Many Korean immigrants have recently found themselves in the Korean American Resource and Cultural Center taking classes in—what else?—Spanish. People like Sue Choe, who owns a laundromat in Koreatown, see many reasons to learn the language that many of her customers speak.
Aware of an ugly history between Korean-Americans and African-Americans–one that erupted into violence in some cities in the 1990s–Korean business owners are trying to soothe mutual suspicions with Spanish-speaking workers and customers. The effort is mostly born of an increasingly interdependent employer-employee relationship.
It is just one of the ways in which new waves of immigration and intermigration between neighborhoods is fast changing the city, mixing new combinations of ethnic groups together and forcing them to search for ways to coexist as so many previous generations of immigrants did.
Beginning a community dialogue is important, especially recalling the 1992 race riots in Los Angeles. It’s also important because Koreans and Hispanics don’t just live in the same communities, they work together too. Hispanics have become the primary labor pool for Korean business owners, and cultural differences have erupted in the workplace.
Latino workers, many earning less than the minimum wage, complain that their Korean bosses neglect to pay overtime and are often callous about days off or job-related injuries.
In turn Korean owners, at times unfamiliar with U.S. labor laws, see ingratitude and disloyalty in their employees’ complaints. They argue that their up-from-the-ground businesses are a team effort that also has the owners working long hours.
Disputes have hurt both sides. Learning to understand the cultures around you (and their languages) is a great start. Read the full Chicago Tribune article about this issue here.
Want to learn the languages spoken in your neighborhood? Visit MultilingualChicago.com to learn about language classes and workshops in your area!
A labor group surveyed restaurants in Chicago and found significant segregation between front-of-house workers (waiters, hosts) and back-of-house staff (busboys, dishwashers). The study “found that nearly 80 percent of whites work in the front, nearly two-thirds of Latinos in the back.”
To those of us who have worked in the restaurant business this doesn’t seem like news at all – the discrimination is all too prevalent. Common all over Chicago’s pubs and steakhouses, we see that “taking the order or seating the clients is the girl next door or a suave older man, most likely white, while a cadre of young Mexican men construct the meal behind the scenes.”
Taking the issue to task, the Restaurant Opportunities Center of Chicago teamed with the Working Hands Legal Clinic to file a federal lawsuit against one Andersonville eatery, claiming that the establishment mistreated its kitchen staff. McCormick and Schmicks’ chain just settled a $1.1 claim from black employees who said they weren’t considered for hosts and servers.
But in the restaurants’ defense, aren’t they hiring based on a special skill set required for that position, not based on race? For example, knowledge of food and wine pairings or simply communicating a food order in English.
I would argue that while restaurants don’t always discriminate blatantly, they rarely train or promote their current back-of-house staff. Wouldn’t a restaurant get better long-term results from a staffer with a long employment history at the restaurant, happy to be promoted, than a new hire? Busboy to server would be the perfect transition, for example.
To read the full report in the Chicago Tribune, click here.
While Latinos make up more than a third of the Texan workforce, they earn 35% less than their white counterparts, reports the Texan Tribune.
On average, they earn about $11.50 per hour, compared to $17.90 for non-Hispanic whites. The gap is larger here than in the rest of the country: Outside of Texas, Latinos earn $12.42, while their Anglo counterparts earn about $17.55.
Regardless of skill, Latinos were responsible for most of the expansion in the state’s labor pool since the mid-1990s and have been a boon to the state’s economy. “The Latino population’s increase transformed Texas’ labor force and led to faster economic growth,” the report says. “Latinos accounted for 76 percent of the state’s labor force growth between 1994 and 2008.”
One factor that may account for the discrepancy is the education gap. 40% of Latinos age 25 or older didn’t graduate from high school, compared to 5% of whites. However, some educators say that cultural and economic factors often trump the importance of going to school; the responsibility to take care of one’s family has an impact on dropout rates.
Read more about the Latino pay gap here, in the Texan Tribune.
The NYTimes article “In Job Hunt, College Degree Can’t Close Racial Gap” was a most-emailed article last week. We’ve written about this issue before — job applicants with ethnic-sounding names are having a harder time getting interviews and jobs than their white counterparts, despite being equally qualified.
With the job market in a crunch, applicants are doing everything they can to gain an edge over their competitors. But when highly-qualified African-Americans are changing the way their names appear on their résumés just to get a call back, its obvious that they are facing a more devastating disadvantage.
Johnny R. Williams, 30, would appear to be an unlikely person to have to fret about the impact of race on his job search, with companies like JPMorgan Chase and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago on his résumé.
But after graduating from business school last year and not having much success garnering interviews, he decided to retool his résumé, scrubbing it of any details that might tip off his skin color. His membership, for instance, in the African-American business students association? Deleted.
Another applicant interviewed uses the name Barry J. Sykes instead of the full Barry Jabbar Sykes, even though he’s always gone by Jabbar.
Although discrimination is rarely overt, interviewees report surprised faces on interviewers once they do get their feet in the door, with waned interest after the interviewers see the applicant is not white. Surprisingly, education, which would seem to level the playing field between whites and blacks, has made it more difficult for black job applicants. The unemployment rate for black male applicants with college degrees is twice that of their white peers.
A hotel owner in Taos, Texas recently asked that all his Hispanic employees “shorten” their names to something a little more “American.” According to an article posted by Asylum, the new boss mandated the following upon his takeover:
1. No speaking Spanish in front of the boss.
2. Everyone’s fired and has to re-apply for their jobs.
3. It’s “strongly suggested” that employees shorten their long, silly Spanish names. (”Who has the time to say ‘Marcos?’ Why not Mark or Bill?” That’s actually a real example.)
Roberto Ruiz of the San Antonio Public Policy Examiner sees this as a strong case against America’s declaration as of late that we live in a “post-racial” society. He also points out that Hispanics make up the majority population in Taos.
It usually comes as a surprise to people when I mention that our republic does not have an “official language.” Wisely, this nation’s founders decided not to declare an official language, their reasons included “a belief in tolerance for linguistic diversity within the population, the economic and social value of foreign language knowledge and citizenry, and a desire not to restrict the linguistic and cultural freedom of those living in the new country.”
In a previous blog post, “What’s in a Hispanic name,” we’ve looked at the Hispanic naming system and how it is often confused in the United States, resulting in a loss of culture and identity for many Hispanic Americans (click here to go to the post).
Low-wage workers are consistently denied proper payment—some paid less than minimum wage, and some not compensated for overtime—a new study found. 68% of workers interviewed in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago reported a pay-related violation in the previous week.
The New York Times reports that the study’s authors were surprised by the prevalence of the violation.
“The conventional wisdom has been that to the extent there were violations, it was confined to a few rogue employers or to especially disadvantaged workers, like undocumented immigrants,” said Nik Theodore, an author of the study and a professor of urban planning and policy at the University of Illinois, Chicago. “What our study shows is that this is a widespread phenomenon across the low-wage labor market in the United States.”
Also surprising is the extent to which the bad practice affects women and especially immigrant workers. African-Americans had a violation rate almost triple that of whites.
The report brings up the fact that employers often discourage workers from filing workers’ compensation for missed days and medical care: only 8% of workers who suffered injuries on the job did so.
Low-wage workers take a 15% hit to their salaries due to these violations, but the economy suffers too:
“These practices are not just morally reprehensible, but they’re bad for the economy,” said Annette Bernhardt, an author of the study and policy co-director of the National Employment Law Project. “When unscrupulous employers break the law, they’re robbing families of money to put food on the table, they’re robbing communities of spending power and they’re robbing governments of vital tax revenues.”
New Bedford, MA believes that their community will succeed when immigrants have more opportunities in the workplace. Local business and civic leaders have launched an initiative called English Works Campaign that helps to eliminate the long waiting lists for English classes.
Anthony R. Sapienza, president of Abboud, a New Bedford manufacturer of men’s clothing, believes proficiency in English helps businesses and opens up more job opportunities to the workers.
Business leaders like Sapienza have seen the effects of workers learning English on the job. Workers can better understand their duties and communicate with management, creating a more productive workforce and local economy.
Sapienza says English skills increase efficiency, reduce errors, and improve employee retention. Immigrants can also feel more integrated into their new communities, and can better help their children who are growing up in English-speaking schools.
Manufacturing emphasizes these days an approach known as “lean manufacturing,” which involves teamwork. This type of collaboration is not possible with “15 different people speaking 15 different languages,” Sapienza said.
Beyond that, there are jobs requiring customer service or computer skills, where it helps to speak English, he said.
Learn more about what New Bedford is doing to improve its community and workplaces here.
A new University of North Carolina study shows that white males receive more tips about job opportunities than minorities and women, particularly in upper management positions.
“Our research shows that 95 times out of 100, white men receive more job leads than white women or Hispanic men or women,” says Dr. Steve McDonald, an assistant professor of sociology at NC State who was the lead author of the study.
The findings of the study show that the disparity between white men, minorities and women is greatest among workers in high-level management. McDonald points out that “these gender and race differences in access to job opportunities help to explain why white men continue to fill a disproportionately large number of jobs in upper management.”
They believe that the cause of this underlying discrimination (whether conscious or unconscious) is so-called “social capital.” In the study’s context, social capital is “the extent and quality of connections to people in various fields of employment.”
Researchers tabulated how many job leads a person receives during routine conversations, without having asked for the information. The study surveyed 3,000 representative U.S. residents.
Click here to read more about the study “Networks of Opportunity: Gender, Race and Job Leads.”
For past generations of Hispanics in the United States, becoming part of a corporate entity was sometimes viewed as “selling out.” But for second and third generations, that attitude is changing.
Many Hispanics came to the United States to take advantage of college education, and young Hispanic professionals these days are beginning to reap the benefits. Not only are they climbing the corporate ladder at higher rates than in the past, many are becoming business owners in sectors where Hispanics were previously underrepresented—technology, engineering, finance and law.
Roberto Cornelio, 51, director of the chamber’s Hispanic Entrepreneurship Center, says it’s not just mom-and-pop businesses, either.
“Traditionally, the Hispanic business community focused on providing goods and services to the Hispanic community,” Mr. Cornelio says. “That’s changing. It’s still an important part of our community, but people have been exposed to many other opportunities. We’re seeing people go into technology, and a number of Hispanics have opened professional services business.”
Between 2003-2008, Hispanics in management, business and financial operations rose from 5.9% to 7.5%
In the same period, Hispanics in chief executive positions rose from 3.3% to 4.8%
The Illinois Chamber of Commerce has grown 1,000% in the last several years
6,787 Hispanics earned MBAs in 2007, making up 4.6% of the degree-holders
And still, there’s a long way to go:
Hispanics comprise about 15% of the state of Illinois’s population, but only 4% of Illinois businesses are Hispanic-owned (the number is growing, however)
Hispanics hold 234 seats on Fortune 1,000 corporate boards, only 2.3% of all seats
There are just six Hispanic CEOs represented in the Fortune 500
71% of Fortune 500 companies have no Hispanics on their boards
Many Hispanic business leaders quoted in the article believe that Hispanics will continue to push for more recognition in the business world. Says Leopoldo Lastre, president of the Hispanic Lawyers Assn. of Illinois, “We will see more gains as long as there are opportunities. We’re not looking for the bar to be lowered.”
The study points to some strengths and weaknesses of Latino businesses, which occupy the largest percent of minority-owned businesses and therefore make a greater impact on the regional economy.
“Latino firms are in critical sectors of the economy, both traditional sectors that need to remain strong and entering new sectors like the green jobs sectors that are going to grow the regional economy,” said [Dr. J.R. DeShazo, Director of the Lewis Center in the UCLA School of Public Affairs].
One strength: Latino-businesses are more likely to offer a higher return on investment. One weakness: the Latino business sector lacks technical and banking assistance, which are both key to a business’s long-term growth. Latino businesses tend to be underserved by banking institutions and are more vulnerable when making banking decisions.
The study calls for more policy advocacy for Latino businesses.
While Latino political engagement has increased over the last decade, Latinos have not done as much in advocating for its business community, according to DeShazo. The lack of time and resources, as well as the lack of access to business associations in the region may be factors in the current state of Latino business people’s civic engagement, he says. “One of the most important things we can do as an organization is policy advocacy,” DeShazo said.
To read the full article and more about the study’s recommendations, click here.
Many Korean immigrants have recently found themselves in the Korean American Resource and Cultural Center taking classes in—what else?—Spanish. People like Sue Choe, who owns a laundromat in Koreatown, see many reasons to learn the language that many of her customers speak.
While Latinos make up more than a third of the Texan workforce, they earn 35% less than their white counterparts, reports the Texan Tribune.
The NYTimes article “In Job Hunt, College Degree Can’t Close Racial Gap” was a most-emailed article last week. 
Low-wage workers are consistently denied proper payment—some paid less than minimum wage, and some not compensated for overtime—a new study found. 68% of workers interviewed in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago reported a pay-related violation in the previous week.
For past generations of Hispanics in the United States, becoming part of a corporate entity was sometimes viewed as “selling out.” But for second and third generations, that attitude is changing.