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Manual Labor Over Making Lattes Summary

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In this world, as result of the 7 billion humans that live in it, there is a lot of work that needs to be done. In college we learn the way in which some jobs should be done as well as the tools we need to do them, however behind every work, project and task a civil engineer does, there are a lot of menial chores that need to be completed. This menial chores are often included in what we call: manual labor. But, why would someone shovel, rake and sweep during hours just to earn some money? In the one hand, “los pobres”, relates the personal experience of Richard Rodriguez, the motifs that encouraged him to spend one summer doing manual labor and his perspective about doing manual labor. In the other hand, “why I choose manual labor over making lattes”, the author, Aaron Leaf narrates a very different perspective and experience with manual labor. Even though they are different, both of them can give us some clues about why people do manual labor. In Richard’s text, the cultural background is important: his parents are Mexican, work hard to get him a decent education and try to give his son a different life; those factors collude to make Rodriguez ambivalent about his identity. The social class in which Rodriguez …show more content…

One of the reasons Richard did manual labor was the challenge, Richard’s father told him he wouldn’t know what real work is and his friends told him that he didn´t know how hard manual labor is. Both statements were considered as challenges by Richard. Another reason is the curiosity he felt for doing “real work” and that’s why he savored the strain and sore muscles after doing manual labor. The ambivalence he had for his identity is also a reason he did manual labor, he thought he would find a different panorama in manual labor, the one in which his parents live: extreme poverty, uneducated people, aliens. Leaf’s mainly cause is the lack of

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