ISA, RC21. An International Conference: Urban Justice and Sustainability, August 24, 2007, Vancouver, British Columbia, CANADA

Advanced Marginalization of Undocumented Workers at Street Corners

The Precarious Life of Day Laborers in

a West Coast Suburban Town

JSPS Research Fellow, University of Tokyo, University of California, Berkeley,

Department of Sociology

e-mail:ktanaka76@berkeley.edu Kennosuke TANAKA

Table of Contents

1　 Introduction: Informal Day Labor 2. Research Background 3. Limited Social Supports for Day

Laborers by NPO working with the City Council

4. Spending Time Waiting for a Job 5. The Precarious Life: Under the

Highway 6. Conclusion: “The Process of the

Advanced Marginalization”

Advanced Marginalization of “Informal Day Labor”

1 . Day Laborers In the United States,

Illegal status immigrants and Marginalized persons

2. The form of Labor nonstandard specifically contingent employment,

typically in large and midsized cities (Valenzuela 2003). 3. The Definition of the Day Laborers “marginalized self-employed workers” (Waldinger 1996)

seek for a daily basis temporary employment,

4. Two Types of Day Laborers: Formal and Informal

The Formal Day Labor Industry n  Profit temp agencies or “hiring halls” which place workers in

manual work assignments at or around the minimum wage

n  Day labor agencies recruits marginalized persons (parolees, ex-convicts, former welfare recipients, the homeless, the unemployed, and immigrants who have, or who can successfully forge legal documentation) without performing criminal background checks or drug tests, and requiring neither skills nor references (Purser, 2006).

n  To register for the day’s job allocation process, job seekers who are U.S citizens tend to congregate at the formal day labor rather than undocumented immigrants who do not have documentation, real or forged.

The Informal Day Labor Industry n  a highly visible, vulnerable, and exploited form of labor characterized by

undocumented men who stand at street corners, parking lots, empty lots, designated public spaces, or store fronts of home improvement establishments to solicit temporary daily work (Valenzuela, 2003)　

n  hiring sites spread throughout metropolitan area → What is going on the day laborer site at the another area?

n  Most day laborers are male, foreign-born, unauthorized newcomers, and typically have low levels of education and a poor command of English

The Goal of My Ethnographic Study

n  to examine the “locational conflict” (Mitchell,2003) of informal day labor sites

n  to provide a narrative of “the precarious lives of undocumented workers” which is the process of “advanced marginalization”.

Research Background

n  All the day laborers were male. n  11 months： September, 2006 to

August 2007

I participated in day labor two or three days a week, getting to know the workers while waiting for work, going to free Friday lunches at a local church, and chatting over beers at the vacant lot under the highway where they live.

n  Mostly undocumented immigrants

from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, who seek work each day on the Hearst Avenue in West Berkeley, CA.

n  Only two African-Americans; both waited for a job for a couple of hours and then left.

　

Local Problems

n  The lumber company complained “the laborers are too aggressive in soliciting work from the contractors and homeowners who shop at the building supply store”.

n  Berkeley residents also complained about sanitation conditions, requesting that workers have access to restrooms during the long work days.

↓　

n  Mayor and other council members expressed concern that there were no accommodations such as a shelter or bathrooms for the workers who sometimes waited for hours in the area.

Limited Social Supports for Day Laborers by Nonprofit Organization (NPO) working with the City Council

n  In August, 2002, the Council commissioned a local nonprofit organization to work with the men to develop educational programs, vocational training, family support, and health care, aiming to improve their situation.

n  Volunteers working with the NPO at the church located a few blocks away from the day labor site provide free lunch meals to day laborers every Friday.

↓ n  However, the problem of extreme poverty of day

laborers remains largely unsolved

Spending Time Waiting for a Job n  Lopes, a 34 year-old native Mexican, only found

work two days last month.

　Nothing today. It’s so slow… No one gets a job here. I‘ve been waiting a whole day since 8:00 a.m. Now is 4:30　p.m. Tomorrow will be no job too. But, this is my life, I have to come here, and just wait. I feel like that my job is just to wait here the whole day.

　　On an average day, less than 5 percent of the

men standing at the Hearst corner get work.

　Lewis, a tall, 33 year-old, homeless Mexican man with more

than 9 years experience as a day laborer

n  Here, everyone has complained about job and wages. They [employer] don’t care about us anything. You know, they treat us like a beast. I feel like a slave. After the job, an employer threw the cash on the seat of his car. You know that means. He does not wanna touch my hands at all. I am sure that he guessed I got some disease or something. I can understand what a guy [the employer] says. I can speak English when I should say something. But, I don’t wanna talk with them [employers]. So, I just pretend I can’t speak English.

The Precarious Life: Under the Highway

n  Fernando, a 35 year-old Mexican, sleeps in his van

n  Before crossing the border, I thought there are big chances

in US to get job, to support my family. But now, I am a homeless. I am drinking too much alcohol everyday. I can’t get a job… I don’t know what I am doing here. I don’t think I will get a chance someday. I did not contact my family for three years.

Sweep Away the Homeless Undocumented Immigrants

n  On August 10, 2007 n  The City of Berkeley posted a notice of “Removal of Property”

n  The City Council is attempting to sweep away the homeless, undocumented immigrants from underpass where they live. While they may get some forms of social service provided by the church and NPO, those services are limited.

n  By attempting to remove the homeless, undocumented immigrants who live under the highway, the city disregards their rights and by attempting to remove them from the public space, treats them like property.

Conclusion

n  The monthly earnings of informal day laborers are insufficient to pay rent. In order to send money to their families, they have to abandon staying in an apartment with their friends and become homeless. However, even without the expenses of rent, a day laborer may still not earn a sufficient wage.

　　　 ↓ n  Most of their income is used to buy alcohol, and occasionally, to

buy drugs. In doing so, some are apt to loose their connection to their families they intended to support. This vicious cycle is an unintended consequence that contributes to undocumented immigrants’ advanced marginalization.

↓ n  Advanced marginalization is not only driven by the double

failure of NAFTA and IRCA (Donate and Massey, 1993), and an over abundance of border control (Sassen, 1996) ,but is also generated by the culture that develops amongst undocumented immigrants.

Thank You for Listening to My Presentation