This Word Is Used ALL The Time To Defend Immigrants, But It’s Pretty Diminishing

In response to ICE raids in Los Angeles, Kim Kardashian, for example, wrote on social media that “When we witness innocent, hardworking people being ripped from their families in inhumane ways, we have to speak up,” while Republican Rep. David Valadao of California, recently wrote that he is urging the Trump administration “to prioritize the removal of known criminals over the hardworking people who have lived peacefully.”

Being hardworking and productive are not bad traits, but when people exclusively praise and defend immigrants for being hardworking, it is not the full compliment people think it is.

Immigrants deserve dignity and respect, regardless of how hardworking they are.

Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of the immigration advocacy group America’s Voice, said when she grew up in Bolivia, working with “ahínco,” meaning to put “your soul and your heart into it,” was a good thing to be. But as a Latina, she has qualms when “hardworking” is used to suggest that “immigrants should just be doing the jobs no one else wants to do.” 

“I think the focus of the conversation needs to be on the fact that this administration is targeting people in an indiscriminate manner, and in that process, they’re really harming families and communities and really affecting not just their livelihoods, but their communities’ livelihoods,” Cárdenas said. 

It is true that immigrants do hard work, and without them, the American economy would collapse. The government estimates that about 40% of hired crop farmworkers that harvest food for our tables do not have work authorization. Immigrants are also the demographic that is most likely to work evenings, overnights, and on the weekends in a range of critical fields like health care, commercial bakeries, dairy and meatpacking firms, or in construction labor, according to a report from New American Economy.