Immediate neighborhood, Irish guys fresh off the plane. They put up ads advertising “Irish handyman and carpenter” with cellphone numbers in grocery stores and stuff. The women advertise as nannies and housecleaners.
City in general–it’s really impossible to generalize. Same mix of black, white, Latinos, etc. as everywhere else (although the ratio of Mexicans in the mix is growing but much lower than in the Southern part of the country). Lots of black guys from the Caribbean, Haitians and Jamaicans; the former are particularly known for running these informal projects.
Of course, unions are still pretty strong so there’s plenty of the more traditional blue-collar people around, who by now are pretty mixed ethnically.
The oilfield, predominantly Mexican-American. If it weren’t for them, whether illegals amnestied in 1986 and their descendants or Texas Mexicans, the oilfield would probably cease to function. And this is at all levels, not just the low ones.
Farming and construction in my county, a majority would be German Mennonites (the majority of the Anglo population in my county is German Mennonite). I see more German women chopping cotton in the summer than Mexicans in my county. In the whole South Plains and Permian Basin, predominantly Hispanic (and the vast majority legal).
I work a job with a seasonal labor force. They are probably around 90% Mexican-American females. And all legal.
Here in South Carolina it used to be all black guys but now it’s a mix of black guys and Hispanic guys (I don’t presume to know from which country). More than one contractor my dad has used for various projects has told him they prefer Hispanic workers to black ones because they work much harder - I’m mentioning this to show that there does seem to be a certain stereotype in that direction around here.
Central Indiana–and it seems to pretty well mirror the population. Construction workers are guys in their thirties and forties of all races, lawn care is younger guys of all races, store clerks are of all ages, genders, and races. We have very few black people around here, probably more Mexicans. This is a university town, so there are lots of Indian/Asian/Arab students, but they’re students, and usually don’t have to work.
ETA: and there are Amish construction crews, but they are a “special order” kind of crew.
Now, this summer I’m moving to Illinois, where I’ve noticed that a very high percentage of people working in stores and restaurants are black. Probably at least half. I haven’t had time to observe any construction or landscaping there, though.
North side of Chicago - mostly Mexican men, but a fair number of Eastern European (Polish, 'Slovakian, Hungarian, etc.) and Russian as well. Very few black men, actually, although of course there’s a huge black population here - but as **Sattua **has observed, they’ve moved into the service industry - retail, restaurants, delivery, etc. Polish cleaning ladies are a status thing, it seems, although lots of Mexican women do it as well. Lots of the yuppie types want a Mexican nanny or babysitter to teach the sprog Spanish in the cradle.
Very few latinos, if that’s what you mean. Mostly below proverty level families of whites and a general blend of minorities. You don’t have to be Latino to work your ass off and be poor.
Here in Toronto, it’s a lot of East Indian or Filipino. Actually, it can be anyone, but a large percentage of busboys at restaurants look E. I. and all the nannies and nail salon workers in my area are Thai or Filipino.
Mostly Mexicans, with a smattering of other Latinos thrown in. Also poor white and black guys. I’d break it down as:
Mexicans and other Latinos: 60%
White: 25-30%
Black: remainder
The more “manual”, the more Mexican. Skilled physical labor is still more dominated by the whites and blacks, with most of the foremen white. Lawn mowing, etc., is mostly Mexican.
WTF??? I haven’t known of anyone actually chopping cotton in over 30 years. That cultural practice went out in the Southeast a long time ago. Where are you located, that chopping cotton is still done?
Most of the work crews around this part of Alabama are composed of Mexicans. They are doing almost all of the forestry and farm work, and they are quick and efficient. The only problem is communication, as it’s possible to encounter a crew of five to ten workers, none of whom speak English.
I’m living in Ireland (for now). Here, almost all manual labor jobs are done by Eastern Europeans. Primarily Poles, but also plenty of Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Czechs, and Slovaks. When I visited the US back in January, it almost seemed exotic to hear Spanish being spoken on the streets…
Mostly natives (native to the area, not Native Americans) but there is something of a construction boom so I’m sure people travel here to work. Still mostly white men though, and I assume they are natives. The farms I know the most about employ locals, mostly youths.
I live in Houston. Here it’s virtually all Latinos. And by “virtually all,” I mean over 99%, at least in construction, general contractor work, landscaping, etc. It’s an overwhelming majority.
I’d say 99% of manual labor here goes to Mexicans. The other one percent is probably an even mix of white and Native guys. There’s practically no black population here. (Santa Fe, NM. 50% Hispanic. Less than 1% black.)
In the DC area, it seems to me that most of the construction jobs are being done by Hispanics, it seems that most of the service jobs are either African American in the City and Hispanic in the suburbs.
From my experience the general contractor work involving any skill at all also includes a lot of black, white and asian. All the guys who worked on my apartment buildings maladies were asian or white, except for the hispanic roofers. Even the guys who worked on the deck were white.
I’d put the figure closer to 75-80%, but it’l climb into the 90’s soon.
I’d say that it’s mostly Hispanic around here, shifting more heavily Asian as you move east towards NYC. I wouldn’t guess at specific countries or percentages.
My father used to work in asbestos removal. It was hot, nasty work that paid well. He tells me that his crews (here in the east) were split almost evenly between South American (Columbia, El Salvador, etc.) and Polish. The Poles gave him a bottle of 190 proof vodka once (supposedly because they liked him, but I have to think maybe they were trying to kill him. :D) Some of the Hispanics would offer him cocaine, supposedly for the same reason. He had to break up a knife fight between the Nicaraguans and the Salvadorians on one Long Island job. They were all reliable and hard workers, though.
He preferred them to the few non-immegrants willing to work the job, as they were almost all ex-cons and drug addicts, and would disappear for weeks at a time or get high over lunch.
He worked a three month job in Houston, TX, once, where his crews were 80% Mexican and 20% Philippine.
