Socialogy Interview

In my interview I chose my girlfriend’s neighbor. Hector is of Mexican decent and he is here because in Meigs county the produce fields hire Mexican laborers on worker permits. Hector started out doing this then he became the boss about five years ago and received his green card and now is an American and can speak very good English. He explained to me that in Mexico there is no age when you can start working so there are young boys working at six to ten years old to help support his needy family. He also stated that women do not usually work they are only aloud to go to the village markets and get goods for their family’s and raise there many children. I asked about minimum wage and he kinda laughed and said some teens and men who work are lucky to get a dollar an hour, but he said the people who are lucky enough to get to do what he got to do make there family’s a lot of money. He said when he started coming to America to work he was picked like a lottery pick because there are only so many jobs for little positions he and his entire family was dirt poor, but now he said his family is the richest in the village. He said that he has also got to move all of his immediate family to America.

The first question that I asked was “In Mexico how old are post people when they get there first job”? He said that in his village it all depended on how needy the family’s were. He said that most family’s in his village we the same income so the male children got jobs when they were very young like ages six to ten. I was curious so I asked “if they work do they go to school”? He said only the rich go to school because there are no laws about attending school like there is in America and he was very thankful that his kids get to go to American schools. He said that female children usually do not work they go with there mothers to market and get the bare essentials they need. I asked what do they do with the rest of there time and he said a trip to the market could take all day because they bargain shop.

The second topic that we both actually wanted to talk about was the wages of workers. He was sure to let me know that Americans have it great with the minimum wage law, because in Mexico they have no such law. I asked him when he worked in Mexico how much he got paid and he said “I worked at the same job for the same company for 10 years and my maximum pay was $6.50, but when I started I got $.50 an hour”. He also said that when he was chose to come work in the fields all over America that he was getting paid on commission because since he was not an actual American resident he could not get minimum wage. “I work as hard as I could and went as fast as I could to pick all I could to send the money