For those having no familiarity with my previous writings, I ought to say that I live in my city's barrio. The things about which I write regarding my personal life take place where I live, in the barrio, in a medium sized city, close to the geographic middle of the United States. 

I don't have much patience for the racial intolerance of either anglos or chicanos. Racism is manufactured, promoted, and disseminated by those who profit financially from it. If you're a racist, stop participating in your own oppression. 

What I'm going to write about this time contains elements of race, ethnicity and a bank which, despite its greed, is in its death throes. If you have been participating in your own oppression, try to remember that greed, like love and athlete's foot, cuts across all artificially erected human boundaries, such as race, religion or country of birth. 

Here's an interesting story: AP Investigation: Banks sought foreign workers. 

A few years ago I got all outraged about US employers using every sleazy means available to "legally" import workers from other countries. We think that activity begins and ends with some rich, white family importing an impoverished third world couple to keep the garden and nanny the kids. Not so.

The business, and it is a business, of circumventing pesky US laws to hire cheap foreign workers is not news. It's been going on a long time. It's profitable. It's a world of lawyers and federal paperwork, not a world of 100 illegal aliens dying in the back of a U-Haul. 

It's a world of white-collar crime and barely legal work papers. But, make no mistake, the "foreign workers" are no less oppressed, they're just paid more, and they come into the US on airplanes, not on foot across the Rio Grande. And they arrive here for the same reason, to satisfy somebody's desire to circumvent the US law as a way to satisfy their greed. 

The point of the article linked above is that workers are being imported by the same big banks that American taxpayers just got through bailing out. I guess now we know that it's not just nannies and gardeners from the Dominican Republic, huh? 

It's much more widespread than that, and the support industry that enables it is large, and profitable in its own right. Do your own research. The information is freely available on the internet.

Several years ago I had to do some business with a Bank of America branch in my neighborhood. I hadn't had occasion to do business inside an American bank since before a federal law was passed declaring that all Americans are potential financial supporters of anti-American terrorism. To refresh your memory, it's the Patriot Act. 

Bank of America has locked down all physical access to their buildings. You'd think they had a bunch of money in there! Which I doubt very seriously. I don't think there's any money in that building beyond what's in the ATM in the lobby. Still, we can't be too careful, huh?

I wasn't surprised at the increased "security," you know, the patriotic need to keep Americans from moving freely in places where they put their money. And I certainly haven't been surprised at how we now have laws making it difficult for Americans to have free and immediate access to their own money. After all, if we could take our money out of banks anytime we wanted to, how could banks use our money to make more money for themselves? Duh!

What surprised me was that all the employees were apparently not native English speakers. Their accents gave me one continuous flashback of being on the phone with tech support. I thought, "Where did they get all these people who have so much trouble speaking English, yet who are professionally qualified to work in an American bank?"

I knew "why" they got them. The neighborhood had changed in the 1990s from poor anglos to poor chicanos. It makes sense that a large, profitable, savvy business would want their staff to reflect the changing ethnicity of their target clientele. 

But, "where" did they get them? They didn't get them from MY neighborhood! We're blue collar workers, we're poor, and we don't work in banks. I was genuinely mystified. Yes, it did cross my mind that such workers could be imported. Although I thought it more likely that the barrio would be trolled for appropriate, politically correct, trainable candidates. I used to be an "employment counselor" and had "placed" many of my clients in bank jobs. 

Had Bank of America imported them from California, where the mainstream media assures me the entire population is illegal immigrants from Spanish speaking countries, who cannot speak English? Had Bank of America imported them from BoA branches in Spanish speaking countries? Had the Chinese begun manufacturing "ethnic" employees for export to American banks?

But, and here's where it gets interesting, when I was in the same Bank of America branch several months ago, the worker's faces were uniformly white, the accents were uniformly redneck, and nothing else whatsoever appeared to have changed. 

And, most important to me, where had all those former BoA barrio branch workers, who obviously still needed employment, gone? My neighborhood is still the barrio. Why did Bank of America get rid of all those employees who, at least looked and sounded like they, "belonged" here in the barrio? 

Well, actually, I do understand "why" they went away: In a city with an overwhelmingly anglo, English-as-first-language population, even in the barrio there isn't much need for a bank to employ exclusively Spanish-as-first-language workers. I mean, it's not like Bank of America is still making predatory home loans to people who can neither read nor afford the mortgage, now is it?

But, where did all those BoA employees go?

Mr Gonzalez, you helpful bank manager, where are you? After you ratcheted down the impenetrability of your Spanish accent to accommodate my anglo ears, I found you quite helpful. Your redneck replacement? Not so much. All he wanted to do was harass me into taking out a mortgage. Whereas you never once mentioned a mortgage. 

I miss you, Mr Gonzalez. Where did you and your coworkers  go? 

On a related banking note: I'm reading that there's a big increase in bank robberies in recent months. I'm not going to be surprised when we "have to" pass some new laws giving us even LESS ability to get our money out of banks. 

Can't be too careful, eh?

February 2, 2009