By Omar Perez
Borderzine
EL PASO — Finding the American dream has always been difficult for new immigrants, but for workers in the construction industry the struggle has been especially tough.
Squalid living arrangements and torment from unscrupulous employers are just two of the struggles that they endure in order to establish a new life in this country.
UTEP Sociology Professor Dr. Cristina Morales told an audience at the Center for Inter-American and Border Studies at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) that immigrant workers have to overcome serious obstacles to find and keep jobs in the very competitive and harsh construction industry.
Construction workers’ struggle for finding the American Dream is specially tough.
(Photo: Omar Perez/Borderzine.com)
“The thought of what immigrant construction workers and their families have to live through never crosses anybody else’s mind. It is time for everyone to at least have a small glimpse of what really happens,” Morales said.
One of the 35 persons in the audience said she lived through the difficult circumstances that the construction industry imposes on many families.
“Other people don’t really care about the industry and they think that everything that is happening is fake, but when they meet people that really live through it and see it firsthand they see the big difference,” said Madelein Santibanez, 20, a mathematics student at UTEP.
Santibanez said the presentation make her relive exactly what she went through when her family moved to Austin just a couple of years ago to try and find a better life…
Finish reading Construction work can be an American nightmare for immigrants
