Hurricane Katrina and the flooding that ensued reduced much of New Orleans to an empty, rubbish-strewn wasteland. In the aftermath of the devastation, the demand for workers to gut and rebuild tens of thousands of structures as well as to staff hotels that housed the reconstruction-related influx drew Latinos to New Orleans from across the United States and Latin America. This dynamic situation presents a unique research opportunity for studying current practices in labor recruitment and evolving patterns and processes in documented and undocumented migration. The rise in undocumented immigration to the United States has produced a system of labor relations whereby subcontractors are responsible for an increasing proportion of the U.S. blue collar labor force. This research project will explore the inner workings of this subcontractor-driven labor recruitment system in order to determine its impact on both workers and the surrounding community. To explore these issues, the investigators will conduct a survey of Latino labor migrants in addition to semi-structured interviews with subcontractors, employers, contracted workers, and key informants. The investigators will document the consequences of the growing spatial concentration of undocumented persons who lack access to basic rights or services or a longstanding co-ethnic community in New Orleans. They also will provide basic demographic and socioeconomic information regarding the new Latino residents of New Orleans.
This research project will furnish researchers, administrators, and policy makers with valuable information at three different levels: First, the demographic and socioeconomic statistics from the survey will help officials more effectively govern post-Katrina New Orleans. City officials currently know little about Latino laborers' living and working conditions, English language capabilities, literacy levels, national origins, and intentions of remaining in the city. Second, the data collected on recruitment will help regions struck by natural disasters in the future to anticipate ensuing migration patterns. The project will document how workers were recruited, where they were housed when they arrived in New Orleans, and their positive and negative experiences in the recruitment process. The project will shed light on why jobs went to outsiders rather than pre-Katrina residents of the city. Finally, data collected on the effects of concentrated populations of undocumented immigrants will inform national debates concerning immigration reform. Undocumented status affects housing consumption patterns, police-community relations, reinvestment, and a variety of other issues.
