ound that affluent areasùsuch as Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, and West Los Angelesùbenefited from free trade, while poorer areas such as East Los Angeles and Compton suffered greatly. People who lived in affluent areas, most of whom were white, had the education, expertise, and money required to capitalize on trade opportunities thus benefit from NAFTA (O'Connor, 1998, p. B1).
By contrast, the areas already hit by the transformation of the American economy suffered even more. Most of the people who lived in these downtrodden regions of Southern California were members of minority groups. They watched helplessly as NAFTA drained more blue-collar jobs away from their already depressed neighborhoods. Those jobs, generally high-paying, had been the ticket to upward mobility for those lacking education or language skills. But companies such as Goodyear, General Motors, and Firestone departed, and the blue-collar opportunities were replaced by minimum wage jobs that offered no hope for escape (O'Connor, 1998, B1).
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