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
Acknowledgements. I would like to thank those who labored persistently and tirelessly to make this essay rich in content while
being pleasant on the eyes and ears. The perceptive and incisive comments of anonymous readers provided excellent suggestions for
improving the essay. The Southern Spaces staff, including Sarah Toton, Franky Abbott, Matt Miller, and Mary Battle, brought considerable
skill, conscientiousness, and enthusiasm to the multimedia components of this project. Michael Page of Emory University's Woodruff
Library harnessed his superb geospatial skills to create extraordinary maps. Tom Rankin graciously offered his arresting photographs of
Atlanta labor agencies. Finally, thanks to Allen Tullos for guiding the research from which this essay is based: his encouragement and
advice ensured that the voices of day laborers and those who labored on their behalf would be heard.
Notes:
1. Francisco Castillo [pseud.], interview by author, interpreted by Eva
Villafañe, tape recording, Canton, GA, 10 September, 2003. Francisco Castillo's
words are a composite narrative based on this interview and an unrecorded
interview with the author on 10 September 2003. Additional Castillo quotes in
this essay are composites from these interviews.
2. Cherokee County Chamber of Commerce, "Discover Cherokee!" 2004, http://www.cherokeetrails.org/ (14 August 2007).
3. Mary Odem, "Latin American Immigrants, Religion, and the Politics of Urban Space in Atlanta," in Mexican Immigration to the U.S. Southeast: Impact and Challenges, ed. Mary Odem and Elaine Lacy (Atlanta: Instituto de Mexico, 2005), 141.
4. Andy Ambrose, "Atlanta," The New Georgia Encyclopedia. http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2207&hl=y (8 December 2005).
5. Sam Rosenberg and June Lapidus, "Contingent and Non-Standard Work in the United States: Towards a More Poorly Compensated, Insecure Workforce," in Global Trends in Flexible Labour, ed. Alan Felstead and Nick Jewson (Basingstoke, England: Macmillan Business, 1999), 78-79.
6. Michael Katz, The Undeserving Poor: From the War on Poverty to the War on Welfare (New York: Pantheon Books, 1989), 128-130.
7. Saskia Sassen, Cities in a World Economy (Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 1994), xiii.
8. Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, Doméstica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring in the Shadows of Affluence (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001), 6.
9. Randall Williams, Hard Labor: A Report on Day Labor Pools and Temporary Employment (Atlanta: The Southern Regional Council, 1988), 14.
Accurate demographic and statistical information on Atlanta's day laborers is difficult to procure not only because many day laborers are undocumented and therefore go unreported, but also because it was not until February of 1995 that the United States Department of Labor began collecting detailed data on contingent employment. For a vignette taken from Hard Labor see Williams' "Living the Day Labor Life."
10. Ibid., 13.
11. Ibid., 24.
12. Starner, "Help Wanted: Labor Ready Finds Workers Where They Live," Site Selection Magazine – Online http://www.siteselection.com/issues/2001/jul/p420/ (July 2001).
13. Day Laborer [anonymous], interview by author, interpreted by Sarah Johnson, tape recording, Atlanta, GA, 22 April 2004.
14. Williams, Hard Labor, 12.
15. U.S. Census Bureau, 2000 Census.
16. Brookings Institution, "Atlanta in Focus: A Profile from Census 2000." http://www.brook.edu/es/urban/livingcities/atlanta.htm (November 2003).
17. Day Laborer [anonymous], interview by author, tape recording, Marietta, GA, 21 April 2004.
18. Danny Solomon, interview by author, tape recording, Atlanta, GA, 19 April 2005, and 22 April 2005.
19. Randall Williams, Hard Labor: A Report on Day Labor Pools and Temporary Employment (Atlanta: Southern Regional Council, 1988), 18.
20. Emmanuel Killen, unrecorded interview by author, Atlanta, GA, 10 October 2003.
21. Atlanta Labor Pool Worker's Union, Atlanta's Hardest Working People: A Report on Day Labor Pools in Metro Atlanta, (Atlanta: Atlanta Labor Pool Workers' Union, n.d., 1997).
22. Chirag Mehta et al., Workplace Safety in Atlanta's Construction Industry: Institutional Failure in Temporary Staffing Arrangements (Chicago: University of Illinois at Chicago Center for Urban Economic Development, June 2003), iii.
23. Ibid., iii, iv.
24. Created in March 2003 under the Department of Homeland Security, the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement office (ICE) is currently in charge of immigration enforcement duties once managed by the INS.
25. Day Laborer [anonymous], interview by author, tape recording, Marietta, GA, 21 April 2004.
26. Day Laborer [anonymous], interview by author, interpreted by Sarah Johnson, tape recording, Marietta, GA, 21 April 2004.
27. José Fuentes [pseud.], interview by author, interpreted by Sarah Johnson, tape recording, Duluth, GA, 29 July 2003.
28. Carlos Marín [pseud.], interview by author, interpreted by Sarah Johnson, tape recording, Duluth, GA, 29 July 2003.
29. Tomás Alcántara [pseud.], interview by author, interpreted by Eva Villafañe, tape recording, Canton, GA, 12 August 2003.
30. Javier López [pseud.], interview by author, interpreted by Eva Villafañe, tape recording, Canton, GA, 8 August 2003.
31. Manuel Guzmán [pseud.], interview by author, interpreted by Eva Villafañe, tape recording, Canton, GA, 6 August 2003.
32. Mario Canel [pseud.], interview by author, interpreted by Eva Villafañe, tape recording, Canton, GA, 12 August 2003.
33. Guillermo Hernández [pseud.], interview by author, interpreted by Eva Villafañe, tape recording, Canton, GA, 12 August 2003.
34. Rick Badie, "Economic Downturn: Day Laborers Often Wait in Vain," Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 29 April 2001, J1.
35. Here I draw from two sources that discuss the ways in which perceptions and stereotypes about "inner city" residents, particularly African American men, closed employment avenues. Both studies rely in part on data gathered in Atlanta. See Philip Moss and Chris Tilly, Stories Employers Tell: Race, Skill, and Hiring in America (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2001) and Alice O'Connor, Chris Tilly, and Lawrence D. Bobo, Urban Inequality: Evidence from Four Cities (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2001).
36. For a discussion of the ways in which African American construction contractors in Atlanta selected Latino workers over African American workers, see Cameron Lippard, "'Taking Care of Business': The Hiring Practices of African American Entrepreneurs in the Construction Industry" (master's thesis, Georgia State University, 2003).
37. Statistical and numerical data in this paragraph can be found in these sources: Suzanne M. Marsh and Larry A. Layne, Fatal Injuries to Civilian Workers in the United States, 1980-1995 (Cincinnati: National Institute for Occupational Health, 2001); Judith T. Anderson, Katherine L. Hunting, and Laura S. Welch, "Injury and Employment Patterns Among Hispanic Construction Workers," Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 42, no. 2, February 2000: 176-186; Stephen Greenhouse, "Hispanic Workers Die at Higher Rate: More Likely Than Others to Do the Dangerous, Low-End Jobs," New York Times, 16 September 2001.
38. Hugo Sánchez [pseud.], interview by author, interpreted by Sarah Johnson, tape recording, Duluth, GA, 31 July 2003.
39. Samuel Delgado [pseud.], interview by author, interpreted by Sarah Johnson, Atlanta, GA, 1 August 2003. Additional words by Samuel Delgado in this chapter are from this 1 August 2003 interview.
40. Day Laborer [anonymous], interview by author, interpreted by Sarah Johnson, tape recording, Marietta, GA, 21 April 2004.
41. Delfino Lara [pseud.], interview by author, interpreted by Sarah Johnson, tape recording, Atlanta, GA, 1 August 2003.
42. Abel Valenzuela Jr. et al., On the Corner: Day Labor in the United States, Working Paper of the Center for the Study of Urban Poverty at the University of California at Los Angeles, January 2006. http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/issr/csup/uploaded_files/Natl_DayLabor-On_the_Corner1.pdf /a> (25 February 2006), ii.
43. Ibid., 12, 13.
44. Ibid., 12.
45. Jorge E. Simmonds-Diaz, "Environmental and Occupational Health Survey of a Hispanic Work Group in Atlanta" (master's thesis, Emory University, 1993), 17.
46. Robert D. Bullard and E. Kiki Thomas, "Atlanta: Mecca of the Southeast," in In Search of the New South: The Black Urban Experience in the 1970s and 1980s, ed. Robert D. Bullard (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1989), 83.
47. This statement is based on analysis of metropolitan development in Larry Keating's Atlanta: Race, Class, and Urban Expansion (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001) and Charles Rutheiser's Imagineering Atlanta: The Politics of Place in the City of Dreams (London: Verso, 1996).
48. Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward, The Breaking of the American Social Compact (New York: New Press, 1997), 278.
49.Daniel Rothenberg, With These Hands: The Hidden World of Migrant Farmworkers Today (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000), 217.
50. Studs Terkel, Working: People Talking about What They Do All Day and How They Feel about What They Do (New York: Random House, 1974), xiii.
51. Day Laborer [anonymous], interview by author, tape recording, Marietta, GA, 21 April 2004.
52. Day Laborer [anonymous], interview by author, tape recording, Atlanta, GA, 22 April 2004.
2. Cherokee County Chamber of Commerce, "Discover Cherokee!" 2004, http://www.cherokeetrails.org/ (14 August 2007).
3. Mary Odem, "Latin American Immigrants, Religion, and the Politics of Urban Space in Atlanta," in Mexican Immigration to the U.S. Southeast: Impact and Challenges, ed. Mary Odem and Elaine Lacy (Atlanta: Instituto de Mexico, 2005), 141.
4. Andy Ambrose, "Atlanta," The New Georgia Encyclopedia. http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2207&hl=y (8 December 2005).
5. Sam Rosenberg and June Lapidus, "Contingent and Non-Standard Work in the United States: Towards a More Poorly Compensated, Insecure Workforce," in Global Trends in Flexible Labour, ed. Alan Felstead and Nick Jewson (Basingstoke, England: Macmillan Business, 1999), 78-79.
6. Michael Katz, The Undeserving Poor: From the War on Poverty to the War on Welfare (New York: Pantheon Books, 1989), 128-130.
7. Saskia Sassen, Cities in a World Economy (Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 1994), xiii.
8. Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, Doméstica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring in the Shadows of Affluence (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001), 6.
9. Randall Williams, Hard Labor: A Report on Day Labor Pools and Temporary Employment (Atlanta: The Southern Regional Council, 1988), 14.
Accurate demographic and statistical information on Atlanta's day laborers is difficult to procure not only because many day laborers are undocumented and therefore go unreported, but also because it was not until February of 1995 that the United States Department of Labor began collecting detailed data on contingent employment. For a vignette taken from Hard Labor see Williams' "Living the Day Labor Life."
10. Ibid., 13.
11. Ibid., 24.
12. Starner, "Help Wanted: Labor Ready Finds Workers Where They Live," Site Selection Magazine – Online http://www.siteselection.com/issues/2001/jul/p420/ (July 2001).
13. Day Laborer [anonymous], interview by author, interpreted by Sarah Johnson, tape recording, Atlanta, GA, 22 April 2004.
14. Williams, Hard Labor, 12.
15. U.S. Census Bureau, 2000 Census.
16. Brookings Institution, "Atlanta in Focus: A Profile from Census 2000." http://www.brook.edu/es/urban/livingcities/atlanta.htm (November 2003).
17. Day Laborer [anonymous], interview by author, tape recording, Marietta, GA, 21 April 2004.
18. Danny Solomon, interview by author, tape recording, Atlanta, GA, 19 April 2005, and 22 April 2005.
19. Randall Williams, Hard Labor: A Report on Day Labor Pools and Temporary Employment (Atlanta: Southern Regional Council, 1988), 18.
20. Emmanuel Killen, unrecorded interview by author, Atlanta, GA, 10 October 2003.
21. Atlanta Labor Pool Worker's Union, Atlanta's Hardest Working People: A Report on Day Labor Pools in Metro Atlanta, (Atlanta: Atlanta Labor Pool Workers' Union, n.d., 1997).
22. Chirag Mehta et al., Workplace Safety in Atlanta's Construction Industry: Institutional Failure in Temporary Staffing Arrangements (Chicago: University of Illinois at Chicago Center for Urban Economic Development, June 2003), iii.
23. Ibid., iii, iv.
24. Created in March 2003 under the Department of Homeland Security, the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement office (ICE) is currently in charge of immigration enforcement duties once managed by the INS.
25. Day Laborer [anonymous], interview by author, tape recording, Marietta, GA, 21 April 2004.
26. Day Laborer [anonymous], interview by author, interpreted by Sarah Johnson, tape recording, Marietta, GA, 21 April 2004.
27. José Fuentes [pseud.], interview by author, interpreted by Sarah Johnson, tape recording, Duluth, GA, 29 July 2003.
28. Carlos Marín [pseud.], interview by author, interpreted by Sarah Johnson, tape recording, Duluth, GA, 29 July 2003.
29. Tomás Alcántara [pseud.], interview by author, interpreted by Eva Villafañe, tape recording, Canton, GA, 12 August 2003.
30. Javier López [pseud.], interview by author, interpreted by Eva Villafañe, tape recording, Canton, GA, 8 August 2003.
31. Manuel Guzmán [pseud.], interview by author, interpreted by Eva Villafañe, tape recording, Canton, GA, 6 August 2003.
32. Mario Canel [pseud.], interview by author, interpreted by Eva Villafañe, tape recording, Canton, GA, 12 August 2003.
33. Guillermo Hernández [pseud.], interview by author, interpreted by Eva Villafañe, tape recording, Canton, GA, 12 August 2003.
34. Rick Badie, "Economic Downturn: Day Laborers Often Wait in Vain," Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 29 April 2001, J1.
35. Here I draw from two sources that discuss the ways in which perceptions and stereotypes about "inner city" residents, particularly African American men, closed employment avenues. Both studies rely in part on data gathered in Atlanta. See Philip Moss and Chris Tilly, Stories Employers Tell: Race, Skill, and Hiring in America (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2001) and Alice O'Connor, Chris Tilly, and Lawrence D. Bobo, Urban Inequality: Evidence from Four Cities (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2001).
36. For a discussion of the ways in which African American construction contractors in Atlanta selected Latino workers over African American workers, see Cameron Lippard, "'Taking Care of Business': The Hiring Practices of African American Entrepreneurs in the Construction Industry" (master's thesis, Georgia State University, 2003).
37. Statistical and numerical data in this paragraph can be found in these sources: Suzanne M. Marsh and Larry A. Layne, Fatal Injuries to Civilian Workers in the United States, 1980-1995 (Cincinnati: National Institute for Occupational Health, 2001); Judith T. Anderson, Katherine L. Hunting, and Laura S. Welch, "Injury and Employment Patterns Among Hispanic Construction Workers," Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 42, no. 2, February 2000: 176-186; Stephen Greenhouse, "Hispanic Workers Die at Higher Rate: More Likely Than Others to Do the Dangerous, Low-End Jobs," New York Times, 16 September 2001.
38. Hugo Sánchez [pseud.], interview by author, interpreted by Sarah Johnson, tape recording, Duluth, GA, 31 July 2003.
39. Samuel Delgado [pseud.], interview by author, interpreted by Sarah Johnson, Atlanta, GA, 1 August 2003. Additional words by Samuel Delgado in this chapter are from this 1 August 2003 interview.
40. Day Laborer [anonymous], interview by author, interpreted by Sarah Johnson, tape recording, Marietta, GA, 21 April 2004.
41. Delfino Lara [pseud.], interview by author, interpreted by Sarah Johnson, tape recording, Atlanta, GA, 1 August 2003.
42. Abel Valenzuela Jr. et al., On the Corner: Day Labor in the United States, Working Paper of the Center for the Study of Urban Poverty at the University of California at Los Angeles, January 2006. http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/issr/csup/uploaded_files/Natl_DayLabor-On_the_Corner1.pdf /a> (25 February 2006), ii.
43. Ibid., 12, 13.
44. Ibid., 12.
45. Jorge E. Simmonds-Diaz, "Environmental and Occupational Health Survey of a Hispanic Work Group in Atlanta" (master's thesis, Emory University, 1993), 17.
46. Robert D. Bullard and E. Kiki Thomas, "Atlanta: Mecca of the Southeast," in In Search of the New South: The Black Urban Experience in the 1970s and 1980s, ed. Robert D. Bullard (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1989), 83.
47. This statement is based on analysis of metropolitan development in Larry Keating's Atlanta: Race, Class, and Urban Expansion (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001) and Charles Rutheiser's Imagineering Atlanta: The Politics of Place in the City of Dreams (London: Verso, 1996).
48. Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward, The Breaking of the American Social Compact (New York: New Press, 1997), 278.
49.Daniel Rothenberg, With These Hands: The Hidden World of Migrant Farmworkers Today (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000), 217.
50. Studs Terkel, Working: People Talking about What They Do All Day and How They Feel about What They Do (New York: Random House, 1974), xiii.
51. Day Laborer [anonymous], interview by author, tape recording, Marietta, GA, 21 April 2004.
52. Day Laborer [anonymous], interview by author, tape recording, Atlanta, GA, 22 April 2004.
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
