Voices of the Undocumented

Val Rosenfeld

Description

America is in the midst of a daily debate about the issue of undocumented workers. It seems that every day there is another controversy about immigration in the news. Most Americans read these articles and look upon the undocumented immigrants as an undifferentiated block of people. Few seem to truly understand them as individuals, how they got here and their personal stories. This non-fiction book, Voices of the Undocumented, tells the stories of nine undocumented individuals, their struggles as day workers, how their lives are in limbo and their hopes for a better future. This is not a political book. The purpose of these life stories is to give these faceless people a voice. From the heartbreaking story of Salvador (an illiterate Mexican farm worker who entered the U.S. illegally four times), to Ernesto (an educated Peruvian womanizer), to the amazing accomplishments of Roco (a graduate of a prestigious university), Voices of the Undocumented relates poignant accounts of the undocumented workers' lives. One must know the stories to truly know the people.

Sujets

• Histoire
• México
• Industrial relations
• History of the Americas
• Mexico
• Migration

Informations

• Publié par: First Edition Design Publishing
• Date de parution: 01 novembre 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781506900551
• Langue: English

Extrait

Voices of the
Undocumented

Val Rosenfeld and Flor Fortunati
Voices of the Undocumented
Copyright ©2015 Val Rosenfeld and Flor Fortunati

ISBN 978-1506-900-54-4 PRINT
ISBN 978-1506-900-55-1 EBOOK

LCCN 2015955105

October 2015

Published and Distributed by
First Edition Design Publishing, Inc.
P.O. Box 20217, Sarasota, FL 34276-3217
www.firsteditiondesignpublishing.com



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means ─ electronic, mechanical, photo-copy, recording, or any other ─ except brief quotation in reviews, without the prior permission of the author or publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rosenfeld, Val, Fortunati Flor
Voince of the undocumented / written by Val Rosenfeld and Flor Fortunati.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1506-900-54-4 pbk, 978-1506-900-55-1 digital

1. BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Cultural Heritage. 2. Personal Memoirs. 3. POLITICAL SCIENCE / Public Policy / Social Policy. 4. SOCIAL SCIENCE / Emigration & Immigration

V8897
CONTENTS

Introduction . i
A Brief History of the Day Worker Center iii

Chapter 1 Salvador’s Story . 2
Chapter 2 Ernesto’s Story . 20
Chapter 3 Lucía’s Story . 36
Chapter 4 Ruben’s Story . 52
Chapter 5 Aurora’s Story . 68
Chapter 6 José Luis’s Story . 78
Chapter 7 Laura’s Story . 98
Chapter 8 Carmen and Rocío’s Stories 112
Chapter 8 (Continued) Rocío’s Story . 127

Epilogue 142

Discussion Questions 143
….. we are and always will be a nation of immigrants.
We were strangers once, too.

Barack Obama
Introduction
For more than seven years, I have been teaching ESL (“English as a second language”) as a volunteer at the Day Worker Center in Mt. View, California. When I first came to the Day Worker Center, I did not recognize its full purpose. I was retired and taking Spanish classes and was looking for an opportunity to practice the language. The Day Worker Center was a volunteer opportunity to get some real life Spanish experience and to contribute to the community at the same time. I soon discovered that very few of my friends knew about the Center or that such an organization even existed, let alone exactly what the Center did and whom it served.
A day worker center is a community-based organization that helps workers find day jobs. Although the center does not restrict who can register for their services, in the San Francisco Bay Area it primarily serves a Latino immigrant population. There are approximately 70 such day worker centers throughout the United States. While these centers vary in their locations and administration, each center aims to provide jobs for service workers - to help such workers, who would otherwise stand on street corners, come in off the streets into a supportive environment. Employers in the area are then encouraged to hire their day workers from the centers, rather than off the street.
Over these seven years, I have been responsible for two ESL classes a week at the Day Worker Center of Mountain View – a beginning class and an advanced class. During this time, I have heard small parts of many of the workers’ life stories. As I got to know the workers better, I found that I wanted to hear their whole stories – where they came from, how they got here, and how they found their place in this country and community. Since many of the workers have limited proficiency with English, I realized that they needed to tell their stories in their native language in order to convey all the details and the associated emotions. When Flor Fortunati, who is from Argentina and thus fluent in Spanish, joined me as a volunteer teacher at the Day Worker Center, she felt the same draw to the workers’ stories that I had experienced. Together, we had the ability to interview the workers and to hear their stories in their own language and in their own words.
We selected men and women from a variety of Latin American countries to interview. At first, many of the workers were reluctant to talk about their pasts. Perhaps, the workers worried that by telling their stories, they would endanger their status in the Unites States, as many of them are undocumented. Perhaps the workers worried that middle-class Americans would not understand their hardships and experiences. But, once Flor and I started interviewing them, they quickly opened up. They wanted someone to be interested, someone to understand what they had experienced in their efforts to create new lives for themselves and their families. As the workers became increasingly comfortable speaking of their pasts, we discovered how moving their stories were and how justifiably proud the workers were of their accomplishments. And, at the same time, we found that knowing the details of their lives made us feel closer to them as students and as people and neighbors.
We recorded all of the interviews in Spanish, transcribed them and then translated them into English. We have made every effort to allow each worker to tell his or her story in his or her own words. To preserve the integrity of their stories, we have presented them as a narrative, as the workers have told them to us. Only first names have been used and some names and locations have been changed, and pictures omitted, at the request of the worker. We believe this documentation of oral history is important. You must know the stories to truly know the people.
A Brief History of the Day Worker Center

In the San Francisco Bay Area, the cities of Palo Alto, Mountain View and Los Altos, along with local police departments, openly support the Day Worker Center. This has not always been the case, however.
In 1994, California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 187, also known as Save Our State. Proposition 187 was a ballot initiative to establish a state-run citizenship screening system and prohibit undocumented immigrants from access to health care, public education and a range of other social services. The proposition passed by a wide margin and its passage immediately resulted in wide-spread opposition. Legal challenges to the new law soon followed. Three days after the passage of Proposition 187, a federal judge entered a temporary restraining order blocking the enforcement of the law. Within a month, a permanent injunction was issued finding the proposition unconstitutional and blocking all provisions of the law. Specifically, the judge found that the law infringed on the federal government’s exclusive jurisdiction over immigration-related matters.
The injunction against Proposition 187 did not change the community’s attitude toward day laborers, unfortunately. Around the same time, residents in the California cities of Mountain View and Los Altos, along with their police departments, complained about immigrants congregating on the streets corners in search of job opportunities. In an effort to address these divisive issues, a community lawyer in the area brought together people from various constituencies, including, elected officials, religious leaders and residents, to create a focus group to develop the concept of a physical day worker center. The initial Center operated within the rectory of a small church, but, after its initial success, moved to another building in a more central business location in Mountain View. It operated there until 1999, when the cities of Los Altos and Mt. View each passed an ordinance banning employers from picking up day workers from street corners, thereby making it illegal for residents and businesses to hire a large segment of the undocumented worker population seeking employment.
While the Center aimed to get workers off street corners, its fate remained uncertain as well. When the Center’s lease expired in 2001, the landlord elected not to renew it. With the loss of the lease, the Day Worker Center literally disappeared. Virtually overnight, there was no Center, no computers, no telephone, no work opportunities, nothing. During the next few months, the organizers of the Day Worker Center collected signatures, held marches, and went to the city councils. Finally, the Center’s organizers found assistance with a large law firm in Palo Alto, California. Lawyers from Morrison and Foerster and MALD (Mexican American Legal Defense), working together, were able to successfully challenge the city ordinances. The cities were forced to pay the Center’s legal fees and to compensate the organization for all the damage it had sustained. This success served as an important victory for the Center and for undocumented workers’ rights.
In 2002, after this successful legal victory, the Day Worker Center re-opened. Throughout the next nine years, the Center operated from various rooms in local churches. By 2011, the Center had raised enough funds through private donations to purchase a former laundromat in Mountain View, where it established its new headquarters as a non-profit, 501c3 Corporation. The Center refurbished the building to include an office, a greeting area, a great room (with tables and chairs, a library area and computer area), a kitchen, and a classroom. The Center currently employs a paid director and two assistants and has an annual budget of approximately $150,000, which is funded through a combination of grants and private donations.
Today, 60-80 day workers use the Center’s service. Approximately 10% of the workers are non-Latinos, primarily from Ethiopia and other parts of Africa. Another, smaller portion of workers were born and raised in the United States, but have turned to the Center in search of day employment. Regardless of the worker’s origins, the Center has become part of their lives.
Despite the success of the Center, numerous immigrants still look for work on street corners. Some of these workers wish to negotiate for jobs by themselves, preferring to avoid the rules of the Center, such as