In countdown to Christmas and the holidays, I find myself, like so many people in the United States, busy ordering various gifts from several online platforms. With the shopping season in overdrive, I hunt for the best bargains as I seek to get the most bang for my buck. Oftentimes lost in the fray, is a critical reflection on the people and resources that undergird this buying process. In stopping to critically examine this process, certain things become clear – migrant labor and sh*thole countries play a major part in what the retailers, economists, families and children regard as a good Christmas/holiday.  

The role sh*thole countries play in a “good” American Christmas /holiday is two-fold – goods and profit. While all sh*thole countries are not recipients of US trade agreements, many are. As the sites for US trade agreements and the accompanying foreign investment, these countries are often tied within asymmetrical relationships that historically and in contemporary times have fostered the decimation of local industries, depression of wages, rise in unemployment, and obtaining IMF loans (Rajendra, 2017; Friedmann et al, 2011, McLean-Farrell2016) – the very conditions that many see as major push factors that drive migration. Embedded within these trade agreements is the creation of export-oriented factories “through the elimination of tariffs on imports. [As such], raw materials can thus be imported to Mexico [or any of the other countries], turned into goods for sale, and exported without taxes” (Rajendra, 2017:69). Considering the economic conditions – depressed wages, unemployment etc.- noted above, these factories have no shortage of potential workers, whose days will be spent producing the very items Americans give as gifts to their loved ones. Oftentimes hidden in plain sight is the enormous profit generated for these companies and their shareholders. 

Having covered the creation of the goods for purchase, let’s consider how it arrives at my door – in a cardboard box. This past fall, while teaching a Doctor of Ministry class on migration and COVID-19, I discussed with the students the multiple ways migrants­—authorized and un-authorized—were essential workers (doctors, nurses, supermarket cashiers, uber eats delivery people, meat processing factory workers, etc.). Missing from this list however was another important group of workers – those who work in cardboard manufacturing factories (Tom Ryan – UM 781 class). As we considered this oversight, the class was struck by how much we depend on these migrants; after all, where would Amazon and so much of the US population be without cardboard boxes – especially during the pandemic and in the countdown to Christmas/holiday? These very migrants, who may be deemed by some people to be of no value like cardboard after it’s been used, are in fact indispensable to our way of life and the Christmas/holidays we envision. 

How do we move forward? As we gather around trees, tables, menorahs, and other symbols of the holidays, let us remember that the gifts we give/receive are not neutral but laden with particular economic relationships and migrant labor. As such, we bear the responsibility to unmask the false narratives we as American citizens have about ourselves, migrants, and potential migrants. And as we begin to see more clearly, we will recognize in the migrants other glimpses of another migrant, Christ, who left home to be among us.  

–​Janice A. McLean-Farrell, Ph.D.
Dirk Romeyn Associate Professor of Metro-Urban Ministry
& Associate Dean of Doctoral Studies