Curbside Job Solicitation Ban

The action prohibiting day laborers to solicit work at the curb in the unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County (May 25) doesn’t on the surface seem to be a civil rights issue, but it is our contention that all the recent high-profile debates about immigrants are resulting in negative attitudes against Latinos, both immigrants and citizens. It also fuels the division between Latinos who have and those who do not have citizenship. In times of adverse economic conditions it is not difficult to pit one group against another as stress levels are at critical levels, but this is the time when we must have clear minds and positive leadership.

By continuing to target the Latino immigrants for all the problems of Los Angeles, we fall into a bashing frenzy which cannot lead to anything good. On the contrary, we must demonstrate a willingness to tolerate each other and work together to address our common problems. Our political leaders must take the high road and undertake the task of defending human brotherhood, family values, education and creating economic opportunity for all of the hard-working people of Los Angeles. We must learn to share and not be intolerant of humans trying to make a living.

RODRIGO GARCIA, Chairman

Hispanic Contractors Assn.

Monterey Park

* I rarely agree with Supervisor Mike Antonovich on anything but I will say he is right in enacting a law to ban curbside job solicitation. He said this would discourage illegal aliens from coming here looking for work.

The U.S. census shows that immigrants, legal or illegal, coming to this state have startlingly lower skills and earning ability than immigrants going to the other 49 states. Nearly a third of all California immigrants arriving after 1985 have less than a ninth-grade education, compared to a mere 2% of native-born in this state.

In our state, with its advanced technological system, there is certainly an ever-increasing premium on people having skills, education and language facility. Our country should emulate Canada in its immigration policy. There they use a point system to encourage immigration of foreigners with higher income and appropriate skills for an advanced industrial economy.

JOHN F. MENDEZ

Los Angeles

* Obviously, Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke’s political spin doctors have advised her to begin damage control (May 26). Her assertion that the county’s ban of day-laborer solicitation is “not a civil rights issue” is exceedingly disingenuous.

Numerous civil rights organizations, including the county’s own Human Relations Commission, have consistently opposed the ban precisely because it threatens civil rights and intergroup relations. Moreover, anyone who attended the board meeting at which the anti-day-laborer ordinance was approved could not have walked away with any impression but that most of the proponents of the measure view it as directed specifically--and in their view, appropriately--at Latino immigrants.

Finally, Burke’s claim that she was responding to concerns of “300 people in (the) community” (strangely, only a tiny fraction of these have ever turned out to support the ordinance), completely ignores the thousands of day laborers countywide, who are also her constituents, many of whom came to the board meeting to express their opposition to this hostile threat to their honest livelihood.

Make no mistake about it; by supporting the anti-day-laborer ordinance, Supervisor Burke has turned her back on the cause of civil rights in Los Angeles County.

THOMAS A. SAENZ, Staff Attorney

Mexican American Legal Defense

and Educational Fund

Los Angeles