Ethic enclaves are known as places where immigrants of the same ethnic background can settle down in without having to assimilate and acquire American skills. These places allow immigrants to thrive in an area of a culture they are familiar with. However, along this sense of familiarity, ethnic enclaves are also known as a place of economic activity and business. Most times immigrants turn to ethnic enclaves as a source of income because their inability to speak English does not hinder them from finding a job and their trust is targeted towards people with a common ethnic background. The wages they are paid were not fair, the hours they worked were very long, and the conditions they worked in were unhealthy. But, according to Portes and Bach in Kenneth J. Guest’s excerpt, “despite low wages in the enclave, workers stay in subordinate jobs in order to take advantage of ‘paths of mobility unavailable on the outside.'”
Guest defines the economic activity in an ethnic enclave as the combination between immigrants with entrepreneurial skills who wish to have some mobility in the American economy and the businesses with diverse job opportunities that offer the workers self-employment. Unfortunately, this relationship may involve exploitative labor. In “Immigrant Enterprise,” Waldinger states that the immigrant businesses in ethnic enclaves emerge because of a few factors: 1) low economies of scale, 2) stability and uncertainty (immigrant business produces goods whose demand may be unstable, or they focus on trends), 3)small markets (which supplies the need for NYC’s different market segments). By considering these definitions, we can say that the economic activity here remains small and exploitative.
The description of Willets Points in Queens seems to fit the idea of the economic activity in an ethnic enclave. The appearance of it, compared to the renovated Mets stadium, is unappealing and dirty. It is an area that can be compared to an ethnic enclave. According to Santos, mostly poor, Latinos live in the area. The people there are mostly auto shop workers who experience harsh conditions, like no heat and no sanitary toilets, long working hours, and low wages. Because of this, I believe that the city government does have some responsibility to protect these unglamorous occupations that provide immigrants with low-wage entry work.
Despite its appearance, Willets Point is an area where 255 business operate and over a thousand people are employed. Replacing it with a high-end developmental project with luxury hotels and malls seems heartless when keeping in mind of the people, especially owners of small businesses, who will be pushed out with no where to go. The project promises to create jobs in the new renovated area and aims to provide a job training program, but the immigrants working now may not even have the time to take advantage of the program. The city also cannot promise that all the auto shops can be relocated. To the workers at Willets Points, Bloomberg’s plan could’ve easily looked like a gesture of tossing them out. Although improving the urban space may be profitable and beneficial to residents of the community and the city, I believe that some aspects project should have addressed the low-wage workers in a better manner. Perhaps a sewage system and water pipes could have been installed so that the conditions of the place were more sanitary for the workers, or the repair shops could have undergone a roof fix. Maybe the training program offered could be rescheduled at times convenient for the workers who are eager to participate in it, or a sector of the jobs being created for these new hotels and malls could have been saved for the immigrants who were left jobless. This is complicated situation, but I believe that there should have been a better compromise between these workers and the government so that the workers were not displaced without a voice.
