Read more http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2011-04-21/news/sb-1070-has-been-bad-for-arizona-and-worse-for-mexicans-but-it-inspired-a-year-s-worth-of-great-art/
By Melissa Evans, sick Staff Writer | Posted: 07/14/2011 05:42:10 PM PDT | Source: DailyBreeze.com
Health fair
When: 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. July 23
Where: Harbor City Day Laborer site, 1301 N. Figueroa Place, Wilmington
Information: 310-534-6221
—
Local medical students, researchers and high school students are coming together again this summer to offer health services to low-income and underserved residents.
The Urban Health Fellowship includes two health fairs and then a July 26 summit where students will present findings from a research project.
Those involved will continue last year’s work, looking at health problems and access to health services among the day laborer population in the Harbor Area.
Students are surveying those who come for health screenings and other services at fairs this month, said Lisa Hean, one of the medical students involved.
“We want to find out where they go for health services, what problems they’re having, whether they’re scared for immigration issues,” she said.
The program, organized by the Harbor-UCLA Department of Family Medicine and Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute, brings together high school and undergraduate students, medical students, medical residents and professional researchers who work together for six weeks.
The goal is to inspire young students from underserved areas to go into the medical field, and to encourage medical students to direct attention toward the disadvantaged in urban areas.
Last year’s group interviewed day laborers at work sites and health fairs, finding that the majority didn’t have any source of health care.
Many of those who came for services also did not have basic immunizations for tuberculosis and other highly infectious diseases, and many suffered respiratory problems and other health issues.The first health fair last weekend drew about 150 people. The next fair is July 23 at the Harbor City day laborer site.
Services include screening for anemia and diabetes, blood pressure checks, dental services, women’s and children’s health, immunizations and diet and nutrition information.
The program is supported by several groups, including Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe, L.A. City Councilwoman Janice Hahn, Molina Medical Centers and the UCLA School of Dentistry.
The summit will be held at 12:30 in the Cragin Theater at Banning High School in Wilmington.
By Bonnie Hobbs | Thursday, July 14, 2011 | Source: ConnectionNewspapers.com
The Centreville Immigration Forum (CIF) was initially begun as a way to connect people and organizations that worked with Centreville’s immigrant population. It provided ESOL classes to teach English to the day laborers and eventually evolved into a group focused on creating a worker center for them.
The CIF is now interviewing potential staff members, raising money and making plans to open this facility — to be called Centreville Labor Resource Center (CLARC) — sometime in September.
“We’ve made excellent progress,” said CIF President Alice Foltz. “We’ve had good support from many volunteers in the community, plus new volunteers in the last couple months. And we believe that, when the center opens, we’ll be ready to operate it successfully.”
Currently, day laborers looking for jobs congregate outside the Centreville Square Shopping Center, on the outskirts of Centrewood Plaza and near the Centreville Regional Library. But store owners said their presence discouraged customers from coming to their businesses. And some moms were uncomfortable bringing their children to a library with men standing outside of it.
So Al Dwoskin, who owns the Centreville Square Shopping Center, volunteered to provide a space for a worker center if the CIF would run it. The facility will get the workers off the streets and provide an organized way for employers to connect with them.
Although CLARC will be within his ping center, it will be housed in a storefront in an area away from most customer traffic. It will also be large enough to accommodate all the laborers indoors. The resource center will be open Monday-Saturday, from 6 a.m.-noon. CIF volunteers will participate in the day-to-day operation, under the guidance of a full-time, professional director.
“Over a two-month period, we interviewed people for this position before our personnel committee, worker committee and the CIF Board of Directors,” said Foltz. “We had 19 excellent applications, but the person we selected was just outstanding.”
While declining at this point to reveal the potential director’s name, she said, “We decided to hire a person who we believe has great skills and capabilities, as well as experience with similar work in other areas. But we won’t formally offer the position until all the funds are raised.”
Foltz did say, however, that the director will be bilingual. Since the day laborers are Hispanic, it’s a requirement for all jobs at the center. She also stressed that the director-to-be has experience, not only with management, but also with an immigrant population and grant-writing.
Meanwhile, the CIF is also working on several other things in tandem to prepare for the center’s opening — deciding on support staff, figuring out how many workers it will serve and tending to the myriad details involved in running such an entity. And, of course, said Foltz, “We need to complete our fund-raising, in part, to make sure we can hire support staff.”
The CIF may hire one full-time or nearly full-time assistant director. But its Board of Directors and the center director together will make the decision on the support staff. Said Foltz: “Even though we haven’t advertised for these positions, we already have about 10 applications.”
She said the support staff will assist with the job matching between the employers and workers and will help schedule and oversee the volunteers. The CIF has already trained 35 volunteers and will hold another training session shortly before the center opens its doors.
This summer, two student volunteers — one from Pennsylvania and one from New Jersey — have interned with the CIF, doing counts of the day laborers. “We need to know how many folks are on the corner in the morning, how many employers pick them up and how many workers get jobs,” explained Foltz. “This information will help us plan well for when the center opens.”
Although the facility is not anticipated to be open on Sunday, Foltz said worker counts are also being made on Sundays, too, “because people in the community are concerned that they’d be there when the center would be closed.” The interns have also spent a few mornings each week talking with the workers about how CLARC will operate, telling them about its benefits and describing how the job distribution will work.
There’ll eventually be signs directing potential employers to the resource center. And the CIF has already given the workers flyers to hand to their employers, so they, too, will know about the new center.
The space, itself, is also being readied. Needed repairs are already underway and, said Foltz, “A good number of furnishings have been donated by a lot of generous folks.”
Regarding finances, she said the CIF needs about $45,000 more for salaries and benefits for the paid staff. “We’ve raised about $50,000 and have some more pledged,” said Foltz. “Our total, annual budget is $234,000, including the cost of the space, utilities — for which Dwoskin is paying, supplies, furnishings and salaries for the director and assistant director.
CIF members have visited other, similar centers and its directors to obtain guidance about how best to operate its own facility. It’s also prepared the forms that both workers and employers will fill out, as well as flyers and informational brochures for when the center debuts.
On June 21, CIF members considered the staff hiring-timeline and also discussed answers to tough questions they’ll receive once the center is up and running. These included operational, practical and philosophical questions that local residents may pose, such as, “Will it solve the problem of day laborers standing outside waiting for work?”
“We’re certainly convinced the center will benefit the entire community,” said Foltz. “It will provide a safe place for the workers to wait for employment, off the street, so it will reduce traffic congestion. And it will resolve folks’ concerns about [their own] safety and loitering.”
Many of the workers have wives and young children to support, and all they ask is fair pay for an honest day’s labor. But as things stand now, they have no recourse if they toil all day for an employer who then refuses to pay them. But once the new facility is operational, that should no longer be a problem. Said Foltz: “Because we’ll know who the employers who hire them are, the center will provide a system to make sure the workers are paid fairly.”
She said the workers will be inside the center and volunteers will greet the employers, possibly outside the entrance, as they arrive. In addition, the workers will receive training and classes there on English, taxes, job skills and financial management. Health screening for things such as blood pressure and diabetes may also be offered.
For more information about the center, to volunteer or to donate, go to centrevilleimmigrationforum.org. or call (this summer) 703-257-4111. Besides being excited about this project finally coming to fruition, Foltz hopes it will be accepted and welcomed by the residents.
“One of the community’s concerns is that the workers won’t use the center,” she said. “But that’s not true. They’re enthusiastic about it and see the benefits very clearly. If anyone has any worries, I’d definitely encourage people to find out firsthand what’s going on by volunteering.”
The public will be notified in advance of the opening and will also be invited to attend an open house there. “We’re not trying to solve the national immigration problem,” said Foltz. “This center has no government funding — so this is a private solution to a public problem. And in many ways, this is a model for the way many problems can be solved.”
Chapel Hill TImes 06.30.2011
By Davie Jamieson | HuffingtonPost.com
Late last year, advocates for low-wage workers in Florida’s Palm Beach County made what they thought was a modest request of their county commissioners: pass a wage-theft ordinance that would make it easier for working people to reclaim unpaid wages from employers who stiff them.
But that seemingly simple request is now in limbo, as Florida’s business interests have begun campaigning strongly against such ordinances. Some local clergy in Palm Beach are wondering what’s so controversial about making sure working people are paid what’s owed them.
“I had a much higher opinion of our business community,” said Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church Deacon Peter Mazzella, who’s part of a coalition of religious leaders advocating for the law. “Being paid for one’s efforts — the salary that’s agreed upon for one’s work — is something very foundational to our whole economic system.”
In recent years, religious leaders and worker advocates have managed to raise national awareness about wage theft, which occurs when employers fail to pay the minimum wage or overtime, force employees to work off the clock or decline to pay workers altogether. A number of state and local governments have since moved to toughen their laws. New York State passed this past winter its Wage Theft Prevention Act, which increased penalties against unscrupulous employers and boosted the amount of back wages a worker can recoup. And Texas enacted a law this spring that makes wage theft a criminal act, empowering local authorities to arrest business owners who don’t pay their employees.
Such laws have had their detractors, but nowhere has the opposition seemed to be so strong as in Florida.
Last year the County of Miami-Dade passed one of the most progressive wage-theft laws in the country, establishing a municipal hearing process for allegations of unpaid wages. Workers owed at least $60 from their employer now have a right to make their case to an examiner through the county’s small-business development office.
To date, the program has fielded around 1,000 complaints, totaling more than $1 million in owed wages, and has so far recovered $130,000 for workers, according to statistics provided by the county. Many of those cases never went through the hearing process and were instead resolved quickly through mediation.
“Overall, it’s going great,” said Sheri McGriff, the program’s director. “With this law in place, people feel more empowered to come forward.”
Less thrilled with the law are some of the state’s business leaders. The Florida Retail Federation, a powerful statewide trade group, lobbied against the Miami-Dade ordinance, arguing that there were already systems in place to help workers recoup owed money. The group also believes businesses could wind up in “double jeopardy” with workers, being forced to pay back wages through the county, then again through the federal department of labor — a scenario that the law’s backers say is highly unlikely.
With the law now on the books, the retail federation is suing in state court, claiming the ordinance violates the state constitution. If successful, the lawsuit could nullify the Miami-Dade law and likely scuttle any attempts in Palm Beach to move forward with a similar ordinance.
The retail federation has also pushed a state bill that would preempt local ordinances like the one in Miami-Dade. Though that attempt failed, the bill will likely be brought forth again next session.
“You [already] have laws that protect against these violations,” said Samantha Hunter Padgett, deputy general counsel for the federation, which has officials from Walmart, Macy’s, CVS, Home Depot and Disney World on its board. “If this is truly a problem, then the issue is education and access.”
The federation may fear that the Miami-Dade ordinance could metastasize to other counties, creating red tape and making employers and their books more accountable to local governments. Indeed, the ordinance served as the basis for the proposal now stalled in Palm Beach.
But Jose Javier Rodriguez, the public-interest lawyer who drafted the Miami-Dade law, said employers have nothing to worry about — so long as they’re paying their employees properly.
“The burden of proof is on the employee,” Rodriguez said. “They have to prove they were employed and that they were owed money. It’s a basic contract: ‘I worked for you; you didn’t pay me.’ ”
The retail federation’s resistance to the law seems a bit puzzling to some given that retailers haven’t exactly been dragged in great numbers before hearing examiners in Miami-Dade. In fact, according to McGriff, the greatest numbers of wage-theft cases come out of industries other than retail — specifically construction, ity, and food-services. Many of the violations tend to happen under day-labor arrangements, an uncommon occurance in retail. She says the complaints are vetted early on to make sure they’re not frivolous or fraudulent.
“A lot of it is in industries that feel they can bring in folk and not be accountable,” said McGriff. “Say, a construction company may pick up some folk that are at a ping center, promise them work, work them for the week, and then not pay them. We’ve had that.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, many of the people who’ve found recourse through the new law are undocumented workers. Fearing deportation, such workers are easily taken advantage of, and many of them would be reluctant to step forward and file a complaint with the federal labor department. The county, however, doesn’t care what a worker’s status is, McGriff said. “Our question is whether you were paid or not.”
Although Palm Beach’s county commissioners voted unanimously last year to support the drafting of a wage-theft ordinance, no such law will be coming soon. In the wake of the retail federation’s lawsuit and pressure from business groups, the commission has tabled the issue and likely won’t deal with it at least until after the new year.
Palm Beach Commissioner Shelley Vana said that the best route for workers who are owed wages may be through legal aid societies and their pro bono lawyers. In a best-case scenario, Vana said, “we can get everyone working together without an ordinance.”
Jeanette Smith, the director of the faith-based advocacy group South Florida Interfaith Worker Justice, believes ordinances like the one on the table in Palm Beach are all the more important because Florida does not have a state labor department, which in other states is often the agency that investigates wage violations. Florida’s department was dismantled a decade ago.
The business community’s opposition, Smith said, doesn’t hold up on moral grounds.
“We all agree: Wage theft is bad; it hurts good businesses,” she said. “So what’s to know? Just pay your employees.”
By David Glenn Cox | Originally posted in: OpEdNews.com
David Glenn Cox
I have been at loose ends now for two, clinic could it be going on three years? Without a phone or an address to call my own, I have access to these things but they aren’t mine. For the last six months I have been staying like Dick Cheney, in an undisclosed location. I wonder now, if I’ve become a gentleman of the road? I’ve been placing an ad in Craigslist offering to do day labor, I’ve built fences, stained decks, built brick retaining walls. No job application, credit check or testing needed. We talk, we meet, I do the job, I get paid and I go on my way.
I no longer have a sense of normality, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. None of my employers have tried to cheat me out of my time; no one has made the type of demands on me that conventional employers have made. No one has been disappointed in my work or made any complaints about either the caliber or quality. I could not have done this when I was living in Atlanta because in Atlanta, the economy there was prostrate. My ad offering labor for $12.00 an hour would have been ignored. It is only because I am in this enclave that there is work for me.
It is in a beautiful river valley, in a historic little town where the antique and boutique homes have been meticulously restored to an amazing degree. This is due to both the character of the people and the prosperity of the little town. It is both a bedroom community and tourist destination and as I jog through its tree lined streets I feel as if I am in Disney Land, it has a feeling of the unreal. It is all too perfect, my senses still can’t accept what my eyes see as normal because it’s not normal. It is an enclave and as I traveled out to meet another respondent to my ad I was reminded that it is an enclave. I saw in a little town just a few miles down the highway, the signs of which I was all too familiar with in Atlanta.
Empty buildings, for signs and for rent signs and then something which I saw almost two years ago in Atlanta. The people are selling off their toys, in the front lawns along the side of the highway are the littered remnants of their prosperity, boats, motorcycles and expensive riding lawnmowers . Like Dante’s vision of hell it re-awoke in me and reminded me not only how unreal my little enclave was but also how this economic plague continues on unabated. Seeing all the signs which I had lived with before was like the return of a recurring nightmare. Like a cloud of locusts or a tidal wave, of that feeling of knowing what was going to come next, but unable to do anything about it other than to just duck.
So I met with my customer, a divorced woman with three small children. Her husband’s business had failed, put out by Chinese labor and they had divorced. I could see the parallels in her story to my own story. She was down sizing, she had bought a foreclosed house out in the country and wanted to sell her house in town so as to live mortgage free. She had all the accoutrements of wealth around her but then, a few years ago so did I. There was a boat and a camper, but this house? This house was going to be a project and it contained all the signs of a Hail Mary pass. Of someone trying to hold on to what they have left, for me this looked like a perfect situation because my day labor comes and goes. Two days here, one day there and recently no days anywhere and cash is growing tight.
As I was returning to the enclave, there was a man at the highway exit begging. He held a handmade sign that read, “Lost my job, two kids, can’t pay my rent, family in crisis.” There was a time when I was a different person, when I was cynical and sanguine about the well being of others. Oh, I was introspective enough in the abstract, back when my lawn had a sprinkler system and my garage held a classic sports car. This is why I say that losing normality is not necessarily a bad thing.
My cynicism for government has never ebbed but my cynicism for people in trouble has all but evaporated. I understand intrinsically the mental machinations that it takes for a man to stand on a roadside and beg for money. The inability of a man to be able to support himself and his family after years of having doing so successfully. I have wondered if I could do it? In the abstract the cynic might say, “he’s conning you man!” But that was in the old America wasn’t it? In this America, who could doubt that an honest man had lost his job? In this America, who could doubt that he lost it through no fault of his own? In this America, who could doubt that he could not find another?
In this America, ask yourself just how hard on your self esteem it becomes to beg money from strangers on a roadside. This was no wino or crack head, this was a middle aged man sliding down Dante’s slope. As I look back over my own times on Dante’s slope I began to see all of the people that I have met and spent time with and how similar all of their stories are to each other. I gave the man $2.00 as we passed and was reminded of what Woody Guthrie had once said, “I ain’t never seen a poor man that wouldn’t share what he’s got and I never seen a rich man who wasn’t afraid someone would take something from him.”
I got the job and worked for a couple of hours and will begin work in earnest at the end of the week. The woman described me as “laid back” and she is the second person to describe me that way. If you had known me a few years ago you would laugh, Dave? Laid back? I had things to do back then, I had to cut the grass or wax my car. I had to preside as the President of my home owners association or I had to go to my job where I made my employer tens of thousands of dollars but he still treated me like I was stealing a paycheck. I had a form to sign that said that I had received my new company handbook and that I understood its covenants and conditions of employment.
That was my normality back in the day, back when I had things. I still had a house, cars, tools and lawn furniture but no real care or concern for my fellow man. “Tough break” or “That’s too bad” when really, all I meant was, tough break for you and too bad for you but I’ve still got mine! Oh, I cared in the abstract but not in the specific, I cared about the poor and the unemployed in a way which cannot ever be explained. On an emotional and intellectual level I cared, but those things I owned, they held me in their grip and my fear of losing them frightened me so into an emotional paralysis. I was tense all of the time and afraid all of the time. What if I lost my job? What if I lost all of these things? What if I lost my nice big house and my big screen TV with 200 channels?
Now I have lost all of those things and I haven’t been able to find stable employment for two, going on three years despite a good work record. Millions of you already understand what I’m saying, a gap in your work history? A poor credit score is seen as much the same light as having a criminal record. Recently, a friend of mine applied for an eight dollar an hour job at a convenience store, she was disqualified from this dream job by a credit card default. This is a very kind and sweet person but here, Equifax is allowed to do the hiring. Really? How are people ever supposed to recover? The bad debts and soured loans of the banks are covered and it’s business as usual, but for the American people it’s an economic debtor’s prison.
I’ve been through the first seven circles of hell and I’m not afraid anymore. I’m no longer intimidated by wealth or status or power. I still fear the police of course, because the less money you have the more likely you are to be jailed. That man begging for money would probably get more time than a drunk driver. You can go on TV and cry for the poor children in the name of Jebus but when you try to take care of your own children then it’s, “Book em Dano.” It makes you scratch your head in wonder. The ex-President of the United States creates phony wars of aggression and kills tens of thousands of innocents and the current President cancels the investigations into the criminal wrong doing.
Despite the obvious economic effects, both political parties plan to take a butcher’s knife to this country’s badly needed social programs. The party that feared death panels now wants to cut Grandma’s Medicaid and Mr. Hope and Change says, Ok, good idea.
I have been so changed by this experience, I have gone from a liberal Democrat to a revolutionary Sot. I think there is something cancerous and deadly wrong going on here. Beggars in the streets, millions made homeless, millions more made unemployed and the only answer from government is to cut even more still. To make more beggars, to make more homeless, to destabilize families with children, to shatter them and break them apart. To destroy the honor and self esteem of the honest and hard working by forcing them to beg in the streets.
I have come to understand that this is not a plague which is just affecting you or me. It is affecting us all at different levels, we are all at different rings of Dante’s Inferno and each day some rise and some fall. We are all in this torment together, young and old, white and black and brown. Christian, Muslim, Jew or Atheist, it no longer matters on which circle of hell you dwell because hell is hell. Each day more join us in their poverty and loss and each day the scales begin to tip as more as more Americans begin to understand that government is about protecting the people and not about protecting things. That the people of this country have value and that things do not, and when that becomes the consensus, the world will change, because the people will no longer be afraid of their government.
About the Author:
Born at the pinnacle of American prosperity to parents raised during the last great depression. I was the youngest child of the youngest children born almost between the generations and that in fact clouds and obss who it is that I am really.
Given a front row seat for the generation of the 1960’s I lived in Chicago in 1960. My father was a Democratic precinct captain, my mother an election judge. His father had been a Union organizer and had been beaten and jailed for his efforts. His first time in jail was for punching a Ku Klux Klansman during a parade in the 1930’s. I never felt as if I was raised in a family of activists but seeing it print makes me think, yes. That is a part of who I am.
We find ourselves today living in a world treed by the hounds of madness, a complicit media covering contrite parties. Multilevel media, giving more access to communication yet stunting actual communication. More noise, less voice, more sound less music, more law less justice, more less life.
Kate King, order Staff Writer | Source: StamfordAdvocate.com | Tuesday, case July 5, 2011
Jean Daniels teaches a English class on Monday June 27, 2011 at Neighbors Link Stamford, a new non-profit organization that provides a comprehensive resource center for recent immigrants in the Stamford, Connecticut area. Photo: Dru Nadler / Stamford Advocate Freelance
STAMFORD — There are three words painted in blue on the concrete walls of the newly opened immigration center in Waterside — educate, empower, employ.
It’s the mission statement of Neighbors Link Stamford, a nonprofit dedicated to providing resources for local immigrants. The program has been years in the making, and Executive Director Catalina Samper Horak said she still can’t believe it’s finally come to fruition.
“There’s so many people who feel a sense of ownership of this center,” she said one morning last week. “We made it. We finally got it.”
Horak said the nonprofit is intended to be a “point of entry” for Stamford’s immigrant population. The program is modeled after the Neighbors Link center in Mount Kisco, N.Y., which has provided adult education, tutoring, computer training and employment development to the city’s immigrant community for the past 10 years. Horak served on the Mount Kisco center’s board of directors for seven years.
Neighbors Link Stamford celebrated its grand opening June 12, after initial resistance from some who worried the program would encourage day laborers to loiter outside the Selleck Street location. Rick Allen, a member of the Waterside Coalition, a neighborhood group on the West Side, said he was at first skeptical of the new organization, but is now a full supporter.
“We had kind of started out on a negative note because no one knew what the center was about,” Allen said. “But over the last few weeks, members of the coalition have come down to visit the center and it is awesome. They need our support and we need their support, so we’re all working on this together.”
Horak said Neighbors Link Stamford will one day serve as a safe and se hiring site where workers can wait for employers while taking English and computer classes. For the moment, however, the center is focusing on an overwhelming need from the local immigrant population for English instruction.
“We are supporting every single person in the immigrant community no matter where they are on the spectrum,” Horak said. “But we’re not talking about (the day laborer) component right now because we’re focusing on the education aspect. So that’s our big emphasis right now. We’re all about integration.”
Neighbors Link provides free daily English lessons to local immigrants on a walk-in basis, Horak said. The classes are led by volunteer ESL-certified instructors. On-site babysitting is also available for parents while they participate in classes.
More than a dozen people showed up for the June 27 English class taught by Jean Daniels. The group sat at plastic folding tables in front of a large whiteboard, on which Daniels wrote the five vowels of the English alphabet.
“The idea is to give them enough English so they can go out and get a job,” Daniels said. “But they’re open to anything, so whatever you can give them, they’re very appreciative. I think it’s excellent. I think it’s a good resource for the community.”
Private tutoring is also available for more advanced students. Martha Cortes, who moved to the United States from Colombia 22 years ago, drives to Neighbors Link Stamford every day from Norwalk for English lessons. On Monday, she received grammar and pronunciation help from Sakshi Bhatnagar, a 17-year-old high school senior at the Academy of Information Technology & Engineering in Stamford.
“This program is very good,” Cortes said. “I’m coming here Monday through Friday to improve my English and practice my grammar, and in the afternoon I take computer classes.”
Cortes worked for an aerospace manufacturing company for 16 years before losing her job when the company relocated. She said she is now hoping to improve her English writing skills so she can begin a new career in the health care industry.
“That’s why I have to practice my grammar,” Cortes said. “Right now, my goal is to improve my English so I can find a job.”
Neighbors Link Stamford is run by volunteers and funded entirely through private donations from individuals, foundations and religious organizations, Horak said. The center works with other local nonprofits to ensure services are enhanced, rather than duplicated. Immigrants looking for help with mental health, mortgage or citizenship questions will be directed to the proper resources, Horak said.
Horak, the center’s only paid employee, immigrated to the United States from Colombia in 1981 and now lives in Darien.
“I can totally relate to what people are going through here, the difficulties of raising children in another culture,” Horak said.
She said the center’s location on the West Side makes it easily accessible to many members of the local immigrant population, who can walk or take a bus to the center.
“It’s that neighborhood feeling,” Horak said. “It’s totally coming true.”
Staff Writer Kate King can be reached at kate.king@scni.com or at 203-964-2263.
1:50 PM, Jun. 26, 201 | Written by Margaret F. Bonafide | Source: Asbury Park Press
Lakewood's day-laborer "muster zone" between First and Second streets and Route 9 and Clifton Avenue where primarily Hispanic men go to find work. The town's Hispanic population is foreseen by some as forming an influential voting bloc. / TOM SPADER/ASBURY PARK PRESS
LAKEWOOD — Juan Gonzalez is an honors student at Lakewood Middle School, a violinist who plans to study theology or architecture at Harvard University.
An impressive public speaker at age 13, Gonzalez addressed several hundred people at a Board of Education meeting about school concerns with gangs.
“I want to become a citizen and have the same rights as anyone to achieve my dream,” he said during an interview on the last day of the school year.
Juan Gonzalez, 13, in the Lakewood Middle School library. Born in Mexico, Gonzalez is a example of Hispanic immigrant children who want to pursue the advantages of U.S. citizenship. / TOM SPADER/ASBURY PARK PRESS
Gonzalez, who was born in Puebla, Mexico, is a member of group here reflecting a national trend: an emerging Hispanic populace which could wield considerable political and cultural influence in the relatively near future.
The 2010 Census revealed the Hispanic population here surged over the past decade, from 9,000 to 16,000 — a 78 percent increase. Lakewood’s population according to the 2010 Census was 92,843, edging Toms River as Ocean County’s largest municipality.
Nationally, Hispanics account for more than half of nation’s growth in past decade, according to the census results released in March. The Census Bureau predicts that the nation will be one quarter Hispanic by 2050.
Lakewood’s Hispanic residents are mostly Mexican, also a reflection of the nation’s demographic makeup, according to the Pew Research Center.
The majority of the children in Lakewood are educated in private Orthodox Jewish schools, but in the public school district the 5,500-student enrollment is predominantly Hispanic, said Puerto Rican-born Annette Maldonado, Lakewood Middle School principal.
The bulk of the membership of the Parent Teacher Organization is of Mexican descent and speaks only Spanish. The school board provided at one meeting a Spanish translator through whom parents spoke.
Many Hispanic students are children of immigrant parents who entered the country legally; entered legally but remained after their visas expired; or entered illegally. No matter the status of the parents, their children born in this country are U.S. citizens, noted Monica Guerrero, director of the Latino Community Connection, a for-profit business.
“Most Hispanics I know do hard labor,’’ said Gonzalez, the honors student. “I want to have a good life.”
When he becomes a citizen — like his classmates who were born here — Gonzalez will gain the right to vote. He doesn’t have political aspirations but he wants to be like the “righteous leader” cited in the Bible’s Book of Proverbs, he said.
These children of Hispanic parents will be voting by the next census, said Mayor Menashe Miller, and become a formidable voting bloc along with the Orthodox Jewish and senior communities.“This is the land of the free and the home of the brave. I think it is fantastic that these children will grow up and become voters,” Miller said.
“And the mosaic of the Township Committee should be a representation of who is in the town,” Miller said.
A majority Hispanic students in the middle school and especially the elementary school were born here, Maldonado said. In civics class students learn about citizen duties and are preparing to become voting residents, Maldonado said.
“They are being educated to take a more active stance,” Maldonado said.
In a broader view, the recent trip by President Barack Obama to Puerto Rico shows that the Hispanic vote is sought-after, said Kathryn Quinn-Sanchez, 41, chairwoman of world languages and cultures at Georgian Court University.
“But it will take another generation to be a voting bloc,” Quinn Sanchez said.
And the Hispanic vote is not monolithic, Quinn-Sanchez said. There are a dozen nationalities grouped under the umbrella term of Hispanic, she said. Though categorized as the same, members of the different nationalities do not feel the same “homogeneity as, say, a group of senior citizens would,” Quinn-Sanchez said.
Hispanic parents “have a dream for their children to be educated,” said Jose, a 30-year-old day laborer man who declined to give a last name.
And educators in the school district are intent on getting the students out of the mindset of staying within the four corners of their community and to see the possibilities and power in their future, Maldonado said.
When children are exposed to the world of higher education they can see beyond their parent’s walls, Maldonado said.
This past year middle school children visited colleges and universities, she said.
“They heard things like ‘yes, you can.’ They don’t hear that at home because the knowledge is not there” on how to work toward greater achievements, Maldonado said.
What the parents do know, though, is hard work, she said.
Maldonado said she hopes that the children will be politicians helping their community to represent the people of Lakewood.
Already, said Guerrero of the Latino Community Connection, Hispanic residents feel more confident about their place in the community and are working hard to show their best side.
BY MARK SCHULTZ, Staff Writer | Source: ChapelHillNews.com
CARRBORO – National day laborers organizers planned to meet with local workers this weekend to discuss establishing a permanent space where they can wait for work.Chris Newman and Francisco Pacheco of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network visited Orange County to learn more about the problems local workers have and to discuss the benefits of an official day laborers center.
El Centro Hispano (The Hispanic Center) is exploring using part of its space in Carrboro Plaza for a center. El Centro is a member of the community organizing coalition Justice United and is working with that group, the towns of Carrboro and Chapel Hill, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce and others.
Two meetings have been held with local day laborers, or jornaleros, who mostly come from Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador but also include black citizens, said Mauricio Castro, an organizer with the N.C. Latino Coalition.
The workers have expressed concerns about wage theft (not being paid for a day’s work) and safety at the corner of Jones Ferry and Davie roads where they gather for work. The site also does not have a bathroom.
The Carrboro day laborers spot is small compared to most across the country, Pacheco said. But the problems workers are having are not unique. It’s estimated that up to half of the 120,000 day laborers in the United States at any one time have not been paid for at least one day’s work, said Newman, the legal director for the laborer network.
The organizers said they are not here to tell local leaders to create a permanent gathering spot or take any other action.
“We’re coming as a resource,” Newman said. “Obviously Carrboro needs to decide what Carrboro wants to do.”
Read more about this weekend’s meeting with day laborers coming Wednesday in The Chapel Hill News.
mark.schultz@nando.com or 932-2003
June 24, 2011 | 12:51pm | Posted in the LA Times
In Friday’s pages, Harold Meyerson sheds light on the inhumane working conditions many undocumented immigrant workers face. Take day laborer Josue Melquisedec Diaz, for instance:
Diaz was put to work in a residential neighborhood that had been flooded. The American workers who were involved in the cleanup, he noted, had been given masks, gloves, boots and sometimes special suits to avoid infection. No such precautions were afforded Diaz and his crew of undocumented immigrant workers. “We were made to work with bare hands, picking up dead animals,” he says. “We were working in contaminated water,” tearing down and repairing washed-out homes.
Stop and think about that. You may resent undocumented immigrants for taking jobs away from Americans, but you can’t possibly think they deserve to be treated like they’re subhuman and expendable. And, anyway, shouldn’t we reserve our contempt for employers skirting the law by hiring cheap labor? Meyerson continues:
Last week, New Jersey Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez and California Reps. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) and George Miller (D-Martinez) introduced legislation (the POWER Act) that would give workers like Diaz provisional “U visas.” The visas were designed to provide temporary legal status to immigrant victims who come forward to report violent crimes, and the proposed legislation would expand the protection to those who come forward to report workplace violations. Such legislation, Menendez pointed out, would not only protect immigrants but keep unscrupulous employers from lowering labor standards generally.
The July/August issue of Mother Jones also takes on the issue the unfair working conditions. Take, for example, Martha’s story:
Of course, undocumented immigrants aren’t the only ones being squeezed for all they’re worth. The heart of Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery’s Mother Jones article, “All Work and No Pay,” describes the culture of the new American workplace — one that places value on flashy buzzwords like “productivity,” “multitasking” and “offloading,” all of which really mean working employees to the bone. And though people may be inclined to shrug off intense working conditions as a temporary phase during a down economy, they shouldn’t:
In all the chatter about our “jobless recovery,” how often does someone explain the simple feat by which this is actually accomplished? US productivity increased twice as fast in 2009 as it had in 2008, and twice as fast again in 2010: workforce down, output up, and voilá! No wonder corporate profits are up 22 percent since 2007, according to a new report by the Economic Policy Institute. To repeat: Up. Twenty-two. Percent.
If your blood isn’t boiling yet, these charts will do the trick.
–Alexandra Le Tellier
Illustration: Mark Weber / Tribune Media Services