Both of these article addressed the differences between the labor patterns of native-born employees and immigrant employees in New York City. The article, “Why New Immigrants Organize,” presented a view that went against my previous understanding about immigrants organizing to fight for better working conditions. Ness presented the view that immigrants are more likely to organize than workers who were born in this country. He gave examples, such as the East Nature grocery incident. Mexican workers had organized so affectively that the store was not allowed to stay open unless it bettered the working conditions and wages. This in turn, caused a whole wave of Mexican workers to organize, as they saw the impact these other workers had. This article talked about the fact that many of the recent immigrants are illegal. Based on our past readings, I was under the impression that illegal immigrants were very weary about complaining over conditions. For example, in the article about immigrant activism and migrant civil society, migrant civil society had to step in, in order for the day laborers to have a voice. It was not the migrant workers organizing themselves because they feared being deported.

One answer the Ness piece has about the reason immigrants are more likely to organize is that they are more likely to live in concentrated ethnic enclaves. Therefore, after they return home from work, they socialize with people who are working jobs in similar conditions and they discuss their hardships, so the workers get the sense that they are not being treated right. On the other hand, people who aren’t immigrants may not be coming home to this community. Also, immigrants in general work longer hours than non-immigrants and therefore are spending more time with their fellow workers, so there is a greater chance of organizing.

I was wondering if the fact that the types of jobs differ for immigrants and native-born people affects the frequency of organizing. In the Hum, article it was established that there is clear divide between the types of jobs immigrant Latinos and Blacks and their non-immigrant counterparts work. In the private sector, a larger percentage of immigrant Latinos work construction, production, and building jobs, while native born Latinos are more likely to work office, administration, and sales jobs. Maybe the jobs the immigrants have just happen to be jobs where people are exploited more, not even due to the fact that it is immigrants working the jobs. On the other hand, maybe it is that employers are more likely to exploit immigrants due to the not true(according to Ness) conception that they will be passive. The exploitation caused by the incorrect assumption leads immigrants to organize.