Re: Black v. Latino in the DC Area Job Markets? (was Re: Son just found a house they want to buy

On Tue, 06 Feb 2007 08:45:36 -0500, T Jr Hardman

<blockspam_thardman@thomashardman.com> wrote:

>j89q8hm02@sneakemail.com wrote:

>> Manassas was nice until recently. I am hopeful though that it will be

>> nice again. People are angry, their politicians are afraid - I think

>> they noticed the ousting of the entire Herndon City Council over this

>> issue - and the bills are flowing.

>

><snips />

>

>I friend of mine lives out south of "Molassas", just over the county

>line. He moved there about 10 years ago with his wife, they've got two

>kids in the schools and they say that the schools are one of the main

>reasons they live there, rather than where they used to live near Chantilly.

>

>I recently visited them and he said that the whole south side of

>Manassas is "hispanified". Driving out to visit them I had to go

>straight through Old Town and then hung a left to get under the railroad

>tracks. Instantly it was like being in another country, to read the

>signs and look at the people. Five years before, the first time I made

>it out that way, almost everyone I saw in that part of town was black.

>

>That whole "blacks are being replaced by Latinos" thing is widespread

>around the region and it's even causing some tensions downtown in the

>District. I always figured that the District would as usual be the last

>place to notice, as the evident plan had always been to surround and

>permeate the suburbs and then close on the capital with a pincers

>movement after the encirclement. As usual, facts as they evolve tend to

>support the most dismal of my expectations.

>

> From _the Washington Post_:

>

>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/04/AR2007020401088.html

>

><quote in-part>

>

>Lawn-Care Entrepreneur Faces A Changing Racial Landscape

> By Krissah Williams

> Washington Post Staff Writer

> Monday, February 5, 2007; Page A01

>

>In the months that landscaper Nikita Floyd's employees tended the

>50-acre grounds at a large African American church, he received no

>complaint about their work.

>

>So it surprised and stung him when a minister at the Prince George's

>County congregation told him she was appalled that Floyd, who is black,

>sent a crew of a half-dozen Latin American immigrants to do the job. It

>was the mid-1990s, and Congress was considering immigration reform, but

>Floyd never imagined that his small company would be caught in the

>national debate.

>

>"Why don't you have any black workers?" Floyd recalls the minister

>asking as she threatened to snatch the contract. With many blacks living

>in the neighborhood and sitting in the church's pews, shouldn't Floyd be

>hiring them, she wanted to know.

>

>Floyd, 38, owner of Green Forever Landscaping in Upper Marlboro, managed

>to keep that contract, but 10 years later, he said he feels similar

>tensions growing as Congress reexamines immigration law.

>

>When immigrants compete for jobs, black workers are more vulnerable, say

>economists who point out that blacks are still disproportionately

>employed in low-skilled jobs. That vulnerability has been felt recently

>in the District's working-class Brentwood community, where the presence

>of a large day-labor site in the Home Depot parking lot has alarmed some

>black residents, who say they worry that illegal immigrants are taking

>jobs from others.

>

>Green Forever offers a window on the issue. In the early 1990s, Floyd

>had fewer than a dozen employees, all of them black. Today, 73 percent

>of the Washington area's landscaping workers are immigrants, along with

>51 percent of office cleaners and 43 percent of construction workers,

>according to a Pew Hispanic Center study last year.

>

>Floyd's 20 wintertime workers are all men from El Salvador, except for

>two black women who manage the office. In the summer, he employs twice

>as many men, all immigrants.

>

>[ ... ]

>

>[Floyd] hires from a network developed by early immigrants

>referring relatives and friends. As black workers cycled out,

>immigrants cycled in. The cycle churned until black workers

>were effectively locked out. Now, Floyd says, they

>rarely apply for jobs at Green Forever. A study by the

>Rand Corp., a think tank, shows that workforce replacement

>such as Floyd's full shift from black to Latino is rare.

> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

>But when the change occurs, it is not often reversed.

>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

>

>

>Vernon Briggs, a professor of industrial and labor relations

>at Cornell University who favors low immigration rates, said

>no group has "been harmed more by immigration than black Americans,"

>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

>as immigrants often accept lower wages.

>

>In the 1980s, the loss of thousands of jobs among the predominantly

>black, unionized janitorial workforce in Los Angeles to nonunion

>immigrants during a contract dispute marked a seminal point in the

>argument, said Earl Ofari Hutchinson, a Los Angeles-based social issues

>commentator who favors cooperation between blacks and Latinos.

>

>"There was a lot of resentment on the part of many African Americans

>because they lost their jobs," Hutchinson said. "African Americans don't

>even look at that [sector] anymore because it is not open to them, or

>they believe it is closed to them."

>

>[ ... ]

>

></quote>

>

>So even the more successful blacks are hiring latinos instead of other

>blacks, or anyone else for that matter.

>

>And it doesn't stop there. The black "casual worker" has been pretty

>much replaced out in the suburbs, with the landscaping work being almost

>exclusively done by latinamericans, and now they're replacing the black

>casual worker in deepest downtown DC:

>

>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/25/AR2007012502029.html

>

><quote in-part>

>

>The Hunt for Work Fosters Tension

>Black Residents, Latino Laborers In the Middle

> By Yolanda Woodlee

> Washington Post Staff Writer

> Friday, January 26, 2007; Page B01

>

>Regina James says she drives past Rhode Island Plaza every weekday

>morning and has mixed feelings at the sight of more than 100 Latino men

>waiting for day-labor jobs in the Home Depot parking lot.

>

>The increasing number of laborers, some of whom residents say leave

>trash on the ground and urinate along a nearby barrier wall, has

>heightened tension and stirred mistrust between the Latinos and the

>mostly black residents of the working-class Brentwood neighborhood in

>Northeast.

>

>Some residents complain that the day laborers don't live in the

>community, express fears that their presence could bring down property

>values, and gripe that they may be illegal immigrants taking jobs from

>others.

>

>"People don't want it there, and it's going to get worse," said James, a

>former advisory neighborhood commissioner.

>

>"People don't want it there, and it's going to get worse," said James, a

>former advisory neighborhood commissioner.

>

>But at the same time, James and other residents are worried about their

>own reactions. They know that African Americans are also out of work and

>out looking for jobs.

>

>"I don't want to see this get inflamed, because 40 years ago, this was

>our history. Black people did those jobs that nobody else wanted to do.

>It's really sensitive. I want to make sure we handle it with care

>because it is already explosive."

>

>Despite the ethnic component to the problem, the situation in Brentwood

>is part of a growing dilemma in the Washington area and elsewhere,

>intensified by those who oppose spending taxpayer dollars to help

>immigrants who may not be in the country legally.

>

>Before a labor center opened in Herndon in late 2005, tensions grew

>between the mostly white residents and Hispanic day laborers, and the

>Fairfax town drew attention in the national immigration debate.

>

>In Montgomery County, opposition from residents and business owners

>forced officials to abandon plans to place a county-funded labor center

>in Gaithersburg.

>

>In the District, Latino advocates say the Home Depot is the largest

>day-labor site since one of two paint stores closed at 15th and P

>streets NW. During the summer, residents say they have seen as many as

>200 day laborers at the Home Depot. Residents say police have not acted

>on their complaints about loitering because the parking lot is private

>property.

>

>[ ... ]

>

></quote>

>

>I should point out that in Montgomery County, the decision was made in

>backroom deals outside of public comment and decision-making process, to

>go ahead and build a new day-laborer center off of Crabbs Branch Way

>just outside the Gaithersburg MD city limits. On the minus side, aside

>from the aforementioned unilateral decision to forge ahead with what

>nobody wants, this facility has also been assigned to operational

>control, in a no-bid/closed-bid giveaway, by CASA de Maryland which is

>almost assured to restrict access to illegal aliens from centralamerica.

>On the plus side, it's right up the street from a huge and at-capacity

>Homeless Shelter. When the county commuters sees crowds of homeless

>destitute citizens being driven away -- by supporters of illegal aliens

>-- from opportunities to work and get housing and upward mobility, the

>situtation here could increase in ugliness and outrage.

>

>That the county Democrats decided to set this up more-or-less right

>across the street from the Montgomery County Republicans headquarters,

>that's adding insult to injury all across the board.

>

>Maybe I'll kick off my campaign for the next election by trying to get

>work at this new day laborer center once it opens up. I wonder what

>entertainingness could wind up on YouTube. I wonder if maybe some of the

>10,000 people who voted for me -- many of them from Derwood, and in

>vocal opposition to having this for-foreigners-only day-laborer site

>plopped down in their neighborhood -- would be willing to help keep

>these people honest. I can see it now: "Derwood aldermen beaten by

>imported goons when they disguise themselves as homeless jobseekers,

>film at eleven and all over the internet".

The Democrats count the Black vote as "in the bag." GOP has written

them off. Hence, their problems no longer interest the vote gleaners.

Max