The Dirty Work: Ethnography of Latino Men in Demolition

• In Event: 40459 - Identity, Work, and Family: Latinos in the US and Beyond

Abstract

This paper examines the occupational experiences of undocumented Mexican immigrant men employed in the understudied field of demolition. I draw on a year of ethnographic field work and 20 informal interviews with demolition workers to examine how everyday work in demolition becomes precarious and how it is exacerbated by an undocumented status. Latino men in this occupation experience structural and work-related precarity. First, undocumented Latino men experience structural precarity through their position in the United State labor market. Their social positioning at the bottom of US race and class stratification forces them into occupations where exploitation, by white bosses and fellow co-ethnics, is rampant. Second, undocumented Mexican men experience work precarity within the labor-intensive and dangerous job of demolition. On the job, undocumented Mexican men are forced to ignore workplace injuries due to fear of losing their job and exposing their undocumented status. Their injuries are exacerbated by and through the performance of gendered norms of masculinity.

Author

• Guillermo Paez Gallardo, University of California-Irvine