From New Orleans during Thanksgiving Weekend 2009:
“The city that care forgot” has never officially cared to thank the thousands upon thousands of Latino immigrants who have been invaluable to the ongoing reconstruction since the federal levees failed to hold back the fury of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. As the calendar turns to a national time of thanks, the legislators and citizenry of New Orleans should offer a sincere declaration of gratitude, unas mil gracias, to the immigrants who have accelerated our progress in year four of this arduous recovery process.
The greatest dirty little secret our current reconstruction is that it owes much to the Latino immigrants who were responsible for cleaning the human waste and refuse of the Convention Center and Superdome, salvaging the many hotels of the city’s tourist industry before they were condemned as health risks, and putting up roof after house roof that allowed its residents to move back home. They have worked at an incredible pace, but a recent Southern Law Poverty Center analysis notes that up to 80% of the immigrant workers here have been cheated out of their proper pay by ruthless contractors and other local businesses needing repairs.
They exploited their cheap labor and used the undocumented status of many to callously and criminallly cheat them out of pay. The common scam is to threaten to report workers to immigration authorities after the job has been completed. With deportation fears looming, thousands become silent victims of wage theft. But there is some light to this dark story, and in a bold effort to acknowledge the social injustices perpetrated on the New Orleans immigrant labor force, City Councilman Arnie Fielkow announced this past summer that he was proposing a bill to criminalize wage theft, offering protection to all workers in the city, legal or illegal.
In a city not known for progressive labor reform, this was a monumental move forward to protect the most vulnerable workers in town. In addition, the Southern Poverty Law Center claimed a major victory in July, and through a class action lawsuit, 39 immigrant plaintiffs won unpaid back wages in the sum of $175,000 from a New Jersey company that had cheated them. I am an immigrant myself, from Ecuador and legal, and it has broken my heart to witness how most New Orleanians have turned a blind eye to the violation of immigrants’ rights. From artists and arts leaders in the so-called liberal cultural institutions to a lack of interest in covering labor abuses in the local newspaper and other media outlets, very few have been willing to address the issue.
For many immigrants, it has been hard living in the big easy after the storm, but their resilience is evident in the new businesses that have been founded. In the Broadmoor and Mid City neighborhoods that took up to eight feet of water, you can now eat at El Riconcito, Taqueriea Gerrero or the Fiesta Latina Restaurant. For grocery shopping, you can go to a large supermarket called La Guadalupana, and for quick bites, you can feast on a budget from the many Taco trucks that abound at busy intersections.
A common positive that locals often spoke about as the Hispanic population grew after Katrina was the greater abundance of Mexican and Latino restaurants, which added more salsa flavor to the gastronomy of a city that loves to eat. As we enjoy the Latin cuisine, it is important to remember not to demonize the cooks.
So do the right thing this Thanksgiving weekend, and thank an immigrant for their invaluable contribution to our rebuilding. Similarly, hundreds of thousands of immigrants are making positive contributions in urban and rural communities across the nation. Most likely, they are doing the jobs no one else wants to do for extremely low pay and under the worst working conditions. They all deserve at least a nod of thanks. These are hard-working human beings. Así que, por favor, un poquito de gracia y arriba y arriba.
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