PVCC Puma Press: March 2003

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	Photo by Robert Cain
	Hispanic man holds Day Labor Center sign directing employers to a line of men wanting work to take care of their families.
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"To be or not to be." The question of what to become in the future for many PVCC students reflects their thinking about majors and future ambitions.

They are unaware of a different perception of the same words for illegal workers, for whom "to be" means simply to survive and "not to be" discovered by the law.

Not far from PVCC, neighbors have witnessed through the years a social phenomenon that has extended into their streets like a bad stain. The phenomenon takes place in an area known by the Desert Horizon Police Department as "The Square." The Hispanic media call it "The Mile of Hopes."

There, a human line of Hispanics stand, struggling to find jobs. The boundaries of the Mile of Hopes are Bell Road to the North, Greenway Road to the South, 32nd Street to the East and Cave Creek Road to the West.

Families and young men, mainly of Mexican origin, live within these streets in trailer homes or in apartments, commonly sharing the same housing with up to 10 people in order to divide rent, which averages $580 for two bedrooms.

These immigrant workers, who range from 15 to 45 years old, wait each day to be picked up by temporary employers. The workers feel they have succeeded just by being in the United States, far from the poverty of their homeland.

According to journalist Ruben Martinez in his book "Crossing Over a Mexican Family on the migrant Trail," some three million Michoacanos are living in the United States today, although the number varies according to the season.

There are towns in the highlands where the population decreases by 60 to 70 percent during the spring and summer months, when the majority of able-bodied men, and a good many women, between the ages of 17 and 45 move north, Martinez writes. Many thousands return at the end of every year.

Such is the case of 20-year-old Abel Garcia (not his real name), who just arrived in Phoenix two months ago and who lives in a two bedroom two bath apartment inside the Mile of Hopes. Outside the apartment, he has a small, colorless yard.

He and five other friends enjoy their free time by sitting together in their new plastic chairs, sharing their hopes of finding jobs.

Garcia finished high school in Michoacan. His black eyes shine with nostalgia as he remembers: "It's very poor town, my town, but 'muy bonito,'" he says.

Garcia wakes up at 6 in the morning when it's still dark and goes outside his apartment complex with his friends to wait for the car that will take them to their job, where he works 10 hours a day and earns $8 per hour.

"By noon they give us lunch," he says. "We rest for a while and go back to work until 3:30 when they drive us back. It's very hard to be far from my country, but I call my family and keep in touch with them." He hopes to keep the tile job that he has now.

Willingly, Garcia helps support his family back home and at the same time contributes to the economy of his hometown.

Martinez writes in "Crossing Over," "Legal and illegal workers together bring back or wire home some $5 billion a year to Michoacan. The local economy is based almost entirely on work performed in the north. American farmers need the Mexicans and rural Mexico needs the jobs."

A study reported in December 2002 by Northeastern University's Center for Labor Market Studies in Boston, Mass. reinforces Martinez' claim.

"At no point during the past century did new immigrants ever contribute so substantially to the labor market growth of the country," says Andrew Sum, director of the center and one of the authors of the study.

For most illegal workers, a place to live with some commodities is "to be" living the American Dream. According to the March Census Bureau the Mexican population in the U.S. lives in poverty.

Moreover, Hispanic children under 18 were much more likely than non-Hispanic white children to be living in poverty, 9.4 percent versus 30.3 percent. Mexicans had the lowest proportion of annual earnings, $35,000 per household of Hispanic origin.

Hispanics of the same age as PVCC students work as construction laborers to support their families. Lacking English, they use their shovels and pails to communicate with Anglo employers.

Efrain Gutierrez came to Phoenix in the same way as Abel Garcia. They paid $800 dollars to the "coyote" who smuggled them across the border in a truck.

However, Gutierrez arrived five years ago from Sinaloa, a state in northern Mexico. He saved his money to bring his wife, two sons, two daughters and two grandsons to the US

With a sigh he says, "Yes, we are finally together." The skin of his hands looks cracked with age, but his body is that of a middle aged working man.

With a strong friendly voice, Gutierrez seems to be proud to talk about his lessons in survival in the Valley. He says, "I have learned to unmask abusive employers, when they want to pay me tomorrowžthey promise to come back tomorrow with the money, and they disappear forever."

In the US, any possible new employer represents the green wings of hope.

"Mexicans find themselves unable to get ahead in their native land," Gutierrez says. "People don't have resources, culture, machinery, land. They don't have stable work. Even the ones that have an education, end up like us in the streets without jobs." Gutierrez doesn't have as stable a job as Garcia. For the past two years he has been waiting to work again for a "serious company." With a nostalgic voice he says he wishes to find again another electric company like the one that hired him for several months.

"The pay was good, $8 an hour, and the work was very easy," he says. "We just had to hand them all the heavy weight material. They used to ask us if we were fine. That employer never screamed at us or scolded any of us."

For Gutierrez as well as for many of the workers standing in the streets, November, December and January are very tough months to find work. After pausing for a moment, he emphasizes, "Life here is worse than in Mexico when there's no job. We struggle with all the payments, the rent, the food. Everything is more expensive here than in Mexico, and we suffer a lot when there's no job for us."

Abel Garcia as well as Efrain Gutierrez and his two sons share several things in common with other illegal workers. They stand together in the morning line silently calling for the help of their saints, praying "to be" working and "not to be" discovered by the law.