Life of a low wage worker

By Jerry Reyes   

            Lately it’s been hard to find work in California. It’s even harder for immigrants to find work. Their lack of knowledge of this country and inexperience of many businesses forces them to look for low-wage work. Unfortunately a young man named Tomas Reyes, had to learn to live with these conditions.

            Tomas came here from a small town in Mexico with his brother Erasto. Their first few days didn’t go so well because they were lost for many hours with no food or rest. When they finally found their way to their friend’s apartment they found out that his apartment was more crowded than they thought. The small, two bedroom apartment housed an old lady named Dona Amelia, three of her sons (all over 30), and two of Tomas’s sisters. It was really crowded and many of the people had to sleep in the living room.

            After a couple days of rest, Tomas set out to find work. Unfortunately he didn’t find any work for two months. He did not have any papers so he couldn’t ask for work in places that required them. He was forced to wait in street corners with his brother and wait for work to come to him. Eventually an old white man came asking for help on finishing tiling his roof. Many of the people there ran at the opportunity for work. To Tomas’s surprise his brother and he were chosen to work. The man brought them to his house and explained what they needed to do. They worked for three days for five hours each day. The man fed them and gave them drinks each day that they worked for him. He paid Tomas and his brother $175 each.  This was his first pay in the United States.

            After a while he got tired of waiting for work to come to him, so he started looking for work somewhere else. He found a small laundry mat owned by an Asian lady. He was hired almost immediately. The work was simple and straightforward. All he had to do is iron suits but he to iron 25 of them every hour. He soon learned to hate the job, especially because the owner exploited him because he didn’t have any papers. He was only paid $3 an hour and was forced to do extra work for no pay. He decided to quit and look for another job with his brother.

Fortunately his brother had already made friends with a man who owned an auto shop and he convinced the owner to hire Tomas. Tomas was the new car painter’s assistant, but Tomas didn’t know the first thing about painting cars. This soon got on the others’ nerves and they began to dislike Tomas. Tomas did eventually learn the basics of car painting but that didn’t change the fact that his co-workers disliked him. Tomas was soon fired after his brother went back to Mexico.

Tomas didn’t find what he wanted in the United States so he returned to Mexico. He wasn’t ready to quit though. He vowed to himself that he would return soon.