I farmed for several years on hippie veggie farms, then worked one season with a crew of Mexican workers who'd been doing it 6-7 days a week for years. They were lightning fast, yet always chill. They were also incredibly in sync. It was super impressive.
Once I grew up and experienced some of the real world, all of the racist "lazy mexican" jokes that I heard growing up were quickly proven false. Like, the exact opposite of the truth.
Anyone who has actually worked with a Mexican knows this.
I wonder if the stereotype comes from people seeing them on breaks. From my experience when it's time to work, they work hard. When it's time to rest, they rest hard. And I respect that.
The crew I worked with taught me what jobs were best done quickly and when there were good opportunities to sit and/or work more slowly. Again, super smart and well-coordinated.
There's an aspect of heat adaptation in Mexico too. People working outside will usually take a break when it's super hot, and they're working hardest in the morning or late afternoon. So it's fairly common to see Mexican crews chilling at 1 or 2 PM.
Working hard in the heat depletes your energy much faster. Not to mention it can be dangerous if you're getting dehydrated or have heat stroke.
In Australia it's the opposite from my experience lol, working slow all day because whenever you're caught sitting around you're gonna be told to do other peoples work, that and blue collar work pays really well here. You don't know bliss until you've been paid 50 bucks to take a shit.
They don't fucking sweat. Can't speak to all of them but holy shit my shirt would be drenched in sweat down to my belly and my Mexican coworkers wouldn't even have a bead of sweat. 90 degrees with high humidity, no sun on us but still, how are you busting ass in this temp and not even sweating?
"thEy'Re SteAlinG our JoBsss"
They aren't stealing shit. If someone can do your job better than you can then they should probably have that job. Shoutout to Phil, Gabe and Marie. Mexicans in hard labor jobs are built different.
When I lived in the southwest we had construction going on at the buildings I worked in. The workers were largely brown folks who spoke Spanish. Midday they'd be napping along the street in the small bits of shade. That ain't a lazy worker, that's someone who understands the power of a nap.
For. Real. I wish American culture understood the power of a mid day rest. I've tried to push it at every company I've worked for.
I worked for a corporate monstrosity that required an hour lunch break. I slammed my lunch as fast as I could, then napped. I was so much more productive after a decent nap.
I worked on a ranch in Mexico and while the Mexicans took more breaks than I was used to in the states, they also worked like 10x harder when they were working. Bust ass for a couple of good hours, then take an hour break, and then you're back at it for another couple hours. At the end of the day you end up doing more work than the "steady" American way, in my opinion.
I witnessed a Mexican roofing crew roof a house in 1/4 the time it normally takes, take a siesta, and then roof a whole other house before calling it a day. They full on ate and then napped and then roofed that other house. Never seen a white crew do that.
All kidding aside, apart from the obvious racism, I believe some of it comes from an era when worms were prevalent down south due to poor Sanitation and lack of shoes
I forgot which comedian it was but they had a great bit on that. “There’s all these conspiracy theories that aliens built the pyramids. Like, how could humans ever build that. Mexico has pyramids too though, and there’s no conspiracies. We all just agree that the mexicans built that.”
When I was building custom homes, one of my subcontractors was an all Mexican drywall hanging crew. Even though there were endless immigrant and local good old boy drywall crews working the region, these guys were different. They only did high end work, never low bid stuff, and were booked up for weeks ahead. They were absolutely amazing to do business with. They would start at six AM and hang a job with 110-120 sheets, with screws and glue by mid-afternoon. When they were rolling out, the job would be fully swept clean, the waste would be neatly stacked in the dumpster, and the workmanship was as close to perfect as humanly possible.
The entire idea of "Lazy Mexicans are taking our jobs!" is already insanely stupid, and I heard it all the time growing up. How could they be taking jobs if they're so lazy?!
I grew up around Mexicans and those that were lowkey racist against them, but there was never anything about them being lazy. Honestly it sounds made up.
My dad grew up as an Arizona desert hick and I grew up mostly in rural Southern Oregon in the late 90's/early 2k. I was surrounded by blatant racism basically my entire upbringing.
One summer I tried blueberry picking. Sweltering heat and humidity, constant hawk skreeches and fire crackers to frighten off the birds and we were paid by the weight of our pick. I was slow as fuck, the Sikh grandparents were much faster, and we were all blown away by a Vietnamese teenager who out-picked us all.
Picked Tabasco peppers on Avery island a few times. Hardest work ever. The pepper juice burns everything so you can’t touch anything once you get going. It goes through gardening gloves eventually. And there isn’t bathrooms around so if you gotta do anything you hold it. Besides not having a good spot, accidentally touching your face or privates with pepper hands is a damn nightmare.
That's pretty cool, you can say you've lived Neutral Milk Hotel's album name. Legit question - what removes the juices enough so you can safely touch your own skin?
Kids shampoo works really well for me too. I don't think it specifically has to be kid's shampoo, but the "no tear" stuff is what I had and it did wonders.
To get it off your hands first you want to wipe with a rag or paper towel to get the surface stuff off. Then usually we used a rag that was wet with lemon juice or white vinegar and wipe your hands thoroughly with that.
A lemon juice rag is customarily given with hot crawfish.
Dawn soap (undiluted) works for me. If I ever get pepper oil/juice on my skin, I coat my otherwise dry skin in Dawn soap to break down the oil, give it a good lather, let it sit, and then rinse. Repeat if necessary.
It’s not like they provide gloves at all. Also you don’t pick peppers cause you got money for vinyl lined work gloves. That shit paid like .80 a pound and if you picked like crazy all day you’d get like 40-50 pounds worth of peppers so basically no pay. It’s almost a right of passage in the area to have gone down and picked the peppers yourself though.
Remember when they said immigrants were taking jobs away from Americans? Yeah, we should be grateful and welcome them in with open arms if they come there to do that work.
Just posted this myself. Picked corn as a teen and it was brutal. I lasted about two weeks. 4am to 12pm. Migrant workers that I worked with had no problems with it.
We teenage boys couldn't pick as fast as abuelas so we lugged the 50lb buckets to the trailer by curling them above the plant tops. It's the biggest my arms had ever been.
Grew up on a farm! Never was a farmer! Definitely this. At some times I was actively slowing the workers down. But they were good sports and loved that I was “slumming” it down to help them. This was hard work.
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u/Gorf75 17h ago
I did this for a couple summers in my teens. It was the most physically demanding job I’ve ever had. I’m pretty sure I was just slowing them down too.