Argentina draws South America's poor
BUENOS AIRES: Lidubina Zamudio gave up a job as a history teacher in Peru to
be an illegal alien cleaning houses in Argentina. Like many of the poor who
are flocking to South America's richest nation, that suits her just fine.
Even pooling her salary with that of her husband, also a teacher, they could
not make it in Peru on $80 per month. "Between the two of us we didn't have
enough to live," said Zamudio, 55, in the living room of her Buenos Aires
apartment.
In 1993 she decided to seek her fortune in Argentina. Now she earns $300 a
month cleaning a church and has brought her husband and four children to
live with her in a middle-class neighborhood of downtown Buenos Aires. None
of them want to go back to Peru. Their ambition is to open a business in
Argentina.
Argentine immigrants 100 years ago were likely to be men from European
cities like Naples or Valencia. Today they are women from places in Latin
America like Lima or Cochabamba. Originally home to nomadic Indians,
Argentina was formed primarily by immigrants to the India-sized republic
from Europe, black slaves and, to a lesser extent, Asian immigrants. In the
19th and 20th centuries Italians and Spanish poured in.
Today, with immigration at its lowest level in 100 years, most of the
roughly 13,000 immigrants who annually get residency in Argentina are from
Bolivia or Peru. In past waves of immigration to Argentina, men came before
women because it was easier for them to get work. Now the opposite is true
as women find it easier to get jobs in Argentina's largely service-based
economy.
Many of the new Latin American immigrants do not get the chance to integrate
into Argentine society, said Lelio Marmora, director of the International
Immigration Organization. He said Argentine descendants of white Europeans
have the same race- and class-based prejudices against poor South Americans
as their ancestors did against Indians and blacks.
"Unlike at the beginning of the (20th) century, when immigration was
synonymous with development and progress, now immigration is seen in terms
of costs and benefits," he said. Even with 13.8 percent unemployment and
nearly 2 million people without a job, many immigrants get work because the
pay they receive, on average, is 30 percent below the going rate.
Argentina's Department of Immigration demands a work contract from every
immigrant who comes. Nonetheless, nearly 80 percent of the Latin American
immigrants who arrive each year end up working "off the books," the
government says.
They often do work Argentines do not want to tackle. "When I arrived and I
realized I would end up cleaning houses I felt humiliated. Luckily I've had
good experiences," said Zamudio, who was first a nurse and then became a
cleaner.
Her husband and a daughter later joined her. He now works as a house painter
and Zamudio has gone from living in a cheap hotel room to sharing a
two-storeyhouse. "Not having the contract complicates things when we go to
look for work," she said. But in Argentina's domestic service, as well as in
the construction industry, "illegals" abound.
"These days there are two basic things making it difficult to get Argentine
citizenship: high costs and legal work," Marmora said. The Zamudio family
started their residency request in 1994 and are still at it. "Up to now
we've paid $7,000 and they just gave us a temporary document, not even the
final one," she said. "If they don't want Peruvians here they should be
straight up and say, 'We don't want Peruvians. (Reuters)
For reprint rights: Times Syndication Service
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