The immigration gamble The immigration gamble (July 15, 2005)

Day workers sacrifice it all for the folks back home

By Jon Wiener

The first time Jesus snuck into the United States, more than five years ago, he had to bribe his way through Mexico and pay a "coyote" $3,000 to get him to Los Angeles. Last month, he ran across the Rio Grande himself.

He walked through the desert for three days, tracing a huge arc in order to get around a roadblock. He slept during the day and walked at night, carrying candy he bought at a grocery store and drinking water from agricultural pumps. When he finally got back to the highway, just north of Corpus Christi, he hitchhiked to Houston.

Just as he had before, Jesus worked his way north, calling his nephew in Mountain View to come pick him up. By last week, Jesus had found his way to the Worker Center at Calvary Church, at the corner of California Street and Escuela Avenue. There he waits, like so many others, for jobs that are not coming.

As the day workers who run the center emerge from a bitter struggle against a faction associated with St. Vincent de Paul, thousands of men and women continue to pour over the border each day, seeking jobs that pay up to ten times what they earn back home. Their tales of crossing are often harrowing, but most say the journey is worth the reward -- a more comfortable life for the family they left behind.
The American Dream

In many cases, the trip to the United States is the only that a worker's children can afford to go to school back in their home country.

Carlos, a younger worker, ran across the border a year ago, despite the metal rod in his right leg. He joined his father, who is on the worker's commission at the center, in order to help pay for his two sisters to take university classes back in Mexico.

He talks to his sisters almost once a week, and sends them as much as $200 every month. He can make almost as much here during one day of odd jobs as he earned in a whole week in Mexico.

"It's the American Dream," he says in Spanish. "Everybody comes here to make some money."

But, like many day workers, Carlos is only able to find work once a week. The money orders are costly, too -- he loses 6 percent to the bank each time -- and the dollar does not go as far as it used to, even against the Mexican peso. He says that in five or six years, once his sisters have graduated and there are no more bills, he plans on returning. : "In your article, I would like for you to project something positive," says Maria Marroquin, the director of the center and a former day worker herself. She gives Carlos' story as an example. His father "has been here five years, and he's still talking to his family" back home, she explains.

Marroquin's own son convinced her to make the trip from Mexico to the U.S. in 1997 -- "The streets are beautiful," she remembers him telling her. Despite not having a work permit, she was able to get jobs at a Redwood City thrift store and later at the San Francisco airport before the federal agents known as "La Migra" started snooping around.

Marroquin joined the day worker center in late 2001, at a time when it had just lost its lease at St. Joseph's Church in Los Altos and was desperately searching for a home and a patron. Quickly, she became a self-described "mama" to the workers congregating along El Camino Real, helping to organize them and care for them.

"When I saw the people on the street, I believed they were lazy," she says. But she has a different take now after that first winter together. "I realized the only thing you can do is admire them."

The center eventually found a patron in the county chapter of St. Vincent de Paul, a nationwide Catholic charity, and moved into its current location. But when the agency fired Marroquin in September, chaos ensued. Pastor Jim Stringer chained the doors to the Calvary Church, saying the agency had violated its lease. Meanwhile, St. Vincent de Paul began offering food and rental assistance to a group of people, including several former day workers, who were picketing outside every morning.

For a while, the situation was so tense that the center's phone lines were removed and the dumpster locked. In return, workers from the center staged their own protest outside a church in Los Altos, during a St. Vincent de Paul regional meeting.

Today, the picketers have disappeared, and little has been heard from St. Vincent de Paul for several months. The center now acts as an independent outfit -- a place for workers to grab a free lunch, take English classes, get legal help, and, of course, wait for a job.

The center forces both workers and employers to register, introducing some accountability into an essentially black market transaction.

Out of more than 100 workers registered at the center, three have legal papers, according to Marroquin. A fake work permit and a social security number can be had for a few hundred dollars, and enable the owner to seek more permanent employment. For her part, Marroquin obtained legal status through marriage.

Obtaining the funding to keep the center alive continues to be a struggle. The workers themselves sell sodas and wash cars in the church parking lot to raise funds for the operations, and last week they walked door-to-door to promote the center to local homeowners wealthy enough to hire them.
"I need this city"

"I have one dream," says Luz, who has just finished her volunteer shift cooking lunch for the two-dozen or so workers hanging out at the center. "I learn good English and teach special education. I get better here and return much better."

Luz came from Peru on a tourist visa three-and-a-half years ago, leaving a job as a teacher to pay for nursing school for her daughter and law school for her son. The money is better here, but the job satisfaction pales in comparison. The visa is now expired, she explains, hanging her head and grinning sheepishly. She lost her last job at Goodwill when her manager checked the Social Security number she had given him.

After taking night English classes at Castro School and graduating from Moffett Adult Education, Luz is applying for jobs with companies that place caregivers in homes.

She has been able to send home only half of what she was hoping to and is currently facing nearly $2,000 in bills for a car crash she says was the other driver's fault. She is looking forward to the day she can return home.

In the meantime, she does not want to be burden on American society.

"I know this city doesn't need me, but I need this city," she says.
Tougher this time

When civil war raged in El Salvador, Jesus knew lots of people on both sides of the fighting. But being a government soldier was a good job. Afterwards, he owned a one-car delivery business and took jobs as a skilled carpenter and mason, pulling in about $10 a day, nearly double the average wage in his home country. By contrast, during the three years he laid pavement in the U.S., he managed to send home $1,000 every month to his aging mother.

He's not too concerned about getting caught by La Migra, even though he hangs out at the center -- a well-known gathering spot for illegals. Federal policy has targeted large employers of undocumented workers, such as Wal-Mart, and for the most part left day worker centers alone.

"If they catch me, it's OK, they just send me back to my country," says Jesus.

This time, it's not going so well as before. The technology companies that were always looking for janitors and delivery workers five years ago seem to have disappeared. And he can't get a renewal for his expired drivers' license, so moving around is difficult, even for someone who walked through the desert for three days.

Jesus, who has been in the U.S. three weeks, says that he will wait another month before moving to another city to continue his search for work.

"Some people think we come here and we make money easy," he says. "It's not really easy. Nothing's easy."

E-mail Jon Wiener at jwiener@mv-voice.com

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