Immigration and
Water Issues in Sleep
Dealer
Current Issues of Immigration
• Recent Examples of Expansion of Boarder Laws
• Immigration Experience
• Violence and Exploitation of People Seeking to Cross the Border
• “All of the work…”
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Wage Statistics
Cost to Send Money Home
Workplace Conditions
Workplace Fatality Rates
• “Us vs. Them”
Why do People Migrate?
Migration patterns vary between populations, countries and
historical periods, but the factors that lead to the decision can
generally be broken down into two categories—Push factors and
Pull Factors. National Geographic defines these as:
•“Push Factors: Leaving a place because of a problem (such as a
food shortage, war, flood, etc.).
•Pull Factors: Moving to a place because of something good
(such as nicer climate, better food supply, etc.)”1
What is Memo’s reason for leaving? What are some specific
reasons cited by migrants coming to America?
Examples of Recent Border
Laws
• Arizona SB 1070
“would make the failure to carry immigration documents a
crime and give the police broad power to detain anyone
suspected of being in the country illegally.”1
New York Times, April 2003
• How do we see an eventual expansion these laws in Sleep
Dealer?
• In 2011, the state of Georgia passed House Bill 87, a piece of
legislation designed to crack down on undocumented workers.
• According to a June article in Time Magazine, “The law will
require businesses to use a federal electronic system to verify
employees' citizenship status and, among other things,
empower local law enforcement authorities to arrest
undocumented immigrants.”
• Time goes on to note that, “Even before it goes into effect,
business leaders say Georgia's law is crippling the state's core
agriculture industry: Migrant workers have started fleeing to
nearby states, particularly North Carolina and Florida. Says
Bryan Tolar, president of the Georgia Agribusiness Council:
‘What we have here is the equivalent of a giant scarecrow in
the middle of a cornfield.’” 1
Border Laws in Sleep Dealer
• What might be some other unintended consequences of the
new immigration laws?
• What is some evidence of a strengthening of border
enforcement in Sleep Dealer?
Violence and Exploitation of
Those Crossing the Border
• People known as “Coyotes” make their living smuggling people over the
border between the U.S. and Mexico.
• The “Coyotes” typically charge thousands of dollars to would be border
crossers to ensure their passage into the country.
• While they are seen as heroes to many individuals and families who
cross the border, the industry is also rife with violence and exploitation.
• Those seeking to cross are often entering into a risky business deal as
smugglers have been known to simply mug and assault their customers.
• Smuggling operations have also become increasingly controlled by drug
cartels who, according to a June 2011 NPR story, “have turned the
extortion of migrants into a highly sophisticated, and lucrative, criminal
enterprise. Migrants are abducted and held in so-called safe houses
until family members pay ransoms of hundreds or even thousands of
dollars for their release. The migrants are regularly beaten.”1
Where can we see this conflict in Sleep Dealer?
All of the Work…
• “Consumers, growers, politicians, we're all caught up in this
bind. We want cheap labor and cheap food, but it turns out
we don't really want the people who make it all possible - and
all the ‘inconveniences’ of educating children or protecting
workers. On our farms we've always relied on marginalized
and vulnerable workers to do backbreaking manual labor, and
now we're pretending that they are the problem.”1
Chris Liu-Beers, N.C. Council of Churches
Do you think a world with “all of the work, none of the workers”
is beneficial? To whom?
Wage Statistics
• “Poverty: Nationally, farmworkers’ average annual income is
$11,000; for a family it is approximately $16,000. Farmworkers on
the East Coast earn about 35% less than the national average.
• Hard work, low pay: At 40¢ per bucket (5/8 bushel), a farmworker
must pick and haul two tons of sweet potatoes to earn $50.
• Few wage protections: Most farmworkers are exempt from
minimum wage laws, and all are exempt from overtime provisions,
despite long work days during peak harvest.
• Few benefits: Despite pervasive poverty, less than 1 percent of
farmworkers collect general assistance welfare nationwide. Only 10
percent of farmworkers report having health insurance through an
employer health plan. Fewer than 4 out of 10 workers interviewed
said that they would receive unemployment benefits if out of work.”
-North Carolina Farmworker Institute1
Cost to Send Money Home
Fees for sending money can be steep. For example, according to
the World Bank, some money transferring organizations add a
10% fee for transfers of $100 between the U.S. and Mexico.1
Where do we see this cost in Sleep Dealer?
Workplace Conditions
• According to the Population Reference Bureau: “Work-related deaths affect
Hispanic families especially hard. Life insurance, which provides income to
families and dependents, is more common in jobs that tend to have lower
participation by Hispanic workers—management and professional jobs or jobs in
the public sector for example. Jobs with higher concentrations of Hispanic
workers such as service jobs, construction, and maintenance typically do not
offer life insurance, leaving Hispanic families especially vulnerable.”1
• Additionally, evidence suggests that immigrants tend to take on jobs that are
considered riskier. Some reasons include:
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Lack of legal status;
Inability to speak English;
Education level; and
Access to other jobs.2
• Research also suggests that though they take on riskier jobs, they do not receive
higher pay to justify the risk. 3
• Does the fact that the “Node Workers” are connected to a machine rather than
doing the labor on site really mean that they’re safer? What does the fact that
the man who dies after the electrical problem is just taken away and never
mentioned again suggest about the risk and replaceability of the workers?
Workplace Fatality Rate
Population Reference Bureau: “Immigrants Work Riskier and More Dangerous
Jobs in the United States”, 2009
“Us vs. Them”
• “They have no problem slitting your throat and taking your money or selling
drugs to your kids or raping your daughter and they are evil people.”
- Chris Simcox, founder of The Minute Men Project
• “Imagine a young man born in the United States of non-immigrant parents and
taken away at a very early age, reared in Waziristan, educated in Islamist
madrassas and trained in the fundamentals of terror at one of the many camps
in Southwestern Asia; someone who has flown under the radar of U.S. and
foreign intelligence agencies and is therefore unknown to them. He would be
entitled to walk into any American embassy or consulate worldwide, bearing a
certified copy of his birth certificate and apply for — indeed, demand — a U.S.
passport. That passport would entitle him to enter and reside in the United
States whenever and wherever he chose, secretly harboring his hatred, an
unknown sleeper agent of al Qaeda or any of the other multitude of terrorist
organizations with an anti-Western bias and a violent anti-American agenda,
waiting for the call to arms.”
-A report from Anti-Immigrant Group “The Center for Immigration Studies”1
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/11/anderson-cooper-stunsgop_n_678650.html
How do we see this conflict in the idea of the television show the border (“Drones”)
in Sleep Dealer?
Water Facts
• 2.5% of all the water on earth is fresh water, of which less than 1% is
in deep aquifer or soil moisture.
• Lakes, rivers, wetlands, and shallow aquifers make up .01% of the
total amount of freshwater, of which 20% is alone found in Siberia’s
Lake Baikal, the deepest lake in the world.
• Of the 7 billion people, nearly 20% lack access to safe drinking water
and nearly 35% lack adequate sanitation.
• 70% of all fresh water is used for agriculture. Conventional irrigation
techniques are 43% efficient. (Note: in Sleep Dealer, how Memo’s
father used the water.) 8% used for household purposes, 20% by
industry
Water Wars
• In 1995, Ismail Sergeldin, vice president of the World Bank,
made a much-quoted prediction about the future of war: “If
the wars of this century were fought over oil, the wars of the
next century will be fought over water”.1
• If this is the case, how do you suppose water was privatized in
Sleep Dealer? Central control vs. local control of resources?
Privatization (public/private partnerships) vs. public/municipal
infrastructure projects.
• “Privatization arguments have been based largely on the poor
performance of public-sector utilities. Government employees
are seen as excess staff, responsible for the low productivity of
public water agencies.”2 Where else have we seen this
argument for privatization?
Three theories of water rights:
1: Harmon Doctrine (1896) territorial sovereignty- riparian states
have exclusive right over water flow through their territories.
2: Natural Water Flow Theory-territorial integrity theory- “every
lower riparian owner is entitled to the natural flow of the river,
unhampered by upper riparian owners.
3: Equitable Apportionment Theory-1996 Helsinki Rule- “states
are entitled to a reasonable and equitable share in the beneficial
uses of waters of an international drainage basin.
Define equitable. With population growth of Los Angeles and Las
Vegas, what is equitable usage of the Rio Grande and Colorado
waters? What do we take for granted. How much does a gallon
of water cost?
Water Wars:
A world wide struggle.
Besides development disputes, fresh water supplies have been historically
targeted in military campaigns and for the last 50 years a target of terrorists.
“Water wars are global wars, with diverse cultures and ecosystems, sharing the
universal ethic of water as an ecological necessity, pitted against a corporate
culture of privatization, greed, and enclosures of water commons”1—Vandana
Shiva, Water Wars.
•Mexico’s conflict with the US—The Colorado River, dammed at certain points,
increased the saline levels in the water flow. US built desalination plant but
still restricts the amount of flow. How do you allocate water in a river when
the water flows between countries and territories?
•India vs. Coca-Cola- “Ever since Coca-Cola opened a bottling plant on their
land in 2000, they [the Plachimada community in the State of Karala in
southern India] have been faced with chronic drought and polluted water. In
2006, they began a pitched campaign to evict Coca-Cola from their land which
led to fierce battles with local authorities.”2
Water Stress Index, 2011
Ten Years: Two headlines in the NY Times:
What has changed?
April 16, 2001
“For Texas Now, Water and Not Oil is Liquid Gold”.
“Water has become so valuable that a complicated scramble is
under way for the rights to underground aquifers….The
unanswered question is…who gets the water and who does not
in the future, or influence how much will it cost…There are
already public policy concerns about whether pumping water for
profit could threaten supply in some areas. Rural officials fear
that large cities could simply outbid them in a profit-driven
market. And Texas law offers few restrictions; groundwater is
considered private property, and any landowner can pump the
water out even if it leaves neighbors high and dry.”1
April 21, 2011
“A City Built on Oil Discovers How Precious Its Water Can Be”
•“Since October, barely one-ten of an inch of rain has fallen on the city,
the oil and gas capital of West Texas…Two of the three reservoirs that
Midland and other Permian Basin cities rely on for most of their water
are getting close to empty. The third is below 30% of
capacity….Building a pipeline would cost $75 million to $100 million
(Midland population 111,000). Regions groundwater..contains high
amounts of fluorides, arsenic, and chloride…a desalination plant would
cost tens of millions of dollars…Without a desalination plant it
(groundwater) must be diluted with lake water to reduce
fluoride…Also, oil companies use water…use water for their waterintensive drilling technique, hydraulic fracturing…Leaks from old oil
wells also affect the groundwater.”1
Water wars are being played out now in upstate New York. Hydrofracking brings close to home the conflict between economic
development and the health and access of the community to fresh
water.
Fresh Water Challenge:
• In a world with a growing population and reduced supplies of fresh
water, what are the implications for the future? How do we allocate
resources as well as focusing on those areas that water-efficiency
could be maximized?
• Your thoughts on waste-water recycling?
• Consider this: To produce one ton of grain, 1000 tons of water is
needed while one ton of beef requires 15,000 tons of water, as does
a ton of cotton.
• 30% of all corn harvested in the US is used for ethanol production.
For every lb. of corn grown, you need 100 gallons of water. Do you
remove government subsidies and allow pricing to reflect actual
costs? BLM charges $1.35 per animal on public land while the actual
cost is $7.64 per animal. On Forestry Service land the cost is $12.26.
• Urban farming?
• Saline agriculture- Modifying vegetation with high salt content to be
used in food, fuel, and forage production.