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NYTimes: We Came to Work by Elena Herrada

June 9, 2009, 10:10 pm

We Came to Work

By Elena Herrada

A Postcard from the Promised Land

Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University Two
men paste up a new billboard promoting the benefits of working in a
organized union shop as opposed to an unorganized open shop, Detroit,
Michigan, circa late 1930s.

I am a lifelong Detroiter. My grandparents came here from Mexico in
1920. My grandfather worked at Ford Motor Co. He was laid off in 1922.
That should give you a little hint of how long this has been going on.

He later got hired at various other shops, and years later retired
from Chrysler. My father also retired from Chrysler and my uncles
retired from Ford. Almost everyone in Detroit of my generation (I am
52) worked in auto or our parents worked in auto. We came from the
poorest people. We believed then and we know now that the U.A.W. was
responsible for the good lives we had.

I am a grass roots activist. I spent years doing jail and prison
advocacy after graduating from Wayne State University with a degree in
criminal justice That work was motivated for me by the loss of a loved
one to the drug trade. My boyfriend, Gilbert Gutierrez, was killed in a
multiple execution murder in 1977. He was 26. Killings like this were
rampant in the years of heroin here, and many lives were lost in the
violence.



After the overwhelming sadness of identifying bodies, burials of
victims and watching the sentencings, I found myself questioning the
entire structure of society. One way I found to deal with my grief was
to work with people who sought solutions to the root causes of poverty
and injustice. And I continue that work today.

My theory about the Detroit gene pool is this: Everywhere in the
country and in the world, people left their beloved homelands to try
their luck in this cold, faraway place where all you had to do was be
willing to work. Whether one came from the segregated South,
post-revolutionary Mexico, Europe, Kentucky or the Virginia mines,
everyone who came here was ready to work. And there was plenty of work
to go around.

This was an amazing place, a Promised Land, where with nothing but
hard work — not political connections, not silver-spoon wealth — one
could buy a house, a car, even two, raise a family and take vacations.
Anyone could earn an honest day’s pay. The union contract protected
every worker from the tyranny of nepotism, favoritism, racism, sexism,
and every other evil -ism that has ravaged society since the beginning
of time. Of course it was not perfect, but it was a lot better than it
would have been without the Battle of the Overpass, the Flint Sit Down, the Ford Hunger March, and countless other battles our parents and grandparents told us as bedtime stories.

We grew up walking every picket line in town, whether my parents
worked there or not. We took food to strikers, talked Union at the
dinner table, and to hear my family tell it, the working class would
save the human race.

Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University Striking
auto workers form a human barrier to block the entrance to the Rouge
Plant during the 1949 Ford Strike, Dearborn, Michigan.

Many people who came to Detroit to work in the 20s and 30s were
recruited from Mexico. My grandparents were among the 15,000 who
arrived in Detroit during the early years of Ford recruitment. Some had
made their way from Texas to Kansas, working in the fields and on the
railroads until they arrived here for the promise of $5 per day.

When the Great Depression hit, there was a forced “repatriation” of
thousands of Mexicans from Detroit and about one million around the
country. My family was among the many who left and among the few who
returned to Detroit. We still do not know how many people were affected
by this tragedy. Shedding light on this important part of American
history has become part of my own life’s work. It has also informed my
own current work with immigrants arriving recently to Detroit.

I left my position as a local union president representing cafeteria
workers in auto plants four years ago. After 9/11 the plants started
cutting back on food services and our little local began to spiral into
debt to the point that we were no longer sustainable. It was a very
hard decision to leave a long standing solvent local, started by the
dedicated trade unionists to insure that workers were protected on the
job, that women who spent their lives in this service would receive
pensions. All that is gone now. No longer is longevity rewarded; older
workers are run out, replaced by employees who must work for less. Two
tier contracts are the rule now, not the exception. Older workers in
high wage industries under collective bargaining agreements are an
endangered species. They will not reproduce. They are nearly extinct.

I left my local and started, with a dedicated group of activists, a
center for immigrant workers. We hold legal clinics, English classes,
some cultural events, and search for people picked up by I.C.E.
(Immigration and Customs Enforcement), post bonds and accompany people
to court.

Recently, a friend and I drove a young woman and her six-month old
baby to a Southern state because there is no work here. She joined her
husband, who had not yet seen their daughter. The couple will likely be
picking tomatoes and then on to the next crop. The couple faces
deportation, but they cannot leave the country because they have no way
of feeding themselves and their families. I have never been so aware of
the privileges of citizenship as I have since I started waiting in
detentions, posting bonds, driving a car, all things many of my
neighbors cannot do. We wait in hopeful anticipation of immigration
reform for an end to this madness.

Still, thousands of U.S.-born children face the same fate as our
families did in the 1930s — deportation. The big difference is this: We
are here, and we will not stand by while innocent people are detained,
incarcerated, hunted down and separated from their children, parents
and loved ones. Children witness this every day. What are we to tell
them? If I have learned anything as an oral historian, it is that small
acts of cruelty and small acts of kindness are remembered as historical
events. What we do will be remembered.

We are in a deep malaise here, but this is not new. It’s often said
that in the private sector that Detroit is not the place to start a
“service industry.” When you hear that the service is terrible in
Detroit, imagine us raising our collective glass in cheer, because we
did not come here to serve anyone.

---

Elena Herrada is a Detroit community activist leader and the Director of the Oral History project of the Fronteras Norteñas organization.

Arne Duncan on the arts - a critical component of a complete education

"I am greatly honored that the Department is hosting the National PTA's student art exhibit. The students in this show, like many, many others around the country and the world, represent the talent and thoughtful, artistic work that can result from the support of their schools, teachers, and families. The arts are a critical component of a complete education, providing an opportunity to see and think in new ways and to innovate, as this exhibit proves. The theme of this year's exhibit--'I Can Make a Difference by ...', is an inspiration to all of us to engage, as these students have done, in the kind of thinking and efforts that President Obama has asked us to do as citizens of this great nation."

-- Arne Duncan, on occasion of the opening of the National PTA's "Reflections" art exhibit at the Department of Education, Feb. 10, 2009.