Why Through Genesis Rhetorical Analysis

When interviewing members of society about their jobs, we can see a division between the positions that are respected and those that are not. Society looks down upon physical labor and idolizes people who have office jobs. The people who have jobs that require physical labor are often treated poorly by customers and are put into less than ideal situations; however, these people find personal satisfaction through wages, their coworkers, and experiences.

Living in an underdeveloped community, people often have to work a minimum wage job to earn a living. Genesis Chavarria, an 18-year-old Latina, began to work at Wingstop at the age of 16 to support her family and herself after her mom lost her nursing job. As explained by Barry Schwartz in “Why

Working at a Wingstop in South Central, late at night, she was harassed by customers. One night, two suspicious African American men came into the store, put a gun to her head, and asked for all the money in the cash register. When asking her why she had not left her job, she responded similarly to the African American women in “Work Makes Life Sweet.” Genesis too feels that leaving her job could lead to other ‘stressful and dehumanizing’ factors, such as being thrown out into the street. In order to help financially, Genesis, like many others, has had to settle for a demeaning and dangerous job with no other

Many employers did not want to hire a Mexican, let alone an immigrant, making it difficult to find work. In fact, when attempting to apply for a gas station job, the manager refused to give Velasquez an application. The manager then proceeded to forcibly push him out of the store and threatened to call immigration if he returned. When Velasquez eventually found the job as a stockboy, other people found his job to be unfavorable; however, he was grateful any work. Gary Soto writes “Black Hair” and discusses the same phenomenon where he needed to take an undesired job in order to survive. Similar to Velasquez, Gary Soto had limited job options due to racial adversity. Soto’s desperation for a job leads him to the tire shop where he accepted the position even though the job itself was physically grueling. Neither Velasquez or Soto wanted the jobs but accepted the first position available to make a