A crowd gathered in a leading black church to dispel a social doctrine: that the immigration issue must divide the Latino and African-American communities.
The 40 people in the Beulah Heights Church on Orchard Street on Tuesday night participated in an interactive lecture by Dr. Kenneth Brown (pictured), a diversity training consultant based in Maryland. The event, entitled “Crabs In A Basket,” was designed to question the commonly held notion that immigrants are taking jobs away from Americans, particularly black Americans.
The issue has had partiular resonance in New Haven, where immigrant-friendly policies over the past two years have led a small group of local African-Americans to advance that notion in the black community with the help of a white suburban group called the Community Watchdog Project.
The thesis of Brown’s presentation was that the concept of race has been used throughout American history by those in power to pit immigrants against each other and against blacks, for the purposes of continued economic exploitation.
Murmurs of agreement and calls of “Amen” arose from the audience as Brown unpacked his topic, drawing those in attendance into an animated and wide-ranging discussion that lasted over two hours.
The halleleujah chorus wasn’t unanimous. Alan Felder, a local anti-illegal-immigrant activist and member of the Community Watchdog Project, acted as a foil for the discussion. He argued that undocumented immigrants are contributing to the marginalization of African-Americans by illegally taking jobs and working for low wages. He failed to win many converts at the event. But he did offer a vocal counterpoint to the main speakers, and added an element of debate to the evening.
Brown’s speaking engagement was arranged by his son Kenneth Brown Jr., a Chicago- based activist who has been in New Haven since last fall working on the issue of immigration and anti-immigration “nativism.” Brown Jr. said that he was drawn to New Haven because of the city’s bold ID card plan and because of the work of the Community Watchdog Project. New Haven is only one of a few cities with a standing order forbidding police from inquiring into people’s immigration status in most instances.
Fighting Over Crumbs
Every successive immigrant group coming to America has faced racism and exploitation, Dr. Brown said. Irish, Italian, and Jewish immigrants were not initially considered to be “white” when they arrived in the U.S. These groups faced harassment and discrimination for sometimes several generations before they were accepted and “became” white and join those in power, Brown said. This fact, Brown argued, shows just how fluid the notion of race is.
Because of the color of their skin and the legacy of slavery, blacks in America have remained at the most disenfranchised end of the racial spectrum in the United States. American capitalists, said Brown, have exploited this situation to pit immigrants against blacks in the contest for jobs, respect, and power. Among many examples, Brown mentioned Henry Ford, who he said brought blacks from the South to work in his auto plants when his Irish workers went on strike, thus maintaining low wages for all his workers.
The way to counteract this mutual exploitation, Brown explained, is for oppressed groups to work together. For instance, under Henry Ford, “the strength of the United Auto Workers was inversely proportional to its own racist attitudes.” That is, as soon as the union let black workers in, “Henry Ford lost his juice.”
Too often, Brown said, instead of joining with immigrants to fight for their common interests, disadvantaged groups point fingers, accusing immigrants of taking all the jobs. When this happens, the root causes of the problem are left unexplored.
“Instead of asking why they’re coming here, or asking why Latin America is in the economic condition it’s in… instead of having those conversations, we’re talking about undocumented immigrants taking our jobs.” Brown said.
“Are immigrants really taking your jobs in New Haven?” Brown asked the audience.
“I say yes,” said Alan Felder (pictured), a plumber. Asked to give an example, Felder mentioned the construction of the Wintergreen apartments in Westville. “No one from the community was working on that project,” he said, explaining that it was all Latino immigrant workers.
“And prior to that, it was all blacks?” Brown asked.
“No that never happens,” Felder said.
“You saw mostly Latinos but you couldn’t tell me what it’d look like if those Latinos weren’t there?” Brown asked.
“They dominate every trade but the licensed trades,” Felder said.
“Who dominated before the immigrants did?” Brown asked.
“Before it was Canadians, doing all the sheetrocking,” Felder said.
“And before that?” Brown asked.
“I was too young,” Felder said, explaining that he couldn’t remember.
“Whites were there before,” said a woman.
“What kind of whites?” Felder asked.
“Italians…. Irish,” the group responded.
“The point is this,” Brown said, “it’s cyclical, everybody gets to be exploited, but everybody pays their dues and gets to be white, except blacks.”
Paying dues means being exploited, Brown explained. For immigrants, it means working long hours in low-paying jobs, or paying into social security without receiving the benefits of the system.
Bishop Theodore Brooks, the pastor of Beulah Heights church, recalled hiring a building contractor who employed a crew of Brazilian immigrants who worked around the clock. “They were being exploited,” Brooks said.
This exploitation of immigrants will continue as long as African-Americans don’t work with immigrants to secure better working conditions for both groups, Brown argued. “As long as you don’t do that [they] can exploit all of you,” Brown said.
“It’s a crumbs-on-a-table kind of thing,” he went on. “There ought to be enough jobs for everyone.”
Who’s Not Hardworking?
Bringing the issue to a global level, Brown engaged in a dialogue with Mexican activist Marco Antonio Castillo (at left in photo). From central Mexico, Castillo is an organizer with Mexican immigrants in the U.S. and their families in south of the border.
“The roots of immigration are in the exploitation in my country,” Castillo said.
“Many of the [Mexican-American] people here in New Haven were harvesting their own corn 20 years ago,” Castillo continued. He said a post-NAFTA “invasion of American corn” into Mexico flooded the market and put Mexican farmers out of work, forcing them to emigrate to the U.S. to find work. As a result, Castillo said, many communities in Mexico are almost entirely without men of working age.
“These are men that left their families and came thousands of miles to work and send money home so their families can have a better life,” Brown said, praising such immigrants as “exceptional” and “hardworking” people.
“Can we have an honest dialogue?” asked Felder, who interpreted Brown’s remarks as comparative. “Are you saying that I’m not hardworking? That’s what it sounds like.”
“No, no, no,” Brown said. Studies have found that African-Americans have historically worked more for less pay than other groups, he said. “Nobody has worked harder than black people.” Immigrants work hard in the U.S. because their economic conditions force them to, Brown contended.
Come Together?
“New Haven, you have to come together. Black, white and brown.” Brown said in closing. “Work out an agenda and a set of priorities…. When the so-called powers that be see that you’re doing that, things will change.”
Brown’s sentiments were echoed by many at the meeting. Members of the audience spoke about misplaced blame put on the “exploited rather than on the exploiters,” creating a “race to the bottom” as different groups undercut other’s wages.
Alan Felder didn’t join the emerging consensus.
“I understand the point of coalition, but I don’t see blacks coming together,” he told the group. He said African-Americans needed to have solidarity within themselves before they could join with other groups.
After the lecture, Felder said that the discussion hadn’t changed his mind: “It will never change my thinking in terms of illegal immigration.” Where others at the meeting called for the reform of immigration laws, Felder advocated simply enforcing existing laws.
“I’m an advocate for blacks in New Haven,” Felder said. “We haven’t come together yet in the city of New Haven. So how is it possible” to join with immigrants?
Castillo said after the meeting that his organization has already begun to create connections with African-American activists, like Barbara Fair, who was also at the lecture.