http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/14632170.htm

Posted on Sun, May. 21, 2006

Blacks fret over immigrant gains
Latino population surge puts wages, jobs, clout at risk, some say
FRANCO ORDOŅEZ
fordonez@charlotteobserver.com

Troy Watson sat with friends in a west Charlotte diner where most customers are black and the cooks are Hispanic.

The 62-year-old Vietnam veteran said he feels for any downtrodden individual. But as a black man, he said, he can't support the cause of illegal immigrants.

He compared the economics of immigration to a piece of unfinished bread on his plate: Whites, he said, have long enjoyed the soft middle, leaving the crust for blacks. Now, he said, a growing surge of Latino immigrants is threatening even that.

"I'm concerned about black people," Watson explained between sips of coffee. "We need that crust. There is not enough for both of us. I love you, but I can't let you have it."

National surveys suggest that Watson, who owns his own business, represents the sentiments of many black Americans.

As Latino leaders step up demands for immigrant rights, they are finding limited support among the nation's 38 million blacks.

At stake, some blacks say, is a competition for jobs and public services -- along with political and economic clout.

"It's as if you throw out 200 bags of grain and 500 people are going for it," said Larry Watson, a professor of African American studies at the University of South Carolina, who is not related to Troy Watson. "You'd think they could share it peacefully, but realistically you know that's not the case because both groups are starving and want the same thing."

A Pew Hispanic Center poll released in March found that 54 percent of black Americans viewed immigrants as a "burden to the country." Thirty-three percent said they believed immigrants take jobs from Americans.

A newly formed coalition of African American academics, professionals and religious leaders, calling themselves Choose Black America, issued a statement Friday calling President Bush's plan for a guest-worker program and possible legalization "a disaster for all Americans that will hit black citizens the hardest."

Employment

Few question that blacks and Latino immigrants compete for some of the same low-wage jobs, but not all agree on how much they compete, or how much black Americans are hurt by immigrant labor.• Harvard University professor George Borjas released a 2004 report that found African American wages fell 4.5 percent between 1980 and 2000 because of immigration growth.

• A 2005 Pew study found no erosion of black employment in six Southern states where Hispanic immigration is growing fastest, including the Carolinas. In counties where Hispanic growth was fastest, including Mecklenburg, black employment rose despite competition from Hispanics.

• U.S. Labor Department data show that while unemployment dipped nationally for blacks since 1996 (from 10.6 percent to 9.4 percent), Hispanics saw a far more dramatic decline (from 9.6 percent to 5.4 percent). Labor Department economists offer no explanation for the disparity.

With so much conflicting data, economists say drawing firm conclusions is almost impossible. But locally, industry officials acknowledge that some employers do hire based on ethnicity.

Gilberto Bergman, chief executive of Bergman Brothers Staffing & Consulting in Charlotte, said he's received calls from construction clients asking specifically for Hispanic workers.

American workers, he said, typically demand at least $9 an hour, while many Latinos will work for $6 an hour and take most any job.

"Can you imagine digging a hole for six hours a day in 90-degree weather?" he said. "Who is willing to do that? Construction companies, they know that they cannot find, for the most part, anyone else other than a Latino."

Like other Hispanics interviewed, Manuel Salgado Torres, a Mexican national who lives in Concord, said he feels the tension between blacks and Latinos. Blacks look at him suspiciously, he said.

"We just want to work," said Salgado, 35, who moved to the U.S. eight years ago and drives a forklift for a construction company. "We didn't come to hurt anyone."

Of the 36 Southern counties studied in the Pew report, three showed an erosion of black employment. Union County was one of them. The report said black employment in Union may have suffered from local growth in the construction industry, which is dominated by Hispanic workers. Three of the county's 10 largest employers are construction companies, the report said.

Hispanics in 2005 made up 41 percent of U.S. construction workers, compared with 11 percent for blacks, according to federal figures. They also made up 42 percent of meat-processing workers, compared with blacks at 9 percent.

Some economists say immigrants provide a much-needed labor force, taking jobs Americans can't fill or no longer want.

A UNC Chapel Hill study this year found that Hispanics were a $9 billion boon to the N.C. economy. Without them, it said, the state would have seen 29 percent less construction in 2004.

Statistics like that matter little to John Dewalt, a 56-year-old roofer. In a small west Charlotte park, he and a group of friends said the immigration issue has become personal.

Dewalt, who is black, said a boss once told him he wanted to " `get rid of all the blacks and replace them with Mexicans. They don't argue. They don't complain. And they don't charge as much as you.' "

Dewalt said it's impossible to compete with Latino immigrants, who he says will work for "next to nothing."

All six men at the park, who are all black, said they or someone they knew had lost a job to an immigrant.

"We're the ones who built everything, and now they're coming over here to take everything way," said Antonio Romero, 40, a construction worker.

Economic vs. political power

Hispanics are now the country's largest and fastest-growing minority group. The Hispanic population grew by 1.3 million people last year, making them nearly half of the nation's population growth. The black population increased by 1.3 percent, or 496,000.

Some worry that Hispanic growth will be at the expense of African Americans and their economic and political clout.

Professor Watson believes that, much like the Republican Party gained decades of support from black Americans after slavery was abolished, today's Republican Congress could endear itself to millions of Latinos if it passes a bill giving illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.

Others say political changes are probably years away because black voters still heavily outnumber Hispanic voters.

"Right now there is more economic clout," said Dan Ramirez, a former Mecklenburg County commissioner. Ramirez, a Colombia native, won an at-large seat as a Republican in 2002."Political clout is going to come if a lot of these people are legalized and become citizens," he said.

Ron Cureton, a 55-year-old private investigator sitting across from Troy Watson at the west Charlotte diner, said it's not that Hispanics and immigrants are out to hurt blacks. But with both groups vying for much of the same thing, he said, someone is bound to lose out.

"It's about dollars and cents," he said. "It's about survival."

Community relations

Angeles Ortega-Moore, executive director of the Latin American Coalition, a local Latino advocacy group, said competition between blacks and Latinos in Charlotte has made it difficult for leaders to build alliances."It's a dangerous issue," she said. "People want to play it safe."

Not all blacks have shunned the immigrant-rights movement. The Rev. Jesse Jackson and the national NAACP have backed it.

Ortega-Moore will be honored next month by the N.C. NAACP Legal Defense Fund for community service.

Other locals who have reached out to Hispanics, such as community activist Ahmad Daniels and civil rights stalwart Charles Jones, have compared the immigrant movement to the struggle of blacks in the 1960s.

Jones, who led 200 students during sit-ins to open Charlotte lunch counters to blacks, told thousands of immigrants at a downtown rally this month that they could improve America .

He acknowledged in an interview that his stance may be unpopular in some parts of the black community.

"Nothing has happened in this generation that is quite like this," Jones said of the immigrant movement. "It's forcing the country to deal with a problem that has to be resolved."

This week, Ortega-Moore will meet with black leaders and politicians at the Tuesday Morning Breakfast forum, a weekly get-together in west Charlotte, to see whether blacks and Latinos can find common ground.

She hopes to recruit more allies among Charlotte's black leadership. But winning wider support, she said, will be harder.

At the street level, blacks are more wary of immigrants' gains, said Herbert White, editor of The Charlotte Post, the city's black newspaper.

The paper has received an increase in the number of calls from black residents concerned about the effects of illegal immigration. Most worry about jobs, he said, but the degree of their concerns often varies by class and income.

"As you go up the economic ladder," he said, "they're more OK with it."

Want to Go?

The Tuesday Morning Breakfast Forum will discuss immigration with Angeles Ortega-Moore, executive director of the Latin American Coalition, at 8 a.m. Tuesday at the West Charlotte Recreational Center, 2400 Kendall Drive.

Franco Ordoņez: (704) 358-6180