Philly: Illegal laborers (SOB) regret being here..
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Looking for Employers
Por Alonso Heredia
10:09 | 12/19/08
If you enter the Northeast Tower Center parking lot in Philadelphia, any given week day, between eight in the morning and one in the afternoon, you will be truly surprised. You only need to advance a few meters before a small pack of men, mostly youths, lay into your car, as if they had found their long awaited idol in you.
From inside your vehicle you’ll see expectant faces, intense eyes that seem to plead instead of look at you, smiles that, at least for moments, will seem like grimaces.
They are not fans that have confused you with a celeb and that want your autograph. No. The young men standing there are laborers who stand there every day waiting for someone who will hire them, even for a few hours.
In the same system established for the women who stand on the public streets offering their bodies. Clients come in cars, state the types of services they need, reach a financial agreement, chose those they want for the job and take them with them.
Among the laborers, all of whom are immigrants, most are constructions workers, but one can also find gardeners, mechanics and cooks. Almost all of them do a bit of everything.
The laborer is a completely marginalized being. He/she lives and suffers in this country but it is as if they weren’t here. The laborer isn’t concerned about the occurrences, he/she lacks every right and expressions such as the land of opportunities or the American Dream lack any meaning for him/her.
Juan Carlos Muñoz, one of those who comes to the Northeast Tower Center is in his thirties. He arrived in Philadelphia three years ago from his country, El Salvador. He borrowed six thousand dollars to pay the “coyoteâ€