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Mexicans make their place in NYC

This story was reported by Rolando Pujol and Marlene Peralta and was written by Pujol | rolando.pujol@am-ny.com

June 12, 2007

When Geraldo Sanchez left Mexico 12 years ago, he said farewell to his parents and siblings -- and his graphic-designer aspirations -- to begin an arduous life in the United States, all to keep his struggling relatives afloat back home.

Beat up during a stint in Texas, he soon found himself in New York, walking from LaGuardia Airport until he found a room to stay in the city.

Today, the 29-year-old lives with many of his countrymen in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn where he works at a music shop, but his bones bear the scars of his dangerous resume -- a knee and arm broken doing construction work.

"When one doesn't have papers, it is very difficult, it's unjust," Sanchez said. "We take jobs other people won't dare take."

Peek into any bustling restaurant kitchen or scan any of the city's construction sites and you will find Mexican immigrants. Hundreds of thousands have navigated a treacherous path to the city in the past 15 years, quietly reshaping neighborhoods and changing the economics of industries.

Their numbers soared from around 62,000 in 1990 to more than 400,000 by many estimates, with domestic economic and agricultural crises in Mexico spurring the exodus. So great has the growth been that the Mexican consul general's office in Manhattan, where maddening jams outside its doors are not uncommon, is looking to establish an annex in Queens.

The community is now New York's third largest immigrant group after Dominicans and Chinese.

"Hard work is probably the overarching characteristic," said cultural anthropologist Alyshia Galvez, who added that Mexicans are focused on self-improvement even at great personal cost.

The Mexican influx has revitalized neighborhoods such as El Barrio in Harlem, where the Mexican presence is vivid even as the one-time Puerto Rican stronghold remains that community's symbolic heart.

Nilda Perez, a Puerto Rican, is married to a Mexican and has Mexican colleagues at 116 Flowers Shop in El Barrio. She feels a great kinship with Mexicans, and the well-trod immigrant footsteps they are following.

"They came to do what they really wanted to do. It was to work hard, to get money to send to their families." said Perez, who remembers when the shop's block between Second and Third avenues was barren -- until the Mexican influx began. "Little by little, you would see taquerias, floristerias, restaurants ... they brought their culture and food."

Indeed, the Mexican presence in New York before 1990 was far from palpable. Back then, New York was hardly renowned for its authentic Mexican cuisine and Cinco de Mayo was no household word.

"You'd see a Mexican and you'd think they were your brother," said Guadalupe Aguirri, 50, speaking of the old El Barrio. Her shop, Little Mexico Meat Grocery on Third Avenue, began as a Dominican bodega before its Mexican metamorphosis.

Those changes began to happen quickly in the mid-1990s, Galvez said, spurred by forces such as instability at home and economic changes resulting from the 1994 NAFTA free trade agreement. "What we saw was people being displaced from the countryside without having anywhere else to go but the United States," she said.

The road to America, often facilitated by "coyotes" who ferry immigrants across the border in exchange for deep debts, is notoriously dangerous while the challenges of setting up a new life in New York can be overwhelming.

Some Mexicans who have settled in the city don't even speak Spanish, but rather indigenous languages, making acclimation even more difficult.

The soaring cost of housing also puts undocumented immigrants in a delicate position. Juan Haro, leader of Movement for Justice in El Barrio, said that since December 2004, his group has been working with hundreds of Mexican tenants. "Landlords have been threatening them by calling immigration, attempting to illegally evict them, offering money," Haro said.

The breathtaking birth rate among Mexican women could alone ensure the population's continued expansion, even if immigration were to ebb, said Laird Bergad of the CUNY Center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies.

Adding to the population growth could be a new wave of immigration prompted by the lifting of protections on Mexico's corn industry set for next year.

"We're going to see a massive influx of cheap U.S. corn into Mexico ... we're going to see a massive exodus of people from the countryside who can no longer grown corn," Galvez said.

Ultimately, observers see the community on a steady path toward findings its voice, much as previous groups, such as Dominicans, who now enjoy considerable political clout in the city.

"We have advanced in the sense that you can see small stores owned by Mexicans in the tri-state area. This is thanks to the Puerto Rican community -- they opened the door, the Dominican community as well. Many businesses owned by Puerto Rican and Dominicans were sold to Mexicans," said Manuel Guerrero of the Comite Cinco de Mayo.

Minerva Flores 44, who came to the U.S. 22 years ago, remembers waiting at her coyote's house until her boyfriend in San Diego could send for her. Soon after, she found out her boyfriend was married. Now with an 11-year-old daughter, Flores' goal is for her child to be a professional.

But the home attendant can't help but think of the life she left behind in Puebla.

"I missed those mornings waking up to the singing of the roosters, very nostalgic," Flores said. "Here in the mornings you have to get up because you have to go to work and worry about not being late."