Chapter Four (Labor and Legality: An Ethnography of a Mexican Immigrant Network [Gomberg-Muñoz]): Múy Unidos: Friends, Networks, and Households

Alejandro

*Labor and Legality: An Ethnography of a Mexican Immigrant Network [Gomberg-Muñoz]*...] *Chapter Four: Múy Unidos: Friends, Networks, and Households* *Having Friends Makes Things Easier: _____*... In spite of physical separation from place of origin and, often, family and friends, many undocumented people are deeply embedded in transnational social networks that provide them with crucial material and emotional support.

Getting Paid and Managing Money

*Labor and Legality: An Ethnography of a Mexican Immigrant Network [Gomberg-Muñoz]*...] *Chapter Four: Múy Unidos: Friends, Networks, and Households*... *_____* (Getting Paid and Managing Money) About half of the busboys' income is earned as cash tips. The distribution and allocation of tip income has its own set of rules, and being a tipped employee has important implications... On Friday and Saturday nights, the busboys generally earn between one hundred and one hundred and seventy dollars each in tips... It used to be common practice for servers to "side tip" busboys, or give a little extra cash to a particular busboy who did an exceptional job... Official policy at II Vino now discourages side tipping since all of the busboys want to work with the servers who are more prone to side tip, but it still happens occasionally, particularly for banquet parties. The owners also occasionally give a bonus side tip to a favorite busboy, although this is more rare... All of the busboys work on Friday and Saturday nights, and most work at least two other nights per week... The Lions earn an hourly wage that is at or just over the regular minimum wage and receive a biweekly check from the payroll department for their first forty hours of work; they pay taxes on that income... Being tipped employees has important implications both for the busboys' approach to work and for their attitudes about exploitation... Many undocumented workers bolster their regular incomes with informal economic practices such as side jobs and bulk recycling... Almost all of the Lions regularly accept side jobs or one-time jobs for which they are paid cash... Undocumented Mexican immigrants also find ways to stretch their dollars... Although the Lions are well paid relative to many other undocumented workers, even an annual income near the US national average does not go very far.

Money and Respect: Assessing Jobs and Bosses

*Labor and Legality: An Ethnography of a Mexican Immigrant Network [Gomberg-Muñoz]*...] *Chapter Four: Múy Unidos: Friends, Networks, and Households*... *_____* (Money and Respect: Assessing Jobs and Bosses) Social networks not only provide information about immediate opportunities but also supply a collective pool of information and experience which network members draw on to make decisions about work and living situations... The Lions are quite savvy about constraints on their job opportunities, and they assess jobs as desirable or not relative to their other options... Undocumented Mexican workers are aware not only of what kinds of jobs are accessible but of which companies hire undocumented workers... The second most important concern when evaluating the desirability of a job is pay... In restaurants, Mexican immigrant workers often start out in the lowest-paid position of dishwasher, then work their way up to line cook, salad preparation, or busboy. The possibility of "moving up," or being rewarded for work with better opportunities, is an important consideration when evaluating a job... Another important consideration when evaluating a job is respect... Since undocumented workers are especially vulnerable to exploitation and abusive treatment, the Lions value a job in which their work is appreciated and they are treated well by management and co-workers... Autonomy is another important characteristic of a good job. The Lions explain that autonomy and trust go hand in hand and often must be earned over time... The social atmosphere and relatively high pay at II Vino also make it an attractive place to work... Job insecurity is intensified by the lack of benefits and pensions. This is a drawback that many restaurant workers share, not just the Mexican immigrant employees... Thus, even though the Lions cite health insurance as a job characteristic that is important to them, it remains out of reach for all but a few.

Utilizing a Social Network: Finding Work

*Labor and Legality: An Ethnography of a Mexican Immigrant Network [Gomberg-Muñoz]*...] *Chapter Four: Múy Unidos: Friends, Networks, and Households*... *_____* (Utilizing a Social Network: Finding Work) The social circumscription of undocumented workers results in an increased reliance on fellow undocumented people for aid and assistance... Undocumented immigrants will often use their social networks to get a lead on an available job before they even leave Mexico... This arrangement has advantages for both the workers and the management. For undocumented workers, who often count on each other to share living expenses and transportation and who may have invested in the new immigrant's passage, securing income for a new arrival makes good financial sense... For the management, letting workers take charge of the hiring process cuts down on the investment required to find a suitable new employee... Many US employers have become quite adept at tapping into undocumented social networks to recruit new workers.

Utilizing a Social Network: Households

*Labor and Legality: An Ethnography of a Mexican Immigrant Network [Gomberg-Muñoz]*...] *Chapter Four: Múy Unidos: Friends, Networks, and Households*... *_____* (Utilizing a Social Network: Households) Mexican immigrant households often consist of multiple adult income earners who are not all members of the same immediate family... This section examines the intra[-]household strategies that make these extended household arrangements work, including how chores and living expenses are distributed and how workers deal with conflict in households composed of multiple adult men. The Lions' households are at once economic units in which the costs and duties of daily living are shared among household members and social spaces in which housemates rely on each other for friendly interaction and emotional support... These extended living arrangements have both advantages and disadvantages. They provide advantages in that they allow the Lions to disperse financial insecurity and household responsibilities, and, because they gather together friends from "back home," they provide emotional security and comfort for men who are often separated from their families. But living as an adult man with other adult men in crowded conditions comes with challenges as well, including lack of privacy, messiness, noise, and conflict. The Lions have multiple, well-developed mechanisms for dealing with these challenges and maximizing the potential benefits of their rather large households Nearly twenty years after Alejandro arrived in Chicago alone, he once again lives with family... The decor is very "bachelor"—the living room is dominated by an enormous blue sectional sofa and a television... Like all of the other Lions' households, this house is neat... The men tell me that they share the household chores, which are completed on a daily basis, and conform to the chore schedule that is posted on the refrigerator door. They also share the household expenses... The brothers and Luis have lived together (on and off) for several years, and they get along well. Luis says that having a schedule of chores helps suppress conflict because every roommate knows what is expected of him... Luis also says that it's important to have a laid-back attitude regarding noise and company. When fights do occur, they can often be attributed to someone having had too much to drink. The conflicting parties then avoid each other for a day or two until the hard feelings wear away. Leonardo and Roberto share a two-bedroom apartment with two other men—Leonardo's older brother Juan, who also worked at II Vino, and Gus, a busboy at another nearby restaurant; all four of the roommates are from León... This apartment is rather spare on furnishings, with only a small sofa,coffee table, and television in the common living area... Like Alejandro and Alberto's house, this apartment is remarkably clean considering that four single men share it... Household expenses are divided equally among the four roommates... Roberto and Leonardo have lived together for nearly four years, while Gus and Juan are more recent arrivals... Even those households that are consistently made up of Mexican immigrants change composition over the years as workers leave for and arrive from Mexico, get married, or go off in search of better opportunity... René is the only Lion who owns his own house... This house is the social center for the Lions... There is a family atmosphere here that provides comfort to the workers... Chuy lives in a modest apartment on the second floor of the house. He is the only Lion who lives by himself, a privilege for which he pays two hundred and fifty dollars a month in rent... Lalo, Omar, and Manuel live with in-law relatives... Manuel lives with his wife Liliana, their two sons, her parents, and her three sisters in a two-story house in suburban Chicago. This living situation is very difficult for Manuel and Liliana... He feels like he's lost his privacy and independence. Manuel's goal is to move his family into their own apartment, but recently his employment has been erratic... For all of the Lions, transnational work life is made bearable by the love and support of their family and friends. For most of these men, there will be a permanent emotional connection to both Mexico and the United States as they will always have family in both places. Without a major overhaul of immigration policy, few of the Lions will be able to travel between the United States and Mexico with any frequency. Instead, they will continue to cultivate co-immigrant communities and households in the United States that provide them with vital material and non-material resources.