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Some of them are lazy, yes. Some of them are working horrible, long hours, though, and it's not because of the "plight of the poor" in the U.S. ... it's because they are sending money back to Mexico to support a raft of non-working relatives. I've encountered this quite a few times now: this tendency in the Latino community for entire families to latch onto the one ambitious member and require that person to support them all. They guilt them into it. It's called "taking care of your family, man!" and it's awful.

I remember a teacher at my old school, a (legal) Mexican in his 60's, telling me he had to cut his family off years ago or his parents and brothers would all have climbed onto his back and rode him to the ground. "That's how Mexican culture is," he told me. He'd joined the Marines when he was young, met a woman in Japan and married her, and told his family to buzz off. He was completely estranged from them, because he was determined to be American.

He was a great guy... he's retired now. But anyway, he's not the only one. We have another Mexican teacher at my current school, and he takes care of his parents, two of his four siblings, they all live in his house and he's the only one who works full time. He never married (who'd want to marry into that situation?) and he just works and hands the money over to a pack of parasites.

And another situation I just learned of, one of my students is pretty much a neglected child because her parents work all these hours and are supporting all four grandparents back in Mexico.

It just blows me away, because white culture is just not like this! My parents are in their 60s and they would never, ever, ever expect any of their kids to neglect their own children and their own lives to send them money! My grandma lived to 93, and took care of herself till 92. She'd have never accepted money from anyone. Pride, you know?