Negotiating Workplace Expectations: Latinao Immigrant Workers in the Suburbs by Amber Cooper

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Negotiating Workplace Expectations Latina/o
Immigrant Workers in the Suburbsby Amber Cooper
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• Introduction Background
• Framework
• Research Questions
• Methods
• Findings and Analysis
• Discussion and Implications
• Future Research

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Employers Employees

• Yes, the immigrants just want to work, work long
  hours, just want to do anythingThey want as many
  hours as possible. If I called them in for four
  hours to clean latrines, theyd do it. They like
  to work. They have large families, a big work
  ethic, and small salaries.
• -fast food employer, quoted by Waldinger
  Lichter (2003)
• Because one isnt a mule or an animal for them
  to treat one like that. A Hispanic, they will
  give him three machines and an American, they
  only give oneI always stand up for myself. If
  they want to do something to me or treat me like
  an animal, I will leave their jobBecause we are
  all the same. We are in a country were there are
  no differences and this is why we have to defend
  ourselves.
• -Lucia, Latina immigrant who finds work via a
  temporary agency

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Introduction Background

• Deindustrialization the suburban service
  economy
• New suburban immigrant ports of entry
• My Rockwood Chicagos Rockwood

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Framework

• Employers perceive immigrants as accepting of
  marginalized work
• Dual frame of reference to the U.S. and their
  country of origin
• Socioeconomic Structures
• Ideology as Structure
• the illegal, alien, and/or other

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Concepts

• Dual frames of reference
• Dual structures of ideology and socioeconomic
  context Sewells dual structures, both material
  and cultural
• Workplace expectations in contrast to job
  satisfaction, labor market expectations, job
  tenure, job entitlement, etc.

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Research Questions

• Dual Frame of Reference Theory Reconsidered
• Do Latina/o immigrants actually have low
  workplace expectations in the way employers claim
  they do? This has two parts
• Are expectations low?
• Is their frame of reference only based on
  economic measures? What else might it involve?
• Applying a New Framework
• How does structure shape immigrant workplace
  expectations and how do immigrants shape those
  structures?
• How do immigrant workers negotiate the ideology
  of the illegal, alien, and/or other?
• How do immigrant workers negotiate the structural
  legal status of being undocumented?

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Methods

• Qualitative unstructured individual and group
  interviews of 2-4 people
• Volunteering Participant Observation
• Recruiting/Sampling
• Research Assistant
• Language
• Ethical Considerations

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Findings and Analysis

• Dual Frame of Reference Theory Reconsidered
• Do Latina/o immigrants actually have low
  workplace expectations in the way employers claim
  they do? This has two parts
• Are workplace expectations low?
• Is their frame of reference only based on
  economic measures? What else might it involve?

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Findings and Analysis

• Are workplace expectations low?
• Eduardo owning land and working with family
  provided a very positive frame of reference
• Linda risk of injury and wages worse in the U.S.
  than in Mexico
• Marisol said, I know a person who was in Mexico,
  nurse, doctors, they cant work here, I was a
  secretary in Mexico and I worked in a big company
  and I cant work.

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Findings and Analysis

• 2) Is their frame of reference only based on
  economic measures? Multiple axis of comparison
• -cost of living
• -moral comparison
• -safety
• -urban/rural
• -educational opportunities
• -gendered comparisons

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• Cost of living comparison
• - Some economic comparisons but over half of all
  respondents mentioned the high cost of living in
  the U.S. Pedro informs us that,
• we know some people who came first and they
  went back to Mexico and told us that here U.S.
  you can work every day and you can make more
  moneythey dont tell you nothing about how much
  money you are going to pay, your bills or house,
  how much money you can lose, I think. If you
  make 200 a week, for example, and maybe you need
  to buy your food or anythingyou can put nothing
  in the bank.
• Moral comparison
• -Morals in the workplace, community, schools,
  and raising children
• Pablo I want to have kids in El Salvador
• Interviewer you think they will have a
  better job in El Salvador? Pablo not better,
  but, lets say that they wont suffer as much.
  Here you suffer. Although we dont want to admit
  it.
• Pedro because here you need to leave your
  kids or family and somebody else has to watch
  them while you go to work. You have to wake up
  the kids at 4 or- Pablo its like they have
  to work too
• Pedro if I had money, I would send my kids
  to study in Mexicobecause there are more drugs
  here.

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• Safety comparisons
• -Frame of reference shaped by crime in community
  and at school, gangs, drugs also for men police
  harassment, and for women sexual harassment at
  work shape their frame of reference.
• Alejandro says, well I mean in Mexico you see a
  lot of bad influences, a lot of them, but youre
  still able to go out on the street and play until
  late at night, and here if you dont live in a
  good neighborhood you cant get out after 5
  oclock in the afternoon because of your risk of
  finding some drug dealers trying to get you on to
  drugs or people, gangs, fighting, or whatever.
• Urban/rural comparisons
• -Big city is a negative frame of reference
  whether it is in the U.S. or it is in Mexico
  (except people impressed by technology in cities)
• Carlos who grew up in Mexico city sees Rockwood
  as better, while Pedro and Pablo who grew up in
  small towns (one in rural Guatemala) see Rockwood
  as having gangs and drugs and will not raise
  their children here. However, Carlos says,
  there are a lot of drugs, a lot of gangs in
  Mexico City. Maybe over here because its more
  better Its up to you. Mexico City is more
  dangerous than over here.

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• Educational opportunities
• -Lucia, a single mom, has a positive image of
  working in Mexico as her frame of reference but
  views poor temp agency work conditions as a
  sacrifice for her kids education.
• -Other issues forgetting their roots paying
  for college
• Gendered comparisons
• -Dual frames of reference between Mexico the
  U.S. give women more reasons to prefer Mexico
• -Large group defines male/female jobs
• men landscaping, construction, restaurants,
  factories, carwash.
• women hotels, housekeeping, factories,
  restaurants, babysitting/childcare, laundries
• -Carrying weight sorted by gender (women carry
  more!)
• -Men paid more doing same job as women
• -Sexual harassment for Latinas
• -Gender sorting preferences at temp agencies
• -Intersection of race and gender when
  interacting with coworkers

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Findings and Analysis

• Applying a New Framework
• How does structure shape immigrant workplace
  expectations and how do immigrants shape those
  structures?
• How do immigrant workers negotiate the ideology
  of the illegal, alien, and/or other?
• How do immigrant workers negotiate the
  socioeconomic structure of the service economy
  and undocumented status?

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• How do immigrant workers negotiate the ideology
  of the illegal, alien, and/or other?
• -Using English language to define the illegal
  or the other
• Carlos a young restaurant worker recalls, yeah,
  shes white. She notices when you speak Mexican.
  I know this other guy, he doesnt speak much
  English, sometimes when he wants to say
  somethinghey whatd he say and all the time
  she say dont speak Spanish in the line because
  in the line the cook she talks with him and he
  feels bad because he doesnt speak English.
• -Miguel's attempt to move away from being the
  other

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• 2) How do immigrant workers negotiate the
  structural status of being undocumented?
• Undocumented status in the new service economy
  leads to overt discrimination
• -Salome a woman in her fifties says, they know
  that they dont have papers so they can treat
  them like that because they know that they cant
  defend themselves. They have to put up with it
  because they dont have another choice.
• -Lydia reports just not getting paid at all for
  one years work.
• Socio-economic restructuring utilized to lay
  blame on immigrants
• -Miguel says, I just dont like to be
  discriminated against by the whites
  because...they say that why did we take away
  their work. This is were everything starts they
  say we took away their jobs.

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Discussion and Implications

• Theoretical understanding of workplace
  expectations is more complex
• Counter employers current justification for poor
  treatment of workers
• Policies centered around employers illegal
  behavior
• Reconceptualize identity of undocumented worker
  using rights talk

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Future Research

• Gender, clearly a large amount of material here
  to explore around gendered structures of
  exploitation
• Generalize to larger population
• (larger study of all Latino Chicago suburbs,
  and/or Latino suburbs across the country)
• Difference among Latino/a groups (Mexican, Puerto
  Rican, Guatemalan, etc.)