Maura Martinez spent months searching for work at clothing factories, fast-food restaurants and even a mini-market. But every employer demanded immigration papers.
So Martinez headed to the Hollywood Community Job Center to try her luck as a day laborer.
"If the men can find work here, I can too," said Martinez, 47, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who goes to the center several days a week. "With papers, without papers, men or women, we all come to look for work."
Immigrant women are increasingly joining the throngs of men at day labor centers across the country. But rather than compete with men, who are seeking temporary construction or gardening work, the women are searching for jobs as housecleaners or caretakers.
"What you are seeing in Los Angeles is a reflection of a larger national trend," said Abel Valenzuela, an associate professor at UCLA who has done extensive research on day laborers. "It's a relatively new movement.... Worker centers are expanding and opening up their doors to other types of workers, including women."
Hiring halls provide a safe place for women to search for work, he said. Their organizers often write down the names, addresses, phone numbers and license plate numbers of employers.
As crossing the Mexican border has become increasingly dangerous and expensive, immigration advocates say, more women have joined their spouses in the United States and decided to stay. And with the high cost of living and a volatile urban job market, Valenzuela said, families are realizing that they cannot survive on just one income.
Roughly 35% of an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. are adult women, according to a 2006 analysis by the Pew Hispanic Center, and about 17% of the cleaning industry is made up of undocumented immigrants.
Martinez said she considered trying to find work through a housecleaning agency, but that often requires paying an application fee or a portion of her earnings.
"Do I work for an agency or do I work for me?" she asked. "How am I going to send money to my country if I have to pay the agency?"
Besides, at the day labor center, Martinez said, no one asks for a green card.
Highly publicized workplace raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement have prompted more employers to ask for identification and to make sure it is valid, observers said. Those checks could increase if the Senate revives and passes reform legislation that would require all employers to electronically verify the eligibility of new hires. A bipartisan immigration reform bill stalled in the Senate last week.
