I've known and have hired personally some of the young J1 workers, and I have witnessed on every occasion how much work ethic these people, a lot of whom come from post-communist countries, have and how respectful they are. This article doesn't really discuss the obvious geopolitical elements in the J1 visa, which some would indeed deem important: sharing American culture and values with youth from mostly ex-Soviet countries. These young men and women are very often in the middle of their studies and probably grow up to have respectable professions later on. While hard to measure for sure, there is a value to giving these people an overall positive experience in our country as that can help support pro-American feelings in some of these countries. These people are our guests for the summer, let's show them our best as Alaskans.