Busboys Research Paper

Many immigrants seek a better life than the one that their home country can offer. For that reason, an abundant amount of individuals choose to embark on the journey towards the land of opportunity, better known as the United States. Although migrating to the United States to gain financial security for themselves and/or their families is beneficial, life for immigrants is far from glamorous. To be more specific, most undocumented workers work in secondary labor markets, where pay is low and hours are far too long. The busboys from Chicago not only depict the extent of manual labor they perform everyday, but help the readers understand why they are eager to work hard. While the essential job functions of a busboy are to ensure that tables are

clean for the next party to arrive, as well as alert servers if the customers need anything, and clean and organize the back of the kitchen, the busboys also attend to tasks that do not fit the busboy role. For instance, they clean vomit on bathroom floors, wipe the doors and ledges, and dust the piano. Although the employers view their work ethic as innate, the busboys do the extra work for various reasons. To be more specific, they have this presumption that being good workers will result in a promotion. To some extent it works, as the employers take their advice and allow them to take care of situations that deal with the co-workers. However, the employers do no necessarily forget about their illegality as they chose to promote a white male worker instead of a member who had more experience at the work place and respect from the staff.