Cornelia Flora and Marta Maldonado-Immigrants as Assets for Midwestern Communities

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Immigrants as Assets for Midwestern Communities
Cornelia Butler Flora
Marta Maldonado
June 1, 2006

In a study about community responses to migration in Marshalltown, Iowa (Flora, et al., 2000), we found two oppositional camps responding to new immigrants: the Legalists and the Pluralists. Legalists were outraged that people were in the country without documentation. They also were upset with the employers that recruited and hired these workers. They drew on the legal tradition of the U.S. to back their arguments. They attributed the rise in the use of methamphetamines to the increase in unauthorized Hispanics in the Midwest, ignoring the homegrown meth labs using local ingredients. They viewed unauthorized immigrants as the source of crime in their small town. This is contrary to studies showing that immigrants do not commit crimes at higher rates than native-born Americans (Hagan and Palloni, 1999). Pluralists stressed the need for a diverse and dynamic society. Drawing on the history of the United States as a nation of immigrants, they stressed the importance of the immigrants to the fabric of the community, citing their importance as workers, consumers, and entrepreneurs.

Similarly, Grey and Woodrick have found through a host of studies that what they call “the 20-60-20 rule” is consistently operative in rural communities in Iowa: About 20 percent of local residents actively welcome immigrant newcomers and are open to making things work. About 20 percent intransigently opposes immigrant influx. The remaining 60 percent is ambivalent about newcomers and fearful of change. Grey and Woodrick’s work also replicates the Flora et al. finding that the division between those who embrace new immigrants and those who don’t corresponds to a division between those who see immigrant influx as an increase in lawlessness, and those who see it as needed or inevitable diversification and change. For example, a more recent study in Marshalltown shows that while many Anglo residents have received immigrants enthusiastically, perceiving that their arrival has contributed to the long term social and economic well-being of the community, others vehemently object to undocumented (“illegal”) immigration, and associate immigrants with perceived increases in crime, and with a corporate scheme to weaken unions and lower wages (Grey and Woodrick, 2005).
Likewise, extension and non-for profit groups working with communities for economic development in Iowa have recently found meetings transformed from, for example, a discussion of how to improve the next Farm Bill, to attributing all personal and community problems to “illegal immigrants”.

The tension between “legalists” and “pluralists” is also evident at the level of public agencies and community institutions. For example, while in many communities in the Midwest the relationship between law enforcement authorities and new immigrants is tense and reveals mutual distrust (see for example, Dalla and Christensen, 2005), in some states (e.g., Missouri) police departments have launched “immersion programs” through which officers are sent to immigrant-sending communities to gain awareness of immigrants’ native language(s), and to acquire cultural competencies that improve interaction with immigrant communities while enhancing community relations and the safety of all.

Beyond community’ perceptions of and feelings regarding the “legality” or “illegality” of immigrants, and beyond whether or not individuals hold stereotypical beliefs about immigrants’ alleged propensity toward crime, community responses to immigration involve the collective grappling with fundamental questions of cultural identity and community cohesion. For example, language has been shown to be a recurrent point of contention between settled residents and newly arrived immigrants (see for example, Naples, 2000). The fact that most new immigrants are not English speakers is seen by some settled residents as a barrier to neighborly interaction, which is an essential element of community. How can they engage with newcomers, if they can’t even speak with them at the grocery store? Similarly, as a marker of culture, language is an immediately apparent boundary between settled residents and immigrant newcomers as members of separate cultural and national communities. Indeed, the demarcation of cultural and national boundaries through language has been a defining element in U.S. nativism since the mid 1960s, when Latin America and Asia became the leading sources of immigrants to the United States. The recent Senate vote to make English the official language of the United States (which not accidentally, arose out of the debate about immigration reform) is the most recent manifestation of this historical practice. The linguistic diversity that comes with immigration complicates homogeneous notions of community, challenging us to imagine new ways of building community (nationally and locally) that both incorporate and transcend cultural difference.

To a large extent, the rapidly increasing influx of immigrants into the United States is attributable to increasing socioeconomic integration between this country and immigrant-sending countries in Latin America (most notably Mexico) and Asia (Krissman, 2005; 2000). U.S. employers––often with the support and assistance of federal, state, and local governments¬––have been key agents fostering such immigration (Krissman, 2000, Waldinger, 2003; Rodríguez, 2004; Maldonado, 2004). In many non-metropolitan communities, the rapid increase in diversity from recent years is the logical result of rural development models based on the creation of low wage jobs, often instigated by local and state authorities as “industrial recruitment and job creation”. Individuals and families from other countries and of different racial and ethnic backgrounds fill the jobs, which are too low paying or too dirty or too strenuous for local residents, who may themselves leave the community to seek better opportunities elsewhere. Non-metropolitan communities across the country must deal with the contradictions of superimposing a policy of job creation over a situation of a labor shortage. How the issues are framed, how problems are defined, and how desired futures are expressed help communities respond to the challenges of increased diversity. This collective framing by groups also helps define spaces where reconciliation and positive change can be achieved. These stories and their retelling are part of the struggle for community -- who defines identity and what concrete actions are collectively implemented.

As discussed above, recognizing the differences within the receiving Anglo community is as important as recognizing the differences between the in-migrant community and the receiving one. The ubiquitous tension between legalists and pluralists shapes the “context of reception” and the “mixed” experience of many immigrants in U.S. communities. This is eloquently captured in a comment made by a Latina immigrant who was interviewed in Taking Roots, a recent documentary from the American Friends Service Committee. Asked about how she feels about living in Perry, Iowa, she said that Perry is a place that is both “calm and tense,” where she feels free, but not comfortable (“me siento libre, pero no cómoda”).Furthermore, the battle for community identity represented by the different factions makes a great deal of difference on the way in which the migrant community can safely organize in its own interests.

In the center of the U.S., those who defined themselves as native to the U.S.A. have almost at the same time welcomed immigrants and blamed them for social, environmental and economic problems. At a period when little seems controllable and U.S. citizenship is less valued in other countries and our rights seem to be somewhat eroded by the necessities of Homeland Security, we follow our historic pattern when we blame the immigrants, particularly those who do not hold complete documentation of their legal status. As the nation debates immigration policy, it is helpful to consider the role of immigrants, particularly those from Latin America, in our North Central communities.

Demographer Jeffrey Passel, using data form the March 2005 Current Population Survey and other data sources estimates they are now 11.5 to 12 million unauthorized persons in the U.S. as of March 2006 (March, 2006). Many unauthorized workers are recruited by labor contractors or friends already employed. Passel (2006) estimated unauthorized migrants make up nearly 5 percent of the labor force. Their vulnerability due to lack of documentation (which is often in process) reinforces their willingness to work hard at dirty jobs for low pay (Massey, Durand, and Malone, 2002). The federal government has a work visa -- known as H-2B -- that aims to help unskilled migrants enter the country legally. But the government issues only about 66,000 new H-2B visas each year. The guest workers are allowed to stay for 10 months. Less than 1% of employment-based visas are issued to low skilled workers; the odds of a low-wage worker obtaining a visa to enter the US to work are close to zero under current immigration laws.

A recent review of major surveys of American public opinion on immigration shows that a significant majority of Americans sees unauthorized immigration as a serious or very serious problem (Pew Hispanic Center, May 17, 2006). A concern about unauthorized immigrants among a significant number of Americans (though not among the majority, according to the recent review by Pew) is that it is assumed they take jobs away from native- born workers and decrease wages. While the subject of the impact of immigrants on U.S. labor markets is a contentious one, most of the evidence suggests that immigrant workers complement rather than compete with the domestic labor force. A recent study by economist Giovanni Peri (March 2006) found in cities with more immigrants, the wages of US-born workers were higher by 1.1% during the 1990s than in cities with fewer immigrants. That is because foreign-born workers occupied jobs at the lowest and highest educational levels, where there are fewer U.S. workers. As U.S. workers increase their occupational level, they abandon low-paying, low skilled jobs for jobs that provide a greater reward both monetarily and psychically. However, for native-born workers without a high school diploma (a shrinking proportion of the native-born labor force), wages declined by about 1.2 percent. The study demonstrated that foreign-born workers do not substitute perfectly for, and therefore, do not compete with, most native-born workers. Further, this study shows how the presence of new workers stimulates the creation of new businesses. Passel (2006) finds that unauthorized workers are 24% of all workers employed in farming, 17% in cleaning, 14% in construction, and 12% in food preparation. About 30% of foreign born-workers are unauthorized, accounting for about 4.9% of the civilian labor force. Thirty-one percent of unauthorized workers are employed in service occupations, compared to 16% of native workers. Unauthorized workers were 26% of all insulation workers, 29% of all roofers and drywall installers, and 27% of all butchers and other food processing workers.

Meatpacking companies generally begin recruiting their labor force in Latino communities (Stull, 1990; Broadway, 1990; Naples, 2000; Johnson-Webb, 2002). In Iowa, despite its long meatpacking history, the reformulated and de-unionized plants sent recruiters to California and Texas. Once the migrant networks were established, formal recruiting activities gave way to the use of informal networks for replenishing the work force (Griffin and Kissam, 1995; Gouveia and Stull, 1995).

The first new plant workers were single males, as is the pattern in many places, with the meat packing jobs providing a rite of passage and the opportunity to send money home to Mexico (Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1994). Eager to save money, men without wives or families moved in, six and seven to a room. Local landlords found they could make more money by charging per person rather than per rental unit. Like other single men living in tight quarters, they entertained themselves by drinking, hanging out on the street, and driving their cars around town. The activities of these single men provided important sources of narratives that differentiated Pluralists from Legalists.

While some of the young men soon moved on to other towns or back to Mexico, many soon brought their families. Wives and children came, along with brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers. This pattern is typical of Mexican migration to the U.S. (Mullan, 1988, 1989). The migrants viewed Marshalltown as a safe place, despite a number of INS raids in the late 1990s.

The new family members who came were thrifty. Instead of sending their earnings back to Mexico, they now saved and invested locally. For example, Diego, age 48, came to Marshalltown from Mexico in 1994, two years after his brother was drawn to Marshalltown when he learned that the meat packing plant was expanding. A year later Elena, Diego's wife, moved from Mexico to Marshalltown and got a job at the meatpacking plant. They earned $6.00 an hour. By living frugally, they saved enough from those wages to buy a house. Granted, the house was in the old part of town near the packing plant, which sometimes produced extremely offensive odors, but it was their house. They were able to buy it with a $1,200 down payment. Local bankers facilitated their qualifying for the first-time homeowners' program and mortgage plan.

They continued to pay the mortgage on the house and to save. By 1996, they owned a second home, where Elena and Diego's two sons, two daughters-in-law, and six of their 22 grandchildren live. Their sons work in the plant, while their daughters-in-law stay home with the children.

Many of the Mexican workers come from a single area in Michoacán and maintain ties there (Grey, 1999). They often return to Mexico, particularly in the first year of work and before more family members have joined them. When they go back to Mexico, they lose their jobs. If they come back to the plant, they must begin at the bottom again. Yet many go and come, despite the expense and difficulties (Grey, 1999; Lowell, 1992).
Latino family networks gradually became denser in Marshalltown. Mueller and Sofranko (1999) found this to be true in Latino populations in small towns in Illinois. Family ties are most critical to a sense of community and a sense of place for Latino residents. Massey, in a recent editorial, demonstrates how stricter border controls without concomitant steps toward legalization will in fact trap these workers inside the U.S.

President Bush has underlined the need to be both a welcoming nation AND a nation of laws (Ewing, 2005). Reconciliation between the two camps can lead to a positive and humane immigration reform. Both our economy and our consciences will be better off when over 12 million unauthorized individuals no longer live and work in fear and ambiguity. Legislation is needed to allow for a path towards citizenship.

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June 2006 Volume 12 Number 4

June 2006 Volume 12 Number 4