Shared social space and strategies to find work: an exploratory study of Mexican day laborers in Freehold, N.J.

• Date: 22 December 2008
• Author: Cleaveland, Carol,Kelly, Laura
• Published date: 22 December 2008
• Author: Cleaveland, Carol

DAY LABOR HAS BECOME A VISIBLE AND VITAL COMPONENT OF THE ECONOMY overall band a major element of nonstandard employment strategies for disenfranchised prospective workers. For migrant workers, particularly men, day labor serves as an important means to employment, offering them a chance to find work despite barriers such as immigration status or lack of well-paid work in the primary economy (Valenzuela, 2003; Catanzarite, 2003). Informal day labor, in which prospective workers congregate daily in public spaces such as street corners to solicit work, is the focus of this article. We will examine how Mexican day laborers struggle to negotiate two contradictory demands: the need to present themselves visibly in public spaces, such as parking lots and sidewalks, to attract the notice of potential employers, and the need to avoid provoking whites in a town that has an organized opposition to the presence of Latin migrants.

Using participant observation data and structured interviews, this article examines the strategies Mexican men use to negotiate survival while presenting themselves in public to find work. We argue that migrant men are conscious of their marginalized role in the shared social space of a particular town, and regularly develop strategies to minimize the potential for being forcibly removed from a social space where they are subordinate, but for which they are dependent to sustain economic survival (Lim 2004; Soja 1989; Lefebvre, 1991). Key in the strategy for negotiating this social space is the presentation of self as clean, quiet, and orderly, qualities that dominant white citizens would presumably embrace.

In this analysis, social space is not understood as simply a geographic area. Rather, it consists of conceived spaces, and as such is not inured from the social, political, and economic hierarchies of the wider society (Lefebvre, 1991). The question of who can utilize such spaces, and how, is largely determined by the will of the dominant classes. Marginalized individuals typically develop strategies of survival, including identifying and abiding by norms defined by those in more privileged positions. "Who gets to 'represent' space and formulate what is spatially (un)desirable is contingent on the power of the dominant person/group" (Lim, 2004: 1764). Actors orient themselves according to their perceptions of space and make determinations about how they want to act in those spaces; they also decide if there are certain spaces they should avoid (Lefebvre, 1991). Of particular consequence to the migrant workers in our study is the singular challenge of simultaneously negotiating the social space of Freehold, New Jersey, as visible actors and willing wage earners.

In what follows, we explain the efforts of Mexican migrants to mitigate opposition to their public presence by managing how they present themselves in this predominantly white social space. Their efforts include strategies of managing noise, addressing public fears about large groups of men on street corners, and acknowledging long-held stereotypes of Mexicans as dirty. We present findings from a two-year study in Freehold using ethnographic methods and semi-structured interviews with undocumented day laborers. The article explores how these Mexican men managed the need to attract the notice of potential employers as they drove through town by presenting themselves visibly in public spaces, while avoiding anything that would provoke the fear and ire of local residents who had organized opposition to their presence. These divergent demands entail risk for Mexican day laborers whose conspicuity in this social space is essential to finding work.

Mexican migrants, most of whom are undocumented immigrants from rural provinces such as Oaxaca, Chiapas, and Puebla, began arriving in Freehold just before the year 2000. They arrived hoping to find work in landscaping and construction, thus benefiting from New Jersey's housing and development boom. As with other towns that experienced migration, including Farmingville, New York, the arrival of thousands of day laborers did not escape the notice of local residents who were alarmed by large groups of Mexican men standing on street corners and renting inexpensive housing.

During spring, summer, and early fall, Mexican men--young to middle-aged-stand in groups in front of a local convenience store, on sidewalks, in front of the train/bus station, and on a barren stretch of land beside abandoned railroad tracks at the edge of town. That barren stretch of land--approximately 50 yards of gravel in front of a plastic orange fence that town officials called "The Muster Zone" and the migrants "las vias" (the railroad tracks)--became a point of contention in the debate over the presence of migrants in Freehold. In January 2004, Freehold town officials voted to ban migrant day laborers from gathering there. The Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund filed a lawsuit on behalf of the migrants, resulting in a federal injunction to reopen this land, which, depending on the weather, serves as a daily pick-up point for 50 to 100 day laborers hoping to find work.

Complaining that Mexicans were responsible for excessive noise, overcrowded housing, and loitering, some white residents formed an anti-migrant group called Pressing Our Elected Officials to Protect Our Living Environment (P.E.O.P.L.E.). The group campaigned for anti-immigrant candidates and sought to enact ordinances designed to discourage migrant residency. Some theorists have argued that power can be expressed in the domination and monopolization of space, and by having the means and ability to force weaker groups into less desirable spaces (Sibley 2001). Critical to an analysis of migrant laborers in Freehold is the distinction between public, physical space--as contended in debates over street corners, crowded housing, and "las vias"--and Lefebvre's concept of imagined space that encompasses political and economic conditions (Ford and Harding, 2004; van Ingen, 2004). Public and social spaces are relevant because the migrant must present himself in public, physical space while making accommodations to negotiate his position in the social space, including his marginalization and "value" as a low-wage laborer.

This study is timely given the debate over "illegal immigration" in the United States. In 2008, President Bush signed a bill authorizing construction of a 700-mile wall along the U.S.--Mexican border to curb migration; in small towns across the country, anti-immigrant statutes have passed, including in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, and Keysport, New Jersey, that fine landlords who rent to undocumented migrants. Given the opposition of many whites, and the visibility typically required to find work, it is important to understand how Mexican day laborers devise strategies to mitigate hostility and negotiate social space while attempting to earn wages for their families in Mexico.

Dirt, Noise, and Economics

In his seminal work, Lefebvre (1991) outlined a conceptual framework for considering social and public space. He argued that it is incorrect to conceptualize space as separate from the structure and hierarchy of social relations (McCann, 1999; Ross, 1996). Structural factors are critical in this analysis. Though Mexicans are often characterized as undesirable, their low-cost labor is coveted in many sectors of the economy. The rise of neoliberal economics involved mobilizing business interests to promote policies that benefited capital at the expense of labor. These policies have reduced the number of workers covered by unemployment insurance benefits, fostered de-unionization drives, and increased reliance on contingent workers. Mexican migrants who cross the border to work in the United States can thus find a niche in the U.S. economy, filling slots for part-time, unskilled, and temporary labor (Fernandez-Kelly and Massey, 2007).

The history of U.S. policy toward Mexican migration illustrates that the distinction between being welcomed as a "guest worker," as in the Bracero program, or not welcome at all is tenuous and subject to change. Such distinctions shift according to the vicissitudes of economics and perceived national interest. As a result, migrant laborers often encounter double binds in how they are viewed and characterized by the wider society. "On the one hand, immigrants are portrayed as lazy and unskilled, thus draining social and welfare services and, on the other hand, they are blamed for stealing jobs from hardworking U.S. citizens (Welch, 2002: 21).

Though Mexican migrants have clearly been marginalized as unclean, their low-cost labor has often been welcome, especially during times of shortages of American workers to pick...