Summer in Washington Means Interns

There isn’t a better indicator of Summer than interns in Washington, DC.

It isn’t white handbags and shoes, it isn’t flower beds and warm sun, and it isn’t little kids off from school. This is a city of sorts, and it is a prestigious city of power and influence where innocent kids come to experience indentured servitude first-hand

From Wikipedia’s entry on the Indentured servant

“An indentured servant is a labourer under contract (an indenture–explained below) to work (for a specified amount of time) for another person or a company/corporation, often without any monetary pay, but in exchange for accommodation, food, other essentials, training, or passage to a new country. They were often referred to as coolies. After working for the term of the contract (traditionally seven years) the servant was then free to farm or take up trade of his own. The term comes from the medieval English “indenture of retainer” — a contract written in duplicate on the same sheet, with the copies separated by cutting along a jagged (toothed, hence the term “indenture”) line so that the teeth of the two parts could later be refitted to confirm authenticity. They were also used to make the labor-intensive cash crop tobacco in the 17th century.

It was the legal basis of the apprenticeship system by which skilled trades were learned.

Indentured servitude is not identical with involuntary servitude and slavery.

There have been multiple occasions where the indentured servitude has been abused, an example, where an indentured servant needs goods or services not available or supplied at a cost within the terms of the indenture finds that to obtain such goods or services requires the period of their indenture to be extended. In these circumstances, the system can represent a form of unfree labour.”