Still, there’s no place like home

IT’S a bright morning in Brooklyn’s Bensonhurst neighbourhood but there is no place in the sun for the group of faceless men standing by the roadside, waiting for work that isn’t coming any time soon.
For these illegal immigrants, congregating at street corners is a daily ritual of hope and despair as they wait for prospective employers who want temporary or day labourers.
The minute a van stops, they would scramble towards it, pleading: “Take me! Take me!”
Their English limited, most of them would grab any jobs that are thrown their way.
“They would be there waiting every day, whether in winter or summer,” a Brooklyn resident observed. “Sometimes you wonder whether their lives are any worse back home.”
Life is a battlefield for them. For those who are employed, it isn’t uncommon for them to hold two jobs, working seven days a week, like Jose M., who juggles his time waiting on tables in two restaurants.
He cycles to work, rain or shine, a journey that takes 45 minutes. Once, a road accident put him out of action for about a week but he did not seek medical help since he was without health insurance.
The Centre for Immigration Studies has found that one in eight people in the US is an immigrant. The undocumented ones numbered about 11 million last year.
Most of the recent immigrants came from Mexico. Official statistics show that 64% of Hispanic-origin people in the US have a Mexican background.
(At 15% of the US population, the Hispanics are the largest minority group in the US. Mexico is the only country which has a larger Hispanic population than the US.)
In 2007, Mexicans who worked in the US remitted about US$24bil (RM89bil) to their families back home.
But a chat with Mexicans on their home soil found that they do not necessarily see this as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
“We depend too much on America,” said Ricardo Salazar, a tour guide for the past decade in Mexico City, the sprawling capital that is inhabited by 20 million people.
Still, he understood why his fellow countrymen opted to seek their fortunes in their neighbouring nation.
“A factory job in Mexico City offers just about 2,000 pesos (RM494) a month,” he said, “so they prefer to work at construction sites in America where the hourly wages are better.” These workers, he said, would save up and send money to their loved ones so that they could own a house upon returning home.
He would not want to work in the US, though. “It’s a racist country,” he said, “and it isn’t easy to get a visa.”
He prefers his chilli-loving Mexico. “We start eating chillies at the age of two,” he smiled. “My stomach is very strong.”
Mexico is not a poor country, according to Geraldo Ramirez Escobar, who works at a public information kiosk near Chapultepec Park.
“There is a lot of money here,” he said in halting English, “but the blame lies with the leaders and politicians.”
Most people, he said, found it difficult to secure jobs in the city.
Escobar counts himself lucky. An economics graduate in 2006, he got his current position (“my first formal job”) not too long ago.
Most employers, he said, preferred people with working experience. “But how can I have experience if they don’t start hiring me?”
Escobar said he had plans for his future, perhaps starting projects that would help his fellow citizens. “I still have a lot of hope for Mexico,” he said.
Joel Rocha, his co-worker, was also not too keen on the Promised Land. “It’s just another country. To me, there is no First World, no Third World.”
Neither was he swept away by US president Barack Obama, whose inauguration, according to news reports, was watched by countless people in Mexico City, some shedding tears.
“I don’t know much about him. He is not my president. All I know about him is what I read in the papers or watch on TV,” he said. “But I do hope he will make a difference.”
Others such as A. Martinez decided to say “hola” to Mexico again after 20 years slogging it out in California, the Golden State that is home to 13 million Hispanics.
Now 50-plus and fluent in English, Martinez is often summoned by his boss to take care of the non-Spanish speaking diners who come to the restaurant where he works.
Why did he decide to pack his bags and head back home?
“Why?” he asked in return, appearing somewhat incredulous that the question should be asked at all.
“I love Mexico,” he said simply. “This is my country.”

This is Yee Ping’s last story from New York. She is now back at our Petaling Jaya office.