Week 7

I enjoyed Rob Reich's lecture because I constantly try to question why I am involved with public service. However, I am not exactly sure of Professor Reich's personal opinion. He did raise a lot of uncomfortable points and questions that we as students involved in service tend to overlook. For example, I have always been an ardent supporter of Teach for America. However, at the same time, we must constantly critically examine these public service organizations in order to improve them. At the same time, we cannot simply overlook the great impacts that these organizations have done simply because they have some flaws. If all organizations were perfect and making great changes, then we would not have these problems in the first place. So, I feel that while we are making criticisms of public service we must also appreciate how far we've come. Secondly, I enjoyed the discussion about migrant health and farm workers. There were extremely important questions raised about our role in aiding undocumented and documented immigrants. This debate can last for years, but I feel that I have come to a conclusion. In America, we live a double standard--one where we rely on immigrants for cheap labor and one where we want to maintain jobs and government services for our "own" people. This inconsistency in values cannot exist for effective immigration reform. We cannot welcome cheap labor while slapping away benefits for unauthorized immigrants.