Thread: Working, silently, in the shadows of the Las Vegas strip

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By Stephen Franklin
Tribune staff reporter
Published May 18, 2005

LAS VEGAS -- As the sun dips and crowds pour onto the sidewalks, meandering in the glow of the casinos' neon lights, they quietly slip onto the street corners and into unlit spots.

Smack. Smack.

They reach out, ruffling small cards in their hands, and hoping the sound will draw the eye of those wandering from one fantasy to another in a place where almost everything goes.

They do their work in silence, though most could not say a word in English.

But the several dozen Mexican, Guatemalan and other Latino immigrants, who have taken up their nightly assignments along the Strip, the heart of Las Vegas' casinos, really don't have to talk.

The bright yellow T-shirts that some of the men are wearing explain it all.

"Strippers Straight To You," their shirts say.

So do the cards with pictures of nearly naked women that say you can have the woman of your choice sent to you in 15 minutes for whatever pleasure you want, bachelor parties included.

To the casinos and Las Vegas officials, the cards being handed to tourists have been a source of embarrassment, projecting an unwanted seedy image, and leading some visitors into giving heaps of money to the escorts.

They have tried but haven't been able, so far, to sweep the streets clean of the handbillers.

Their most significant effort was a county ordinance several years ago that barred hand-billing, but legal challenges have tied it up in the courts.

"The First Amendment does not allow the government to censor messages that it doesn't like," says Allen Lichtenstein, an attorney for the ACLU of Nevada, which led the fight against barring the handbillers from the streets.

But the ACLU didn't take up the battle just for the escort services. The goal was to defend anti-war activists, union protesters, religious proselytizers and others who have wanted to use the streets to get their message out, says Gary Peck, the Nevada ACLU's executive director.

Usually the escort services' handbillers are arrested, police say, when they block the sidewalks, or get too aggressive with passersby. Whether their actions are illegal is not a question that the police ask.

Escort services, which fill several pages in the Las Vegas telephone books, are also not illegal, say police. That is, those who are licensed and do not break the laws, they explain. But women and companies who operate as fronts for prostitution get arrested, they add.

As for the handbillers, they seemed to have slipped ghostlike into the mass of undocumented workers who have flocked to Las Vegas.

Officials at agencies that serve these workers say they know nothing about the handbillers.

But they suspect that they have learned, just like other undocumented workers, how to make a living, despite an ever-rising cost of living in Las Vegas, by melting into the shadows and taking whatever jobs they can.

That, indeed, is the strategy of Omar, one month on the job, and only one month in the U.S. from Mexico, who is handing out cards in a dimly lit stretch between two casinos.

He doesn't know whom he works for, like most of the others.

But Omar, a thin man in his late 20s, knows that he gets $40 for 10 hours work, six nights a week, cash at the end of the night, and there are no forms to fill out, and no questions asked.

Just beyond him on a street corner, there's a group of men handing out cards, and Alvarro is chatting with one of them, a short, easy smiling man in his early 20s, who crossed the border illegally not long ago from Mexico

"I tell them," Alvarro says with a nod toward the group, "that there's better work and better money than this. I say we can find something for them. But they say they want money right away."

Alvarro, a hefty, older man in a nice dark-colored polo shirt and dress slacks, says he has been in the U.S. for some time, does construction work and earns a decent salary.

His friend listens to him and shakes his head in doubt. The friend says is not sure he can get something better.

Yet he is also worried. He hears the others talk about being picked up on the street by police while handing out the cards and held in jail for a night or two or being nabbed by La Migra, the federal immigration officers, and sent back to Mexico.

But he also knows, he says, that handing out cards is easy money.

Across the street, Juan is different from the rest, who talk about having started the work for only a few hours or days or months ago. Juan, a short man in his early 30s whose hair has a slight blond tint, says he has been handing out cards for nine years.

"I like it. I like the street. And I don't want to work. But I may have to. I was making $55 a night before, but the money is not good now. I don't know," he says in English.

As he talks, his eyes do not leave the cards, or people, some of whom grab them out of his hands and pass by without saying a word or making eye contact.

In a darkly lit stretch across the street from a casino's dazzling outdoor water show, where spectators, bathed in lovely romantic music, marvel at the beauty in front of them, two women wait, cards in hand.

One, a young woman in jeans and a baggy sweatshirt, stands farther back in the nighttime darkness, almost as if she doesn't want to be seen. She suddenly stops and then wanders off, turning her face away from the crowd.

The other, a heavy-set, older woman, who has been lying on the ground, stumbles as she stands up. She worries, she says, that her boss will see her not working.

"I don't like this work. It is dirty," glumly says the woman, who says she comes from Oaxacca in southwest Mexico, never went to school and has been in the U.S. for nearly a year.

"But what else can I do? I need papers and I do not have any. I have three children here. They are 8 and 9 and 4 years old. I work. My husband works. We need money."

Across the street, the casino's water show is a truly stunning sight, and just off in the distance there is a message blaring from a loudspeaker. It boasts about all there is for visitors to do.

Las Vegas has everything for everyone, it says.

Smack. Smack.

Great post on a problem. O recently spoke with a card server from Guatemala who told me of paying $1500 to a Mexican coyote (one year ago) and he said it is probably much higher today.

What we don't seem to sufficeintly realize is that each of these persons represents many future problems in health, education, crime, blight, etc. These kinds of problems are growing by geometric degrees ... virtually like a small leak leak in a dam that was not repaired when first noticed.

BTW: Most of these card servers belong to self-help social networks and are thereby able to share housing, food, and other resources necessary for life on miserable wages.

Deportation of all illegal aliens and stringent border security is highly suggested by this observer. Else, there will be no America as we would like.... but instead a third world future.

BTW: Go to the Brown Pride website to see the "Reconquista" racis gloating by Latino posters of the fact that a Mexican is now mayor of Los Angeles. Many of these posters are gleeful that they are taking over a major Amreican city and that the nation of Aztlan will soon be a reality.
Bad news folks!

PATRIOTC
the bad news will be when Americans decide to defend themselves and their own. It will not be pretty. Make no mistake, there is a very strong possibility that this will come to be.

Stop and feel the air.........we're getting closer to critical mass. The politicians don't realize it yet but they're pushing in the wrong direction and only making this possibility become a reality.
{my 2 cents}

Well hopefulley, after the incident in colorado, I personally think the anti-illigal immigrant croud is getting louder and louder.

I fear that we will soon be in a civil war, due in large part to illegal immigration, but there are other significant factors in play also.

On the other hand...I fear that we won't. I fear even more what happens if we don't do some very persuasive things to change the direction of our government. I fear what will happen if those short changing the American people should manage to stay in office due to the rampant voter fraud.

I guess right now...I think it's time for ALL patriots to step up to the plate, whether they're citizens, military or elected officials...Let's Roll!!

RR