South American day laborers are better off
By Vesna Jaksic
Staff Writer
The Advocate
Published May 30 2006
Stamford -- Day laborers from Peru, Ecuador and other South American countries tend to demand higher pay, spend more money and live in better conditions than their Central American counterparts, according to a recent survey.
The survey, conducted late last year in Stamford by the East Side Partnership, a group of business owners and residents, and Stamford's anti-poverty agency, CTE Inc., also found that Central Americans, who hail primarily from Guatemala and Honduras, earn less but send more money to their families back home.
"South Americans earn more, know more English and they expect a better quality of life because quality of life in South America is higher than in Central America," said Juan David Paniagua, an outreach worker who interviewed day laborers for the survey.
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The survey found South Americans spent an average of $612 a month on rent, compared with Central Americans' average monthly rent of $315. Nearly 62 percent of South Americans had their own room, but fewer than 20 percent of Central Americans did.
In recent weeks, some laborers said they will work for $8 an hour, while others said they only accept hourly wages of $10 or more. Some said they negotiate with contractors based on the type of work -- roof work, for example, pays more than painting -- as well as the time of the day. They are more likely to accept lower pay later in the day.
One 27-year-old Guatemalan said he negotiates based on how badly he needs to pay for food and rent.
"It's hard," said Josue, who asked that only his first name be used because he is in the country illegally. "You don't have money to pay the bills, but you have to."
Still, life is better than in Guatemala, where he said he only went to school for five years because he had to start earning money by killing pigs at age 12.
Though South American laborers earn more, they send an average of $80 a month less to their home countries than Central Americans, which Paniagua and others said is because their families' needs are not as great.
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Many of the more recent immigrants from Central America also are more desperate for work because they have to pay human traffickers who helped get them across the border, said Nik Theodore, director of the Center for Urban Economic Development and assistant professor in the urban planning and policy program at University of Illinois in Chicago.
"We've seen, especially with the more recent arrivals from Central America, like the rural areas of Guatemala, that these workers who are very poor from the outset now have become very set in debt," said Theodore, one of the four authors of "On the corner: Day labor in the United States," the nation's first study on day laborers, which was released earlier this year.
Josue, the day laborer from Guatemala, said he has to pay $6,000 for human traffickers for each sibling he wants to bring to the United States.
"One brother a year," he said in Spanish.
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As he walked around the labor pickup zone on a recent morning, Paniagua said that regardless of where they come from or how long they are here, most laborers are here for the same reason.
"Many people say they are working because they don't want the kids to repeat the same life," he said. "They want them to have an opportunity to study, to get an education."
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