Friday, July 30, 2010

Bacon: "This law is very unjust!" - The inside story

From: David Bacon

http://newamericamedia.org/2010/07/one-womans-story-this-law-is-very-unjust.php

"THIS LAW IS VERY UNJUST!"

By Teresa Mina, as told to David Bacon
New America Media, 7/24/10

Teresa Mina was a San Francisco janitor, member of Service Employees
Union Local 87, when she was fired because the company said she
didn't have legal immigration documents. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement told her employer to fire 463 workers because they lack
legal immigration status. She told her story to David Bacon the day
before she returned to Mexico.

I come from Tierra Blanca, a very poor town in Veracruz. After my
children's father abandoned us, I decided to come to the U.S.
There's just no money to survive. We couldn't continue to live that
way.

We all felt horrible when I decided to leave. My three kids, my mom,
and two sisters are still living at home in Veracruz. The only one
supporting them now is me.

My kids' suffering isn't so much about money. I've been able to send
enough to pay the bills. What they lack is love. They don't have a
father; they just have me. My mother cares for them, but it's not
the same. They always ask me to come back. They say maybe we'll be
poor, but we'll be together.

I haven't been able to go back to see them for six years, because I
don't have any papers to come back to the U.S. afterwards. To cross
now is very hard and expensive.

My first two years in San Francisco I cleaned houses. The work was
hard, and I was lonely. It's different here. Because I'm Latina and
I don't know English, if I go into a store, they watch me from head
to foot, like I'm a robber.

After two years, I got a job as a janitor, making $17.85 per hour.
Cleaning houses only paid $10. But then I was molested sexually.
Another worker exposed himself to me and my friend. When we went to
the company and filed a complaint, they took me off the job and kept
me out of work a month. They didn't pay me all that time.

That's when my problems started, because I called the union and asked
them to help me. After that, the company called me a problematic
person, because I wouldn't be quiet and I fought for my rights.
Sometimes they wouldn't give me any work.

When you work as a janitor you're mostly alone. You pick up trash,
clean up the kitchen and vacuum. These are simple things, and they
tire you out, but basically it's a good job. Lots of times we don't
take any breaks, though. To finish everything, sometimes we don't
even stop for lunch.

No one ever said anything to me about immigration for four years.
But then the company gave a letter to my coworkers, saying they
wouldn't be able to continue working because they had no papers.
About 40 people got them at first. Eventually I got a letter too.

The person from human relations said immigration had demanded the
papers for all the people working at the company. She said 300
people didn't have good papers. People whose papers were bad had a
month to give the company other documents. If the immigration
authorities said these were no good too, we'd be fired. She said the
immigration might come looking for us where we lived.

We had a meeting at the union about the letters. Some people in that
meeting had papers, and came to support those of us who didn't.
They said when they first came here they had to cross the border like
we did, in order to find work.

They complained that so many of us were being fired that the workload
increased for people who were left. The union got weaker too. We're
all paying $49 a month in union dues, and that adds up to alot.
We're paying that money so that the union will defend us if we get
fired like this. In that meeting we said we wanted equal rights. No
one should be fired unless the immigration arrests us. We don't want
the comapny to enforce immigration law. The comapny isn't the law.

The company gave me no work in December and January. I was
desperate. I had no money. I had to move in with someone else,
because I couldn't pay rent. I couldn't send money home to my
children.

I was so stressed I fell and broke my arm, and was out on disability.
Then I went back to work, and when I went to get my check, the woman
in the office wouldn't pay me until I showed them new immigration
papers. She gave me three days to bring then, and said if I didn't
I'd be fired. I asked her, "so you're the immigration?"

I felt really bad. I spent so many years killing myself in that job,
and I needed to keep it so I could send money home. But I couldn't
keep fighting. I didn't want my problems to get even bigger - I
could tell things would only get worse.

I went back after three days, and told the company I didn't have any
good papers. I asked for my pay for the hours I'd worked, and my
vacation. I told them I had a flight back to Mexico and needed my
check. They only paid me 60 hours, though they owed me 82. They
knew I was leaving and couldn't fight them over it. The union did
get me something. If I come back with papers within two years, I'll
get my job back.

This law is very unjust. We're doing jobs that are heavy and dirty.
We work day and night to help our children have a better life, or
just to eat. My work is the only support for my family. Now my
children won't have what they need.

Many people are frightened now. They don't want to complain or fight
about anything because they're afraid they might get fired. They
think if we keep fighting, the immigration will pick us up. They
have families here. What will happen to their children? Nobody
knows. They worry that what's happened to me might happen to them.

I can't afford to live here for months without working. I came to
this country to work for my children. But if this is what happens
because I've been fighting and struggling, I'd rather leave, and go
home and live with my children. In the end, they need me more.

So I guess I'll go back to Tierra Blanca. I'll work in the fields or
try selling food there. My family says the economic situation at
home is very hard. I'm not bringing much money home. But I like to
work, and I know I'll find a way.

For more articles and images, see http://dbacon.igc.org

See also Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and
Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press, 2008)
Recipient: C.L.R. James Award, best book of 2007-2008
http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=2002

See also the photodocumentary on indigenous migration to the US
Communities Without Borders (Cornell University/ILR Press, 2006)
http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=4575

See also The Children of NAFTA, Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border
(University of California, 2004)
http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9989.html
--
__________________________________

David Bacon, Photographs and Stories
http://dbacon.igc.org

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