February 5, 2007, - 2:49 pm
Another “Job Americans Just Won’t Do”
By Debbie Schlussel
On this site, I’ve detailed some of the “jobs Americans just won’t do.” You know “back-breaking” work for “little pay” like the position of Head Hockey Coach at the University of Alaska-Anchorage.
Now here’s the latest “job Americans won’t do.”
Meet Bianca Gomez. Her life is tough. She goes on so many interviews and gets very little work. Like many Mexicans, she hopes jobbers will pick her for a day’s work for very little pay.
Except Gomez–the subject of a front-page story in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal–is not a Mexican illegal alien. She’s an American (of Mexican descent), and she is having a hard time finding work in her chosen profession: runway model. Yes, fashion houses like Ralph Lauren and Nicole Miller–both of which promote an “all-American” image, don’t want American models. They’re too fat, too big.
At 5’11” and 120 pounds, the twiggy American, Ms. Gomez, is having a hard time finding runway work, which pays a few hundred dollars.
Designer Nicole Miller told the Journal:
There’s [sic] so many models now. It used to be the Americans, Europeans and Candians. Then we got the influz of Brazilians, Russians, Eastern Europeans. There are just thousands every year.
The WSJ reports that not a single one of the 22 models, walking down the Calivn Klein runway at last season’s fashion week in New York, was an American.
Says the 18-year-old Gomez:
I am not trying to say they are taking over the world or anything. But they did get a lot of jobs.
Don’t tell me–like the many Americans who’d love to be a college hockey coach–that being a fashion model on the runway is work “Americans just won’t do.” Tell that to the thousands of American girls and women, each day, that flock to modeling agencies. There’s a reason for the song, “I Want to Be a Supermodel.”
Yet, America is bringing in 1,000 foreign models, each year, on H1-B visas, which are supposed to be for those with special talents, unfound among American citizens.
So, what was that the President was saying about the “work Americans won’t do”? More like work Americans will do, but aren’t being given the chance.
High-fashion models, meat-packers, or computer programmers, amnesty won’t help that. It will only make it worse.
Tags: Alaska, America, Anchorage, Bianca Gomez, Calivn Klein runway, Debbie Schlussel On, designer, head, hockey, Hockey coach, model, New York, Nicole Miller, President, Ralph Lauren, University of Alaska, USD, Wall Street Journal
Um, am I the only one who has absolutely no problem with legislation for importing hot girls?
I’ve been to Medellin and I can tell you Colombia’s economic problems would end tomorrow if they could only export those luscious paisas as a commodity.
Sorry Debbie, you’re the best but I have to disagree on this one.
Golden Boy on February 5, 2007 at 4:04 pm