Janitors, street vendors, and activists : the lives of Mexican immigrants in Silicon Valley

256 Pages·2006·1.01 MB·English

by  Christian Zlolniski

Janitors, Street Vendors,
and Activists
The Lives of Mexican Immigrants
in Silicon Valley
Christian Zlolniski
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Berkeley / Los Angeles / London
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Parts of chapter 2 originally appeared in a different form in “Labor Control
and Resistance of Mexican Immigrant Janitors in Silicon Valley,” Human
Organization 62, no. 1 (2003), and in “Unskilled Immigrants in High-
Tech Companies: The Case of Mexican Janitors in Silicon Valley,” in The
International Migration of the Highly Skilled, ed. Wayne Cornelius,
Thomas J. Espenshade, and Idean Salehyan (San Diego: Center for
Comparative Immigration Studies, University of California, San Diego,
2001). Some of the material presented in chapter 3 initially appeared in
different form in “The Informal Economy in an Advanced Industrialized
Society: Mexican Immigrant Labor in Silicon Valley,” Yale Law Journal
103, no. 8 (1994), reprinted by permission of The Yale Law Journal
Company and William S. Hein Company from The Yale Law Journal,
vol. 103, pages 2305–2335.
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 2006 by The Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Zlolniski, Christian.
Janitors, street vendors, and activists : the lives of Mexican immigrants in
Silicon Valley / Christian Zlolniski.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 0-520-24641-1 (cloth : alk. paper) — isbn 0-520-24643-8 (pbk. :
alk. paper)
1. Mexicans—Employment—California—Santa Clara County—Santa Clara
Valley. 2. Alien labor, Mexican—California—Santa Clara County—Santa
Clara Valley. 3. Unskilled labor—California—Santa Clara County—Santa
Clara Valley. I. Title.
hd8081.m6z556 2006
331.6′272079473—dc22 2005008439
Manufactured in the United States of America
15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book is printed on New Leaf EcoBook 60, containing 60% post-
consumer waste, processed chlorine free; 30% de-inked recycled fiber,
elemental chlorine free; and 10% fsc-certified virgin fiber, totally chlorine
free. EcoBook 60 is acid-free and meets the minimum requirements of
ansi/astm d5634–01 (Permanence of Paper).
Contents
List of Illustrations and Tables ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
1. Mexican Immigrants in Silicon Valley 20
2. The Subcontracting of Mexican Janitors in the
High-Tech Industry 46
3. Working in the Informal Economy 73
4. Mexican Families in Santech 106
5. Community Politics in the Barrio 145
Conclusion: Subproletarians in a Postindustrial Economy 173
Epilogue: After the Dot-Com Demise 185
Notes 211
References 225
Index 239
Illustrations and Tables
Figures
1. Santech barrio 33
2. Typical apartment in Santech 34
3. A decaying apartment building in Santech, 1993 36
4. Santech residents socializing 42
5. A Justice for Janitors march against a Silicon Valley cleaning
contractor 61
6. A dentist’s chair in Gustavo’s informal dental clinic 97
7. Margarita’s extended family 123
8. Carmen’s household 134
9. Carmen poses in her shared room 136
10. Carmen cleaning an office building 138
11. Santech activists throw a children’s birthday party 157
12. A meeting of People Acting in Community Together 162
Map
San Jose and vicinity 23
ix
Tables
1. Population in Santa Clara County and the city of San Jose,
1900–2000 24
2. Latino population in San Jose, 1960–2000 27
Acknowledgments
It is a great pleasure to thank all the people who helped me in the process
of completing the project on which this book is based. First, I am deeply
thankful to the dozens of Mexican workers and families who opened
their homes and shared their lives, troubles, and triumphs with me in San
Jose. Santiago generously offered me his insights on his life and experi-
ence as a janitor in Silicon Valley, and I truly enjoyed his wit and sense of
humor. Anselmo, Jose, and Miguel always found the time to talk to me
and engage in long conversations despite their tight schedules and de-
manding night-shift jobs. Martha and Agustín shared their home and
meals with me on many occasions, introduced me to many neighbors in
Santech, and invited me to numerous community events in the barrio
and elsewhere. Doña Teresa and Amparo warmly received me at their
homes, offered me their hospitability, and shared their lives with me.
After their arrival in San Jose, Silvia and Fernando helped me to learn
firsthand about their experience of adjusting to the life of newcomers in
the United States. Joel’s family made me feel at home every time I vis-
ited them, and I have fond memories of the many evenings I spent with
them. Quina, Edelmira, Dolores and Zeferino, Xotchil, Alfredo, and
many other former residents of Santech, whose names cannot all be listed
here, offered their hospitability during my stay in San Jose. Doing field-
work among them was a source of inspiration and joy, and I treasure the
friendship that has grown with many of them throughout the years. I also
thank Salvador Bustamante, Guillermo Barroso, and the organizers of
Local 1877 for their time and generosity, as well as Corazón Tomalinas,
the group People Acting in Community Together, and its community
xi
xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
organizers in Santech. I hope I have conveyed their views and actions
fairly. In San Jose, Jesús Martínez Saldaña offered me his guidance, gen-
erosity, and friendship, introduced me to important leaders in the Latino
community, and gracefully shared his deep knowledge about Mexican
immigrants in Silicon Valley. My friends Ervin Barrios and Omar Nuñez
were a source of intellectual stimulus, and together we shared many
laughs. Rafael Morales gave me the opportunity to work as a volunteer
in his program, which I truly enjoyed. During fieldwork, I benefited
from stimulating intellectual exchange with Daniel Dohan and Mary
Pearman. After I left the field, Daniel continued his encouragement of
my book project, while his own book comparing poverty among Mexi-
can immigrants in San Jose and Mexican Americans in Los Angeles was
an inspiration and model for a superb ethnography.
Several institutions have helped support my research financially. I
thank UC Mexus and the California Policy Seminar for providing finan-
cial support for fieldwork in the initial phase. A Visiting Research Fel-
lowship at the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at the University of Cal-
ifornia, San Diego, allowed me to write up the results of the initial phase
of the study and, ever since, has always been supportive of me as a for-
mer fellow. El Colegio de la Frontera Norte (Colef) in Tijuana, where I
worked for several years, allowed me to finish my dissertation with a
lightened teaching load. While at Colef, I learned much from my col-
leagues about immigration and border issues. I also enjoyed the intel-
lectual support and friendship of my fellow members of the Grupo de
Tesis, Patricia Fernández de Castro, Alfredo Hualde, and Marie Laure
Coubes, as well as Carmen Martinez and many other colleagues and
friends.
This book is the product of a long process that started with my doc-
toral dissertation in the Department of Anthropology at the University
of California, Santa Barbara. I am particularly grateful to the members
of my dissertation committee for their support. Juan Vicente Palerm,
chair of my committee, provided unconditional and consistent support
throughout the years in more forms that I could enumerate here, and to
this day has always been a model of commitment, honesty, and dedica-
tion both to the study of Mexican immigrants and to his students. Sandy
Robertson has been consistently sympathetic toward my research inter-
ests since my early years in graduate school. I enjoyed his professional-
ism and serious scholarship and learned a great deal from his vast knowl-
edge of the household from a cross-cultural and historical comparative
perspective. Harvey Molotch enthusiastically endorsed my research, and
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xiii
his contribution concerning the impact of economic restructuring on
urban issues helped shape my project, for which I am sincerely thankful.
Mattison Mines was a cheerful supporter while I was working on the dis-
sertation and always available to talk to me.
In the process of writing this book, I have received help from numer-
ous people. My dear friend and colleague Annegret Staiger offered
invaluable critical comments on numerous drafts of the manuscript. She
was always there when I needed her, and her keen observations and intel-
lectual and emotional support were critical to carry me through the end
of this project. Roberto Treviño, a dear colleague and friend at the Cen-
ter for Mexican American Studies at the University of Texas at Arling-
ton, read, commented on, and patiently edited many chapters of this
manuscript. His mentorship, loyal friendship, and support were invalu-
able in completing this book. I thank Manuel García y Griego and the
members of the Interdisciplinary Faculty Seminar at the Center for Mex-
ican American Studies for reading and commenting on different chap-
ters of the book. My colleagues in the anthropology program generously
allowed me to concentrate on my work by reducing my service load. My
gratitude goes as well to Paul Durrenberger, Josiah Heyman, David Grif-
fith, and James McDonald for their valuable comments on previous ver-
sions of chapter 3. In different ways, they represent a source of inspira-
tion for the study of class, labor unions, economic restructuring, and
poverty, as well as the control and stigmatization of immigrants by the
state, all of which helped me to analyze and make sense of the lives of
low-paid Mexican immigrants in Silicon Valley. Finally, I thank the
anonymous readers of University of California Press for their construc-
tive insights and suggestions. Needless to say the views presented in this
book are my sole responsibility.
Last but not least, I am deeply indebted to my wife, Reina, without
whose love and support I could not have completed this project. Her
encouragement, patience, and willingness to put up with long days and
weekends of work were central for the completion of the book and can-
not be fully acknowledged here. Pilar Monreal, Juan Carlos Gimeno, and
Ubaldo Martínez Veiga at the Departamento de Sociología y Antro-
pología in the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain, have been a
constant source of cheer since I began this study. Finally, I want to
express my deep gratitude to my family in Spain for their unconditional
love.
Introduction
In the midst of East San Jose, which contains the largest concentration
of Latinos in the Santa Clara Valley of Northern California, lies Santech,
my fictitious name for a poor urban community made up of barrack-like
apartment buildings inhabited mostly by Mexican immigrants. The bar-
rio consists of six blocks in a distinct, self-contained area surrounded by
a larger neighborhood made up of modest single-family homes. The
residents named the barrio after a public elementary school that most
of their children attend. Next to the apartment buildings, and divided
from them by a concrete wall, is a housing project for low-income Mex-
ican American, Vietnamese, and other immigrants, surrounded by sev-
eral well-kept grassy playgrounds.
When I first visited Santech, I was shocked by the disrepair of the
neighborhood and its buildings: five of the barrio’s blocks were lined
with identical, blighted two-story buildings, some of which had been
condemned by the local housing authorities. Everywhere were broken
windows, walls with graying paint, damaged roofs, stairs with missing
steps, and decks that looked as if they were going to collapse. On the
ledges above the windows were cans, piles of scrap metal, bottles and
glass, broken chairs, cardboard boxes, and other old items kept by the
neighbors living upstairs. The front and back yards of the buildings,
which looked as if they had been lawns at some point, were covered only
by bare, hardened soil. The streets and parking lots were full of pot-
holes, and behind the buildings the garbage containers were overflow-
ing with rotting trash; abandoned refrigerators, mattresses, stoves, and
ripped-up furniture lay piled next to them.
1
2 INTRODUCTION
What impressed me the most on my first visits to this barrio was the
striking contrast between the dilapidated landscape and its lively street
life: dozens of children, some barely able to walk, were playing barefoot
on the sidewalks and in the courtyards; groups of men were chatting out-
side their apartments; women were selling fruit, jewelry, and homemade
confections door-to-door; vendors with pushcarts selling Popsicle-style
frozen fruit pops were walking up and down the streets in search of
clients; young men and women in work uniforms were going to or com-
ing from work; and old men were pulling cans and glass bottles from the
garbage containers for recycling. In the evenings, as I walked down
the blocks, a blend of food aromas escaped from the apartments, and the
loud sound of TVs, CD players, and radios invaded the streets. The excit-
ing and busy life in the streets of this barrio contrasted sharply with the
quiet pace of life I had observed in most residential neighborhoods of
San Jose.
I initially thought that Santech might be an anomaly, a poor barrio
in a region otherwise characterized by affluent suburban communities
and a buoyant economy. After all, Silicon Valley is known internation-
ally as the capital of the high-tech industry and considered an economic
model that other regions should emulate. But I discovered that Santech
was not an isolated case: scattered throughout the numerous metropol-
itan Latino neighborhoods in San Jose, and usually hidden behind areas
of single-family homes, were several neighborhoods with similarly
blighted barrack-like apartment complexes inhabited by Mexican immi-
grants. I also realized that the existence of these immigrant enclaves was
not readily apparent to the typical Silicon Valley inhabitant. Many peo-
ple who live in this region have never seen or heard about these barrios,
and if they have it is usually through the dramatic stories about poverty,
crime, or the activities of drug dealers and street gangs that occasionally
have appeared in the local media.
A number of initial questions puzzled me: Why were these poor
immigrant neighborhoods growing in a region like Silicon Valley, well
known for its prosperity? Who were the people living in these neigh-
borhoods, and how did they make a living in the midst of one of the
most expensive regions in the United States? What attracted them to
this particular region? What living arrangements did they form in their
barrios? And what did Silicon Valley’s economic success mean for the
future of the low-income immigrants who lived in neighborhoods such
as Santech?