Unemployment bridges the gap

A recent career change has proved enlightening. A past opinion has been altered, another reaffirmed and an analogy discovered. As a resource room assistant in the Virginia Employment Commission’s Harrisonburg office, I help people navigate Virginia’s computer networking system when they seek jobs and or career changes.

For years I’ve written that American teens and 20-somethings generally don’t want to work – at least not like those of my generation (60-somethings) used to and still do. My short time in the VEC office, plus recent stories on television news shows has removed that prejudice.

Today’s young people are just as anxious and in need of jobs as the boomers of a generation ago. Every day at the workforce centers and job fairs in cities across the country, you’ll find just as many young people wanting to work as their older competitors.

The downturn in the national and world economy indicates that members of neither group are choosy. When, for example, companies advertise for 100 workers (as Hershey recently did), thousands show up. And the mixture is pure American – young and old, working class and middle class and of all colors and ethnicities.

A belief I’ve held for some time, which I’ve also tried to dispel, has been proved right as well. Most immigrants, particularly those of color, come here to get jobs and improve their lot, not to take advantage of our benefits – such as welfare, medical and food stamp programs. And as I also suspected, most are like unemployed American citizens, who don’t want handouts but employment.

I hear Americans say, especially when talking about Hispanic immigrants, “if they come to this country they should learn our language.” The conversation usually ends when I reply, “If that’s the case then all of us should be speaking a Native American language.” Occasionally, the person adds that anyone who’s been here 10 years should be speaking English.

A better response might be to use an analogy. Whether at work or home, people frequently say they hate computers.

Americans, again young and old, working or middle class and in all hues, have been aware of personal computers for some time.

During the last 10 to 15 years computers have become a way of life. Can anyone recall not having a computer involved in his or her everyday life? You can’t visit a grocery store, bank or Department of Motor Vehicles office without either using a computer personally or having an employee at one of those places use the machines to help you.

Substituting language for computers, which is worse, the immigrant who’s been here for 10 years and has not learned to speak English or the American who’s had computers in their lives for 20 years and refuses to learn how to operate them?

In both instances, I think it’s just the normal fear of learning something, anything new.

Nelson Graves, of Augusta County, is a columnist for The News Virginian. E-mail him at .