The American Work Ethic, Brought to You by the Vietnamese Fishing Community

 Isn't it the two-year anniversary of the BP Gulf oil spill?  I found this in my drafts and thought I'd publish it.  I hope the woman in this story and others like her have been able to find a new living.

There is a huge Vietnamese fishing/shrimping community on the Gulf Coast in Louisiana and Mississippi.  The industry has been hit hard by the oil spill, and the entire Vietnamese community is essentially out of work.  Oil company BP called a meeting where they invited shrimpers and fishermen to come hear about jobs they were being offered in helping to clean up the oil.  One Vietnamese-American woman interviewed said, "If the boat cannot go out for shrimping, they need to give us opportunity to work."

Opportunity to work.  Not cash.  Not handouts.  Not compensation.  Opportunity to work.  Is the American Dream alive?  You bet it is when there are people left who, when their industry is decimated, demand some other way to make a living.  The opportunity to work is hard to come by when the economy is down.  For the last two hundred years, the newest immigrants are often the ones who show us how very fortunate we are to live in the land of opportunity.  You think it's not?  Try living somewhere else.