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‘Most of us have gone through this’: Yonkers workers show new migrants the ropes as day laborers
By
Karen Yi
Published Jan 23, 2024
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Photo by Karen Yi
By
Karen Yi
Published Jan 23, 2024
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Silvano Bautista said he started noticing new groups of workers at the day laborer stops in Yonkers last summer. Most of them were Venezuelan, he said, and staying at a nearby migrant hotel shelter.
Bautista, 45, gathers along the commercial corridor on Yonkers Avenue nearly every morning with a group of other longtime workers waiting for customers to hire them to paint, clean or do repair work for the day or week. When he saw the new arrivals joining their ranks, he said instead of asking them to stand elsewhere, he turned to help — offering advice on how to protect against wage theft and explaining the $16 hourly minimum wage.
“When I got to this country, I also suffered,” he said in Spanish, as he stood outside a hardware store. “I went through these circumstances that many immigrants who come here to the U.S. go through, who don’t have where to go or don’t have the right information to succeed.”
Like the day laborers in Yonkers, veteran immigrant workers are also finding ways to support the new migrant workforce amid the arrival of over 170,000 migrants in the last year-and-a-half. They warn migrants away from customers who are notorious for not paying and offer guidance on differing pay rates for masonry, painting or basic cleanup, reinforcing the minimum standards they’ve fought for within the informal industry.
And although federal, state and city officials have boosted efforts to help them obtain work permits, many migrants face monthslong backlogs in the immigration system, leaving them with little choice but to take "under the table" jobs like many others who arrived before them.
About 68,000 new arrivals remain in shelters in and around the city, including in Yonkers and White Plains.
And now Mayor Eric Adams' new policies restricting shelter stays are pressuring even more migrants to turn to the underground economy to eke out a living and exit the city's care, whether by cleaning houses, vending on the street or working construction.
“The informal economy has always been the source for immigrants that have come to this country,” said Hildalyn Colon Hernandez, deputy director of New Immigrant Community Empowerment, which advocates for immigrant worker safety. “It’s just a normal pathway because the country doesn't have a system to receive immigrant communities.”
At the Catholic Charities of New York’s Yonkers Day Laborer Center, day laborers give new arrivals haircuts, clothes and meals. Some have even taken in migrants who lack places to sleep.
At the Catholic Charities of New York’s Yonkers Day Laborer Center, longtime workers and new arrivals gather to host community events such as meals, clothing drives or art programs.
Photo by Karen Yi.
Gabriel Meza, a 23-year-old Venezuelan migrant, said he sometimes visits the day laborer stops in Yonkers from his hotel shelter in nearby White Plains, in hopes of obtaining a few hours of work. He said the older workers teach him where to stand, where he can stay warm and how to do certain jobs.
“I ask them, ‘do you know how to do this?’” Meza said in Spanish. But sometimes drive-by customers are looking for more experienced hands and don’t want to hire a new worker.
“Sometimes I work a day but don’t work the next three days, it’s tough,” he said.
Veteran immigrant workers say they've been through exactly the same things the new arrivals are experiencing, whether it's feeling desperate for work but unsure of how to find it, not having a winter coat, or being vulnerable to abuse.
“Most of us have gone through this,” said Demetrio Cruz, who has worked as a day laborer for 10 years. “If someone doesn’t know, I at least try to help him and teach him a little of what I know.”
New arrivals say they’re finding jobs wherever they can. City officials say they’ve helped submit nearly 11,000 work authorization applications, 8,500 asylum applications and 7,500 temporary protected status applications to the federal government through its help centers, according to the Adams administration. Federal officials said they’ve granted 6,000 work permits through their own efforts in the city and added that they've reduced wait times for some work authorization applications from 90 to 30 days.
Lucia Goyen, day laborers program director at Catholic Charities of New York, said there’s been some tension among the new arrivals and older workers, especially when the new arrivals take lower wages that could undercut the entire workforce.
“The people who have been here a while see the desperation of, 'oh I remember being here 20 years ago not knowing anyone having like $2 in my pocket and starting from scratch,'” she said. “They came to more of a mutual understanding of, ‘we know, we've been there, so let's help each other out for the good of everybody.’”
Tagged
Asylum Seekers
westchester
economy
Politics
eric adams
Karen Yi
Karen Yi covers homelessness and poverty. She joined the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom in 2020. Before that, Karen covered Newark for the Star-Ledger and spent almost a decade working for newspapers in New Jersey and Florida. She grew up in Miami and has a dog named Cashew. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 917-589-1460.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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