September 23, 2010
IMPORTING THE SUPERIOR CULTURE:
Mexican New Yorkers a Steady Force in Workplace (KIRK SEMPLE, 9/23/10, NY Times)
Night and day, the heavy front door rarely stops swinging. Men and women pass one another at the entrance of a four-story building on 21st Avenue in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, on their way out to work, or back in for a few hours of sleep between shifts. They are line cooks, construction laborers, delivery men, deli workers, housecleaners and gardeners.A dozen of the building’s 16 apartments are occupied by Mexicans, and most of those have two families per unit, sometimes more. Except for a few women caring for small children, all the adults — about 50 — are employed. Most work long hours, six days a week, for minimum wage or less. Some have two jobs.
The building is a microcosm of Mexican industriousness in New York City. And there are hundreds of others like it, bastions of low-wage work, crowding and hope.
In a time of widespread joblessness, Mexicans in New York have proved unusually adept at finding and keeping work. Of the city’s 10 largest immigrant groups, they have the highest rate of employment and are more likely to hold a job than New York’s native-born population, according to an analysis of the most recently available census data. They are even employed at a greater rate than Mexicans nationwide.
And as they have filled the city’s restaurant kitchens and building sites, they have acquired a reputation for an extraordinary work ethic.
“They put their heads down and work,” said John Delgado, business manager of Local 79, a general building laborers’ union in New York. “They’re very, very humble. They’re dedicated, whether they work half a day or a day and a half.”
Freeloading gangsters....
