To Be An American. Bill Ong Hing

Miami had received thousands of Cuban émigrés, making Miami especially prepared for the influx. Miami’s strong textile and clothing industries could absorb additional unskilled labor. And the lack of English-speaking ability did not pose a hindrance to entry into Miami’s job market.²⁹

       e. Chicago

      Chicago constantly attracts new immigrants. Immigrants first came from northern Europe, and then later from eastern and southern Europe. In recent years, approximately 60,000 new immigrants—half from Mexico—have settled in this metropolitan area each year. Now the area is quite diverse. In 1990, Chicago was 19 percent African American, 10.9 percent Latino, and 3.1 percent Asian American.³⁰

      In general, studies of immigrants in Chicago have not found a negative labor market impact on native workers. Even a close look at undocumented workers did not disclose a subclass of exploited, nonunion workers.³¹ In an important study of the poverty and employment rates of African Americans, Mexicans, and Puerto Ricans in Chicago, Robert Aponte sheds light on the effect of immigrants. Assuming that most of the Mexicans were immigrants, he sought explanations for why they had lower poverty rates than Puerto Ricans and African Americans, and better employment rates than those groups as well as whites. Essentially he found that this success was achieved despite conventional predictors of poverty and unemployment (the fact that Mexicans were the group with the least competitive human capital attributes—i.e., education, English proficiency, skills, work experience—and the most limited access to automobiles for commuting), suggesting that there was little negative immigrant impact on the citizen groups.

      In terms of whether groups were mired in what Aponte called “secondary jobs” involving low wages, low skill requirements, and poor working conditions, he found that about half of the African Americans surveyed held secondary “black” jobs, and the same proportion of Mexicans had secondary “Mexican” jobs. This was consistent with one of the theoretical assumptions of segmentation theory, namely, that workers are allocated across relatively homogeneous segments of the labor market based on race, ethnicity, or gender. However, unlike African Americans, Mexicans were not “mired in prototypically ‘secondary’ jobs” especially when those without high school diplomas were compared. Median wages for Mexicans were about the same as for Puerto Ricans, but higher than for African Americans, contradicting the theory that Mexicans are favored by employers for their exploitable nature.

      In order to get a better sense of his findings, Aponte turned to other research for possible explanations. In a large survey of Chicago employers, “discriminatory predispositions” were examined, and immigrant workers—be they Mexican, Asian, or eastern European—were consistently praised and preferred. Employers’ disinclination for African American workers was conspicuous. Employers were looking for employees with a “good work ethic.” But consistent with the theoretical understandings of why immigrants are net contributors, Aponte suggests that immigrants will “tolerate harsher conditions, lower pay, [and] few upward trajectories” because opportunities in the United States are better than those in Third World sending countries. In his view (consistent with Piore’s), this attitude is even more likely to be held by undocumented aliens and others who view their stay in the United States as short term.³² These issues are addressed more fully in chapter 7.

       f. Texas

      Several labor market studies were conducted in Texas in the late 1970s that continue to have relevance today. Those focusing on Mexican migration consistently find new Mexican immigrants in unskilled jobs, and, as in Los Angeles, the group with which they compete most directly is earlier Mexican immigrants.

      An examination of a large sampling of native and immigrant workers in San Antonio revealed that undocumented aliens had little impact on native wages. About 70 percent of the undocumented workers were laborers or service workers whose jobs were subject to rapid turnover. While all workers of color in San Antonio generally had low wages, the problem was more the product of a lack of unions and the magnitude of low-skilled work, than the presence of undocumented immigrants.³³