i spent years working in various kitchens, and the spanish guys are great workers, but they make it very hard to earn a decent living in that field. you have a huge group of people who watch top chef and all of these other food related programs, and spend alot of money going to culinary school with unrealistic views of their future. its a real bitter pill to graduate expecting the world, only to realize that your making $10/hour and paying taxes on it, while the dishwashers/prep cooks are making $8 cash.
That's the absolute truth. You can get three Mexicans from Pueblo for the price of one CIA grad. It's a rude awakening for these kids when they graduate culinary school, to say the very least.
But slightly off topic, you know as well as I do that celebrity chefs aren't always the tops in their field. Not remotely. They're just the luckiest (or the most photogenic). There are "chefs" pulling in a million a year on Food Channel and Food Network who I wouldn't give a pantry job to. And you know I'm right about that.
