He took me to corners where dozens of Latino men gathered, shoulders hunched in the chilly, autumn morning air, waiting for vans to pull to the curb, size up the muscle available, and direct a chosen few labourers to cram themselves into what space was left inside the vehicle.
They would then be taken to various job sites, paid off the books a minimalist wage for a day of drudgery, hauling, heaving, hammering, and handling whatever they found themselves tasked to work with. Their thoughts were of home, knowing that mothers and extended kin in Mexico or Guatemala might go hungry that week for lack of a remittance. Violence against this floating, reserve army of labour, which subsisted beneath the surface relations and visibilities of dominantly white, seemingly affluent, communities, was on the rise.
Youth gangs from privileged high schools had taken to randomly targeting the immigrant, largely Spanish-speaking poor, running the often bicycle-riding newcomers off the road, taunting them and pelting beleaguered human targets with beer bottles tossed from tire-squealing cars.
The harassment and physical intimidation, according to Mike, was escalating: pepper-sprayings, beatings with baseball bats, even pot-shots with BB-guns were not unusual.
The emerging Latino metropolis will then wear a proud union label. Cause for concern was clearly warranted. As I would later learn, the inevitably inadequate official crime statistics suggested that between anti-Latino hate crimes jumped 40 percent across the United States.
