The Underbelly of America's Immigrant Workers

I am excited about the new book, Working in the Shadows: A Year of Doing the Jobs Americans Won't Do. I caught an interview by Bill Berkowitz with the author of the book, Gabriel Thompson, on one of my favorites websites, Alternet.org, in which the author gives a good run-down of the book's subject matter. Thompson went undercover for a year doing the work that mostly immigrants do in America, or the dirty work as I like to call it. The work he details most in the interview is working for a chicken slaughterhouse in rural Alabama, and it was not a pretty picture. He also cut lettuce in Arizona and worked as a delivery person for a restaurant and at a florist shop in Manhattan. As a rule, I like absorbing anything that is going to give me a different perspective and challenge my thinking, and this book appears that it will do that to a tee. I plan to pick it up. It is going on my list right after the 87 other books I have been meaning to read.