An interesting concept that I find applicable to modern society is the idea of slavery. In the second chapter, there is a discussion of indentured servants and slavery. The concept of becoming "free" after working for three to seven years as an indentured servants. Many of these people were forced into this work, at the beginning, either physically by other peoples or because of hardships pushing them from their home. This practice was replaced later by the bringing of Africans to America.
The distinction was basically that African's weren't freed after their "term," nor did they actually have a term. They were forced into this and had no say during it until death. Slavery, after many years, is finally abolished.
The reason I felt like reflecting on this concept was because it occurred to me that the idea of "indentured servants" isn't gone from todays society. People who work as house keepers, cleaners, maids, etc can show qualities of what indentured serving looked like, though the idea is stretched. These aren't careers that people want to have, I know from experience. I feel like this idea should be explored more, as it happens in the eyes of society daily.
Slavery is a much broader subject, as well as having a multitude of variety of types of slavery. This concept is happening every day under our noses, yet as being on a more global scale, it is still hard to tract down. Part of this country's history, if not a majority, has been founded on slavery, and even though it's tried to correct this idea, it still happens in our modern day and time and it's sickening to think about. Immigrants are a large majority that are subjected to this, many times being forced into farm work by "Americans" barely making a wage.
Have we truly progressed over the decades, and if so, why is what should be a past ideology still present and haunting this country.
-Vanessa Lomeli
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