With a national debate over immigration brewing, student group Enlaces Latino Americanos – or translated, Latin American Links – has identified their connection surprisingly close to home: area neighborhoods overflowing with unskilled immigrant workers.
So on Friday, cold gusty weather didn’t stop sophomore Damaso Rodriguez, the Enlaces president, from leading five university students to help feed about 50 day laborers at the worker center CASA of Maryland on University Blvd.
CASA of Maryland Inc. is one of the few area outreach centers for day laborers – most of whom lack labor documentation and are in the country illegally – that helps immigrants find jobs, provides legal representation and literacy and citizenship classes. But providing assistance to illegal workers has aroused controversy over whether state funds undocumented immigrants.
Without state funds, CASA relies on the help of area congregations, charities and businesses, and depends on groups able to devote time to working in the centers. That’s where Rodriguez’ group comes in. One aim of Enlaces, Rodriguez said, is to create a sense of community service among Latino students and gain better understanding of the challenges faced by immigrant families.
“By associating with [day laborers], we get a feel for why we are in school,” Rodriguez said. “We can learn how to help them so they can have the same chances we do.”
The presence of day laborers on street corners and in front of local businesses has increased dramatically in the past thirty years, according to a UCLA study this year. On any given day, an estimated 117,600 day laborers take to the streets looking for work, with 23 percent located in the Eastern United States. Most work in some form of construction or maintenance, including landscaping, painting, roofing and housekeeping.
The presence of day laborers surrounding areas like Langley Park – located just a few blocks west of the university – has localized the illegal immigration debate, which questions the right of these individuals to solicit employment. Although the debate in Langley has remained somewhat tempered, it has raged in areas like Gaithersburg and Herndon, Va., where the use of tax dollars to fund day laborer centers has sparked lawsuits and public acrimony.
But for Ana Chuquin, a senior natural resources management major, working at CASA was more about reaching out at the ground level than making a political statement.
“It’s a good opportunity to thank them for their hard work and to express that there is someone thinking about them,” said Chuquin. “It’s nice when students come and interact with them because they need people to talk to.”
Since CASA opened the Rigoberta Menchú worker center on University Boulevard in 2004 primarily to serve Latino and African immigrants, they’ve worked to provide a safe haven for training and education, said employment specialist Frederic Ngongang, an immigrant from Cameroon, Africa.
Ngongang coordinates and speaks with employers to make sure the laborers are treated fairly, but getting work is still difficult for the laborers, he said. The workers must arrive early to the center to sign a registration and get a number, and when employers arrive, a number is selected from a lottery and that person, regardless of legal status, receives the job.
Inside the center, which resembles a large garage, men and women from their early 20s to their 60s sit in plastic chairs waiting for work. One television tuned to Spanish-language channel Univision serves as entertainment.
As students set bags of food atop a table, a murmuring of voices penetrates the general hum of the room, while others stare intently at the students to discover the reason for their visit. The curious soon realized it was for breakfast, as students passed out cold-cut sandwiches and orange juice to the men and women.
For junior hearing and speech sciences major Xiomy Esteban, coming to the worker center helped fulfill a long-time desire to interact with the immigrant workers.
“I always pass by there and I see them everywhere. I’ve always wanted to talk to them and get to know more about their lives,” said Esteban. The students were able to interact with the laborers after the breakfast.
Esteban spoke with José, who immigrated from Bolivia just a few months ago. He left his wife and four children in his hometown of Cochabamba to find ample means to support his family. José, like other laborers interviewed for this story, declined to give his last name because of his illegal status.
José said finding work here has been more difficult than he had anticipated and he is worried about the general Americans sentiment toward immigrants.
“We don’t have wrong intentions, we just want to work,” José said.
“It is so hard to get papers,” added Gustavo, a jack-of-all-trades from Mexico who has lived in the U.S. for almost 15 years. “People tell me I’m a good worker, but the government will not give me a work permit.”
For Jessica Mealey, ELA’s community service director, spending time with the laborers helps bridge the gap between the worlds of students and immigrants.
“I worked as an ESOL [English for Speakers of Other Languages] teacher at CASA, and I learned that if you are in another country and not being accepted by the mainstream, it can be hard,” said Mealey. “It’s always good to show that we are here for them.”
Contact reporter Arelis Hernandez hernandezdbk@gmail.com.
