Recently Mexican President Vicente Fox was scolded for his declaration that “Mexicans do jobs that even blacks won’t do.” This inflammatory statement, intended to evoke support for less restrictive immigration policies, unfortunately is nothing more than a restated point of view that was once used to promote slavery here in America.

Before the Civil War, Senator and Presidential hopeful, John C. Calhoun became a voice for the South in perpetuating the institution of slavery. Through spirited debates, Calhoun perpetuated a seemingly self-serving view of human equality which suggested that there were jobs that Americans would not do.

In response, Hinton Helper wrote a best selling book around 1860, “The Impending Crisis,” which confirmed that slavery had no direct benefit to either whites or blacks. Helper showed that the classis attitude, that some jobs were beneath dignity, had actually allowed the southern whites to become detrimentally dependent upon others. He observed: “We want Bibles, brooms, buckets and books, and we go to the North; … we want toys, primers, school books, fashionable apparel, machinery, medicines, tombstones, and a thousand other things, and we go to the North for them all.” (Hinton Helper’s book sold well in the North, but pervasive illiteracy among blacks and working class whites stifled book sales in slave trading states, thus the impact of Helper’s work was reserved for those who already held an anti-slavery point of view.)

The notion that there are “Jobs Americans won’t do,” has re-emerged as a political campaign for importing more foreign labor and the leaders of the free world seem to be offering an assurance that Americans have graduated to a better life. Yet, it continues to be packaged with a self-referential pride and slogan that comes with all the trappings of Calhoun’s self-serving view.

President Grover Cleveland countered this notion when he said: “A truly American sentiment recognizes the dignity of labor and the fact that honor lies in honest toil” and Martin Luther King Jr. reminded us that: “All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.”

One has to wonder who it is that is actually unwilling to do the “jobs Americans won’t do”. Has picking up after ourselves fallen beneath our dignity, or has caring for others lost its appeal? Are we no longer interested in cooking or cleanliness? Are our children no longer willing to work their way through college and do they have contempt for calloused hands? Harry Truman once professed that no one should have to wash anyone else’s socks and underwear. He washed his own.

Immigration Attorney John F. Rohe questioned, “What are the jobs that Americans won’t do? Doing laundry? Making beds? Milking cows? Picking up the garbage? If this is a job that only immigrants will do, then Los Angeles should be spotless, and trash should be gathering on the streets in low-immigrant northern communities.”

In my own life, I had always managed to find satisfactory employment experiences since entering the job market at the age of twelve. I was pretty proud of myself and my 85 cents per hour wages as a “tester” for a TV/Radio repair store. (Now, before you get too overly impressed, I must tell you that I got to perform the really important tests like checking to see if things were plugged in.) Mostly, I emptied the trash. With the influence of some adult acquaintances, I was able to obtain more prestigious work as a driver for an auto parts store, helper/assistant in a cabinet shop, and ultimately I trained as an upholsterer and worked for two different manufacturing companies while mastering the trade. I still had to empty the trash! As I matured and became a business owner, I still found that it was my responsibility to empty the trash. I still do – it gives me a good idea of our waste and misuse.

Someone has said: “Any necessary work that pays an honest wage carries its own honor and dignity.”

Brigadier General Malham M. Wakin questioned: “Have we come through that period when we viewed some kinds of work as beneath our dignity? Do people still look down on jobs that don’t require a college degree? Have we so demeaned physical labor and manual skills that we can’t find human dignity in all forms of honest work? Do you think a little less of a person who chooses to be a garbage collector, or a plumber, or a carpenter, or a janitor, or a shoe salesman at Penney’s? Do we do this in skewed fashion? Do we look down on those who join the peace corps and who may wish simply to find ways to bring better sanitation to developing countries, but applaud those clever fellows who have made millions by inventing habit-forming computer games?”

“John W. Gardner’s analysis some years ago continues to seem entirely accurate. He said: “We must recognize that there may be excellence or shoddiness in every line of human endeavor. We must learn to honor excellence (indeed to demand it) in every socially accepted human activity, however humble the activity and to scorn shoddiness, however exalted the activity…The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.”

Finally an unknown blogger suggested, “Cleaning meat scraps and congealed raw fat, cleaning out under bleachers at the stock car races and rodeos, making the manure pile look nice, mopping hot tar on a flat warehouse roof in July/August heat or working as a deckhand on an Alaskan salmon boat.- Just once in their lives everyone should have a job like one of these. They are what my grandfather used to call character builders. I think they built intelligence as well as character. Every professional I know has one job that they did as a youth that was part of their motivation to start school, stay in school, or finish school. When your job really sucks, suddenly the prospect of earning a living with your brains starts sounding pretty good.”

So what of the jobs seeming beneath dignity? John F. Rohe continued with, “Americans do these jobs and many of them do them with pride. Americans have thrived on these jobs over the centuries. The Americans doing these jobs don’t look any different. They wear the face of America. They do not shrink from work. Americans just resist enslaved wages and indecent working conditions. The soul of America is still found in our commitment to a work ethic. The ‘jobs Americans won’t do’ adage seems innocuous on its face, but it carries a hefty price tag. Wordsworth reminds us that by “Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.” By laying waste our powers, we become the enslaved, much like the disillusioned illiterate white Southerner of 1850.”

Frances Hesselbein, former CEO of the Girls Scouts of America who earned the Presidential Medal of Freedom wisely stated: “We all do everything, share the work – there’s no room around here for a star, for someone to think she’s above the others. You’re expected to pitch in on whatever needs doing. Nothing is beneath your dignity. But on the other hand, nothing is beyond your reach.” 

“Dignity consists not in the possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them.” – Author Unknown