Now Immigrant Ski Workers Are A Problem?

Anyone who spends time in Colorado ski resorts knows that for many years immigrant Australians and New Zealanders (maybe with legal papers, maybe not) have been employed in jobs that used to be filled by American "ski bums."  I blogged about it earlier this ski season.  Now, the issue of immigrant workers has suddenly become a concern of the Denver Post editorial board.  Why?

As Denver Post writer Bruce Finley reported recently, Colorado ski resorts increasingly are turning to Latin American students to staff lift lines, mountaintop restaurants and other resort jobs. The trend has set off brisk exchanges over the nation's immigration policies.

. . .

The history of the ski bum aside, the growing ranks of Latin American students at Colorado's resorts does raise a few questions about immigration policy.

The young people are in this country under a U.S. government cultural-exchange program. Critics, including Congressman Tom Tancredo, say the program's purpose is being abused, and congressional auditors say the State Department isn't properly overseeing the program.

The growing ranks of Australians and New Zealanders, of course, did not raise any questions about immigration policy.  To write an editorial about immigrant labor at Colorado ski resorts that doesn't even mention the words "Australia" or "New Zealand" is truly mind boggling. 

In contrast, the Post did manage to mention that for many years large numbers of Mexican immigrants have handled ski resort jobs with minimal customer contact (e.g., housekeeping).  It's revealing that the furor over immigrant labor at ski areas was triggered by having students from Buenos Aires and elsewhere working as, for example, cafeteria cashiers where they are face to face with resort customers. 

For the record, I have seen exactly one of these Latin American students at a ski resort, a woman wearing a tag giving Buenos Aires as her home town working in the cafeteria at the Mary Jane base.  In contrast, when I went to Copper Mountain over Thanksgiving weekend it was easier to try to figure out who wasn't Australian, at least among the ski school instructors.

In my opinion, the biggest problem with the over-the-top racism of this Post editorial and of the people who didn't become concerned about the vanishing American ski bum until Argentines instead of Australians started popping up in ski resorts to replace them is that anything less egregious than this gets reinterpreted as "not a race issue," which helps prevent real discussion of the ways race influences political discourse in this country.

Comments

[Daily Texican]

Wait till the word gets out. I'm going to send this information to my primos in San Luis Potosi. They'll be all over this in no time.

[ParkHill]

The article actually did a good job of describing the issues. The number of Mexicans in the Eagle valley is amazing. (How do I know?... the Mexican accent is very distinct.)

A quibble: Argentine ski bums are mostly white, of Italian, Spanish, British, even or Jewish ancestory, especially in the groups who can afford to ski or travel.

These ski bums are mostly wealthy or upper middle-class kids looking for a Summer job that gets them some practice at English and a chance to visit the US.

[Colorado Luis]

Argentine ski bums are mostly white, of Italian, Spanish, British, even or Jewish ancestory, especially in the groups who can afford to ski or travel.

That may be, but I'm the one who said the new students are Argentines. The Post used the scarier term "Latin Americans." And none of this gets the Post off the hook for completely skipping over the critical part of the story when Aussies and New Zealanders come in and replace the American "ski bums."

The editorial mentions a 1998 article about the decline of the ski bum, and yet it is not until 2006 when "Latin Americans" come to the resorts that this issue becomes worthy of the Post's attention. I don't think the fact that a lot of upscale Argentines are pretty guero gets the Post off the hook for ignoring the Aussie/NZ part of the story.