Full House and americanos

Phew.

That's all I have to say after work today.

Molly has returned from Argentina finally (yay!) and we are SO happy to have her and her energy, laughter and dedication back with us! Today it was just me and her on the job and it also happened to be one of the first days that I've been there where we didn't have a volunteer of some sort stop by to help with ESL, the website, operations, etc. Naturally, it was quite the busy and eventful day - issues we've been having over the past week have built themselves up and started to really boil today.

I believe I've already mentioned some tensions between Americans and the center [note: the tension is really not about relationships between Americans and the immigrants, but Americans and how the center works]. This increased presence of unemployed & homeless Americans was a matter that they did not foresee when planning for the center. The past week or two has seen an incredible increase not only in their continual day-long visits to the center but their lack of understanding and hence protests about how the system works at the CLRC.

Issues have come up that were never a problem over the past 7 months of operation. We're slowly trying to figure out how to deal with this unanticipated group of workers, but it becomes a challenge when they aren't willing to work with us either.
1. These guys are arriving before 5 am and waiting outside the doors for the opening at 6 am. This isn't fair to Shani, the director of the center, who comes in at 5:30 to get some work done and get organized before opening it up, but now ends up having to entertain these guys who are not the warmest and fuzziest of men to spend time with. This also causes problems for la lista, which is how jobs go out (amongst many other factors, such as the previously mentioned gusto de patrón). Some latinos will show up early but not much before six - there have been disagreements about who belongs where on the list & Shani cannot verify it since she isn't there when they all arrive super early.
Solution: Anyone who arrives before 6:15 is put in a lottery for the jobs rather than an ordered list. This sure didn't make many of los gringos happy and they weren't afraid to share it with us either.

2. These guys are all smokers. We do have a few latinos who smoke, but will only do it once in a blue moon. But this new crowd REALLY smokes - at least once an hour. Once someone goes outside, the rest of them follow. While they've been reminded multiple times that they can't smoke right outside the center or any of the surrounding tenants, they continue to do so. Yesterday we got a couple neighbors' complaints through the friendly shopping center owner, including a picture of the CLRC taken sneakily from across the way, showing many guys gathered outside smoking and chatting away. They continue to smoke right outside our entrance and simply throw their cigarette butts on the ground. Today it was an obscene amount of people outside smoking consistently, all of which were Americans.
Solution: Ban smoking during operational hours of the CLRC? This will perhaps go into effect on Monday morning, but Molly & I discussed it after closing today. Although it may steer some people from the corners away from the CLRC, it is a risk that we may have to take in order to keep our neighbors content & not upset the shopping center owner [yet again]. It also turns our own customers away to see a big group of guys smoking outside the entrance.

3. They don't have much buy-in into the center. Many of the immigrants have been around for the past 5 years with the Centreville Immigration Forum, which has all lead to the formation of the CLRC. The whole system of the center was created for and by the workers themselves. It was founded to create a safe, organized location for residents & contractors to negotiate work arrangements with day laborers. We are not a temp agency nor a company of any sort. There is such a sense of community amongst the staff, volunteers, board members and workers. While people go out on jobs on an individual level, it is NOT an individualistically-minded group. Americans stereotypically work with a me goal, but there is more to this center. If someone does a poor job out on an assignment, it reflects poorly on the entire center and that employer may not come back for future jobs for the entire community of workers at the CLRC. There is a much greater sense of brotherhood and shared mission amongst the immigrants than the Americans. This is easily shown in greetings: all of the immigrant men will make eye contact, shake your hand and start a conversation with you when you enter the room; almost all of the American men don't even look up to see you.

Perhaps an incidence from today could help illustrate a bit: Yesterday as we were cleaning up and getting ready to close, we had a contractor come in who said he would need 5 guys for today at 9am. Because we wanted to ensure that there would be enough guys to go out, we set up those who had stayed behind to help clean up. By the end of the day yesterday, we had our 5 guys (plus a few other jobs) all set up for today. With today's rainy weather, things were reshuffled around and we had to reassign a few guys to this job. As it was, the first few people on the list were americanos, so when the contractor showed up we got them ready to go out with him. Although the contractor himself is bilingual, he requested that the team be monolingual so that no time would be wasted to translate. The pre-arranged guys we had set up from yesterday were either bilingual or only Spanish speaking with little English; therefore, we had to choose a Spanish-speaking team of workers, skipping over those who do not speak Spanish. One guy who is a homeless African American & who has been here since opening day in December was chosen at first but then rejected after the Spanish qualification came up - he was totally chill about this decision. Another homeless African American man who just registered yesterday decided this was NOT ok. He started cussing out me & Molly and was not speaking well of immigrants. To say the least, it created a lot of drama and showed a lack of understanding of how/why the CLRC functions. On the bright side, I am extremely grateful for some of the usual latino guys who care for us and were there today to witness, support and defend us.

Personally, it is a lot for me to process and to figure out my own reflections. While I long for social justice and to be able to serve everyone, it becomes difficult if they lack respect or compassion, especially to those who are there to dedicate their time and effort to help them. It is that much more of a challenge to serve others when they don't openly receive it with an open hand, mind and heart.

After a long day of holding down the fort with Molly, facing quite the amount of endless challenges and having 28 workers in today (yes, 28!!!), I think it may be time for a good ol hammock siesta.