Telling people there are plenty of job opportunities cleaning toilets isn't very encouraging. Yes, there are plenty of low-paying, undesirable jobs available--that doesn't solve the problem though.
I was offered to submit my résumé for the grand job of Housekeeping, after I applied to a hotel position with Marriott (and those other affiliates: Ritz-Carlton, etc.). I was applying for Front Desk, Guest Associate position--but apparently, I'm not qualified (I don't "have friends or family working at Marriott", so my answer to this job application question is: NO). I don't even qualify for bellman position.
Colleges aren't improving the situation either. The only jobs available at my "welfare" community college, a.k.a. City College of San Francisco, is: valet/driver (Luxe, Über, etc.), housecleaning, janitor and the ever-popular-among-the-poor, dishwasher position. These were listed at the main campus.
Did you want to see what's offered in Chinatown? No, not Accounting, Computer Science, Engineering, Teaching positions or anything like that. Bar tending, janitor, food service and personal care attendant positions.
These are the fields that students are encouraged to enter. They are one of the lowest paid positions in the country, other than: farming, fishing, and forestry.
Also, there were sewing classes, you know, since Chinese people deal with laundry so much... all they can do is sew, serve liquor at their bars, massage feet and if they're lucky maybe work at a hotel in Housekeeping. Hey! That was the job I was offered to submit my résumé to... oh but wait, I don't speak Cantonese, Mandarin, Vietnamese, Filipino, Lao, Thai, Burmese, Khmer, Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali, or Spanish... never mind.
Notice also that your employment depends on your "expectations" for the job...
"attitude toward work"... "expectation on wage and job location" and "specific requirements of employers".
So if you want to be treated with respect, have a living wage while living in the city... no job for you then?
You've gotta be kidding me! These are extremely low requirements and assumes the people who apply for these jobs are ignorant, lazy, fools who just want to gamble all day and lie about.
But maybe that's the problem! Are these jobs only for such low-skilled people?
I guess that's the point and it's been hammered into these people with the "expectation" that they conform to our American society and our low expectations of them.
Here was a list of rules to abide by while going to school at City College (Chinatown/Northbeach campus).
'Cause you know, foreigners are rude, ignorant and dirty folks who don't care about cleanliness and need to be taught American mannerisms.
In reality, I've seen plenty of White people who don't abide by these rules.
It's true, some of these people come from horrid conditions, like those I've seen online:
Hong Kong's 'caged dogs': Poverty-stricken people forced to live like animals in one of the world's wealthiest and most densely populated cities
- More than 50,000 people are thought to live in 6ft by 3ft iron and timber shanties, many of which are run illegally
- British-born photographer Brian Cassey visited a hot, dank community of cage-dwellers perched on a rooftop
- Inhabitants pay HK$1,500 (£117) a year - compared to HK$16,000 (£1,240) a month for a small one-bed apartment
But for the majority of people living in the United States of America and San Francisco now, we're all just trying to survive and being treated as if we're filthy, unskilled, undesirables does nothing for our state of mind, well being or desire to work.
Blaming us for the dire conditions in employment does not help us get jobs--it makes it so much worse! We are not the problem!
So wake up, Obama and American economists... our economy is in dire straights but it's not our fault. Blame Capitalism, blame the Fortune 500 companies stealing our money, blame the 1% who put us in dire financial straights in 2008, blame the damn employers who cut wages and jobs, blame the corporations who take their tax breaks as "Individual Entities"...
Whatever you do, don't point your finger at us, we're hard-working Americans trying to survive. If this country can't face that fact, maybe it's time to re-do the constitution and make a new country.
It will take a revolution... and it will NOT be peaceful. By the time our government, Pentagon and "Powers that Be" wake up, it will be too late.
Welcome to the New Land of Opportunity!
(If you survive it...)
