatory treatment in export-processing factories (maquiladoras) along the U.S.-Mexico border.
The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela is a story about the rebellion against Porfirio Diaz, specifically the lives of peasant farmers who took up arms against the Federals. There are three themes that are the most prevalent throughout the book; greed and cruelty, the hypocrisy of the peasant soldiers, and the lack of personal purpose for the revolution. Each of these themes are tied to the author’s message about the actuality of the Mexican revolution. The Underdogs follows a peasant farmer named Demetrio Macias and the men he leads into battle.
Tacos/tortillas, tamales, and beans oh my! The Valley is the perfect place to be for the more realist mexican food without crossing the border and for the best mexican traditions to have around. My great grandparents house was always the place to be, food or just for family time. After school, walking into my grandparents house, you would always find my great grandma in the kitchen right by the stove flipping tortillas on the pan.
“Mexican Migrant Workers in the 20th Century” by Jessica McBirney and “Deportation at Breakfast” by Larry Fondation The two texts, “Mexican Migrant Workers in the 20th Century” and “Deportation at Breakfast” develop different central ideas throughout them. The central idea of “Mexican Migrant Workers in the 20th Century” is that the Mexicans moving to the US for work were treated poorly and when the government tried to intervene, they ended up making things worse. Eventually, the workers began to fix their issues with people and politicians are still trying to fix it today. The central idea of “Deportation at Breakfast” is after the narrator had gone into a diner for a simple breakfast and the owner was taken away before his eyes, he takes the opportunity to go behind the counter and run his own diner. What the central ideas of the texts are and how they are developed will be shown and explained throughout this essay.
In his book, Peter Winn attempts to explain how the Yarur mill - “symbol of social struggle” - takeover marked a turning point for the Chilean revolution, with workers as central protagonists. Winn bases his book on qualitative data, by using oral history with numerous interviews, direct quotations from workers alongside government statistics, private sector information, union minutes and external journalism. This approach gives an encompassing idea of how developments were happening the factory. He narrates the unfolding of the revolution from below, through the eyes of the workers, he quotes “This is their story, which I have tried to tell as much as possible through their eyes and words” (p.7). Finally, he explain how the idea of giving back Chile’s wealth to the workers started and died with the workers movement.
Drunkenness is a topic that is relayed all throughout the novel Tortilla Flat on many occasions. Drunkenness can be seen through the works of the characters, the characters themselves, or in all the settings of the major events that took place. Many of the instances negative influences of drunkenness are in plain sight but the effect alcohol has justifies the actions as though they were indeed good. In the novel Tortilla Flat, it is shown how drunkenness is able to corrupt even the purest of minds and can negatively impact a person’s morality and judgement while under the influence and even while sober. Morals are a major aspect of a human being’s life, morals are what help in making sound judgement.
And, unfortunately, it’s more prevalent in America than many may believe. When defining what exactly a sweatshop is and what it consists of, there are many forms that it has taken over the many decades of America’s existence. The basic definition of a sweatshop is a factory in which its employees, many being children, are exploited; working long hours in extreme cases of hazardous and unhealthful conditions for little pay. Despite the fact this is a