When hard times hit, immigrants hit the road
Recession causes many undocumented workers to move within U.S.
02/17/2002
WESTGROVE, Pa. – Arturo Rentería, a former janitor at a New York City high-rise, looked at his new but familiar surroundings and shook his head in dismay. He had hit rock bottom again.
He's back grinding out a living, picking mushrooms from odorous, manure-covered compost. He is paid by the amount of mushrooms he gathers, which works out to about $4.50 an hour, he says. That's $4 less than what he was making last fall. It's the same job he held when he first arrived from the state of Mexico six years ago.
"I'm not shy about working anywhere to put food on the table," said Mr. Rentería. "But it's not easy to start all over again."
Mr. Rentería's story is one of downward mobility, of an economic boom-and-bust cycle. The recession has pushed hundreds of undocumented Mexican workers out of higher paying jobs to the bottom rung of the economic ladder, according to officials at Mexican consulate offices and immigrant rights groups.
Like Mr. Rentería, many lost jobs in the high end of the service sector. Some were bellboys at five-star hotels, waiters at top-dollar restaurants or janitors at upscale high-rise buildings, earning above minimum wage, plus tips.
Many of the newly jobless are reluctant to return to Mexico. The increased number of Border Patrol agents along the 2,000-mile border makes a return to the United States much more difficult, say immigration experts.
These workers are instead migrating across state lines in a struggle for economic survival. They're competing for a dwindling number of lower paying jobs, according to Mexican government officials and immigration rights workers.
The internal immigration, experts say, is reminiscent of the exodus from California generated by the anti-immigrant policies of Gov. Pete Wilson in the 1990s.
In that case, more than 200,000 Mexican immigrants moved from California to states such as Nebraska, Georgia and North Carolina, said Jeffrey Passell of the Washington-based Urban Institute. That trend continues, said Mr. Passell, adding that it's too early to determine if this newest internal migration will be sustained.
A recent study by the Washington-based Pew Hispanic Center found that the Hispanic workforce is generally concentrated in sectors heavily hit by the downturn: retail trade, manufacturing and the service industry.
Another Pew finding puzzled researchers. Among second-generation Hispanics, the unemployment rate rose to 9.5 percent, far greater than for recent immigrants. Typically, second-generation Hispanics fare better economically than new arrivals. It is unclear what the rate is among the estimated 4 million undocumented Mexican workers in the United States.
The difference, other analysts say, is because some Mexican immigrants are following jobs wherever word-of-mouth takes them. Frequently, they turn to family members for economic support and shelter and settle in low-end jobs that pay minimum wage.
Mr. Rentería, who's been in the United States working illegally for six years, left high rents in a Queens neighborhood and sought refuge with a brother and friends in the Pennsylvania area.
"These are people who haven't set down roots, so they don't discriminate in the kinds of job they take," said Demetrios Papademetrious, co-director of the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute.
"I'm not surprised that they keep moving because of continuing opportunities in low-skilled industries with generic skill requirements," he said. These are "jobs that can be done by anyone and usually don't require language skill ability."
Some experts, like Mr. Papademetrious, say the migration could be short-lived. The economic recession, which pushed unemployment to 5.8 percent last December, is already showing initial signs of recovery, with the jobless rate falling to 5.6 percent in January, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics The low during the most recent economic boom was 3.9 percent in October 2000.
Researchers say it's too early to pinpoint the number of unemployed undocumented immigrant workers. Keeping track of the shadowy labor pool, they explain, is difficult.
The next few months may offer a better assessment as more agricultural jobs open up, they say.
What's clear is that, at least in lower end jobs, the United States and Mexico have become "one huge integrated labor market," Mr. Papademetrious said.
Huge loss of jobs
Interviews with Mexican consulate officials, state agency and school district officials from Maine to Virginia suggest that stories like that of Mr. Rentería are anything but unusual these days. In the Washington area, as many as 40,000 people lost their jobs, many of them immigrant workers, local officials say.
In New York City, about 90,000 people lost jobs, according to city estimates. A spokesman at an immigrant rights group, Tepeyac Association, says these days nearly 800 Mexican immigrant workers, who have traditionally had the pick of myriad jobs, are on a job waiting list.
The Mexican consulate in Philadelphia serves Mexicans in Pennsylvania, Delaware and five counties in southern New Jersey. Hundreds of new workers have arrived in the region from other states in recent months, according to acting consul general Jacob Prado. The new arrivals came primarily from New York and as far away as Minnesota and Texas, he said. Jobs in the area, he explained, are so plentiful that demand is high for cooks, dishwashers, gardeners and mushroom pickers.
"What we're witnessing today is anything but normal," Mr. Prado said. "People are picking up and going anywhere they can find a job, often crisscrossing states where opportunities call."
More being assisted
At Pennsylvania's Chester County Migrant Education Program, a state and federally funded program aimed at assisting migrants, Dorca Oyola says as many as 37 new families arrived in January, up from the normal 20 to 24 every month. But what's more unusual is that some of the new arrivals aren't just coming from Mexico. "Lately we're getting Mexican workers from New Jersey, Minneapolis, Michigan," said Ms. Oyola, a recruiter who tracks down new families to register their children in school.
Immediately after the terrorist attacks in September, some immigrants tried returning to Mexico, eager to test President Vicente Fox's optimistic vision of a country with promising job opportunities, some Mexican officials say. What they found was a nation reeling from the U.S. recession, losing nearly a half -million jobs.
Some workers such as Florencio Fernández Reyes, come back to the United States. Mr. Fernández, 21, his wife and two children spent two months in Mexico. Unable to find work, he paid a coyote, or smuggler, $1,500 to once again be smuggled across the border. He's back at his old job at a chicken processing plant along the Eastern Shore in Georgetown, Del.
He's one of what Mexican officials and immigrant rights groups say is an increasing number coming from Mexico's southernmost state of Chiapas, site of the 1994 indigenous uprising. Until recently, Chiapas experienced little or no emigration to the United States. In the Annapolis, Md., area, the number of Mexican immigrants has increased from about 500 three years ago to nearly 5,000 today, many of them from Chiapas, said officials of the Organization of Hispanic Latin Americans immigrants rights group.
"At least the United States offers some hope from despair," Mr. Fernández explained.
Labor activist Benjamin Guiliani of the Maine Migrant Workers Advocate Group Inc., said Mexican workers don't usually turn up in the state until late spring, or early summer for the blueberry, strawberry and apples harvests.
Since Christmas, so many have been arriving that several families took up temporary living quarters at a homeless shelter. Twenty-four people, including a couple from the Mexican state of Coahuila, and a recently divorced mother of two from South Texas, found dairy jobs in nearby Vermont, Mr. Guiliani said.
'Quiet ... desperation'
"There's a quiet sense of desperation," Mr. Guiliani said. "These people aren't picky about where they work, or what kinds of jobs they land."
Along the snowy, fertile valleys of southern Pennsylvania, bordering Delaware and Maryland, workers return to jobs they recently left. The area is a job magnet. Work in the $350 million-a-year mushroom industry is plentiful year-round, seven days a week, rain or shine.
"We're always looking for workers," said Elaine Girod Marnell, labor relations director at Kaolin Mushroom, the biggest employer in the region. "We grow and harvest mushrooms every single day of the year."
The sprawling wooded area is a study in contrasts: grand, old, refurbished homes from Colonial days near hidden rundown trailers harboring families of 10 to 20 each hidden. In some places, family reunions are anything but happy occasions.
"We're glad to have a job, and we're happy to be with our families, especially after Sept. 11," said Marta Guzmán, 22. She just moved from Minneapolis with her husband, Francisco, to a shanty in the rural outskirts of Oxford, Pa. "But we're back at the bottom, and crawling out takes a lot of time and sweat."
While some familiar faces return, others flee the area. On a recent Saturday night, David, 46, and Imelda Magaña de Luna, 42, prepared to depart for their hometown of Guanajuato, Mexico.
They were accompanied by their two teenage daughters, Rocío and Marisela, and 7-year-old son, Ricardo. Two other sons will remain behind. David promised to return alone.
The children's teacher arrived and quietly embraced each one of them, tightly hugging 19-year-old Rocío, a high school junior standout who made honor roll. While the hugs continued, a saddened Ms. Magaña whispered her reasons for returning home. Her mother is ill, the frigid, crowded trailer and lingering fear of another attack similar to Sept. 11 made life unbearable.
"Everything was so overwhelming," she said.
But she added that Mexico's own economic ills, will "surely force us back sooner than later.
"If there are no jobs here, I'm sure Mexico is worse off. To survive we're always constantly on the move."ALFREDO CORCHADO/Staff --> Marisela Luna, 15, hugs her teacher goodbye in Oxford, Pa. The teenager and most of her family are returning to Guanajuato, Mexico, because of an ill relative and the fear of another terrorist attack. Other immigrants plan to stay in the area, where the mushroom industry provides jobs year-round, rain or shine. -->
