PVCC Puma Press: December 2004

The following is the last of a three-part series on the Macehualli Work Center, 16801 N. 25th St., Phoenix.

Abraham Cazueta has made the grueling trip three times. It is a five-day walk across the border between Mexico and Arizona, approximately 150 miles to safety. Sometimes the desert sun is brutal; other times the nights are frigid. He risks death or detainment each time, as he did most recently just two weeks ago. Cazueta endures the trips for one reason.

“My family,” says Cazueta. “I come to America to help my family.”

Cazueta’s hard work provides a higher standard of living for his family than he believes he could achieve for them in his home in Sonora, Mexico. Each year he crosses over from Mexico into Arizona, always without hassle and looking for work. He has spent time in Denver, Chicago and Phoenix, returning to Mexico to see his wife and two children each time.

Two weeks ago he chose to return to Phoenix, in part because of the opportunities available at the Macehualli Work Center. He had spent some time at the center two years ago, on his way from Chicago back to Mexico. He appreciates the safety and order it provides to day laborers, and says his fellow workers prefer the center to the alternative: walking the streets.

Salvador Reza, who tirelessly coordinates the center, says Cazueta’s story is typical. He says that money earned in America and sent back across the border is Mexico’s greatest import. According to Reza, more than 100 workers like Cazueta visit the center each day, with more than half getting jobs. More important for the everyday citizen, Reza says, is the impact his center has had on the local community.

“The center has stabilized a community that was out of control,” Reza says. “We have made it possible for businesses to succeed in the area and we have brought dignity to a sector of the population that is usually downgraded instead of celebrated for its contributions.”

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‘I come to America to help my family’
—Abraham Cazueta, illegal immigrant
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A 2003 report by UCLA’s Abel Valenzuela Jr., Ph.D. confirms Reza’s statements. In his report, Valenzuela studied work centers nationwide and gave the Macehualli center high marks. He reported that crime decreased by nine percent in its first year of operation, as did police department calls for service. Property value increases in the area exceeded citywide average increases, and several businesses reported sales increases, with workers moved from local parking lots to the work center.

Keenan Strand owns the McDonald’s restaurant at 2447 E. Bell Rd., located across from the center. His store used to be the primary congregating point for would-be workers each morning, and his business suffered. Not surprisingly, he praises the center and the work Reza has done to coordinate it.

“It is a neighborhood solution to a neighborhood problem,” Strand says. “It’s had a positive impact on the whole community. Strand points to new home builders entering Palomino Square, a surprising development.
In addition he cites a change in the area’s demographics, a Boys and Girls Club that has received a grant to come to the area, and work by a local school to provide a community center.

“It may not work for every community, but it has done wonders for this one,” Strand says. ”The only opponents, especially now that it’s not funded by government, come from out of the area and have a problem with immigration.”

Now that local government no longer funds the center, opposition has simmered down, according to Reza. “We haven’t solved all the problems and we haven’t convinced everyone, but the community is behind our work.”

He points to police officers now directing stragglers to the center and out of the streets. The recent passage of Proposition 200, which eliminates illegal immigrants’ access to public services, shows that immigration is an issue most Arizonans want to address. Reza has spent some time easing fears among the workers.

“Everything Prop 200 says is already on the books,” says Reza. “It just stirs the mix. The only people affected will be city and state employees who have to report violations.”

He adds that if the reformers were serious about solving the problem, they would have included a labor deal in it, similar to the guest worker program proposed by President Bush.

“The business community can either outsource their labor to other countries or internalize it with the help of immigrants,” he says. “If you keep it (the labor) here, at least the workers would be paying taxes here. Unless the United States advances into the global economy, they’ll be passed by countries like India and China.”

The bigger impact, he says, will be the pressure on politicians to do more about the issue, and he believes voters may not like what they come up with.

“Politicians listen to voters every four years,” he says, “but they listen to the economic powers every day.”

Still, all is well at the Macehualli Work Center, and business continues as usual. Reza says that the market is now in full effect and workers at the center get jobs every other day, at a minimum. For Abraham Cazueta, the amount of work beats the streets. He says that before he came to the work center, he would sometimes do work and then have employers refuse to pay him. At the work center, all employers sign when they arrive and are less likely to refuse payment or otherwise abuse workers.

“We’ve made it safer for workers, better for businesses and the community, and lowered crime in the area,” Reza says.

Keenan Strand agrees. “People are now taking pride in their community,” he says.

Today the center operates in large part due to the donation of rent by Valley businessman Jerry Bisgrove, Chairman and CEO of the Stardust Companies.

Reza plans to make the center fully self funded in the near future, by developing the nearby lot as a retail center, with the work center as a main beneficiary. Doing so would help Abraham Cazueta, and dozens like him, to continue their work in safety.

“I like it here,” Cazueta says. “I can help my family the best here.”