The workers who will rebuild the Gulf Coast

Re “La Nueva Orleans,” Current, Sept. 25

Seldom do I allow the opinions of others to enrage me. The comments by Gregory Rodriguez, in his effort to make his case in support of temporary visas for undocumented workers, have done just that.

Rodriguez writes of the immigrant workforce’s character, national origins and ethnic makeup going back to 1862. Yet he never mentions the labor of Negroes. The labor of enslaved Negroes built the South. Enslaved Negroes cleared the land and built the flood-control systems.

Rodriguez also gave no consideration to the 27% unemployment rate among the descendants of those enslaved Negroes.

The effort to ignore us will not make us go away. We are still here. We are still due.

JOHN STEWARD

Aliso Viejo

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Rodriguez reports on two recent actions of the Bush administration in the wake of the devastation in the Gulf Coast states: the suspension of the provisions of the Davis-Bacon Act requiring government contractors to pay at least the prevailing wage rate to workers, and the suspension of sanctions on employers who employ illegal immigrants.

Amazingly, he concludes that these are good things and that the only further action the government should take is to legalize the citizenship of the Latino workers who will flock to the area because the wages paid will be too low to attract American workers to these formerly well-paying jobs.

He fails to take note of the cynical corruption of an administration that will use the destruction caused by a natural disaster to further its agenda of union-busting, cheating and downgrading the American worker and enriching the large contractors such as Halliburton, Bechtel and whoever else they will contract with to rebuild.

How much better would it be if decent wages were paid and the workers of all ethnic backgrounds who have lost their jobs and homes in this disaster had an opportunity to earn a decent living again?

BERNIE FLEISCHER

Studio City

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Rodriguez’s essay has one big flaw: the immigrants he mentions -- Irish, Italian, Chinese -- didn’t come here by sneaking across our borders.

LINDA NAVROTH

Culver City