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"Searching for bread for our children': Wage theft among Latin American immigrant women living in Wichita, KS
Looning, Elizabeth
Looning, Elizabeth
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2016-12
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Wage theft,Undocumented immigrants,Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)
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Electronic dissertations
Electronic dissertations
Electronic dissertations
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Abstract
Wage theft occurs when employers don’t pay their workers at least minimum wage and correct
overtime compensation (Bobo 2011:6). Even though undocumented immigrants have illegally entered the
United States and employers who hire them are violating the law, two federal courts have ruled that all
workers have the right to be paid according to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), regardless of
immigrant status. However, many undocumented Spanish-speaking immigrants are reluctant to file claims
for stolen wages for a variety of reasons. Their primary concerns are job loss and deportation. Several
studies have noted that more men from undocumented Spanish-speaking communities file claims for
stolen wages than do women from these communities. I have found no good reason to believe that
working Spanish-speaking immigrant women experience wage theft less often than their male
counterparts. Instead, I believe these women face more barriers to filing claims for stolen wages.
Interviews with ten Spanish-speaking immigrant women revealed various levels of fear of job loss and
various attitudes regarding the difficulty of finding a new job, if they were fired. Six of ten participants
worried how they would support their children if they lost their jobs as a result of filing a claim for stolen
wages. García and Oliveira note that Mexican women from a variety of social classes “consider
motherhood as their main source of identity” (García and Oliveira 1997:382). Thus, for a woman, whose
primary identity is that of a providing mother, risking her job and possibly getting deported are at odds
with feminine constructions of responsible motherhood.
Several informants suffered for months and years under psychologically abusive managers and
bosses. Catalytic events are powerfully emotional events that transform undocumented workers who
were previously willing to put up with labor abuses, such as verbal abuse, unsafe working conditions, or
wage theft, into persons who are no longer willing to tolerate such abuses. These events allowed
Spanish-speaking immigrant women to reach a threshold at which they are not longer willing to suffer
labor abuses in order to preserve their jobs and identities as providing mothers. After these catalytic
events they were able to push past fears of job loss and deportation in order to file claims for stolen
wages and preserve personal dignity by asserting their rights as workers who contribute to the US
economy.
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Thesis (M.A.)--Wichita State University, Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Dept. of Anthropology
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Wichita State University
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Copyright 2016 by Elizabeth Lonning