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"A State of Perdition" South American Laborers Describe Life and Work in New Orleans By Elizabeth Gonz‡lez  New Orleans was muggy and hot when we first arrived on a Wednesday afternoon. The weather was comparable to many tropical countries where beads of sweat come down your forehead just from standing up. I went to New Orleans with the hopes of talking to immigrant workers who are rebuilding New Orleans and share their stories of life after Katrina. Looking for immigrant workers who are part of rebuilding efforts in New Orleans didn't prove hard to do. According to the Gulf Coast Latin American Association, an estimated 30,000 immigrant workers moved to the Gulf Coast in the weeks after the hurricane. Surely that number has drastically increased, but current and actual numbers are hard to find because no one is officially keeping track of the fluctuating workforce. According to the findings of a study released by researchers at Tulane University and Berkeley University nearly half of the hurricane repair workers in the New Orleans area are Latinos, 25% of them are undocumented. However, 87% of the undocumented workers were already living in the US before moving to work in New Orleans. About 50 immigrant workers were living in the same hotel we stayed at. Workers pay $200 a week for rooms that had regular double beds with smaller bunk beds in the corners and they had refrigerators and microwaves that the other rooms didn't have. Many workers are being contracted directly from South American countries like Peru and Bolivia. They are brought to the states legally to work in everything from construction to housekeeping in local hotels. The atmosphere of New Orleans for imported workers and other immigrants is a sad one. Many of the immigrants have a regular routine that one worker I talked with described as Òla perdici—nÓ -- a state of perdition. After working 10 to 14 hour days many of the men then drink the night away, with little else to do. Some men who are unable to find work for the day remain in the streets with other guys and just wander the downtown area. Two Passages to the U.S.
Ivan and Pablo weren't interested in getting out of the car, joking that they were afraid of black people. So I stayed along and asked them about how they got to New Orleans. Sitting in the back of the car, while we waited in the shade, they shared some of their story. Ivan is 23-years-old from Peru and met Pablo, 26, from Bolivia in New Orleans while they were both doing construction work. The pair are quite opposite, yet they mainly hang out with each other. Ivan is dark, with broad shoulders and had the look of having done hard work all his life. Pablo was soft spoken and let Ivan do more of the talking. He is light skinned, very thin and always wears a baseball cap that reads ÒRebuild New Orleans.Ó They teased each other, but Ivan had a bit of a mean streak and constantly used his jokes as putdowns. Hard labor was not in Pablo's plans when he thought of coming to the United States, unlike Ivan, who knew he was coming to do heavy construction work. After Ivan's last job ended in Peru, he started to look for new work online and came across a company looking for construction workers to work in the United States. They got his paperwork ready and brought him to New Orleans for a contracted period of 10 months. He thanks God for helping him get to the United States because back in Peru, he says, ÒI would have not been able to do anything.Ó After working here for only a month, he has already been able to buy his own piece of land to live on when he returns to Peru in nine months. Pablo explained that he was searching for exchange programs on the Internet to come to the US and found a site that would find him a program where he would come work and also teach Spanish. He wanted to work at a theme park, but that didn't work out, so they eventually placed him in an office position elsewhere. But because his English speaking level didn't match his comprehension skills, he was pulled out of that job shortly and sent to New Orleans. Websites like Hispanic Connection Inc, a site that not only provides translation services, but opportunities to teach either English or Spanish to people around the world. It's a site like this that Pablo was searching to find an exchange program to be able to visit the US. The program helps secure Visa's so that they can work in the country for a period of 10 months. Currently the only employment listed on their site is construction jobs. Luke Hargus of Hispanic Connection based in Baton Rouge, sees an increase in H2B visa applications, but says it's part of the a nationwide increase, Òit is hard to say whether it's from the hurricane or because more people now about the program,Ó he adds. American Dinner, American Work Over dinner we began talking about the labor in our countries while all around us there were other immigrants speaking in Spanish about work conditions and job connections. I told them that in our city of San Jose, Silicon Valley's high tech companies, workers were hired through an outside agency. That a majority were hired as temporary workers without any guaranteed job stability and no benefits and that many accepted it because maybe the pay was a little higher than minimum wage, but it left them very vulnerable in the future. Pablo didn't miss a beat and compared it to their very own situation in New Orleans. Here, they both found long work days, every day of the week and said that only recently they arranged for a day off. They get paid about $7 an hour and average around 10 hour days. Yet, even on their day off they gather at Lee Circle, where many immigrants meet early each morning, to get work for the day. That week their day off was Thursday and they lament that they don't get the days off that would suit them better, like Saturdays when they are able to reach their families at home. There are many people in New Orleans like Pablo and Ivan who are leaving their mark on the new city of New Orleans in the sheetrock of buildings and the foundations of new homes. But, little else beside their work will be known of them because they aren't rebuilding this city to make it their own. They will have to go back to their own homes when their contracts are up or the work is done. They aren't being welcomed to stay; they are needed to clean up the mess to make way for others to come in. Their experience of the United States is one they share with other immigrants already here: they provide a thankless service that most people are unwilling to do.Read more coverage of New Orleans Nine Months After: A City Divided New Orleans 9 Months Later
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