Landscaper, fruit picker, maid at a low budget motel? There was a time not too long ago that most Americans would have said, "You can't pay me enough to do those jobs." And it was largely true. This work has been done instead by a growing and undocumented regimen of illegal immigrants who had come to this country seeking a better wage.

Still, even in boom times, there was resentment against those who had come here illegally. Due largely to misinformation, most Americans were unable to comprehend why someone wouldn't just go through the proper channels if they really wanted to be part of our country. Few were cognizant of the fact that a "proper" application might take ten to fifteen years of applications and bureaucracy to go process--only to be ultimately rejected.

Now times have changed, and with America's economic forecast showing no signs of a quick and easy recovery, many struggling Americans are finding themselves ready and willing to assert their place at the front of the line when it comes to jobs that a year ago they normally wouldn't have given a second thought.

As a piece in The Tennessean, a Nashville newspaper, illustrates:

In February, police were called to the Tennessee Career Center office in Shelbyville to stop a shoving match between some of the hundreds of applicants trying to navigate the formerly first-come, first-served process to apply for jobs at Tyson Foods.

Some American-born workers thought they should get preference over foreign-born workers that a relief agency brought in from Nashville.

Yet, by and large, the friction is minimal. Aside from a few rabble rousers who see an opportunity to extract revenge for the frustration they are feeling, many Americans just need to be exposed to the truth of the matter to understand that immigrants, like themselves, are merely trying to provide a better life for themselves and their families.

"We're not so much trying to change the public's concept of who is American ... but to get people to think, to use reason instead of reacting to immigrants from a place of frustration and fear," said Stephen Fotopulos, the [Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition]'s executive director.

In 2004, 54 percent of Tennesseans polled said if a guest worker program were established, it should include a way for illegal immigrants to attain citizenship. By spring 2008, the figure reached 63 percent.

But Tennesseans are far more likely than the rest of the nation to believe immigration should be limited -- 53 percent compared with 40 percent.

"That's probably the outgrowth of fears about resources," said Ted Nordhaus, a political psychologist, strategist and managing partner at Oakland, Calif.-based American Environics.

Beginning in 2006, while polling people on health-care reform, Nordhaus noticed many wanted to be sure that expanded health care didn't include illegal immigrants.

"There is this notion that illegal immigrants are somehow freeloaders who come to this country to take advantage of public benefits," Nordhaus said.

Were Nordhaus advising the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, he said, he'd tell members to emphasize immigrants' love of this country.

"I would advise them to express much more explicitly that we believe in America, even the American Dream, that we came to America because we always dreamed of being American," he said.

Read the full article here.