Thread: The Mexican Indian exodus to San Francisco divides the day l

'Subcomandante Marcos is over there on Folsom'

The Mexican Indian exodus to San Francisco divides the day labor market

By John Ross
San Francisco's venerable market of day laborers serves as a barometer of immigration trends, most recently reflecting a big influx of new arrivals from the impoverished south of Mexico and creating a new hierarchy that threatens to undermine hard-won wage increases.

These days the lineup that extends along 12 blocks of the appropriately named Cesar Chavez Boulevard is limited to veteran workers, mostly mestizos (people of mixed race) who hail from central Mexican feeder states like Michoacán, Jalisco, and Guanajuato.

These day laborers, with the help of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 790, have established a $10-an-hour floor for their work.

Meanwhile, a second tier of day laborers, mostly recent arrivals from southern Mexico and often of Indian descent, have set up shop parallel to Cesar Chavez on 26th Street. Workers waiting for prospective employers along that strip readily concede that they work for $8 an hour, below the San Francisco minimum wage.

Lowest down on this totem pole of bottom-rung job-seekers are newcomers from the zone of Chiapas, Mexico's southernmost state, a region populated largely with indigenous people where the rebel Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) wields maximum influence – the Lacandon jungle.

The division of the labor markets troubles Frank Martin del Campo, a veteran SEIU organizer. "The new arrivals need to get themselves organized and work together to raise their hourly wage," del Campo told the Bay Guardian during a telephone interview.

On a grim November morning, a handful of men were gathered on the corner of South Van Ness and 26th Street. Were they from Chiapas, a Mexico-based reporter asked? "No, Veracruz and Oaxaca," a robust paisano said with a laugh. The Chapanecos (those from Chiapas) were further down the block. "Subcomandante Marcos," he said, referring to the Mayan rebels' legendary spokesperson, "is over there on Folsom."

The four young men leaning against parked cars down 26th Street were in fact from a village on the perimeter of the Lacandon jungle – Peña Limonar, in the municipality of Ocosingo, birthplace of the now-celebrated rebellion. Peña Limonar is a Tzeltal Mayan-speaking outpost in the savannas between the jungle and the ancient ruins at Palenque where power is shared by Zapatistas, supporters of the once-ruling PRI party, and an independent farmers' organization called the ARIC, according to Hermann Bellinghausen, Chiapas correspondent for the national Mexican daily La Jornada and a frequent visitor to San Francisco. Limonar, Bellinghausen confirms, falls within the jurisdiction of the embattled Zapatista autonomous municipality named for the old anarchist Ricardo Flores Magon.

The men of Limonar began arriving in the city they call San Pancho (San Francisco) about five years ago, and now there are perhaps 50 of them here, estimates Bartolo (not his real name), a strapping 24-year-old day worker who has been here for several months. The men (there are no women in the group) have come to one of the highest-rent cities in the hemisphere from thatched huts in the Lacandon jungle – 20 of the Chapanecos cram into an apartment down Folsom Street.

The men say they are not Zapatistas – their fathers are members of the PRI and the ARIC – but the Zapatistas were their neighbors down in Mexico, and "they are good people" Bartolo says. The Zapatistas do not migrate north, preferring to stay rooted on the land, and those who do leave are reportedly ostracized in their home villages when they return.

Most of the young men from Limonar have been in the city for just a few months and have paid a heavy price to get here – US$2,000 for a "coyote" (people smuggler) to get them across east of Tijuana.

"We walked in the desert for a week" recalls Abraham (not his real name); a thin 23-year-old with two infants back home. Limonar is so far off the grid that he says his wife has to walk two hours to the nearest phone to receive his calls.

Abraham gets work "three or four days a week" but complains that the Chinos (Chinese) who hire the men for yard work or home repair will only pay $8 an hour.

"They are Filipinos, not Chinos," Carlos corrects. Carlos is a pioneer – he has been in the Mission District since 2001, and the stud in his left ear is an emblem of cultural integration. One reason Carlos has stayed so long: Tightened border controls make it prohibitive for migrant workers to move back and forth between their home communities and the United States. "I would love to see my parents, but then how could I return?" he asks.

What does Carlos like about the Mission? "Las muchachas [the women]," he says with a boyish giggle, and the rest of the young men join in. What doesn't he like? "The weather," Carlos says, frowning as a cold drizzle pelts down from the gray heavens. The Chapanecos had been discussing moving south for the winter, to New Orleans, where they heard there was plenty of construction work for indocumentados.

Why had these young Mayan men uprooted themselves from their families, risking danger and death as they traveled thousands of miles across the length of Mexico and California to lean against parked cars in the Mission, waiting for an occasional, below-minimum-wage job? "Our fathers are farmers" Dionicio (not his real name) tries to explain. "I don't know how exactly to say this in Spanish – we speak our own dialect [Tzeltal is a fully developed language system, not a dialect], but they cannot get a price for their corn and their coffee now. Here we at least make some money to send home to our families." But the young Tzeltal agrees with the SEIU's del Campo that the newcomers need a union like the men on Cesar Chavez have.

The collapse of world coffee prices and the flood of cheap, subsidized US corn into Mexico under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is driving southern Mexico's Indian farmers off the land and into the immigration stream north. According to recent roundup stats released by the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration Control Enforcement (ICE) division – once the Immigration and Naturalization Service, or "Migra" – deportees from Chiapas led the charge from southern Mexico in fiscal 2004-05.

In many cities like Palenque, from which the young men on 26th Street headed north, there are "travel agencies" now – really just one rusting bus that leaves weekly for the border. The first stop is El Altar, in northern Sonora, just a step away from the Arizona desert in which so many indocumentados perish. More than 200 died out there last year. Tijuana is the end of the line, and the men had connected with their high-price coyote there – the deal had been arranged in Palenque.

The collapse of world coffee prices has forced tens of thousands of mostly Indian growers in southern Mexico to abandon their patches and head north. The men down the street, from Veracruz and Oaxaca, both coffee-producing states, are similarly driven. In 2002, 14 undocumented workers from a Veracruz coffee town died out in the Arizona desert, and last year two young men from Ocosingo came home in cheap coffins. Two more cut down in New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina were recently buried in a neighboring village.

In the 13 years since NAFTA was signed by the first President George Bush, nearly 5,000 Mexicans – many of them displaced farmers – have died trying to cross into the United States to take a job no one else will take. The young Mayan men standing on 26th Street waiting for a job have thus far escaped.

John Ross, author of three volumes on the Zapatista rebellion (he is working on a fourth), is the Bay Guardian's correspondent in Mexico and wrote this story on a recent visit to San Francisco. E-mail news@sfbg.com.


http://www.sfbg.com/40/13/news_folsom.html

San Francisco Day Labor Program: Making a tough job a little easier
by Renee Zalles‚ Oct. 05‚ 2005

Juan is not dressed for manual labor. He sports a striped sweater with a collared shirt peeking out professionally underneath. His hair, which is graying only slightly, is slicked back a bit. He looks good, like he could be going to an office in the Financial District. Instead, he is sitting in one of two trailers that the San Francisco Day Labor Program uses for an office on the corner of 17th and Hampshire in the Mission District.

It is about 8 a.m. on Tuesday, October 4. Already, some 20 men - and a few women - have gathered in front of the trailers. Some are talking in groups, others sit by themselves, while a couple of men kick around a soccer ball. All of these people, Juan included, are waiting for jobs.

Born in Nicaragua, Juan has lived in San Francisco for 15 years. He has used the Program for two years and has found that combined with his wife's income, he is able to support his two children.

The work, however, is not necessarily reliable or regular. On this particular day, there are no jobs lined up for any of the people waiting outside. According to Rob, an intern at the Program, and our translator for the day, there are no reserved jobs scheduled until Friday. He also noted that there are about 150 workers who are required to sign a list when they arrive, and they are sent out to jobs according to the order in which they appear on the list. The long list of names and the short list of jobs does not ensure that everybody goes home with money at the end of the day.

The program is organized so that employers can call and reserve a certain number of workers for a job in advance. It is typically up to the workers to then find transportation to the job, as well as to provide their own supplies, such as paint brushes or paint. Juan did not seem phased by the lack of jobs. He said that one job a week is usually enough to get by.

The Program has set wages that employers must give the worker in order to ensure fair treatment. Workers must be paid $50 for the first three hours worked, and then must receive $15 per every hour afterward. According to Juan, the jobs he gets can be both physically and mentally draining. "The problem is that there are many employers who make you work very fast," he said.

"They expect a lot out of you." Juan also said that there is often not enough time for a lunch break because the job must be done so fast. Juan said he will usually wait up to six hours for a job before calling it quits. His time waiting is spent productively. "I do what I can to help out with the program," he said. Earlier, Juan helped unload a food donation. In addition, he take part in English classes that are offered onsite. The Program began in 1991, with the preservation of human rights in mind.

There were too many times when workers got picked up off of Cesar Chavez - a popular place for day laborers to congregate - worked all day, and then received no compensation whatsoever. The Program seeks to protect workers from such behavior. Despite these benefits, there are still many people who wait for work on Cesar Chavez because they know the wait is long at 17th and Hampshire. In addition, the laborers can work without concern for their immigration status. Legally, according to Rob, they do not need to show any documentation because the work is temporary.

There is also a Women's Collective, which helps women find house-cleaning jobs around the city. "Thanks to a program like this, I can legally and safely find work," said Juan.

Interesting articles GFC.
Do you know the date of the first one and have a link to the second one please?
NAFTA has been a disaster except for big biz.

If we are lucky they will start a mini Mexican Civil War right in front of Nancy Pelosi's and Dianne Fienstein's offices.

By the way, if Ceaser Chavez was there he would be detaining them for ICE pickup, because illegal aliens drive down the wages for American Latinos.

OH THOSE HARD WORKING ILLEGALS. NOW THEY ARE TAKING THE JOBS EVEN THE ILLEGALS WONT DO. HE HE

Hey, I really like that one Redpony353. Now it seems as though they have some competition for jobs that Americans won't do or aren't doing. I wonder what Bush thinks of that. Good job!

There they go again with the same old NAFTA corn excuse.


In fact the Mexican villagers grow white corn and the surplus was sold to the National Grain Board which sold it to flour and tortilla mills. Before NAFTA the yellow corn was grown by large industrial farmers who sold to the ranches and feedlots in the livestock industry.


After NAFTA American sources were able to sell yellow corn to the Mexican livestock industry in competition. The large Mexican farmers switched from yellow to white. The government gave up aggregating surplus village grown white corn.


At that point meat production in the should have decentralized in the form of poultry farming. Poultry farmers should have sprung up all across Mexico to utilize the surplus corn. Instead it was all too easy to come here. The cost of shipping into the villages for poultry feed is prohibitive and safeguards local producers.