Undocumented Latinas The New Employable Mother he nomination of Zoe Baird for US Attorney General in 1993 forced a confession that provoked a public uproar: Baird admitted to employing two undocumented Peruvian immigrants, as a baby-sitter and a driver, in clear violation of the immigration law prohibiting the hiring of "illegal" aliens. Responses to Baird's disclosure indicate that her "crime" is a pervasive phenomenon.' Deborah Sontag reported in the New York Times that two-career, middle-class families employing so-called illegal immigrants to do child care and domestic work is so common that employment agencies routinely recommend undocumented immigrants to their clients. As the director of one Manhattan nanny agency said, "It's lust a reality of life that without the illegal girls, there wouldn't be anynan... _. _ nies, and the mommies, wouldlave,lo gay* home and mind their own __— kids."2 Another agency's director said bluntly, "It all comes down to money.... The reason that people hire immigrants without papers is that they're looking to save. If they want legal, they can get it, but it costs."3 According to a survey of 18 New York agencies, "illegal" workers earned as little as $175 a week and "legal" workers as much as $600.4 Thus, the uproar surrounding Baird was not so much a response to the discovery that some people flouted the law by employing undocumented workers. This was hardly news. Rather, the public outcry was a reflection of resentment that this practice was so easily accessible to the more privileged classes while other working- class working mothers struggled to find any child care. As one T 56 DISPOSABLE DOMESTICS critic of Baird commented, "I don't think it's fair. I raised my kids while I was working. I worked days. My husband worked nights at the post office. Our in-laws filled in when they had to." 5 Another woman pointed out: "Average working mothers don't make nearly what she makes, and yet we are obligated to follow the law."6 What was conspicuously absent from most of the commentary on the Baird controversy was concern for the plight of the undocumented workers themselves. Two other news stories involving immigrant women working in private households appeared in a California newspaper the same time Baird's situation was making headlines across the nation; yet these stories did not receive comparable attention. The first of these involved Claudia Garate, who immigrated from Chile at age 19 in order to take a job as an au pair for a professional couple. Garate testified before the state Labor Commissioner in Sonoma County that she slept on the floor and worked on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week as a maid, baby-sitter, cook, and gardener for $50 a month. Garate's employers held on to her visa and passport and withheld her pay for 13 months; claiming they would deposit it in a bank account for her. The second case involved Maria de Jesus Ramos Hernandez, who left her three children in Mexico to work as a housekeeper in California. Once here, her employer repeatedly raped her, telling her that he had paid her way here and would have her jailed if she did not submit to him.7 Evidence indicates that while Garate's and Hernandez's cases may have been extreme, abuse of undocumented women working in private households is not uncommon. Lina Avidan, then–program director for the San Francisco–based Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and Services (CIRRS), said, "I have clients who work ... seven days a week, doing -child care from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. [for] $200 a month. Clearly, they are working in the homes of the wealthy and they're not even getting minimum wage." 8 A 1991 CIRRS survey of Chinese, Filipina, and Latina undocumented women in the San Francisco Bay area revealed that the''majority (58 percent) of the employed undocumented Latinas surveyed held jobs in housecleaning and in-home care of children or the elderly, while Undocumented Latinas 57 the remainder worked in service jobs or factories. They were usually earning between $250 and $500 per month. Forty percent of these women were supporting between one and three people on these wages, while 38 percent were supporting between four and six.9 Members of Mujeres Unidas y Activas (MUA), a support group for Latina immigrant domestic workers, report that they commonly endure conditions approaching slavery or indentured servitude. I ° These statements are echoed by immigrant domestic workers in Los Angeles, years after the Zoe Baird episode has passed. Patricia Tejada fled from El Salvador in 1988 because of the war, leaving her three children and husband behind. She worked as a baby-sitter and housekeeper for the next four years in Los Angeles to try to save enough money to bring her family to join her. She recalls spending many nights crying, wondering how her children were and whether they were safe. Throughout those years, she often became very attached to the children she cared for, only to find that she would be dismissed coldly and abruptly when her services were no longer necessary: "We love the children, but the employers just need us. When they don't, they say, We don't need you anymore, " she says with a wave of her hand." Another woman, Amalia Hernandez, who fled El Salvador with her four cousins, found her first job working in Los Angeles as a live-in nanny caring for a newborn infant. Although Amalia had been offered $80 per week, she was paid $50 instead to work from 6 a.m. until midnight, most days. In her next job, she was supposed to be paid $100 per week, but was told by her employer for a year and a half that her salary was being saved for her. When she asked for her pay, the employer told his wife to throw her out. Amalia left the house with only one month's pay and a bunch of "hand-me-down" clothes. Although she tried to take the employer to small claims court, the employer won the case by insisting that Amalia was a very bad worker and threatening in the courtroom that she would call the INS to deport her. Amalia recalls that she hardly spoke any English at the time and was frightened by her employer's threats. She describes her current employment situation as tolerable: She takes care of three children, ages four, two, and two months. In 58 DISPOSABLE DOMESTICS a typical day, she begins at 6 a.m. preparing breakfast, gives the children lunch for school, brings the four-year-old to preschool for half a day, cleans the house, does laundry, and cooks dinner. Essentially, she works around the clock every day while "the lady stays home all day and gets angry if I sit down." Suffering from an injury sustained on the job, Amalia is in constant pain carrying the baby around, up and down the stairs all day. She wishes she could go to the doctor for the injury but is afraid she will lose her job if she takes time off to do so. She is paid $275 per week and has random times off, given at her employer's whim.I2 Taken together, these accounts indicate that middle-class households often make exploitative use of immigrant women to do child care and domestic work. They also suggest the advances of many middle-class white women in the workforce have been largely predicated on the exploitation of poor, immigrant women. While middle- and upper-class women entrust their children and homes to undocumented immigrant women, the immigrant women often must leave their own children to work. Some leave their children with family in their home countries, hoping to earn enough to return or send money back to them. 13 Thus, middle- and upper-class women are readily able to find "affordable" care for their children at the expense of poor immigrant women and their children. The employment of undocumented women in dead-end, low-wage, temporary service jobs makes it possible for middle- and upper-class women to pursue salaried jobs and not have to contend with the "second shift" when they come home. A predictable outgrowth of the Baird controversy has been the proposal that the existing Immigration Reform and Control Act CIRCA) be changed so that household employers are exempted from the prohibition against hiring "illegal" imrrugrants, or that household workers are given special visas. 14 If the law were changed to meet this "popular demand," it would only serve to legitimize the exploitation of thousands of undocumented immigrants. These proposals raise the specter of a counterpart in private household work to some of the most brutally exploited contract laborers used in agriculture: "disposable nannies" who may be dumped once babies be- Undocumented Latinas 59 come older or newer immigrants can be found who are willing to work for even lower wages. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), through its execution of IRCA, has continued to fulfill the historical role of the state in using immigration and welfare policies to maintain women of color as a super-exploitable, low-wage labor force. 15 A historical example is the use of "employable mother" rules by many states from the 1940s through 1960s to deny black mothers benefits, thereby coercing them to perform agricultural and domestic work. In implementing current immigration policy, the INS has continued this pattern. The INS's execution of IRCA, denying legalization to undocumented women whose citizen children have received public assistance, channels these women into and maintains them in the secondary labor force, private household work, and institutional service work. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986: A Compromise The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 emerged after nearly a decade of debate in Congress and in the public domain about what impact immigration, particularly "illegal" immigration, had on the US economy. The act had two main objectives that were contradictory: to reduce the number of undocumented immigrants and to provide rights and the chance to legalize to those undocumented immigrants who had already lived and worked in the country. Unable to reconcile these conflicting impulses, Congress incorporated a number of provisions into the law as concessions to various interest groups. First, to discourage illegal immigration, the law established employer sanctions against those who knowingly employed undocumented immigrants. Second, to provide rights and protections to undocumented persons, the amnesty program offered those who could prove they had lived in the country "illegally" since at least 1982 the chance to apply for temporary resident status. Finally, in response to the concerns of growers about how the law might affect the availability of agricultural labor, Congress created 60 DISPOSABLE DOMESTICS three special classes of those who could enter the country or gain residency as agricultural workers.16 Some of the most heated debate surrounding IRCA centered around the issue of whether immigrants generally contribute to or deplete from the public coffers. This debate led lawmakers to include in IRCA provisions governing whether those perceived as potentially welfare dependent should be able to gain residency and whether "legalized persons" should be allowed to receive certain entitlements. The virtual hysteria that has arisen around protecting public revenues and guarding against the growth of a population of welfare dependents undoubtedly influenced the inclusion of two provisions of IRCA, the public-charge exclusion and the five-year bar, to restrict aliens' access to social services and public benefits. Clearly, these restrictions were formulated with the immediate goal of limiting welfare expenditures; but, in executing IRCA, the INS went even further, utilizing an interpretation of the law that effectively denied amnesty to those seen as potential welfare abusers— that is, undocumented women with children. To illustrate how the INS's interpretation of the law was more restrictive than intended by Congress, I will review how these provisions were originally formulated. The Five-Year Bar from Federal Assistance The amnesty program represented a recognition, at least on the part of some lawmakers, that thousands of undocumented aliens had lived in the United States, worked, and contributed to the American economy for years without ever enjoying the rights of those recognized as full, "legitimate" members of the society.' 7 The remarks of one representative suggest that some lawmakers hoped to bring relief to the undocumented through IRCA: 'We will be bringing people out of a shadow economy, people will be paying taxes, people will be coming out into the sunshine, there will not be the abuse of workers, employers will not be able to provide poor-quality jobs for people, they will not be able to oppress people:" 18 Of course, not all lawmakers had such generous intentions in mind in formulating IRCA. Many were more concerned with protecting public resources for "native" Americans than with protecting the rights of the Undocumented Latinas 61 undocumented. The perception of immigrants as welfare burdens fueled fears that the amnesty program would create a tremendous, immediate strain on social service funds. 19 In direct response to these concerns, Congress included in IRCA a provision barring legalization applicants from most federal assistance programs, including AFDC, food stamps, and certain forms of Medicaid. The bar period extends for five years from the time someone applies for temporary residency.2° The Public-Charge Ground of Exclusion and the Special Rule In addition to the five-year bar, a provision of immigration law dating back to 1882 was retained in IRCA to guard against the expected welfare drain by newly legali7ed aliens. This provision, excluding those "likely to become a public charge," is used to identify those who might be unable to support themselves because of some physical or mental limitation.21 Prior to IRCA, all aliens applying for an immigrant visa were subject to a test to determine whether they were likely to be able to earn a living in the United States. This test considers factors such as the applicant's age, health, past and current income, education, and, job skills. Past receipt of public benefits is considered a significant but not determinative factor. The traditional test gives applicants one way of overcoming the public-charge ground of exclusion, even if they have received public benefits, if they can show that they are currently employed or able to provide for themselves and their families.22 Under IRCA, Congress established a "special rule" providing a second test for legalization applicants unable to pass the traditional test.23 This test examines the alien's recent past and requires the applicant to have a history of employment that demonstrates self-support without receipt of public cash assistance.24 This history of employment need not be continuous, thus allowing for periods of unemployment and seasonal or migrant labor.25 Congressional testimony indicates that Congress created the "special rule" with the intent of liberalizing the public-charge standard or providing a second means of overcoming this standard.26 Specifically, it was made 62 DISPOSABLE DOMESTICS with the recognition that many of the undocumented are "working poor," unlikely to become dependent on public benefits despite their low incomes.27 The amnesty, five-year bar, and public-charge provisions of IRCA were formulated in the face of a wide spectrum of views on what rights and benefits should be extended to immigrants. IRCA represented an uneasy compromise of these views and the task of implementing IRCA was left to the discretion of the INS. In executing IRCA, the INS has applied more restrictive interpretations of the law. For example, Congress intended to open eligibility for legalization to large numbers of people, including those who were low-income, with the "special rule."28 But the INS did not utilize the "special rule" properly and instead implemented its own interpretations of the law, which were not consistent with Congress's liberalizing intent. The result of this practice was that many undocumented women who had received public assistance for their children were wrongfully denied amnesty. The Case of Zambrano v. INS The INS's implementation of IRCA, particularly its application of the law to undocumented women, has been challenged in the case Zambrano v. INS. The class-action suit was filed in the Ninth Circuit in April 1988 on behalf of a group of plaintiffs who were mostly women with dependents and the class they represent. 29 The complaint against the INS, filed by California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA), the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), and San Mateo County Legal Aid (SMCLA), co-counsel for the plaintiffs, made two claims: that the INS's practices contradicted the congressional intent in passing IRCA and that these practices discriminated against and imposed extreme hardship on undocumented women with children. 30 In August 1988, the NILC and SMCLA withdrew from the case and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Foundation (MALDEF) joined CRLA as co-counsel. The declarations of two of the plaintiffs, Marta Zambrano and Maria C., illustrate how the INS's execution of the amnesty and public-charge provisions of IRCA adversely affected undocumented women with Undocumented Latinas 63 children and obstructed their chances of obtaining better working and living conditions.31 Marta Zambrano, whose name the case assumed, was a Mexican citizen who had lived continuously in the United States since 1979. Marta had four children with US citizenship, ages eight, six, four, and three, at the time of her declaration in 1988. Between 1979 and 1983, she worked in a factory, picked cauliflower, and did many kinds of work in the fields, even while she had two small children. She only began receiving AFDC for her children in 1983, when she became pregnant with her third child and her common-law husband left her because she refused to have an abortion.32 Marta first heard about the amnesty program in 1986 on the radio and through friends. She went to a program at her church for information and was told that she could not receive AFDC for her children if she wanted to legalize. She also heard on the radio and from her friends that people who received welfare were not eligible for legalization. Convinced that she would not qualify, Zambrano did not pursue an amnesty application. Only at the urging of an attorney did she file her application on May 4, 1988, the latest possible date. In June 1988, she was interviewed by the INS and informed that her application was denied because her children had received AFDC.33 Marta received AFDC for her US-citizen children because their natural fathers contributed no support to the family. Since 1986, Marta sought work but was refused in many instances because she did not have work authorization, which she could only obtain through legalization. Potential employers turned Marta away from work in the fields and as a dishwasher and housecleaner. Even when Marta obtained part-time work, she did not earn enough money to cover living expenses and child care.34 Anna R. was less fortunate than Marta Zambrano in that she never even applied for amnesty. She was a citizen of El Salvador and had lived in California since 1981. She had four children, two of whom were US citizens. Shortly after IRCA was passed, Anna began preparing to apply for amnesty by gathering necessary documents. In January 1988, Anna was abandoned by the father of her children. At that time she was unable to find full-time employment without 64 DISPOSABLE DOMESTICS work authorization and applied for AFDC for her children, who had US citizenship. She also began working as a housekeeper, one day per week for three different employers. She earned about $400 per month and received no support from her children's father.35 Anna heard from the radio, television, and her relatives that receiving welfare would disqualify her from legalization. Thus she did not apply before the May 4, 1988, deadline, as she had intended to since 1986. Had she been informed that the receipt of AFDC by her US-citizen children should not disqualify her from legalization, she would have applied and would otherwise have been eligible.36 The other plaintiffs reported similar circumstances and obstacles to legalization. Each of the women had children, some or all of whom were US citizens. Those who received AFDC payments had received them only for US-citizen children, who were fully entitled to these benefits. Most of the women had some work history and, if unemployed at the time of applying for amnesty, would have presumably returned to the workforce when their family circumstances and child-care needs allowed. Some were employed at the time, but their incomes were insufficient to provide for them and their dependents without supplementary AFDC benefits. One received Supplemental Security Income (sSi) payments on behalf of her child, who had cerebral palsy.37 These women represent an entire class of people adversely affected by the improper INS practices. The plaintiffs contended that they are among the many thousands of undocumented persons to whom Congress intended to offer an opportunity to become citizens.38 Yet they have been impeded from obtaining legal status and its benefits (such as work authorization) either through outright denial by the INS or because they were discouraged from applying based on information about the INS's improper practices. The complaint against the INS presented two claims, only the first of which has been addressed by the Court. First Claim: The INS Has Violated IRCA The complaint filed against the INS in April 1988 alleged that INS policies and procedures were "in contradiction of the plain meaning Undocumented Latinas 65 of IRCA and Congressional intent."39 The INS applied its own "Proof of Financial Responsibility" (PFR) regulations, which the plaintiffs maintained were more restrictive than intended in the liberalized standards created under IRCA. 40 The PFR regulations attributed public benefits received by an amnesty applicant's dependents to the applicant. As revealed in the declarations of the plaintiffs, this induded AFDC received by children who were fully entitled to these benefits as US citizens. The INS's use of these regulations resulted in the denial of amnesty to applicants who would otherwise have been eligible under IRCA's liberalized standards, such as the "special rule."4 I The US District Court for the Eastern District of California addressed the first claim in the Zambrano case on July 31, 1989. After a thorough review of the INS regulations, the IRCA statute, and the legislative history surrounding its passage, Judge Edward Garcia issued a partial summary judgment and a permanent injunction on the INS regulations. The INS was ordered to reopen the cases of those who had been adversely affected by the regulations. This induded two classes of people: first, those who filed applications on time but were denied as "likely to become a public charge" under the invalidated regulations, and second, those who were eligible for legalization but had not applied because they were discouraged by information about the INS's prior practices. 42 The INS was ordered to accept amnesty applications until December 31, 1989, for this second class of people.43 The INS appealed the July 1989 decision on a number of grounds.44 The INS first appealed it in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.45 In February 1992, the court ruled against the INS, and the INS subsequently filed a writ of certiorari to the US Supreme Court in November 1992.46 If the. Supreme Court does take up the case, it could remand it to the lower courts to decide the remaining issues, such as the second claim made against the INS. 66 DISPOSABLE DOMESTICS Second Claim: The NS's Regulations Discriminate on the Basis of Sex A second claim made against the INS was the charge that the INS regulations are discriminatory on the basis of sex and thus violate the equal protection clause. 47 The complaint asserted that the effect of the INS's regulations and procedures was that "legalization under IRCA [was] not made available or [was] made available on an unequal basis [with men] to substantial numbers of women." 48 Certainly, the declarations of the plaintiffs indicated that the INS's practices resulted in the wrongful denial of amnesty to many women whose children received AFDC or other benefits. Moreover, it was estimated that at least 4,000 potential women applicants chose not to apply for amnesty in California alone because they were discouraged by information about the INS's regulations.49 Diane Bessette, who acted as a legalization counselor for Catholic Community Services in Sacramento, has called attention to a third group of women for whom the INS regulations have posed inhumane choices. These women have managed to qualify for temporary resident status but must again overcome the INS's public-charge exclusion practices when they apply for permanent residency. Under the five-year bar, a legalization applicant must not receive certain public benefits after applying for temporary residency to maintain his or her application in good standing. He or she must choose between continuing to receive public assistance for his or her dependents or losing this means of support to complete the legalization process.5° Because many single women with children cannot survive without the assistance, Bessette points out, many will be forced to forego adjusting to permanent residency.51 In other words, these women face a double bind. Without legal status and its concomitant work authorization, they cannot find employment at adequate wages. Without adequate wages, they must provide for their children by some means, but they sacrifice the chance to gain legal status for themselves if they receive aid for their children as supplements to these wages. One woman who made a declaration in the Zambrano case revealed that -she became homeless because she gave up public assis- Undocumented Latinas 67 tance to apply for amnesty.52 Others who "choose" illegal status or are denied amnesty will most likely suffer unemployment or employment in exploitative circumstances because they lack work authorization.53 Rather than bringing these women "out of the shadows," the law has served to condemn them and their children to marginal working and living conditions. Perhaps one of the gravest consequences of the INS regulations has been to perpetuate the feminization of poverty among undocumented immigrants. EA number of recent studies indicate that undocumented persons, particularly women, have become or remain part of an underclass despite the generous potentials of the amnesty program. 54 First, undocumented women have been confined to employment in the secondary sector and often remain in highly exploitative work conditions for fear of losing their chances to legalize. The CIRRS survey revealed that undocumented women suffer many forms of worker exploitation, including not being paid for work, being paid lower wages than documented coworkers, and sexual harassment. In 1991, the US Labor Department investigated abuses in the garment industry, such as runaway shops and shops that didn't pay employees for months at a time. The Department estimated that 337 employees were owed $87,330 by 18 El Paso garment industry employers. The study reported that these abuses were prevalent in the industry because its workers, mostly poor Latinas in the process of applying for legal residency, were too frightened of deportation to complain. Spokespersons for the International Ladies Garment Workers' Union in New York and a group called La Mujer Obrera ("The Working Woman") in Texas emphasized that the abuses are related specifically to women's pending amnesty applications. Women who are applying for amnesty continue working for employers who pay late or not at all because they fear their employers will rescind the certification of steady employment necessary to complete their applications .5f Second, these women earn incomes far below the poverty level; yet they underutilize public assistance and social services to which they or their children are fully entitled, fearing that they will jeopardize their legalization applications. A study conducted in 1989 by 68 DISPOSABLE DOMESTICS the Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment System (CASAS) found that newly legalized persons used services and benefits at very low rates, "probably lower than for the [California] population as a whole." Two factors need to be considered to see how the improper INS regulations may have affected these rates: first, the family profiles of the respondents, and, second, the proper IRCA regulations regarding amnesty applicants' rights to public assistance and services. Of those who participated in the survey, approximately 43 percent of the families had at least one child born in the US. This implies that for almost half of the survey participants, at least one family member should not have been restricted by his/her immigration status, by IRCA's five-year bar, or by public-charge concerns. AFDC, the program that raised complications most often in the Zambrano case, is restricted by the five-year bar for legalization applicants and is a cash assistance program. Therefore, it is only available to the citizen children of newly legalized persons, but receipt of these benefits should only be attributed to the children themselves, not their parents. Yet fewer than one percent (0.9 percent) of families that entered the country prior to 1982 reported receiving AFDC benefits at the time of the survey. CASAS tried to uncover reasons for these low usage rates with one item in the survey, asking. "Within the last five years, have you ever needed assistance but been reluctant to apply for it for any reason? If yes, why?" Eighty-seven percent of the respondents said they had not needed or had never been reluctant to apply for assistance. Given the level of confusion about the public-charge provision, one can speculate that some of these respondents simply may not have wished to reveal having ever needed assistance. The second largest group of respondents (8 percent) reported that they had needed assistance but feared jeopardizing their amnesty applications.56 Moreover, these studies indicate that the INS has contributed to both of these patterns by its improper practices and its failure to publicize the proper regulations regarding amnesty and the publiccharge exclusion. The INS failed to publicize accurate information about the amended regulations, even after they were permanently enjoined under the 1989 order. While the INS claimed that "clarifica- Undocumented Latinas 69 tion memos" were issued in 1987 and 1988, the court rejected these claims, pointing out that they were never disseminated to the public." It should be noted that two of the studies cited here were conducted after the August 1988 order in Zambrano had already placed a temporary injunction on the improper INS regulations. Yet the responses of those surveyed indicate that widespread fear and misinformation about how use of public assistance would affect their amnesty applications persists. The evidence dearly refutes the myth of undocumented Latinas as nonworking welfare dependents or public resource depletors. Instead, it suggests that the INS's practices have locked countless undocumented women and their dependents into an underclass, without access to legal recourse for workplace abuses or relief from poverty that legalization might afford them. The evidence certainly supports the second claim made in Zambrano v. INS that the INS has "acted knowing and intending that the direct effect of their actions is to exclude or burden substantial numbers of women."58 For several reasons, the plaintiffs' attorneys did not have the opportunity to pursue this second claim. Earlier, they attempted to show that a large percentage of those persons who have been denied under the improper regulations are single women with children, but the INS refused to comply with discovery orders that would allow them to compile statistics demonstrating this pattern. 59 Stephen Rosenbaum of CRLA, co-counsel for the plaintiffs, commented that sexual discrimination is extremely difficult to prove; the INS's noncompliance with the discovery orders certainly contributed to this difficulty. Rosenbaum also said that the plaintiffs did not pursue this claim because the first claim, charging the INS's statutory violations, was deemed stronger.6° Nevertheless, the evidence dearly suggests that the INS's practices discriminate largely against women. In fact, one could argue that the second claim could be expanded to charge that the INS's actions constitute not only sexual but racial discrimination as well. Through these actions, the INS has performed its historical role in regulating the labor of immigrant women for local business interests 70 DISPOSABLE DOMESTICS in manufacturing and agriculture and for middle-class households seeking child care and domestic workers. 61 Thus, it could be established that the INS indeed acted "knowing and intending" that the effects of its practices would be to exclude many women so that they would need to seek or remain in low-wage employment. The Historical Precedent for the iNs's Actions In Regulating the Poor: The Functions ofPublic Welfare, Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward argue that poverty policy and practice have historically been coupled with labor practice to accommodate local employers' demands for low-wage labor. That is, poverty policy has been designed and implemented to serve two basic functions. In times of economic contraction, welfare can be expanded to quell or prevent civil unrest by unemployed masses. Or, in times of relative economic and political stability, welfare can be contracted to expel people from the rolls, thus ensuring their availability to perform low-wage labor according to local needs. Piven and Cloward aptly describe this second function as "enforcing" low-wage work for impoverished people considered to be "able bodied," regardless of age or sex.62 Socialist feminist Mimi Abramovitz refines Piven and Cloward's thesis with regard to women in her book Regulating the Lives of Women. Abramovitz proposes that the welfare state mediates the conflicting demands of capitalism for women to provide two functions: to ;emain in the home to reproduce and maintain the labor force, and to undertake traditionally "female" low-wage work in the paid labor force. Abramovitz argues that the state resolves this conflict by encouraging and subsidizing some women to remain home and nurture the current and future workforce while forcing others into low-wage work. 63 This division is achieved through patriarchal poverty policies or practices predicated on racist assumptions that some women (that is, white women) are fit to be mothers and homemakers and thus "deserve" subsidies allowing them to remain in the home. Other women (that is, women of color and immigrant women) are deemed "unfit" nurturers—indeed, are thought to be undesirable reproducers—and thus are viewed as better suited to Undocumented Latinas 71 fulfill the demands for certain kinds of market labor. Building on this analysis, sociologist Evelyn Nakano Glenn has formulated a model of the racial division of reproductive labor that is helpful in explaining such phenomena. 64 Glenn argues that women of color have historically relieved privileged white women of much of the burden of reproductive labor by performing both private household and institutional service work. Moreover, she argues, women of color's performance of reproductive labor for others frees dominant-group women to pursue leisure or employment, thus making possible the privilege and "liberation" of white women.65 Drawing on Glenn's model, I propose that in some cases the state channels women of color into service work to "support" or completely assume the reproductive functions of privileged white women. The state thereby captures the labor of subordinate-group women for dominant-group women, benefitting middle-class households (both women and their partners in traditional nuclear families) and capital. The interests of each of these parties is served through the transferral of the burden of reproductive labor from white women to subordinate women by ameliorating or eliminating conflicts over housework, thus helping to preserve the traditional nuclear family, or allowing middle- and upper-class women to contribute significantly to two-income families. In the following section, I will trace how welfare policy has been applied differentially for white women and women of color to enforce different kinds of labor for each group of women. This will allow us to analyze how the state has mediated the tension between the demand for women's reproductive labor and women's low-wage labor in the paid work force historically and in the contemporary period. Regulating the Labor of White Women and Women of Color The Mothers' Pension program, the first program of public assistance to dependent children, was created to support women at home as the proper guardians of their children and the "stable" home life necessary to cultivate good citizens. 66 The founders of the Mothers' Pension program never claimed that this good home life was to be extended to all women and children; nor were all women 72 DISPOSABLE DOMESTICS thought to be able to maintain good homes for children. The creators envisioned limiting this support to a privileged group of mothers. The White House Conference that convened in 1909 to outline the program produced two principles. First, a select group of families would be removed from the class of paupers and from the stringent provisions of the Poor Law. Second, the state would provide assistance to enable these women to keep their children in their own homes rather than in institutions, so they could nurture them into productive citizens. In return, these mothers were to demonstrate that they were proper and competent custodians of their children and that they could maintain "suitable homes" for them.67 This second principle was the basis for the "suitable home" rules that were retained in many states throughout the operation of the Mothers' Pension program and its successors. In her classic study, Aid to Dependent Children, Winifred Bell argues that this rule became a convenient means by which welfare officials could identify black mothers of "illegitimate" children as "unfit" and "undeserving" of aid.68 The available statistics suggest that the operative definitions of "fit" and "deserving" implied white and widowed.69 Moreover, Bell suggests that receipt of a Mothers' Pension grant was thought to bestow prestige upon these mothers and to "set them apart from the totality of mothers" as those who were expected to "achieve the ideal of devoted, selfless, and competent motherhood."70 In reality, the Mothers' Pension grants did not provide sufficient support to enable these chosen few to devote themselves solely to their child-rearing duties. The program requirements presented contradictory obligations, defining "worthy" women as those who did not leave their children yet still managed to earn as much as possible. 71 Some states limited the amount of time a "worthy" mother could leave the home to three days a week. Many women resolved this dilemma by taking in laundry, thus simultaneously earning money and the status of "worthiness."72 The stated rationale behind the Aid to Dependent Children (ADC) , program, established under the 1935 Social Security Act, seemed to remove this contradiction, asserting that mothers should Undocumented Latinos 73 be relieved of the double burden of wage-earning and caring for children. The Committee on Economic Security published a report in 1935 stating that the ADC program was designed "to release from the wage-earning role the person whose natural function is to give her children the physical and affectionate guardianship necessary not [only] to keep them from falling into social misfortune, but more affirmatively to make them citizens capable of contributing to society."73 Thus, with the inception of the ADC program, federal policy proposed that the first obligation of women with children should be to nurture children into productive citizens and that this maternal mission should not be hindered by work in the paid labor force. Sylvia Law argues that from 1935 to 1968, federal policy embodied the principle that women with children were unemploy. able. 74 Under federal ADC and then-AFDC guidelines in effect from 1939 to 1969, "Considerations Regarding Employment of Mothers" advised that exerting pressure on mothers might lead them to neglect their maternal or homemaking duties: The time available for domestic responsibilities is limited for an employed mother. She must either neglect her home or make inroads on her physical resources. The resulting nerve strain may affect her contribution to industry as well as to the well-being of her family.... The role of the public assistance agencies is, by assistance and other services, to help the mother arrive at a decision that will best meet her own needs and those of her children.75 In most cases, however, the interests of local employers competed with the needs of mother and child. For certain groups of women, the ideal of state-supported, full-time mothering was sacrificed to the demands of capitalism. Officially, federal policy "discouraged" states from using public assistance to coerce mothers to work outside the home. For example, the Handbook ofPublic Assirtance Administration advised: "The Bureau of Public Assistance recommends against any policy of denying or withdrawing aid to dependent children as a method of bringing pressure upon women with young children to accept employment."76 Nevertheless, individual caseworkers 74 DISPOSABLE DOMESTICS and, local state agencies exercised wide discretion.over the administration of gams and:used a variety of mechanisms to deny women of color this protection against compulsion to work outside the home. In many states and localities, ADC and AFDC administrative rules contained explicit wage work requirements for mothers but applied them selectively to poor women of color while preserving the option of full-time mothering for others. 77 Often these rules functioned as a pretext for expelling or denying women of color access to welfare, thus forcing them to seek work in the marginal labor market. For example, Louisiana adopted the first "employable mother" rule in 1943, requiring all AFDC families with children seven years or older to be denied assistance if the mother was presumed "employable" in the fields. Undoubtedly, the rule was directed at nonwhite mothers since this seasonal labor was almost exclusively performed by nonwhites.78 The statements of caseworkers suggest that racist assumptions often influenced them to view black mothers as particularly well-suited for employment, and these views guided their eligibility determinations. These assumptions included the beliefs that black mothers had always worked in the past, that appropriate employment opportunities were more abundant for black women, and that child-care needs did not pose a problem for these mothers, ostensibly because the children were cared for by extended family members—or, perhaps more to the point, because caseworkers did not believe it necessary to maintain the same standards of prow home life and maternal care for black children. One Louisiana caseworker unabashedly expressed these assumptions about the unique employability of black mothers: [The] Negro mother has always worked in the past The grandmother was there to look after the children. Now the mother, has quit work. She stays at home and sits on the porch and rocks. Nobody wants to make the children suffer. What they want is for the mother to get out and work.79 A colleague of this caseworker replied: What the people who make these criticisms are chiefly interested Undocumented Latinas 75 in is cheaper servants. It makes no difference to them one way or the other what happens to Negro children. They are not interested in whether the mother has someone to leave the children with or not. What they want is to get a cook at $5 a week as they used to.80 One can only infer from such statements that caseworkers recognized (though perhaps did not accept uncritically) the function of their agencies in accommodating local demands for cheap labor. As the remarks of one observer indicate, the attitude that the "employable Negro mother" could and should be coerced to remain in agricultural or domestic work often translated into the practice of denying black families public assistance: The number of Negro cases is few due to the unanimous feeling on the part of the staff and board that there are more work opportunities for Negro women and to their intense desire not to interfere with local labor conditions.... There is hesitancy on the part of lay boards to advance too rapidly over the thinking of their own communities, which see no reason why the employable Negro mother should not continue her usually sketchy seasonal labor or indefinite domestic service rather than receive a public assistance grant. 8 I Thus, both explicit administrative measures such as the suitable home and employable mother rules, and the biases of some caseworkers making eligibility determinations, operated to bar or expel women of color from the rolls, compel them from their homes, and deliver them to local employers for domestic or agricultural work. The widespread use of these rules and the prevalence of these attitudes from the 1940s through the 1960s need to be viewed in their historical context. After World War II, vigorous efforts were made to encourage white middle-class women to return to the home as guardians of their children and of domesticity. Simultaneously, efforts were made to direct black women back to these same homes as domestic workers. 82 The overall result was to create altogether separate standards and conditions under which women of color and white women had to mother, relegating each group to particular 76 DISPOSABLE DOMESTICS functions within the system of patriarchal capitalism and thus reinforcing race- and class-based divisions between women. In the late 1960s, a series of legal challenges to restrictive welfare regulations succeeded in overturning some of the mechanisms that had been used to perpetuate these differential standards. Among these was a challenge to the Georgia employable mother rule in a class action suit, Anderson v. Burson (1968), filed on behalf of a group of AFDC mothers. The Georgia rule, enacted in 1952, permitted welfare officials to deny aid to mothers with children over one year of age on the assumption that the women were employable if suitable work was available. 83 "Suitable" meant employment at any wage, and the rule prohibited county welfare departments from supplementing that wage, even if it was lower than the welfare grant levels. Moreover, the rule authorized county welfare officials to deny all new applications and to close all existing cases of mothers deemed employable during "periods of full employment"—that is, during cotton-picking season.84 The plaintiffs in Anderson v. Burson argued that the rule had been used much more frequently to keep black women off the rolls than white women, thus violating the equal protection provisions under the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. On April 5, 1968, a three-judge federal court in Atlanta struck down certain portions of the Georgia "employable mother" rule, validating the charge that it violated equal protection standards. 85 The court argued that the practice of denying supplementary benefits to mothers who were employed for less money than they would receive on welfare contradicted the purpose of the AFDC program. The plaintiffs also requested the right to refute the assumption that they could obtain work merely because a welfare official claimed that they were employable. 86 The court struck down a provision requiring the applicant to demonstrate that suitable employment was not available 87 In many ways, the INS regulations challenged in the Zambrano case were implemented to produce much the same results as the "employable mother" rules. First, the improper INS regulations were used more frequently to discourage Latina mothers from using AFDC or other public benefits and to discourage these women from Undocumented Latinas 77 receiving benefits in the future, even after they were legalized. Second, as has already been argued, the INS practices contradicted the purpose of the "special rule" under IRCA: to expand access to legalization and its benefits to the undocumented working poor. Finally, it seems that INS officials assumed that these mothers had adequate means of supporting their children through employment while at the same time ensuring that, without legalization and the accompanying work authorization, these women could not acquire jobs providing a decent wage. Yet if they attempted to supplement their inadequate wages with AFDC, they eliminated their chances of gaining legal status themselves and the possibility of better providing for their families in the future. The retion of undocumented Latina mothers under IRCA closely resembles the regulation of black mothers under the "employable mother" rules. each ch case the notion of nonwhite Moth.: ers as employable exists alongside prevailing dominant culture's view that a mother's employment outside the home harms her children's development. For each group of women, their construction as those who can and should work outside the home rationalizes the practice of denying support to them as mothers. This denial of aid forces these women to forego full-time mothering and to seek or remain in marginal work, for which they are seen as better suited. The parallel suggests that the notion of nonwhite mothers as uniquely employable has never been eradicated but, rather, has been enforced through a varieyof_government policies and practices. Some feminists have proposecrifia.-tsidies to women with children should be expanded in the recognition that full-time mothering is work and should be properly rewarded. Wendy Sarvasy, for one, has called for us to recapture some of the original principles behind the Mothers' Pension program—for example, that mothers be seen as civil servants and provided with pensions as compensation for their services in nurturing future citizens.88 Such proposals repeat the original flaw of the Mothers' Pension program. They limit support to an elite group of women by defining "deserving" mothers as full-time mothers, while few women actually find full-time mothering viable. Under the current racial division of reproductive _ 78 DISPOSABLE DOMESTICS labor, some women cannot stay at home with their own children while they mother other people's children and keep other people's homes. Moreover, many women of color, as well as working-class white women, have the same aspirations for "meaningful work" outside the home as do privileged white women, although they may not have the means to pursue such career ambitions. Ironically, it is the assumption of reproductive labor by women of color and immigrant women for privileged white women that allows the latter group to forego full-time mothering, opting for careers and other pursuits they desire. Thus, proposals to reward full-time mothering offer nothing to most women of color, for whom this occupation may not be an option or the ideal. Historically, women of color have had to work, even while raising small children, either to supplement inadequate wages garnered by men in their families, or to provide for families in the absence of male providers. In response, communities of color have often constructed alternatives to dominant society's model of the family in which men are providers, women are dependents, and biological mothers exclusively are assumed to be the natural and proper caretakers of children. For example, Patricia Hill-Coffins traces the strong tradition of shared mothering responsibilities among blood mothers, community mothers, and church mothers in AfricanAmerican communities.89 Carol Stack and Linda Burton report that male and female, old and young members of low-income African-American families negotiate cycled or intergenerational caretaking responsibilities. Such arrangements enable young women to earn wages during childbearing years while their elders (mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles) are still young enough to care for children." Similarly, the Mexicana mothers in Denise Segura's study viewed employment as compatible with mothering, as it enabled them to contribute toward the collective good of the family.9I Proposals to reform the welfare system through revaluing the work of full-time mothers fail to address the needs of women of color and further marginalize them in their struggles to provide for their families. A more radical proposition—and one that might be- Undocumented Latinos 79 gin to address the plight of women of color who are poor working mothers—would be to recognize and reward women for the services that they provide through both their productive and reproductive labors. Beyond income supports, these women should be offered adequate wages, access to better employment options, and the same services for "working mothers" (for example, child care) available to many of their employers. Initiatives on this order will certainly meet great resistance from those employers who rely on the "affordability" of immigrant women and women-of-color workers. 92 During the Zoe Baird controversy, it was anticipated that a co alition of immigrant advocacy, child-care advocacy, and women's groups might form around the "shared interests" of women's work in housekeeping and child care. This was seen as an opportunity to champion the cause of "working" mothers from all social locations and to make the case for proper compensation for "housework"—whether perprmed by "housewives" or service workers. Yet no such coalition emerged. 93 It is telling that the major women's groups were conspicuously silent during Baird's confirmation hearings. 94 The few individuals from the National Organization for Women who attended the Immigration Reform Commission hearings on home-care worker programs were not acting as NOW representatives.95 Perhaps this is not so surprising, as white professional women have historically relied on the "affordability" of immigrant women workers.96 Fear of being discovered with an undocumented employee might have compelled some to be silent, or some might have wished to avoid formalizing or regulating this industry. Whatever the cause of the paralysis around this issue, prospects for a "feminist" stance on home-care workers or immigrant women's rights have seemed grim. Efforts to improve conditions and wages for domestic workers and child-care providers have historically drawn a poor response from mainstream women's groups. Sociologist Diana Pearce reports that one women's rights organization declined to take a stand on the question of whether their city's minimum wage for household and child-care workers should be raised because the women on 80 DISPOSABLE DOMESTICS staff disagreed on this issue. Many argued that they could not afford to pay higher wages to their housekeepers and child-care, providers.97 Pearce says it would be a mistake to interpret this as a "situation in which middle-class lawyers' and other professionals' interests conflicted with lower-class clients' interests." Pearce instead suggests that "Nile real issue is one of inadequate pay for all women workers." 98 While I agree that the latter issue is one concern here, the former is precisely the central issue at stake. Pearce's interpretation neglects the fact that these women employers were protecting class and racial privileges they enjoyed.99 When the Malibu Democratic Club was presented with the proposals for a minimum-wage campaign in Los Angeles, the female membership, predominantly comprising wealthy "West LA" feminists, immediately inquired, "Does this mean that we will have to pay our baby-sitters and maids more?" 100 This incident offers a perfect example of how the interests of privileged "working" women and working-class women will always clash if the former insist on maintaining these privileges over the latter. Debating Motherhood On May 7, 1998, a full ten years after the Zambrano class-action suit was filed against the INS, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the case from Superior Court. 101 This transpired after the INS had tried repeatedly to appeal to both the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and to the Supreme Court with no success, then ultimately resorted to trying to achieve its goals through the legislative process. Congress enacted, as part of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) of 1996, section 377, which stipulated that the courts' jurisdiction over legalization matters would be limited to cases in which people had filed their applications or had attempted to file but were rejected by the INS. The stipulation was also made retroactive such that it applied to the Zambrano case. Subsequently, the INS filed another motion and succeeded in having the prior orders vacated and the case dismissed based on the new law's retroactivity.' 02 As Pauline Gee of California Rural Legal Assistance, co-counsel Undocumented Latinos 81 for the plaintiffs in Zambrano, said: "INS went to Congress because it couldn't win in the courts and had Senator Simpson, as his last act before retiring, pass this statute." Vibiana Andrade of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, also co-counsel for the plaintiffs, commented: "Congress can do all kinds of things. In immigration law, it has unfettered discretion to do so. It has been a really frustrating ten-year fight." Andrade said it was particularly maddening that throughout the court battle the INS never contested the rulings against the agency, that it had implemented the law improperly, and that it had violated IRCA in applying its own publiccharge standards. Instead, the INS reduced the case to a jurisdiction issue and ultimately won on the grounds that these matters should not be within the courts' discretionary powers.1°3 The Zambrano litigation brought important results for tens of thousands of immigrant familieseeking to legalize their status. Under the early Zambrano rulings and injunctions, many people who had been denied or prevented from obtaining legal status because of the INS's improper public-charge standard implementation were able to have their legalization applications reconsidered or to file late applications for amnesty or work authorizadon. 1 °4 However, the ultimate dismissal and the lengthy wait for this disappointing final outcome brought extreme hardship for many immigrant women and their children. Ten years represents a long period in many innocent children's lives—for some perhaps the bulk of their childhoods— during which time their mothers' lack of work authorization or legal immigration status meant that the entire family lived in poverty, in "the shadows," and at the service of dominant society. Moreover, after the Zambrano case was dismissed, applications were considered only from those who could prove that they were "front desked"—that is, that they had tried to apply for amnesty but were turned away from even submitting an application at an agency office on the basis of the incorrect INS regulations. 1 °5 Andrade argues that this is extremely unfair as it fails to address those who had not attempted to file applications because they had heard they would not be eligible if they had received public benefits or services. Andrade and co-counsel had argued that these people formed the 82 DISPOSABLE DOMESTICS largest group of plaintiffs in Zambrano, and that the INS contributed to these people's declining to apply by publicizing misinformation on the .radio and television. A year after the Zambrano case dismissal, the federal government made as long-overdue clarification of the public-charge provisions. This new guidance, issued May 25, 1999, defines "public charge" as a person who cannot support herself or 'himself without depending on cash assistance such as Temporary. Aid to Needy Families, SST, or General Assistance for income, or who needs. long-term institutional care. The luidance emphasizes that the INS should look at many factors to determine if an applicant is likely to become a public charge in the future, and it cannot make its decision based solely on receipt of cash assistance in the past. Instead, it must consider all of the following factors: age, health, income, family size, education, and skills. The California Immigrant Welfare Collaborative, a coalition of immigrant tights organizations providing outreach and education around the issue, recommends:. that applicants who have received welfare in-the past highlight information such as current employment or the availability of support from family members in the country .during their INS interviews. 1 °6-The new INS guidance also clarifies that the use of Medi-Cal, Healthy Families (a new health-insurance program in California: for children ages one to nineteen with family incomes at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level), or other health services by an applicant or family members •will not affect her or his immigration status unless:it is for long-term. care: Nor will the use of food stamps, wiC (Women, Infants, and Children aid), public housing, or other noncash programs by an applicant or family members. Finally, the use of cash assistance by 1.11. Applicant's children or other family members is not grounds to refuse entry. (or re-entry) to the United States or to deny permanent residency or citizenship unless kis the applicant's fariaily's only. income. It is important to- understand that the 1999 INS guidance issued on the public-charge standard was not a. change but a clarification of the existing. law. as it should have been implemented ..originally. Ironically, the.INS guidance cites the Zambrano case in the clarifica- Undocumented Latinas 83 tion. 107 Throughout the Zambrano litigation, the INS never disputed that its regulations and practices contradicted IRCA, nor did it rush to issue corrections to its improper regulations even once they were enjoined. This lends credibility to the argument that the public-charge provisions were not only misinterpreted or improperly implemented by the INS but perhaps deliberately obscured. These INS practices rendered immigrants, particularly those with dependents, more exploitable in the labor market. Moreover, they facilitated US employers' abilities to extract cheap labor from these women and at the same time allow the state to evade responsibility for the welfare of resident and citizen children. The case of the Latina mothers in Zambrano highlights the need for a demystification of immigrant women as welfare dependent and a recognition that they are working mothers, often single heads of households, who benefit US capital and society at large through grossly under-compensated productive and reproductive labor, for other people's families as well as their own. At the very least, women should be offered a means to gain work authorization, permanent residence, or citizenship. The fact that in raising their own children, they, too, provide a service in nurturing future adult citizens should not be obscured by ideologies casting their children as somehow less worthy. During the 1995 congressional hearings on welfare reform, Senator Lauch Faircloth made a statement capturing perfectly the ignorant sentiments and beliefs driving the immigration and welfare debates of the day. He proclaimed: [M]iddle-lass American families who want to have children have to plan, prepare, and save money because they understand the serious responsibility involved in bringing children into the world. But welfare recipients do not have to prepare or save money before having children because they know they will get money from the federal government and that the taxpayers of the country will take care of:their children.1°8 In my experience as a middle-class "American" mother, I have found that, quite to the contrary, my socio-economic peers rarely 84 DISPOSABLE DOMESTICS demonstrate greater financial or other planning but have children in the haphazard ways and for the full spectrum of reasons that people do. In fact, the only difference I have observed is that some middle-class families are able to rest assured that, when the time comes, they can rely on finding a poor woman (most likely an immigrant woman) to hire as an in-home nanny for their babies. 1 °9 Saving money is not necessarily seen as an issue of great anxiety until the baby is preschool age, because an immigrant woman can always be found who is desperate enough to take the wages being offered for in-home care instead of costly day care. Thus, middle-class "American" families do not have to prepare before having children because they know that they will get an immigrant woman, often courtesy of the federal government, and that she (indeed a taxpayer) will take care of their children. The question is whether this woman will be able to take care of her own family on the wages she earns, and the crime is that most likely she will not. Undocumented Latinas 85 1 The San Francisco Chronicle reported that, although no precise figures exist, "experts believe a large percentage of the estimated 3 million undocumented workers now residing in the United States are employed in child-care and domestic work." See "Hiring of Aliens Is a Widespread Practice," San Francisco Chronicle; January 15, 1993, p. A-6. 2 Deborah Sontag, "Increasingly, Two-Career Family Means Illegal Immigrant Help," New York Times, January 24, 1993, p. A-1. AP 3 Sontag, "Increasingly, Two-Career Family Means Illegal Immigrant Help," p. A-13. 4 Sontag, "Increasingly, Two-Career Family Means Illegal Immigrant Help," p. A-13. 5 Felicity Barringer, "What Many Say About Baird: What She Did Wasn't Right," New York Times, January 22, 1993, p. A-1. 6 Barringer, "What Many Say About Baird," p. A-bo. 7 Carla Marinucci, "Immigrant Abuse: 'Slavery, Pure and Simple,"' San Francisco Examiner, January 10, 1993, pp. A-1, A-8. Marinucci, "Immigrant Abuse." 8 9 Chris Hogeland and Karen Rosen, "Dreams Lost, Dreams Found: Undocumented Women in the Land of Opportunity" (San Francisco: Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and Services, Immigrant Women's Task Force, 1991), pp. 10-11. 10 Carla Marinucci, "Silence Shields Abuse of Immigrant Women," San Francisco Examiner, January 11, 1993, pp. A-1, A-10. 11 Interview with Patricia Tejada (pseudonym), Los Angeles, California, February 16, 1998. 12 Interview with Amalia Hernandez (pseudonym), Los Angeles, California, February 15, 1998. 13 The CIRRS report suggested that the availability of "underground" service jobs for women in housecleaning, child care, and the garment industry encourages women to migrate alone or without families. As one respondent, Rosa, explained: "I am very worried because we left the children with my parents, who are very old. We have not been able to send money home as planned because everything costs so much here." See Hogeland and Rosen, "Dreams Lost, Dreams Found," p. 5. 14 Interview with Warren Leiden, executive director of AILA, Washington, DC, March 22, 1993; interview with Lina Avidan, program director of CIRRS, San Francisco, March 15, 1993. Several proposals for a visa for "home care workers" (i.e., domestic workers, child-care workers, and home-health aides) emerged in response to the Zoe Baird affair. 15 The arguments in this chapter build on socialist feminist theory proposing that the welfare state mediates the conflicting demands for female home and market labor by subsidizing some women to remain home in order to 86 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 DISPOSABLE DOMESTICS reproduce and maintain the labor force while channeling others into low-wage work. Undocumented workers who worked for 90 days in agriculture between May 1985 and May 1986 could gain temporary legal resident status as special agricultural workers (SAWs). If the SAW pool dropped below sufficient numbers, additional workers could be admitted as replenishment agricultural workers (RAWs). Finally, the category of nonimmigrant, temporary agricultural workers (H-2As) was maintained so that growers could obtain laborers if they were unable to find legal resident or citizen workers. Those entering under this type of visa are presumed to be here temporarily without the intention to remain. Immigration Reform Task Force, "Report from the States on the State Legalization Impact Assistance Grant Program" (Washington, DC: American Public Welfare Association, May 1989), pp. 1, 28-30. See also Leonard Dinnerstein and David M. Reimers, Ethnic Americans (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1988), pp. 103-106, for an overview of IRCA and its origins. In a report of the House Judiciary Committee, the plight of the undocumented was aptly described: "These people live in fear, afraid to seek help when their rights are violated, when they are victimized by criminals, employers or landlords, or when they become ill." House of Representatives Report No. 682 (I), 99th Congress, 2nd Session (1986), cited in California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA) v. Legal Services Corporation (LSC), No. 89-16734., DC No. CV-89-1850-SAW, Opinion, October 26, 1990, p. 13299. Congressional Record H10596-7 (daily edition, October 15, 1986), cited in CRLA v. LSC, p. 13299. A Senate Judiciary Committee report states: "The Committee notes the concern expressed by state and local governments regarding the potential fiscal impact arising from participation in public assistance programs by the legalized population. This concern is related to the experience ... with refugee populations, whose dependence on special Federal entitlement programs has reached 70 percent in the past year, thereby thwarting the primary intent of the ... program, which is to encourage economic self-sufficiency among refugees." Report of the Committee on the Judiciary on S. 2222, Senate Report No. 485, 97th Congress, 2nd Session, (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, June 1982), p. 49. Charles Wheeler, "Alien Eligibility for Public Benefits," Immigrants' Rights Manual of the National Immigration Law Center (September 1990), pp. 11-45. Charles Wheeler and Beth Zacovic, "The Public Charge Ground of Exclusion for Legalization Applicants," Interpreter Releases 64: 35 (September 14, 1987), p. 1046. Wheeler, "Alien Eligibility for Public Benefits," pp. 11-48. Wheeler and Zacovic, "The Public Charge Ground of Exclusion," p. 1047. 8 USC section 1255a (d) (B)(iii). "Public cash assistance" includes only those Undocumented Latinos 87 programs that provide monetary assistance, not in-kind benefits such as food stamps or medical services. See Wheeler, "Alien Eligibility," pp. 11-49. 25 Wheeler, "Alien Eligibility," pp. 11-49. 26 Wheeler and Zacovic, "The Public Charge Ground," p. 1047. 27 Wheeler and Zacovic, "The Public Charge Ground," p m1047. Also see L. Chavez and R. Rumbaut et al., The Politics of Migrant Health Care (San Diego: University of California, August 1985). This study estimated that 30 to 40 percent of undocumented persons had incomes below the federal poverty level guidelines, although more than 90 percent of these men and 64 percent of these women were employed. Thus, a large proportion of legalization applicants might be viewed as potential public charges, solely on the basis of their low incomes. With the "special rule," Congress tried to prevent the use of income as the sole criterion for determining the excludability or admissibility of applicants such as these. 28 Wheeler and Zacovic, "The Public Charge Ground," p. 1047. 29 The Ninth Circuit includes Alaska, Arizona, California, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, the Mariana Islands, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. 30 Second Amended Complaint, Zambrano v. INS, Civ. No. S-88-455 EJG/EM (ED. Cal. August 26, 1988), pp. 18-19. 31 The only named male plaintiff was himself temporarily disabled by kidney failure and received county General Assistance while undergoing treatment and therapy. 32 Second Amended Complaint, pp. 3-5. 33 Second Amended Complaint, pp. 3-5. 34 Second Amended Complaint, pp. 3-5. 35 Second Amended Complaint, pp. 10-11. 36 Second Amended Complaint, pp. 10-11. 37 Second Amended Complaint, pp. 3-11. 38 Second Amended Complaint, p. 2. 39 Second Amended Complaint, p. 2. 40 Second Amended Complaint, p. 18. 41 Second Amended Complaint, p. 19. 42 Order Granting Plaintiffs' Motions for Partial Summary Judgment, Permanent Injunction and Redefinition of Class, Zambrano v. INS, Civ. No. S-88-455 EJG/EM (E.D. Cal. July 31, 1989), pp. 8-19. 43 Order Granting Plaintiffs' Motions, p. 19. 44 First, INS challenged the order to review the cases of those class-two members who applied for amnesty under the extended deadline. Second, INS contended that the courts do not have jurisdiction over this matter, arguing that the plaintiffs shoid be required to exhaust the administrative remedies before gaining judiciarreview. This jurisdictional issue was raised by INS in the Zambrano case as well as in a number of other cases involving the legalization program (e.g., Ayttda v. Thornburgh, Catholic Social Services v. Barr, 88 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 DISPOSABLE DOMESTICS LULA1C v. INS, and Pere:les v. Tborninagh). Third, INS has contended that plaintiffs' counsel should not have access to the names of the class-one members. (This information was conveyed to me in interviews -with Susan: Drake, lawyer, National Immigration Law Center, October 1990, and Stephen Rosenbaum, lawyer, California Rural Legal Assistance, November 25, 1991.) Zambrano v. INS (972 F2d 1122), 9th Cir., 1992. Petition for certiorari pending, INS v. Zambrano 92-849, 61 USLW 3404 (1992). Second Amended Complaint, p. 19. Second. Amended Complaint, p. 19. Declaration of Beth Zacovic, Legal Aid attorney, at Zambrano v. INS. Civ. No. S-88-455 EJG-EM (ED. Cal. May 17, 1988). Zacovic obtained these statistics in an interview with a legislative analyst for Los Angeles County in April 1988; cited in Diane Bessette, "Getting Left Behind: The Impact of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act Amnesty Program -on Single Women With Children," Hastings Intonational and Comparative Law Reviewl3z2 (Winter 1990), p. 301. Bessette, "Getting Left Behind," p. 300. Bessette, "Getting Left Behind," p. 303. Declaration of Mavis Anderson, cited in Bessette, "Getting Left Behind," p. 304. Bessette, "Getting Left Behind," 302. I use the term underclass here as I would the term underdeveloped nation to indicate a group of people that has been marginalized or deliberately deprived of the means to achieve economic autonomy and political power: Belkin, 1990. California Health and Welfare Agency, "A Survey of Newly Legalized Persons in California" (San Diego: Comprehensive Adult. Student Assessment System, 1989), sections 7-3 through 7-12. See also Immigration Reform Task Force, "Report from the States," pp. 10-11, and Hogeland and Rosen, `Dreams Lost and Dreams Found," p. 19. Order, pp. 5-6. Second Attended Complaint, p. 19. Bessette, "Getting Left Behitd," p. 300. Interview with Stephen Rosenbaum, lawyer, California Rural Legal Assistance,: November 25, 1991. In -this Chapter, I-draw on socialist feminist theory, which proposes that the state regulates the labor of women through welfare policy. Internal colonialist theory proposes that the state regulates the labor of immigrants through .immigration policy. This is achieved through immigration policies that allow-for the importation or "recruitment" of foreign labor and through policies ,that deny these.laborers the rights of citizens, thus rendering them Undocumented Latinos 89 more easily exploitable. For a more extensive discussion of this topic, see note 15 above and Mario Barrera, Race and Class in the Southwest: A Theory of Racial Inequalig (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979), especially pp. 116-22. 62 Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward, Regulating the Poor. The Functions of Public We fare (New York: Random House, 1971), pp. 123-31. 63 Mimi Abramovitz, Regulating the Lives of Women: Social Welfare Poligfrom Colonial Times to the Present (Boston: South End Press, rev. ed. 1996), pp. 313.-18. 64 Evelyn Nakano Glenn defines reproductive labor to include "activities such as purchasing household goods, preparing and serving food, laundering and repairing clothing, maintaining furnishings and appliances, socializing children, providing care and emotional support for adults, and maintaining kin and community ties." See Evelyn Nakano Glenn, "From Servitude to Service Work: Historical Continuities in the Racial Division of Paid Reproductive Labor," Signs 18: 1 (Autumn 1992). 65 Glenn, "From Servitude to Service Work." 66 "Home life is the highest and finest product of civilization. It is the great molding force of mind and or character.... Children of parents of worthy character, suffering from temporary misfortune, and children of reasonably efficient and deserving mothers who are without the support of the normal breadwinner should, as a rule, be kept with their parents, such aid being given as may be necessary to maintain suitable homes for the rearing of the children." Proceedings of the conference on the Care of Dependent Children (Washington, DC, January 25-26,1909), cited in Roy Lubove, The Struggle for Social Security 1900-1935 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968), p. 98. 67 Winifred Bell, Aid to Dependent Children (New York: Columbia University Press, 1965), p. 5. 68 Bell, Aid to Dependent Children, pp. 93-110,111-23. 69 Bell, Aid to Dependent Children, p. 9. 70 Bell, Aid to Dependent Children, p. 13. 71 Sylvia A. Law, `Women, Work, Welfare and the Preservation of Patriarchy," University of Pennsylvania Law Review 131: 6 (1983), p. 1258. 72 Bell, Aid to Dependent Children, pp. 3-19, cited in Law, `Women, Work, Welfare," p. 1257. 73 Abramovitz, Regulating the Lives of Women, p. 314. 74 Law, 'Women, Work Welfare," p. 1254. 75 Law, "Women, Workelfare," p. 1257. 76 US Department of Health, Education and Welfare's Handbook of Public Assistance Administration (1943), cited in Law, "Women, Work, Welfare," p. 1257. 77 As discussed previously, the "suitable home" rules, instituted ostensibly to monitor the moral fitness of mothers, enabled welfare officials to rationalize 90 DISPOSABLE DOMESTICS limiting the coverage of black and "illegitimate" children (Bell, Aid to Dependent Children, p. 181). Thus they had much the same effect as the "employable mother" rules, necessitating that women denied assistance for their children seek low-wage work. Abramovitz argues that these rules were used specifically to pressure black women back into domestic work if they tried to avoid returning to it after holding other jobs during World War II (Abramovitz, Regulating the Lives of Women, p. 326). 78 Piven and Cloward, Regulating the Poor, p. 134. 79 Bell, Aid to Dependent Children, p. 64. 80 Bell, Aid to Dependent Children, p. 64. 81 Bell, Aid to Dependent Children, pp. 34-35, quoting a review of a Southern field supervisor's report; citing Mary S. Larabee, "Unmarried Parenthood Under the Social Security Act," Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work, 1939 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1939), p. 449. 82 Abramovitz, Regulating the Lives of Women, p. 326. 83 Piven and Cloward, Regulating the Poor, pp. 134-35. 84 Piven and Cloward, Regulating the Poor, pp. 134-35. 85 The judgment stated that the provisions prohibiting supplementation of wages "violated equal protection as imposing discrimination bearing no reasonable relation to financial needs or discriminating on [the] basis of source of income" (Anderson v. Burson, 300 F. Supp. 401 [1968], p. 401). Thus, the decision did not address the charge that the discrimination was racially based, as the plaintiffs suggested. 86 Piven and Cloward, Regulating the Poor, p. 308. 87 Anderson v. Burson, 300 F. Supp. 401 (1968), p. 403. 88 Wendy Sarvasy, "Reagan and Low-Income Mothers: A Feminist Recasting of the Debate," in Remaking the Welfare State: Retrenchment and Social Policy in America and Europe, ed. M.K. Brown (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), pp. 253-276, especially p. 269. See also Lubove, The Struggle for Social Security 1900-1935, p. 102, and Susan Tiffin, In Whose Best Interest? Child WelfareRefom in the Progressive Era (Westport, CI': Greenwood Press, 1982), p. 125. 89 See Patricia Hill-Coffins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (New York: Routledge, 1991), especially chapter 6. 90 Carol Stack and Linda Burton, "Conscripting Kin: Reflections on Family, Generation, and Culture," in illothering: Ideology, Experience, and Agency, eds. Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Grace Chang, and Linda Rennie Forcey (New York: Routiedge, 1994). 91 Denise Segura, "Working at Motherhood: Chicana and Mexican Immigrant Mothers and Employment," in Mothering: Ideology, Experience, and Agency, eds. E. Nakano Glenn, Grace Chang, and Linda Rennie Forcey (New York: Routledge, 1994). • 92 See Evelyn Nakano Glenn, "From Servitude to Service Work"; Mary Undocumented Latinas 91 Romero, Maid in the U.S.A. (New York: Routledge, 1992); and Bonnie Thornton Dill, "Race, Class, and Gender: Prospects for an All-Inclusive Sisterhood," Feminist Studies 9: 1 (Spring 1983), pp. 1314. All cite evidence of middle-class employers' deliberate attempts to seek out immigrant women, particularly undocumented women, for low-wage household work. 93 Interview with Warren Leiden, AILA, Washington, DC, November 29, 1993. 94 "And while voices can be heard in her defense, questioning the law or the country's preoccupation with moral purity, the major women's groups have been largely silent, leaving unanswered the angry chorus that now threatens to kill the nomination of the first woman ever chosen to be attorney general," from Barringer, "What Many Say About Baird." 95 Interview with Warren Leiden, November 29, 1993. 96 For discussions of middle-class employers seeking immigrant women, particularly undocumented women, as low-wage household workers, see Glenn, "From Servitude to Service Work"; Romero, Maid in the U.S.A.; Debbie Nathan, Women and OtherAliens: Essays from the U.S.–Mexico Border (El Paso, Texas: Cinco Punto Press, 1991); Rosanna Hertz, More Equal Than Others: Women and Men in Dual-Career Marriages (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1986); Judith Rollins, Between Women: Domestics and Their Employers (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1985); and Dill, "Race, Class, and Gender," pp. 131-48. 97 Diana Pearce, "Welfare Is Not for Women: Why the War on Poverty Cannot Conquer the Feminization of Poverty," in Women, the State, and Welfare, ed. Linda Gordon (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990). 98 Diana Pearce, 'Welfare Is Not for Women." 99 For similar analyses, see Glenn, "From Servitude to Service Work"; Romero, Maid in the U.S.A.; and Dill, "Race, Class, and Gender." See also Cynthia Enloe, Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), pp. 193-94, for an account of women organizers' struggles to put the issues of migrant women workers on the agenda at the 1985 UN "Decade for Women" conference in Nairobi. 100 Interview with David Rolf, then–deputy general manager of Local 434B of SEIU, July 27, 1997. IF 101 The National Immigration Law Center in Los Angeles is providing a service to advise those previously eligible to apply for work authorization under Zambrano to investigate other possibilities for legalization. 102 Interviews with Pauline Gee and Vibiana Andrade, November 1999; "Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Support of Plaintiffs' Motion for Award of Reasonable Attorneys' Fees Under Equal Access to Justice Act," Zambrano v. INS, US District Court, Eastern District of California, August 10, 1998, pp. 7-11. 92 DISPOSABLE DOMESTICS 103 Moreover, Andrade explained that the broader impact of IIRIRA has been devastating for immigrant rights, as it drastically limits the Court's jurisdiction in immigration and deportation matters. See also Anthony Lewis, "The Mills of Cruelty," New York Times, December 14, 1999, p. A-31, on efforts to modify IIRIRA in order to restore immigration judges' discretion or some process by which a deportation can be stayed in cases of extreme hardship or cruelty. 104 Approximately 25,000 members of Class 1 benefited from the preliminary and permanent injunctions by having their legalization applications reopened and considered under the correct, more favorable standards. Most Class members were able to legalize their immigration status because of the Zambrano lawsuit. At least 11,000 Class 2 members received the right to file late applications because INS had failed to publicize the "clarification memos" with the correct public-charge standards. See "Memorandum of Points and Authorities," pp. 10-12. 105 Interview with Sheila Neville, lawyer, National Immigration Law Center, Los Angeles, November 1999. 106 California Immigrant Welfare Collaborative, "New INS Guidance on Public Charge: When Is It Safe to Use Public Benefits?," May 25, 1999. Available through National Immigration Law Center at 213-639-3900. 107 Interview with Vibiana Andrade, November 18, 1999. 108 Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Libel* (New York: Vintage Books, 1999), p. 218. 109 In fact, I have even met an upper-class German couple who moved from their home in Germany to Los Angeles in order to take advantage of the great supply of nannies available there. The couple bemoaned the fact that in Germany there are too many laws regulating the hours and even the age of those employed as caregivers. To comrade Staughton Immigrants, Unions, and the, New U.S. Labor Market Immanuel Ness Temple University Press PHILADELPHIA 12 CHAPTER 1 and in their communities. The emergence and growth of a large class of transnational workers in New York City and other cities in the ;past two decades should compel unions to respond both by protecting old jobs that have not yet been restructured and by improving conditions for immigrant workers in the new informal economy 2 The Political Economy of Transnational Labor in New York City: The Context for Immigrant Worker Militancy After years of working in obscurity in the unregulated economy, transnational workers in New York City catapulted themselves to the forefront of labor activism in November and December 1999 through three separate organizing drives among low-wage workers. Immigrants initiated all three drives: Mexican immigrants organized and struck for improved wages and working conditions at greengroceries; Francophone African delivery workers struck for unpaid wages and respect from labor contractors for leading supermarket chains; and South Asians organized for improved conditions and a union in the for-hire car service industry. This chapter argues that the militancy of immigrant workers arises from their distinct position within the political economy of New York City. Immigrant workers occupy specific economic and social niches characterized by exploitation and isolation that nurture class consciousness and militancy. These niches are the result of local and international economic processes and policies. Delineating the parameters of immigrant life on the job and in the community clarifies why seemingly invisible workers rise up to contest power in their workplaces and why immigrant workers are currently more prone to self-organization and unionization than are native-born workers. 14 CHAPTER 2 Transnational M igration and New York City's I ndustrial Restructuring During the decades on either side of the turn of the twentieth century, New York City's ethnic composition changed dramatically with the influx of Southern and Eastern European immigrants. They came to work in the city's burgeoning apparel, fur, printing, construction, and transportation industries. Many of these immigrants formed the backbone of the city's labor movement. By building the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, the Furriers Union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and other unions, they made New York City a leading union center even before the passage of major federal labor legislation in the 1930s (Tichenor 2002). Immigration to the United States and New York City declined dramatically with World War I and the passage of the Quota Act of 1921. The Immigration Act of 1924 ( Johnson–Read Act) virtually shut the door to immigrants, especially from outside Northern Europe. As a result, it was the children of those earlier immigrants who launched the wave of industrial unionism in the 1930s. After World War II, most immigrants were Europeans displaced by war and Mexican agricultural workers. Passage of the Hart–Celler Act in 1965 transformed immigration by eliminating country-of-origin quotas that had restricted immigration from non-European countries. The new legislation contributed to the expansion of immigration from Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean, creating what sociologist Roger Waldinger (1996) calls "the new immigrants" (44-47). However, U.S. immigration policy since the 1980s has been incongruent with economic reality. On the whole, migration to the United States is growing with the demand for low-wage labor in manufacturing, services, and agriculture. The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986 intended to restrict unauthorized immigration but did almost nothing to stem the tide, as migration grew even faster. Ten years later, the Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, passed by the right-wing Republican majority in Congress, placed harsh restrictions on undocumented immigration. It, too, failed to halt the flow of immigrants. The failure of recent immigration restriction has been intentional, as economic Political Economy of Transnational Labor in New York City 15 priorities trumped political preference. In effect, there are two national immigration policies: the official policy of restricting immigration passed to satisfy anti-immigrant political constituencies and the actual policy of allowing a steady flow of immigration to satisfy the demands of corporate constituencies in search of cheap labor. This creates the best of both worlds for employers. On the one hand, low-wage immigrant labor is readily available. On the other, immigrant workers' illegal status increases employers' leverage in all aspects of the employment relationship. As it did a century ago, the influx of immigrants at the turn of the twenty-first century has once again rearranged the ethnic mix of New York City. Many of the descendents of European immigrants have left the city for the suburbs, and their places have been taken by immigrants from Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and a new wave from former Communist countries in Eastern Europe. In the 1990s, New York State's officially documented foreign-born population—the vast majority of whom live in New York City— grew by nearly one million (Camarota and McArdle 2003, 10). The city's 2.9 million foreign-born residents make up 35.9 percent of the population. More than half the city's immigrants are from Latin America. A quarter is from Asia, a fifth from Europe, and 3.2 percent from Africa (United States Census Bureau 2000). Table 2.1 provides statistics on the country-of-origin breakdown of New York City immigrants. Unlike their counterparts a century ago, many newcomers to New York City are now here illegally. Immigration restrictions have led to the creation of an underground population of transnational immigrants (See Basch Glick Schiller, and Szanton Blanc. 1993). Workers from Latin America typically migrate illegally without proper documentation; those from Africa, Asia, and Europe commonly arrive with business, worker, student, or tourist visas, which they overstay. In the wake of the events of September 11, 2001, the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (BCIS), a component of the new Department of Homeland Security, replaced the Immigration and . Naturalization Service (INS) and cracked down on immigrants who overstay their visas by arresting and deporting many of them. BCIS has singled out southern and southwestern Asians for deportation because they tend to be on the Department Table 2.1 Legally Admitted Immigrants: Top 20 Source Countries to New York City Primary Metropolitan Statistical Areas, Fiscal Years 1992-2002 Total Number Counted New Arrivals 1992-2002 Adjustments* 1 Dominican 179,596 Rev Dominican 156,922 Rep. Former USSR 2 Former USSR 140,016 China 71,043 China 31,261 3 China 102,304 Jamaica 51,000 Dominican Rep. 22,674 4 Jamaica 68,070 Guyana 45,283 Jamaica 17,070 5 Guyana 54,488 Haiti 29,693 Trinidad (St Tobago 14,992 6 India 39,382 Bangladesh 29,122 Philippines 14,099 7 Haiti 38,885 India 28,663 India 10,719 8 Ecuador 38,064 Ecuador 28,627 Korea 9,640 9 Poland 32,981 Poland 24,786 Ecuador 9,437 10 Bangladesh 32,828 Pakistan 23,106 Colombia 9,260 11 Trinidad & Tobago 32,173 Colombia 18,497 Guyana 9,205 12 Philippines 29,047 Trinidad & Tobago 17,181 Haiti 9,192 13 Pakistan 27,849 Former USSR 18,311 Poland 8,195 14 Colombia 27,757 Philippines 14,943 Mexico 8,342 15 Korea 16,606 Ireland 13,875 Former Yugoslavia 6,820 16 Ireland 14,897 Peru 11,307 United Kingdom 5,360 17 Peru 18 Mexico 15,509 Ghana 9,185 Pakistan 4,743 15,570 El Salvador 8,246 Israel 4,442 19 El Salvador 13,431 Honduras 8,112 El Salvador 5,185 20 Ghana 12,519 Mexico 7,228 Peru 4,202 Total: 931,972 615,130 Source: Minnite, Lorraine. 2004. "Legally Admitted Immigrants: Top 20 Source Countries to New York City Primary Metropolitan Statistical Areas, Fiscal Years 1992-2002." Tabulation. New York. *Adjustments represent immigrants overlooked in original enumeration. 121,705 326,543 Political Economy of Transnational Labor in New York City 17 of Homeland Security emigre watch list. Undocumented workers from the West Indies, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and East Asia-though frequently harassed-are less likely to be deported. Whether they are in New York City legally or not, most recent immigrants work. In some cases, they do virtually the same work immigrants did a century ago. For example, just as Russian and Italian women sewed garments in sweatshops on the Lower East Side in the early twentieth century, today women from China and Latin America do the same think in sweatshops in Chinatown and Sunset Park. Other new immigrants work in new or vastly altered industries, such as greengrocery, transportation, health care, domestic service, communications, delivery, and construction. Between 1990 and 2000, the percentage of immigrants in New York City increased from 28.4 percent to 35.9 percent. The 2000 Census reported that immigrants comprised nearly 2.9 million of the city's total population of just over eight million. Due to a high labor force participation rate, immigrants comprise 47 percent of the city's workforce. According to data compiled by the Fiscal Policy Institute based on the 2000 Census and 2003 Current Population Survey, immigrants represent 62 percent of the low-wage workforce earning between $5.15 and $7.10 an hour (Parrot 2004). Officially, workers from Latin America and the Caribbean (Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Trinidad and Tobago) comprise a large share of low-wage immigrants (see Table 2.2). From 1970 to the present, the primary occupational trend in New York City's workforce has been the shift away from manufacturing to service industries. As the garment and printing trades have shrunk, retailing, personal services, and business services sectors of the economy have expanded. On the whole, native-born whites have gravitated to high-paying professional service jobs, African Americans and native-born Latinos have occupied jobs that rely on public sector funding. Meanwhile, over the past thirty years, immigrants tend to fill many of the low-wage jobs created in the new sectors of the economy. Low-end jobs in the service sector pay low wages and provide few, if any, benefits. These new jobs include private transportation, hotel and restaurant, delivery, security, building maintenance, and other low-wage services (Harris 1995; Kazis and Miller 2001). 18 CHAPTER 2 Political Economy of Transnational Labor in New York City Table 2.2 New York City's Low-Wage Immigrant Workforce by Place of Birth* Share of low-wage immigrants Approximate number of lowwage immigrants Share of foreignborn population, Census 2000 Dominican Republic 17.9% 90,000 12.9% Mexico 13.7% 68,500 4.3% China 6.0% 5.7% 30,000 7.2% Jamaica 28,600 6.2% Ecuador 5.4% 26,900 4.0% Guyana 4.7% 23,700 4.6% Haiti 3.5% 17,400 3.3% Trinidad and Tobago 3.0% 15,000 3.1% Russia 3.0% 15,000 2.8% Colombia 2.5% 12,500 2.9% Korea 2.2% 11,000 2.5% India 2.0% 10,200 2.4% El Salvador 2.0% 9,900 Bangladesh 1.9% 9,600 0.9% 1.5% Poland 1.8% 8,900 2.3% 75.2% 377,200 60.9% Country of Birth Total, 15 Countries Source: Fiscal Policy Institute analysis of Current Population Survey Outgoing Rotation Group files provided by the Economic Policy Institute; Census 2000. *Low-wage workforce defined as those earning less than $10/hour in inflation-adjusted 2003 dollars. The immigrant low-wage workforce numbered approximately 500,000 for the four-year period 2000 to 2003. The recent influx of immigrant workers is the result of industrial restructuring and capital mobility that has eroded traditional industries and remade New York City's political economy in the last thirty years (Bronfenbrenner 2000). One very, general aspect of this restructuring is the decline of manufacturing. Through the first three quarters of the twentieth century New York City was a center for small-scale, flexible manufacturing that employed skilled 19 and semi-skilled workers who made a myriad of goods, including garments, printed matter, electrical equipment and supplies, non-electrical machinery, furniture, chemicals and allied products, leather and leather products, and food and beverage products. Today, with a few important exceptions such as apparel making and food service, most of these industries are either completely gone or marginal to the city's economy. The loss of manufacturing jobs in New York City, like that elsewhere in the United States, has two basic sources: relocation and technological obsolescence. Neither process is particularly new, though they work at different paces in different periods. Manufacturing jobs have relocated out of New York City for many reasons, including the high cost of real estate, the difficulty and exp...
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