Mexicans and Jews, There and Here

          While some Americans overestimate the importance of work in Mexicans’ choices, many factors do indicate a strong correlation between work and immigration. This is in part because Mexico’s population has outgrown its job market, causing job shortages and economic hardship.  Wages can be up to ten times higher in the U.S. than in Mexico (Castañeda 2007), and social programs are far from sufficient.  Many Mexican immigrants travel to New York in order to raise money to support their families and often to finance building a house in their hometown.  Remittances, money immigrants send home, are second only to oil as Mexico’s largest source of foreign income.  In 2008, 1.16 million Mexican households received remittances from the US.  In January 2009, these remittances totaled about $1.57 billion (Littlefield, www.coha.org)

Thousands of Mexican farmers protest the removal of tariffs on corn, milk and other products from the U.S. and Canada (source: mexfiles.files.wordpress.com)

 

Agriculture continues to be a prominent occupation in Mexico, although it is increasingly difficult to make a living farming.  Many Mexican women tend the home and raise their children, a physically and emotionally taxing job.  These women, and some men, may also produce small scale goods to sell at local markets.  The Mixteca region, from which many Mexicans in New York originate, has several native industries, including weaving straw mats.  Indigenous women in particular may migrate to cities to work as domestic servants.  As commercial agriculture developed in northern Mexico in the late 20^th century, the need for labor increased.  Employers seeking easy labor brought in peasants from southern parts of the country, such as Oaxaca (Martinez Novo: 2006).  Maquiladoras, or border factories, have also been a significant part of the Mexican job market, particularly since the end of the last century.  The first industries to build maquiladoras were textiles and electronics, followed more recently by automobiles and computers. 

 

 

Work trends among Mexican immigrants in NYC differ somewhat between women and men; however, across the board, most Mexican immigrants work in service professions, followed by production, transportation, and material moving.  Sales and office jobs are fairly significant among women, but less so among men, and construction jobs are very rare among women, but important among men.  Managerial and professional jobs constitute a small percentage for both sexes.

 

 

What does this mean in reality?  Many Mexican immigrants work in construction and similar jobs as day laborers, especially early on after arriving in New York.  Another significant segment work in restaurants, from fast food chains up to sophisticated private dining clubs.  The garment industry is an important sector, especially among women, and skilled secretarial work is an increasingly important source of work as well.  Flower vending has also been a traditional job for Mexican migrants.

 

One critical way immigrants find work is through networks of family, friends, and other connections.  The first immigrants from a sending community carve niches for later immigrants to follow.  This network allows immigrants to fill job openings quickly through word of mouth, which is part of what makes immigrants appealing to employers.  Employers also use networks to help recruit labor from sending communities.  Also important are employment agencies, “jobbers,” and other intermediaries, who can be important in helping businesses outside of the immediate metropolitan area tap into NYC’s immigrant labor force.  These intermediaries may work, for example, by having the immigrants come to a certain place, from where they are driven to factories and plants in the surrounding area that need workers.  Or they may rent out supplies, such as food carts, to immigrants.  Sadly, these intermediaries are liable to abuse the immigrants they work with.

          Some employers actively seek immigrant workers.  Mexican immigrants are often perceived, by themselves and employers, as having a particularly strong work ethic (Smith, 2006).  Non-native born employers may feel a connection with, and therefore prefer to hire, other immigrants.  Undocumented immigrants are a very pliable workforce; because these immigrants have less legal recourse available to them and are often unaware or hesitant to use the resources they do have, undocumented Mexican immigrants are often willing to work longer hours for lower wages than many other populations.  Within this context, timing of immigration can also affect the niches Mexicans fill in New York.  For example, when Mexican immigration surged in the 1980s and 1990s, Dominican and Puerto Rican immigrants were beginning to move out of the garment industry; Korean workers already had better opportunities.  Korean factory owners were thus already accustomed to dealing with Spanish-speaking employees.

 

Documented and undocumented Mexican immigrants alike are vulnerable to abuse by employers.  Day laborers are particularly susceptible; employers may keep day laborers for longer hours than originally agreed to, pay them late, or not pay them at all.  With no guarantee of future jobs, these workers cannot afford to pass up any work offer.  Overcrowding and unsafe conditions continue to be a problem, particularly in the garment industry.  Assistance organizations play an important role in helping immigrants become aware of their rights as workers, whatever their documentation status, and helping them to navigate the legal system to recover back pay and handle abuse by employers.  Work conditions can be poor in Mexico as well; for example, child labor is a problem in Mexican commercial agriculture. 

          Although immigrants can often make considerably more money working here than they would have in Mexico, average income remains low: in 2000, the average income of working Mexicans was a mere $13, 681 (Smith, 2006).  Some of the sectors Mexican immigrants frequently work in, such as the food industry, offer a chance for advancement along fairly structured paths, whereas many of the other jobs Mexican immigrants typically have do not offer much chance of advancement, as in the garment industry.  The advancement opportunities of the first generation of immigrants shape the work opportunities of the second generation (Smith, 2006).

One of the key aspects in the lives of many Mexican immigrants in New York is instability.  Their jobs are often relatively short-term and not guaranteed.  This is particularly true of day laborers, who may work only a few days a week or be out of work for long stretches of time.  This creates a certain amount of insecurity within the population.  However, the non-committal nature of the work of Mexican immigrants may be more of a result than a cause: because many Mexicans immigrate mostly for economic reasons and with the full intention of returning to Mexico after raising sufficient funds, they may prefer work of this type.  This temporary nature of Mexican immigrants’ lives in New York may also be part of why they are willing to tolerate poor wages and conditions.  Conversely, immigrants who do find stable work and whose families are with them in New York may end up immigrating permanently or living transnationally between the two countries.

 

 

          There is a history of animosity between Hispanic immigrants, including Mexicans, and native-born minorities over work.  Generally speaking, despite the conceptions of many Americans, Mexican immigrants do not take jobs away from American workers, because Mexican immigrants usually take jobs that native-born American workers do not want.  However, native-born minority groups are more likely to seek jobs at the lower end of the job market, where they are competing with Mexican immigrants.  Mexican immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants, are often willing to work for lower wages, leading to the perception that they are undercutting other minority groups.