Description
This talk is excerpted from a book manuscript titled "Chicagolandia: Race & Labor in Latinx Suburbia." It examines the centrality of labor, both unionized and temporary, in the explosive growth of Chicago’s suburban Latinx community between 1980 and the early 2000s. During these decades, Mexican and other Latin American immigrants, often undocumented, took great risks to cross the border and secure employment in industries such as landscaping and light manufacturing in greater Chicago communities such as Aurora, Waukegan, and Elgin. There they encountered the confluence of the suburbanization of employment, steadily degrading labor conditions, and the meteoric rise of temporary staffing agencies. In response, some used their experience in Latin American workplaces and social movements to challenge their unions to better represent them. When their unions were hobbled by the rise of temporary employment, Latinx immigrants and their allies responded by helping build some of the earliest worker centers in Chicagoland and winning nationally important protections for temporary workers.
About the Speaker
Antonio Ramirez is Associate Professor of History at Elgin Community College. He has worked as a journalist, bilingual high school teacher, consultant for the National Park Service, and educator of agricultural migrant workers. Ramirez also served as Director of Outreach and Leadership Development at a transnational migrant rights legal center in central Mexico and as a low-wage worker organizer in Chicago. His written work has been published in TIME Magazine, the Harvard Journal of Hispanic Policy, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Nation, and others. Ramirez directs the Chicagolandia Oral History Project, which documents the lives of Latina/o residents of Chicago’s suburbs. He also helped establish and currently directs ECC’s Center for Civic Engagement.
About the Labor History Seminar Series
The Labor History Seminar provides a forum for works in progress that explore the history of working class people, communities, and culture; class and state policy; unions and popular political movements; and other related topics.
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This event is free, but all participants must register in advance. Space is limited, so please do not request a paper unless you plan to attend.
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