This might sound naive, but why aren't the impoverished and out-of-work citizens of New Orleans (you know, the ones we are constantly told have no job prospects and no hope) flocking back to fill these jobs.
NEW ORLEANS — As the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina receded in September, roads filled with residents leaving the city, their cars, SUVs and moving vans jammed with what they had salvaged of their lives.
But another mass movement was taking place on the other sides of the highways.Thousands of men from Mexico and Central America were driving into the city. Word had spread throughout the Latino immigrant diaspora in America that the city had plenty of work, construction wages had doubled to $16 an hour and no one was asking for papers.
"It was like a Gold Rush," said Oscar Calanche, a Guatemalan immigrant who lived in New Orleans before the storm and returned as soon as the waters receded. "In one car there'd be three up front and three or four in the back, with suitcases and tools on top. It looked like a river of people from our countries."
Latino workers have gutted, roofed and painted houses and hauled away garbage, debris and downed trees. Undocumented workers have installed trailers to house returning evacuees at New Orleans City Park, their pay coming from FEMA subcontractors.
"It's all illegals doing this work," said Rey Mendez, a FEMA trailer subcontractor from Honduras.
No one knows how many Latino immigrants are here, but John Logan, a Brown University demographer who has studied the city since Katrina, says "there must be 10,000 to 20,000 immigrant workers in the region by now, and the number is going to grow."
As the Senate debates new immigration laws and marchers demonstrate across the country, these immigrants offer another reminder of the country's reliance on undocumented labor from Latin America.
As New Orleans redefines itself after Katrina, the influx of large numbers of Latino immigrants is another jolt for a city that has historically thought of itself as black and white.
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2 comments:
Perhaps people are not rushing back to fill these jobs because of the lack of city-plan. Who wants to return to a city that doesn't have an established plan of how and what to rebuild. The families that lost their entire homes and have no means of rebuilding them, where are they supposed to live while trying to fill these jobs in New Orleans?
Returning to New Orleans is highly depressing when you've lost everything, especially family members in the city. For many families, hope is diminishing each day as they are stuck in these FEMA trailor parks without any means of getting back on their feet.
Besides, for people with families, what will they do with their children while they go to work in New Orleans? The public schools are not functioning at the current time, so where will childcare be provided?
The issue of why people are not rushing to fill these job vacancies in New Orleans are much more complex than they may seem.
Experience what the New Orleans survivors have experienced, then come talk to me about going back to the "home" that nolonger exists.
Your points are well taken, but we're talking about many people - thousands in fact - who didn't have jobs in the first place and now have the opportunity handed to them. The destruction and lack of "a plan" doesn't seem to be hindering those truly desiring work. I doubt it should hinder native New Orleaners as well.
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