And, Bush wants to bring in more "guest" labor....
Lindy
There is a sense of dependable sameness in the day-to-day life of some
working-class suburbs. One house resembles the next. Churches fill and
empty on schedule on Sundays. Hangouts hum with activity in the
evenings.
Neighbors know one another, sometimes for generations. In recent years,
however, some of these communities have found their routines disrupted
by waves of undocumented immigrants who have bypassed the cities as they
look for work.
That has been the story in Farmingville, a Suffolk County community in
the middle of Long Island, which, as it happens, is a perfect encampment
for undocumented immigrants looking for day jobs in landscaping and
masonry, or other difficult manual labor that teenagers and other
residents don't want to do themselves. In the 1990's, more than 1,500
such immigrants — most of them Mexican — arrived in Farmingville,
where the population was 15,000.
What began as a curiosity turned into an annoyance as workers gathered
daily along roads to be picked up by contractors. Residents began to
complain that homes in their midst had effectively been turned into
dormitories by dozens of workers who could not otherwise afford housing.
After two Mexican workers were severely beaten by two young white men in
the summer of 2000, two filmmakers, Carlos Sandoval and Catherine
Tambini, turned on their cameras.
Their documentary, "Farmingville," recently won a special jury prize at
the Sundance Film Festival and will be shown on PBS stations in June. It
has already made an impact on the island and on its namesake town in
particular. Paul Tonna, a county legislator who displays a sensitivity
to immigrant issues in the film, says the film has forced a kind of
community introspection. Brian Foley, a legislator who tried to
establish an off-the-street hiring site for the workers, says that with
the notable exception of the firebombing of a Mexican family's home last
year, local reports of immigrant-related trouble have quieted, at least
for the moment.
Mr. Sandoval and Ms. Tambini say their goal was to produce an honest and
balanced piece by listening to all sides. When a local opponent of the
workers welcomes extremists from California and elsewhere, the ensuing
anti-immigrant rally is long on chest-pounding speeches that echo,
almost literally, before a largely empty hall. But quieter moments
resonate with humanity. The workers have an almost stoic sense of
purpose as they go about stomach-churning and dangerous jobs, including
cleaning a crawl space strewn with toxic trash. One tells of hearing a
small child he left behind in Mexico speak for the first time — by
telephone. Others try to collect from a cheating contractor. A resident
named Louise rejects being labeled a racist as she gives a heartfelt and
reasoned assessment of what she sees as a diminished quality of life
since the workers arrived. All of this is presented in vérité style,
unvarnished by little beyond the voices of the subjects.
A film cannot solve the problems of illegal immigration, nor does it try
to. But "Farmingville" is a primer for anyone — whether lawmaker or
citizen — who cares to better understand the usually unseen cost of
America's appetite for cheap labor.
'Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time
to pause and reflect."
Mark Twain
Jeanne Eagle
Trish
