The Mexican masked man who fights for migrant employee rights

[ad_1]

On a typical day in years previous, Luis Valentan was out chasing vehicles by 5 a.m., jostling with different determined males attempting to land a job outdoors a Residence Depot.

“Hey, take me! I work for a great value!” Valentan would plead amid an anxious refrain of overseas accents.

The immigrant from Mexico Metropolis was 25 when he grew to become a day laborer, and instantly he started listening to co-workers speak about struggling to help a household, repay money owed and pull collectively sufficient cash to cowl medical payments and rising rents. Tales of wage theft, discrimination and verbal abuse circulated amongst his compañeros, particularly those that lacked authorized work paperwork.

Two men look at each other as they talk. The man on the right sits on a rock and the other man has one knee on the ground.

Valentan knew that one way or the other he had to assist immigrants like himself. However how?

Twenty years later, Valentan makes use of a curious pair of props to appreciate his targets as an immigrant labor activist: a microphone and a wrestler’s masks.

Each Friday morning at 11, he enters a radio sales space on the Pasadena Neighborhood Job Middle, activates his transmission gear, adjusts his microphone and fires up his two-hour radio present, “Voces Jornaleras,” Spanish for “Employee Voices,” or “Journeymen Voices.” His present is a cornerstone of the lineup at Radio Jornalera, an internet-based streaming platform that may be a venture of the Nationwide Day Laborer Organizing Community.

Two men sit at a desk behind microphones.

Sporting denims, a crimson plaid shirt and a baseball cap with a Mexican flag emblem one latest day, Valentan, 50, leaned into the mike as he welcomed listeners as in the event that they had been previous associates. His arms and face had been tanned from perpetually toiling within the solar, his fingers callused.

“Buenos días, compas y compitas,” he started, earlier than launching right into a passionate oration on the persistent drawback of wage theft.

“Immigrants are already right here,” Valentan stated later in an interview. “Somebody has to do the work and I’ve needed to be the voice, benefiting from the totally different communication platforms, if different media ignore us.”

Luis Valentan emigrated from Mexico at age 18 within the mid-Nineties and commenced working as a day laborer. Finally he grew to become an activist for immigrant rights and staff’ rights.

Valentan smiles at skeptics who doubt that he and his fellow immigrant laborers, with out previous expertise or school coaching, may’ve created Radio Jornalera from scratch in mid-2019, in what was as soon as a small warehouse. In simply 4 years the station has expanded its programming from two hours per week to 24-7, and has branched into different states and even different international locations.

However his ebullient on-air persona isn’t Valentan’s solely public id.

His alter ego is a luchador — a Mexican lucha libre, freestyle, wrestler — often known as “Compa Ñero,” who barnstorms throughout California exhorting staff to demand and train their rights. “Compa Ñero” is a double wordplay in Spanish: Mixed, the 2 phrases imply “good friend” (compañero); separated, they type a shorthand for compadre ñero, an irreverent road particular person.

A man in a mask speaks into a megaphone at a rally.

Sporting a yellow and black masks topped with the letters “SN” — made well-known within the Nineteen Seventies and ‘80s by Vick Amezcua, aka Septiembre Negro, a 5’7” bundle of luchador fearsomeness — Compa Ñero is never seen on the radio station. His area is the streets, the place he usually takes half in protest marches and political actions, educating and uniting his group with jokes and colourful slang.

“The issues of the immigrant group, particularly day laborers, are usually not discovered on the college,” Valentan stated. “It is advisable see them and reside them to know them.”

Valentan says that moreover offering data and sources, Radio Jornalera’s mission is to erase widespread prejudices in opposition to day laborers. He hopes his street-theater persona can encourage and uplift.

“We immigrants want somebody who identifies with us,” he stated. “A hoop fighter is a personality that at all times attracts everybody’s consideration.”

Based on the Nationwide Day Laborer Organizing Community (NDLON), there are between 120,000 and 150,000 women and men working as day laborers in no less than 22 U.S. states. Broadcasting on YouTube and Fb, Radio Jornalera helps callers get authorized and different skilled recommendation —not solely with wage theft and wage restoration but in addition with on-the-job accidents and accidents, discrimination, immigration and visa considerations, in addition to COVID- and different health-related issues.

Lilia García Brower, the California labor commissioner who oversees the principle regulation enforcement company for office protections, stated that Radio Jornalera has been an important power in stemming wage theft. In 2021, California staff filed practically 19,000 claims totaling greater than $338 million in stolen wages, in line with a database offered by the labor commissioner’s workplace.

imm
“Wage theft is a systemic drawback in California,” García Brower stated. “We shouldn’t have actual information, however we all know that it’s within the billions. In Los Angeles County particularly it’s recognized that every week roughly $26 million is looted from staff.”

On one latest radio present, José Luis Rodríguez, a 64-year-old immigrant day laborer from Mexico Metropolis who seems to be for work outdoors a Residence Depot in Azusa, known as in to say that he hadn’t been absolutely paid for a 2021 house-painting job.

The home-owner was ignoring his pleas for fee, Rodríguez stated. “When the times handed and he stopped answering me, I knew that he had stolen from me. I felt unhappy, and like a idiot.”

The Baldwin Park resident took his case to Radio Jornalera, which he knew from its public service ads for native meals banks. Valentan tried to contact the home-owner, however his cellphone calls weren’t answered. The home-owner additionally didn’t reply to a Instances reporter’s repeated cellphone calls.

Based on lawyer Cal Soto, coordinator of staff’ rights for NDLON, Rodríguez subsequently filed a grievance in Van Nuys with the California Labor Commissioner’s Workplace, additionally known as the Division of Labor Requirements Enforcement, looking for again pay for 2 days’ work — a complete of $300 — plus a high quality of as much as $6,000 for alleged wage theft. The case may take two years or extra to resolve.

Rodríguez additionally was capable of obtain coaching in wage theft prevention, monetary help and meals help. He now volunteers on the Pasadena Job Middle. “I really feel stronger, with extra shallowness, in any case this,” he stated.

Valentan stated that along with empowering staff corresponding to Rodríguez, Radio Jornalera’s mission is to erase widespread prejudices in opposition to day laborers, who usually are caricatured as low-skilled, unreliable migrants illegally in the US. He hopes his luchador character can encourage.

“We immigrants want somebody who identifies with us. A hoop fighter is a personality that at all times attracts everybody’s consideration.”

One afternoon in 1981, Valentan stated goodbye to his mom and set off for the US. He arrived in South Los Angeles a number of days later. He was 18.

With no highschool schooling, he cleaned bathrooms and later labored within the garment trade. He shared an house with 10 others. Generally he slept in a closet.

In 1998 he grew to become a day laborer, rising at 5 a.m. to unload trailers, shovel cement, work a stitching machine and have a tendency gardens. Employers favored the younger, the sturdy, the low-paid — those that didn’t complain about degrading pay, sore backs and dislocated arms, verbal haranguing and sexual harassment. They feared they’d be deported in the event that they did.

“I noticed and skilled loads of injustice,” Valentan says. “We’ve no selection however to close up and put up with the mistreatment if we need to earn the day’s pay.”

Whereas dwelling in Arizona for eight years within the early 2000s, he overlapped with Arizona’s passage in 2010 of extremely controversial Senate Invoice 1070, which barred state and native officers and businesses from curbing federal immigration legal guidelines; imposed penalties on anybody sheltering, hiring or transporting people who find themselves within the U.S. illegally; and empowered police departments to query the immigration standing of detainees, together with these stopped for easy site visitors violations. Critics stated it will result in racial profiling and civil rights violations.

Valentan grew to become concerned with the immigrant-rights group Promise Arizona. When he returned to Los Angeles in 2012, he was a dedicated activist and a skilled group organizer.

“You may’t simply complain all of your life,” he stated. “You additionally should become involved together with your group to make a change.”

Again in L.A., he labored to focus on immigrants’ tales by way of the Voces Mobiles Day Labor Undertaking of the Instituto de Educación Standard del Sur de California (IDEPSCA), a nonprofit that organizes and educates immigrants to unravel issues in their very own communities. In 2015, he started contributing to a twice-monthly, one-hour radio program, Voces Jornaleras — the identical as its present — in a earlier iteration on KPFK-FM (90.7), joined by fellow activist Manuel Vicente from NDLON. After Donald Trump was elected, the pair felt additional spurred to counter the brand new administration’s anti-immigrant insurance policies.

When a chance arose to broadcast the present out of the Pasadena Neighborhood Job Middle, they seized it. There now are 9 totally different exhibits and a complete of 14 program announcers.

A man in a blue shirt talks to a woman on a ladder.

“The purpose was not solely to tell and entertain day laborers, however to provide them a instrument that trains them as activists and organizes them from the roots up,” says Vicente, a Mexico native who holds a level in communication sciences from the Jesuit College of Guadalajara. “On the market, there are numerous information platforms that report on sure points, with the minutes counted. Right here, now we have as a lot airtime as potential, with out limitations.”

Rosa Sánchez, 63, was amongst those that requested Voces Jornaleras for help. The Pasadena cleansing employee grew to become a widow on Jan. 30, 2021, when her husband, José, a prepare dinner, died after the couple fell in poor health from the coronavirus.

“I used to be left with no husband, with no job and nonetheless with bodily ache because of the illness,” stated the native of Jalisco, Mexico. “Mr. Valentan listened to my case and his crew directed me to a meals financial institution that continues to assist me.”

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic introduced enhanced recognition of the important work carried out by the day-labor sector. Even so, due to their immigrant standing many of those staff have struggled to entry the financial help offered to U.S. residents.

“Day laborers, like all migrants, carry the American dream of their minds, and lots of had been unable to attain their goals after dying on the road,” Valentan stated.

That sort of consciousness has spurred day laborers and important staff in different elements of the nation, in league with activists, to deliver Radio Jornalera into their communities. Among the many platform’s new companions are Unión de Vecinos, a company that addresses housing legal guidelines and rights; El Baúl de los Recuerdos, which mixes regional Mexican music with stories on immigrant points; Alianza TPS, which covers information about immigrant aid companies; and Freedom Sing, which broadcasts music related to immigrant-rights actions.

Elizabeth Blaney, co-founder of Union de Vecinos, stated it was necessary to have an additional public platform that aligns with the immigrant group on each longstanding and rising points.

“On-line platforms have change into a conventional avenue for all working individuals who need to educate themselves, be a part of activism or battle for his or her rights,” Blaney stated.

The Unión de Vecinos program has been on the air since 2020, each Monday at 11 a.m..

“Whenever you hear different individuals claiming your rights, you begin to need to do the identical. Radio Jornalera injects individuals with that feeling of unity and activism,” Blaney stated.

The Radio Jornalera format has been replicated in Minnesota, Boston, New York, New Jersey, Washington, El Salvador and Guatemala. For the final a number of months, Valentan additionally has been broadcasting his present from Salt Lake Metropolis, to develop the platform’s presence all through the West. In November, Radio Jornalera grew to become established in Costa Rica, and this yr it’s anticipated to develop to Florida and Texas.

Angela Sanbrano, co-executive director of NDLON, is pleased with Radio Jornalera’s dramatic progress.

A man looks into a camera held by someone else.

“Day laborers have numerous jobs that hold Californians’ lives and the nation afloat each day, and but virtually nobody writes about them except they’re damage or ripped off,” she stated.

Victor Narro, venture director and professor of labor research for the UCLA Labor Middle, stated the day-laborer group has come a great distance for the reason that Nineties, no less than in California.

“Within the Nineties, day laborers had been attacked from totally different angles. They had been identified for interfering with companies, for interfering with public roads, and even teams of neighbors argued that day laborers had been interfering with the aesthetics of their neighborhoods. There have been cities that put guidelines to restrict day laborers from congregating in public locations, and that is nonetheless taking place,” he stated.

“Little by little the day laborers got here collectively, fought for his or her rights, educated individuals, they usually proceed to take action in a technique or one other,” he stated. “There may be going to come back a time when Congress has to maneuver ahead with an immigration reform bundle, and now we have to guarantee that day laborers are on the desk, in any immigration reform bundle and in any insurance policies, as a result of no one desires to see them, however they proceed to make use of their companies.”

Valentan and Vicente, for his or her half, aren’t taking time to savor Radio Jornalera’s achievements. Though the expertise evolves, immigrant staff’ hopes for a greater future keep fixed.

“Solely the instruments have modified,” Valentan stated, “however the need to work has not modified.”

[ad_2]

Source link