Director of Chicago’s Latino Union gains respect of day laborers, groups formed to help them – Jessica Aranda From: chicagotribune.com

It wasn’t easy launching the Latino Union, which works on behalf of day laborers. And it hasn’t gotten any easier four years after the agency opened a small storefront at 3416 W. Bryn Mawr Ave. in the Albany Park neighborhood so the workers do not have to stand on street corners to get hired. Chicago also has four main hiring corners for day laborers.

Yet the problem faced by Aranda, executive director of the Latino Union, pales in comparison to other places across the U.S. where a groundswell of anti-immigrant sentiment has led to demonstrations, counterdemonstrations, legal battles and the closing of some centers.

Indeed, day labor supporters worry that many of the nation’s 60 centers like Chicago’s, as well as the more than 1,000 street corners nationwide where day laborers gather, will face problems in the coming months as rising unemployment and anti-illegal-immigrant attitudes congeal into a potent brew.”*

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