Archive for the 'Immigration' Category

Before you get your car washed…

Published
by
Jennifer
on March 21, 2008
in Immigrant Rights, Immigration, Mexico and Race and Racism
. 3 Comments

I suggest reading the entire article. It is quite overwhelming and a testimony to LA as a global city, the debate over immigration, and the lived reality of immigration and race relations. However, I do have a few issues with the portrayal of immigrants—as lacking a voice or easily controlled–but this does show how people are profiting from controlling immigrant labor.

From the LA Times:

Inspectors find dirt on books at Southern Calif. carwashes
Owners frequently violate labor and immigration laws with little risk of penalty, officials say. Many workers are loath to complain, but some have formally accused their bosses of underpaying them.

By Sonia Nazario and Doug Smith
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

1:26 PM PDT, March 21, 2008

A team of state inspectors strode into the Blue Wave Car Wash in West Los Angeles, past latte-sipping customers in electric massage chairs and into the gritty carwash tunnel.

“¿Cuánto gana usted?” the inspectors asked worker after worker, about 20 of them, most Latino immigrants. How much do you make? Each carwashero responded that he earned minimum wage or more — just as the owner of the Blue Wave, one of the region’s busiest carwashes, had told the inspectors.

Looking over payroll records, however, the regulators became suspicious. Employees who said they were full time were listed as working just 10 or 15 hours a week.

Inspector Martha Mendoza ushered Juan Cruz Santiago, a small man with salt-and-pepper hair, away from the others. During gentle questioning under a ficus tree, he admitted that most days, he and his 66-year-old father worked for tips only. So did nearly half the other employees, he said. It had been that way for at least six years.

“It’s bad,” the 41-year-old Oaxacan immigrant whispered to Mendoza, his eyes darting nervously toward his boss’ office. “Other carwashes are the same, no?”

Many are. A Times investigation has found that hand carwashes, automotive beauty shops patronized by tens of thousands of Southern California motorists every day, often brazenly violate basic labor and immigration laws, with little risk of penalty.

Half or more of carwash owners flout the minimum-wage law, estimated David Dorame, the longtime lead investigator for low-wage industries at California’s Division of Labor Standards Enforcement.

Despite many undocumented workers’ reluctance to complain to authorities, employees at a fifth of Southern California’s carwashes in the last five years have formally accused owners of illegally underpaying them, The Times found.

From Santa Monica to Westwood to Koreatown, many workers said they received only tips for some or all of their shifts. Labor division inspectors estimated that about 10% to 20% of car dryers are not paid by owners.

“Tips only” is a requirement for some new workers until owners are satisfied that they can properly dry a car, laborers said. Their take is typically $10 to $30 a day.

At the Blue Wave, owner Isaac Shanfeld of Beverly Hills told inspectors that all of his workers earn at least minimum wage, costing him $700,000 a year. He said he didn’t know of anyone working for tips alone, but added: “I can’t police everyone.” After the inspection last fall, he was issued a $2,600 citation for wage violations. Continue reading ‘Before you get your car washed…’

Corn Festival in Mexico City

Published
by
Jennifer
on November 10, 2007
in Activism, Immigration, Maí­z (Corn), Mexico, Oaxaca, Mexico and Sin Maiz No Hay Pais
. 0 Comments

dscf5566.JPGThese past few days have been a wonderful mix of excitement; meeting amazing people, buying tons of products from Mexican artesians, and listening to great speakers. The Sin Maiz No Hay Pais campaign ends January 1, 2008, but is going out with a bang. On October 27, they entertained a huge crowd in the zocalo with a concert in support of the Mexican campesino and for the past few days they have turned their focus to education. This fair is quite different than others I’ve attended (two in Oaxaca) because of its size, diversity in events, and amount of vendors. The Oaxacan fairs were nearly entirely attended by corn farmers, with their voices at center stage, and key presentations by a professor from Chapingo University to discuss the problems of GM corn. Here, farmers are in attendance, but they primarily came as vendors or representatives of campesino organizations to sell their products or offer materials about their organization at tables in the vendor fair. I’m not saying that one certain fair is better than the other, their difference is just clear through the organizations that sponsor the fair. While the other fairs were locally sponsored and held in a small space, this fair is sponsored by a few international organizations along with 300 organizations as part of the campaign. Oxfam paid for most of this event, with major involved by ANEC and GEA.

The fair organizers claim that the importation of US corn, the introduction of GM corn (and other GM seeds), and neoliberal policies in general threaten the livelihood of Mexican farmers and the biodiversity of native seeds. The high rates of immigration and the loss of job opportunities are signs of changes already felt in rural parts of Mexico. This campaign, with its focus on corn, is really a method of bringing awareness to issues facing farmers in general, in addition to the negative consequences of genetically modified corn.

I promise to post photos soon to my photo page. You can also read about this event in yesterday’s La Jornada (in Spanish).

The Great Immigration Debate

Published
by
Jennifer
on June 27, 2007
in Immigrant Rights and Immigration
. 0 Comments

As the senate revisits a revised immigration reform bill, everyone is showing their claws. I’ve compiled here a list of interesting articles that grapple with this debate. In order for the bill to pass, an over-whelming majority of the democrats need to vote for it. This bill is an intense mix of politics and alliances. Bush is pushing for his republicans to support it, because, as one author state, he is sympathetic towards Mexican immigrants: The NY Times: Texas Town, Now Divided, Forged Bush’s Stand on Immigration

At stake, in this bill, is the potential citizenship of 12 million illegal immigrants. However, it is the 200,000 person “guest-worker” program that divides the senate along multiple lines. Al Giordano of Narco News outlines this issue simply as ridiculous. He states:

To keep twelve million people “illegal” out of spite, however legitimate, toward the Court-Appointed President, is also a consequence of bigotry. Such a stance concludes that twelve million “aliens” (that’s what they called our ancestors, too, as if they had come from the moon) and their freedom do no count, do not matter, and are expendable. Excuse me: there is no other word for that than racism.

Others argue that the issue is more complicated–in particular the labor unions. Steven Greenhouse of the NY Times argues that it is the labor unions that may decide this bill.

The threat that labor poses to the bill has gone largely unrecognized in part because three prominent unions — the service employees, the farm workers, and the hotel, restaurant and apparel workers — have backed the legislation. But that support, advocates say, has been outweighed by opposition from the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and virtually all other unions, including auto workers, Teamsters, food and commercial workers, and construction unions.

The unions that are in support of the bill see the 12m workers as a priority…and worth the sacrifice. The others, on the other hand, feel betrayed by senators such as Kennedy who support a bill that could threaten the wages and way of life that they have grown accustomed.

This bill is an amazing case study of negotiation, distraction, and racism. This is obviously not the best possible scenario for immigrants (paying $5,000 among other things) so is it still worth it? As deals are made under the table to get enough senators on board, will we even understand all of the fine points of the final bill…probably not.

Here are a couple more interesting articles on the subject:
Story from BBC NEWS: US Senate revives migration plan

This one discusses the economics of the immigration debate:
Story from BBC NEWS: US immigrants spark growth debate

More on the debates between senators:
Immigration Bill Advances in Senate
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVI, SF Gate

Corn and Immigration

Published
by
Jennifer
on May 24, 2007
in Immigration, Maí­z (Corn) and Mexico
. 5 Comments

I love Kohn’s analysis of NAFTA’s affect on Mexico’s corn industry and how it all relates to immigration. We can debate the section on ethanol…but her overall analysis is part of what I argue in my dissertation:

Corn-Fueled Migration
Sally Kohn
May 23, 2007

Sally Kohn is director of the New York-based Movement Vision Project, working with grassroots organizations across the United States to advance our shared values of family, community and humanity.

Thankfully, immigration reform is progressing in Congress. There are 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States who have made invaluable contributions to our culture and economy and deserve the basic rights and dignity that citizenship provides.

Yet some nasty provisions stand out in the compromise Senate legislation—prioritizing highly-skilled, English-speaking immigrants over working class immigrants and people of color whose families are already here, and blocking the opportunity of citizenship for future “guestworkers”, continuing the two-tiered system of discrimination and exploitation that currently exists. Instead, if we examined the root causes of migration, we might actually help—rather than punish—immigrants.

And here “root” cause is not just a metaphor. The seeds of the immigration dynamics we now face are planted on the U.S. side of the border, the kernel of which is corn. Corn is what causes migration and corn is the only way the injustices of immigration, on both sides of the border, will ever be solved.

As the birth nation of just over half of the undocumented immigrants in the United States, Mexico provides a good example. Although agriculture is less than 5 percent of Mexico’s gross domestic product, more than a quarter of Mexicans still make their living as farmers. And most of the poorest of those farmers grow corn. Over 60 percent of Mexico’s cultivated land is planted with corn, most of which are small family plots. In all, 18 million Mexicans, including farmers and their families, rely on corn for their livelihood.

Enter NAFTA in 1994, which opened the U.S.-Mexico border to trade. It’s worth noting that before the wealthy nations in the European Union like France and German expanded trade with poorer nations like Portugal and Greece, the wealthier countries first transferred huge sums of money to the poorer nations, to build their infrastructure and help get them to the equal footing necessary for trade to work. Not so with Mexico. The United States (1990 GDP: $23,130—a.k.a. Goliath) became “equal trading partners” with Mexico (1990 GDP: $6,090—a.k.a. David).

On top of that, corn production in the United States is heavily subsidized. Under the farm bill, which is up for reauthorization this year, we taxpayers give over $25 billion each year mainly to large, industrial corporate farms. And the more corn the factory farms produce, the more money they make. That means there are big corporations with mounds of corn on their hands that they can sell for cheap because they’ve already made plenty off the subsidies. Cheap corporate corn floods the Mexican market, drowning local producers.

So what’s the result? Imported corn now dominates the Mexican market. For instance, in Mexico—the birthplace of corn—one-out-of-three tortillas is now made with imported maize. An estimated two million family farmers who can’t compete with subsidized U.S. corn have been driven from their land. They now have to buy imported corn to feed their families but don’t have the income to afford it. Meanwhile, American politicians following the instructions of corporate farm lobbyists start pushing ethanol. Even though the “alternative” fuel actually wastes more energy than it produces, it’s made from corn so agribusiness loves it. The new demand for corn drives up prices. And so the price of a tortilla in Mexico has risen 279 percent since NAFTA. The overall effect impacts not only farmers but all Mexicans, especially the poor. Since NAFTA, poverty in Mexico has increased. As of 2001, over 80 percent of people in rural Mexico were living in poverty.

So is it any wonder that as more and more U.S. corn flows to Mexico, more and more Mexicans cross the border to the U.S.? And corn is just the beginning. Migration around the world is the direct result of U.S. policies and actions. As immigrant rights leaders in England often chant, “We’re here because you were there.” Exactly.

Improving immigration policy in the United States is an important start and hopefully the legislation that comes out of Congress will be far improved over the current draft. But in addition, American farmers and factory workers who have also been devastated by U.S. economic policies must join with immigrant rights leaders to repeal NAFTA and other disastrous trade agreements and remove bloated corporate subsidies from the farm bill. And, as military occupation of Iraq goes hand-in-hand with economic occupation of the global south, the United States must start spending far more money on foreign aid and assistance than border enforcement and war. Maybe then we could start producing an abundance of fairness and justice on both sides of the border, instead of corn.