Reaction to the Puerto Rican Obituary

This poem definitely hit home. During the summer, I worked in a tomato factory in Romulus, MI for minimum wage. The majority of my co-workers were undocumented immigrants from Latin American countries. We worked side-by-side, 14-hour days, standing, speaking only Spanish or broken English. The first section of the poem describes what we did perfectly. We worked hard, always on time, never talked back to supervisors, who yelled at us, "RAPIDO!!!" We were paid minimum wage, but I'm sure some of the undocumented workers were getting less than that; after all, how could they do anything about it? It's really a shame that this poem was written in the 70s, and yet still describes the lives of many Latinas/os in the United States. This, to me, substantiates the fact that the US has a long way to go in order for every person to receive the benefits of equality.