Dispatches from the Gulf Region

According to a powerful new report released on July 6 by the Advancement Project, the National Immigration Law Center and The New Orleans Workers Justice Coalition, Black and Latino workers in Post-Katrina New Orleans have faced a shocking catalog of abuses, including wage theft, widespread and massive health and safety violations, racism and discrimination, law enforcement violence, and more.

Through first hand accounts, the report paints a detailed and dramatic picture of declining workers' rights in the city. Despite a monumental need for labor to restore the city, and billions of dollars spent on rebuilding, Black and Latino workers have been pitted against each other in a race to the bottom, while businesses and contractors have gorged on huge profits. With housing still unavailable for many, profiteering and displacement has been the rule.

Pre-Katrina, Latinos made up 3 percent of New Orleans population (although a larger percentage in New Orleans' suburbs). Most were long-term residents, and there was very little in the way of social services and infrastructure specifically for the recent immigrant community. When thousands of immigrant workers arrived for work in the city's reconstruction, they faced hostility and exploitation, with few allies and virtually no systems of support.

Simultaneously, African-American workers from New Orleans have faced personal loss and displacement, combined with a legacy of workplace exploitation that dates back to New Orleans' status as a center of the Southern slave trade.

The demonizing of immigrant workers -- while blatant violations of workers' rights were ignored -- set the stage for the abuse that followed. In October, Mayor Nagin asked a gathering of businessmen, "How do I ensure that New Orleans is not overrun by Mexican workers?" Later, in a mayoral debate, he added, "Illegal is illegal, so I'm not supportive of illegal aliens or illegal immigrants working in the City of New Orleans." For the most part, the New Orleans media has followed this same framework.

Progressive organizers in the Black community have also expressed reservations about the new arrivals. "I'm not disputing the desirability of all oppressed peoples uniting against a common oppressor," Mtangulizi Sanyinka, project manager of New Orleans' African American Leadership Project tells me. "But right now this idea of Black-Brown unity is more of an idea than a reality."

"You have to put this into perspective," continues Sanyinka. "Latinos are working in horrible conditions that ought to be illegal, and being exploited. At the same time, many black people resent Latinos for coming in and working under those conditions. It's like when you have a strike, and a group is brought in as strike-breakers."

"Who is to blame?" Sanyinka asks, "Who is always to blame -- those that control the money and power. When you see Blacks and Latinos on the street, they don't act antagonistic. It's not a personal antagonism. But there is an institutional antagonism."

It's not just poor Black and Latino workers that have been exploited in New Orleans; the Black middle class has also been devastated. The United Teachers of New Orleans (UTNO) was the largest teachers' union in the city, and a majority of those represented were Black workers. The School Board voted in the fall to lay off all but 61 of the 7,000 employees, and last week let the teachers' union contract expire with little comment and no fanfare.

Rosana Cruz, Gulf Coast field coordinator for the National Immigration Law Center, is sympathetic to the apprehension from the Black community. "There are anxieties that are incredibly valid about a cultural genocide of this city," she tells me. "This is a city that was built on racism. The organizing we're doing is a counter to the racism dividing immigrants and African-Americans against each other."