Geographies of Hope and Despair:
Atlanta's African American, Latino, and White Day Laborers
Atlanta's African American, Latino, and White Day Laborers
Terry Easton, Emory University
Essay Sections:
Introduction
| International Atlanta | De-Centering the City | Labor Pools | Catch-Out Corners |
Non-Profit Hiring Halls | Workers on the Edge | Laboring for Justice | Notes | Recommended Resources
Non-Profit Hiring Halls | Workers on the Edge | Laboring for Justice | Notes | Recommended Resources
De-Centering the City: Uneven Development and the Making of Regional Day Labor Geographies:
Until the early 1990s, most labor pools and catch-out
corners were in Atlanta's urban core, especially near Techwood Street,
the "center of the universe for homeless and unemployed people
who were looking for work."14 As the construction
of homes, offices, and shopping centers increased in the suburbs, several
labor pools moved from downtown Atlanta to suburban locations. Local upstart
labor pools (or branches of regional or national chains) moved there as
well. These labor pools were closer to the rising number of Latino day
laborers who were settling in suburban regions in large numbers in the
1990s. Several urban labor pools also remained in Atlanta's central business
district where homeless shelters and "cat holes" (makeshift
sleeping arrangements in parks, under highways, and in patches of forest)
continued to provide workers for the day labor marketplace (See Preston
Quesenberry, "The
Disposable Olympics Meets the City of Hype").
Labor Pools, Atlanta, 1988. Photographer: Tom Rankin
Generally, African American and white day laborers lived in Atlanta's urban core in the 1980s and early 1990s. The collapse of the Texas construction industry, economic and political turmoil in Latin America, and the employment boom that accompanied preparation for the 1996 Olympic Games set in motion an immigration influx that resulted in Latinos settling throughout metropolitan Atlanta in the late 1980s and beyond, particularly in the booming northern suburbs. Affordable housing, readily available employment opportunities, pioneering settlers with strong family and friend networks, Latino-centered businesses and social service agencies, churches, and a bus line that connected Atlanta to Mexico and the U.S. Southwest drew Latinos to suburban counties such as Gwinnett, Cobb, Cherokee, and DeKalb, despite initial settlement in the urban core. By 2000, in two cities along the Buford Highway corridor, Latino population rates were roughly one-half of the total population: Chamblee, 5,384 of 9,552 and Doraville, 4,284 of 9,862.15 The Brookings Institution reported, "As with population generally in the Atlanta metro area . . . immigrants are choosing the suburbs over the city by wide margins. For every new foreign-born resident the city of Atlanta added in the 1990s, its suburbs added [twenty one]."16
As Atlanta's booming economy fueled residential and commercial expansion into the far reaches of the wider metropolitan region, day laborers traveled long distances in search of work. This was especially taxing for workers who lived in the urban core, many of whom traversed county and city borders by bus, train, car, van, or foot to reach worksites or day labor pickup areas. Given the cost of purchase, upkeep, and insurance, few day laborers owned automobiles. The increasing distance between homes (sheltered or unsheltered) and worksites significantly lengthened day laborers' working days, especially in areas where public transportation was limited or unavailable. It was not unusual, for example, for workdays to be ten to fourteen hours long when considering not only the actual labor time but also waiting time and travel time to and from labor pools, street corner waiting areas, hiring halls, and worksites. One African American day laborer characterized his usual workday as a long one: "I get up every morning at four thirty and I don't normally get back until about like seven or maybe eight. Sometimes I have gotten back at ten."17
Approximately three to five thousand African American, Latino, and white day laborers have been searching for work or working in Atlanta's manual trades and industries on a daily basis since the early 1980s. African American men filled roughly eighty percent and white men roughly twenty percent of day labor positions in the early to mid-1980s. Following the arrival of Latinos beginning in the late 1980s, by 2000 Latinos outnumbered African Americans at catch-out corners, but African American men continued to fill the largest percentage of workers who waited for work at labor pools.
Labor Pools, Atlanta, 1988. Photographer: Tom Rankin
|
Labor pool reform advocate Ed Loring talks about labors pools
and Tom Rankin's photograph (number 8), (5:28 min.) Audio interview with Terry Easton, February 19, 2006, Atlanta, Georgia. RealMedia | Windows Media | QuickTime |
Generally, African American and white day laborers lived in Atlanta's urban core in the 1980s and early 1990s. The collapse of the Texas construction industry, economic and political turmoil in Latin America, and the employment boom that accompanied preparation for the 1996 Olympic Games set in motion an immigration influx that resulted in Latinos settling throughout metropolitan Atlanta in the late 1980s and beyond, particularly in the booming northern suburbs. Affordable housing, readily available employment opportunities, pioneering settlers with strong family and friend networks, Latino-centered businesses and social service agencies, churches, and a bus line that connected Atlanta to Mexico and the U.S. Southwest drew Latinos to suburban counties such as Gwinnett, Cobb, Cherokee, and DeKalb, despite initial settlement in the urban core. By 2000, in two cities along the Buford Highway corridor, Latino population rates were roughly one-half of the total population: Chamblee, 5,384 of 9,552 and Doraville, 4,284 of 9,862.15 The Brookings Institution reported, "As with population generally in the Atlanta metro area . . . immigrants are choosing the suburbs over the city by wide margins. For every new foreign-born resident the city of Atlanta added in the 1990s, its suburbs added [twenty one]."16
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As Atlanta's booming economy fueled residential and commercial expansion into the far reaches of the wider metropolitan region, day laborers traveled long distances in search of work. This was especially taxing for workers who lived in the urban core, many of whom traversed county and city borders by bus, train, car, van, or foot to reach worksites or day labor pickup areas. Given the cost of purchase, upkeep, and insurance, few day laborers owned automobiles. The increasing distance between homes (sheltered or unsheltered) and worksites significantly lengthened day laborers' working days, especially in areas where public transportation was limited or unavailable. It was not unusual, for example, for workdays to be ten to fourteen hours long when considering not only the actual labor time but also waiting time and travel time to and from labor pools, street corner waiting areas, hiring halls, and worksites. One African American day laborer characterized his usual workday as a long one: "I get up every morning at four thirty and I don't normally get back until about like seven or maybe eight. Sometimes I have gotten back at ten."17
Approximately three to five thousand African American, Latino, and white day laborers have been searching for work or working in Atlanta's manual trades and industries on a daily basis since the early 1980s. African American men filled roughly eighty percent and white men roughly twenty percent of day labor positions in the early to mid-1980s. Following the arrival of Latinos beginning in the late 1980s, by 2000 Latinos outnumbered African Americans at catch-out corners, but African American men continued to fill the largest percentage of workers who waited for work at labor pools.
Essay Sections:
Introduction
| International Atlanta | De-Centering the City | Labor Pools | Catch-Out Corners |
Non-Profit Hiring Halls | Workers on the Edge | Laboring for Justice | Notes | Recommended Resources
Non-Profit Hiring Halls | Workers on the Edge | Laboring for Justice | Notes | Recommended Resources
