Posted on 04/07/2006 5:05:32 PM PDT by Pikamax
Growing anger among blacks as Latinos 'take over'
April 7, 2006
BY ERIN TEXEIRA
NEWARK, N.J. -- The men both stood in a busy hardware store parking lot, but their lives were far apart.
On one end, Oscar Bautista of El Salvador said he had been waiting more than three hours for a job. Across the lot, Art Jackson loaded potting soil into his Dodge Durango. He complained that immigrants are making it harder for Americans to keep good jobs, especially blacks.
''You need to take care of home first,'' said Jackson, an African-American phone salesman from northern New Jersey.
Blacks and Latinos are often united on social and political issues. But they often differ when it comes to immigration.
Newcomers make black progress harder, said Wesley Crawford, who works at Source of Knowledge, a bookstore in Newark. ''It's a misconception that they're taking jobs we don't want. If you give people a good job, they will work.''
While Hispanic immigrants have protested a proposed crackdown on illegal immigration, the nation's most prominent black leaders have all been to New Orleans to try to stop the upcoming local election. Shortly after the storm, Jesse Jackson and others complained that Latino workers seemed to have more access than blacks to rebuilding jobs.
Bruce S. Gordon, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said that African-American and Latino bonds are strong and that his ''spirit was there'' at the immigration marches.
Most of the immigration protests have focused on a bill passed by the U.S. House that would make illegal immigration a felony, and all but one black voting member of Congress, Rep. Harold Ford Jr. of Tennessee, was against it, according to the Congressional Black Caucus.
Still, many blacks feel threatened, said Earl Ofari Hutchinson, a black writer in Los Angeles.
''The civil rights leaders say we're all united, but the average person on the street is taking great offense at this group coming in and essentially taking over,'' he said.
I watched this whole thing play out years ago down in Miami.
Starting in 1959 the Cubans began to come in, and were willing to take any job they could get. They worked hard, saved their money, and established small businesses. More Cubans came in, and before long there were enough of them that one needed to speak Spanish to get the kinds of service jobs that had been the domain of the blacks.
Time passed, and the Cubans owned a number of businesses, and they were no longer small businesses. And by the time a generation passed, the Cubans bought up a great deal of greater Miami, often paying a premium price for it. And the blacks were still complaining about how they got pimped out of their jobs.
Then there were a few race riots, mostly in the black communities, usually triggered by a run-in between a Spanish-surnamed cop, and a black street thug.
Miami is now a predominantly Latin American town, and the native-born blacks who are still there are still occupants of the same rung of society, and they are still bitching about it.
I go back every few years or so, look around, and I marvel over how this aspect has not changed since 1959, when Castro came down out of the mountains, and the Cubans began moving into Miami. Liberty City (a ghetto area) is the same third-world $h!thole it always was, and the blacks are still bitching. They don't seem to have done a thing to improve their lots in life. I still don't understand why not.
[Bruce S. Gordon, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said that African-American and Latino bonds are strong and that his ''spirit was there'' at the immigration marches.]
Mr. Gordon will march his people to the bottom of the economic ladder. He'll do anything the DNC master tells him.
You could say the same for all the major immigrant classes over time. Maybe if the blacks in Miami had followed suit, they would be in better shape today. Fish or cut bait, you know?
think this man was speaking of building trade jobs,
plasterers,painters,dry wall tapers,roofers,carpenters etc.
Many home improvement contractors simply pick up their workers daily,pay them 10-15/hour----no bookkeeping required..
these are good jobs,and were limited to English speaking Americans in the past,full time employment with the same "gang" and boss.
i don't think he was referring to lawyers etc in home depot's parking lot.
Right, Venezuela refugees, and then Bolivian, and more Mexicans. Traditionally hispanics returning to Mexico complain that they get cool treatment from the Afro Americans
A great opportunity for republicans to be the party that "why don't we spend our resources on our own citizens in need" instead of citizens of other countries.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.