[seastay]

I would agree if we have to work, it’s not by choice, and then we all are slaves. Its when working conditions fall below standards I would suggest that is the form of slavery we all detest.

Illegal immigrants have lower living standards, often not by choice, and if given the freedom, such as citizenship, the opportunity for an education as granted to the slaves in the south when they were set “free”, the illegal immigrants of today would take the same path.

Just take a look at some of the biggest ranches in the valley, where some of the most wealthiest live while some of the poorest, such as from illegal immigrants from Sanger come to work and, if these ranches don’t look like plantations from the south of old, I don’t know what does, I mean you can almost picture Scarlet Ohare the front porch.

[Jim Robinson]

Well, both my wife and I are descendants of slaves then. My parents migrated out to California during the Great Depression. They worked at low paying menial jobs in miserable living conditions all their lives and, in fact, sometimes packed up the entire family to work in the fields while "Scarlet" looked on from her porch.

And my wife's grandparents immigrated from Finland around the turn of the century. The family worked the coal mines of Pennsylvania and later worked on farms in Michigan and California. They ended up homesteading a farm on land no one wanted near Reedley. Her father worked the ranches of the valley his entire life.