Editor's Note: This story is a collaboration between The Charlotte Optimist and WFAE.
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He arrives around 8:30 a.m., 65 years old, eight months sober and wearing a T-shirt that reads, “NOPE: Not going to happen.”
Xavier Arellano walks across Wendover Road in east Charlotte, dodging four lanes of traffic, and nodding good morning to his fellow day laborers who gather here each day, hoping for work.
Work has been slow. ICE raids in the spring scared off contractors. Brutal heat in July and steady rain in August spoiled much of the summer landscaping season. Day laborers now find themselves at the ground level of America’s weakening labor market, which in June experienced its first contraction in four years, and which has seen 1.2 million immigrants leave the workforce since January.
Still, each sunrise brings promise.
“I always say, ‘It’s going to be a better day,’” Arellano said.
While other people in Charlotte wake up to post on LinkedIn in search of engagement and jobs, the day laborers hope for brake lights. With luck, a truck or moving van will stop and the driver will hold up a few fingers, signaling how many people they need. On a good day, the workers can bring home between $150 and $200. On a better day, they might catch two jobs.
To people driving by on their morning commute, the men are familiar silhouettes pacing the sidewalks across from Starbucks and Chick-fil-A. But they all have stories and skills and, as we learned in several visits to the site over the course of August, lessons to teach the rest of us about pursuit and purpose.
They are documented and undocumented, husbands and divorcees, dads and uncles. They’re painters, landscapers, sheetrock specialists, roofers, and movers. Some are skilled in one trade, others in another. Most are willing to try anything if the pay’s right. Arellano is one of the few who speaks English, so he plays up his ability to translate.
Sometimes it would be easier not to understand the language. The national immigration rhetoric flies past them at 35 mph. Some drivers give them middle fingers. One regular antagonist shouts each day that ICE is coming for them next. Far more people simply pass by with side eyes and raised windows, afraid to engage at all.
So far, the men say ICE has left them alone, even as raids dominate headlines around the country. A Mecklenburg County sheriff’s deputy sits in a nearby driveway most mornings. The men barely notice the car anymore. Arellano says they have no issues with local law enforcement, as long as they keep the site clean.
Still, contractors are skittish. Trust is falling. Some days the workers will stand here until 3 p.m. before giving up. By Aug. 25, Arellano had made about $800 in August. He usually tries to bring in about $1,200 a month.
So this is what he wants you to know, whether you’re a contractor or someone just looking to have some work done: They’re good people, they work hard, and they want jobs, but they don’t want to take them from anybody else.
“If you need help,” he tells us, “this is the spot.”
Day labor stretches back more than a century, from Irish-American immigrant stevedores on docks in the 1900s to modern Latinos outside of home improvement stores. As white-collar jobs grew in the 1990s and 2000s, and as Home Depot, Lowe’s and others raced to win customers with lower prices, contractors turned to day labor to keep costs down, as NPR recently reported.
Charlotte’s first wave of Latinos arrived around the same time, with the construction of what is now Bank of America tower and other downtown projects. In 1990, Latinos made up 1% of Mecklenburg’s population; by 2020, they made up more than 16%. Hispanic people comprise about 15% of Charlotte’s construction workforce, their largest share of any industry, according to Charlotte Works.
Day labor is a jumping-off point for some. They arrived in Charlotte and began their careers here, then scored full-time employment. Others save up and launch their own businesses.
For most, though, this is the career — rising each day, not knowing what the next job will be, or if there will be one. We met some people who’ve been coming to Wendover for more than a decade. The pickup location has changed several times. In the early 2000s, they gathered in the Home Depot lot before the store booted them. They moved across the street to the Habitat for Humanity parking lot, then to KFC, then to a wooded property that became a post office, and finally here.
Most of the men we approached did not want to speak on the record. One man who spoke with us said he’s “working through the process” of getting legal status and has spent thousands of dollars. He’s worried, but said the need to make money outweighs the fear. He says he’d want people driving by to know that they’re not criminals, not a danger. When they recognize a “bad apple” in the group, they remove him. They just want work.
“They self-monitor because they understand that if one of them doesn’t work well or one of them doesn’t deliver or something happens, they will all be affected,” says Jose Hernandez-Paris, the CEO of the Latin American Coalition, which provides wraparound services to the dayworkers and tries to connect them with resources.
Arellano holds a resident visa. His parents immigrated to New York from Ecuador in the 1970s, and he followed them when he was 15. He had two children and moved from New York to Florida looking for work to support them. He was fired from a few jobs because of drinking.
He moved to Charlotte in 1999 and cycled between Wendover, full-time work, and temp agencies. He considers himself retired now. And he gave up drinking earlier this year. He goes to meetings at 7 a.m. each weekday before heading here. He has a 15-year-old son who lives in Monroe and wants to be a better dad to him. He took him to visit the Statue of Liberty this past Fourth of July.
Arellano says he will pay off his truck this fall, and he doesn’t have as many bills as the others. He comes here for camaraderie. His friends call him George because they say he looks like George Lopez. On one of our visits, he brought a speaker to play music for everybody. On another, he walked over to the grocery store and bought iced tea and snacks for the group.
“What am I going to do at home?” he laughs. “I’d rather come here and say hi to the buddies. And if I get the work, work, and if I don’t, don’t.”
That approach to life — only trying to control what you can control — was a common thread among all the people we talked to. They can’t change laws or hearts, they know, but they can put their best workers forward every day.
One of the sharpest observations came from a man who goes by Deebo. His worn T-shirt had a picture of Marilyn Monroe next to Tupac. Deebo’s real name is Bryant Davis. He’s a 56-year-old Black man who isn’t an immigrant.
A few weeks ago, a truck pulled up looking for workers. The hiring man pointed at Deebo and said he wanted him, not the others. Deebo asked why, and the guy said that it was too risky to hire immigrants given the raids. Deebo could’ve used the money, he said, but he turned down the offer. He’d rather walk away than take a job because of his skin color.
“You don’t do people like that, man,” Deebo says. “[We’re] all in the world together, man.”
Hernandez-Paris said he saw the day workers’ generosity firsthand during COVID-19, when the Latin American Coalition, through a foundation, provided them with $250 a week to help through the lockdowns. “They shared the money with others,” he said. “It was really touching to see that.”
Deebo only takes work if he needs it. If his pockets are full, he lets others go first.
“My mama always said, never be greedy,” Deebo said. “God’s starting to get angry, man. All these storms [are] starting to get so strong, little things start happening on this earth. People playing with God. They got so much hate in their heart. I don’t like you because you’re Black. I don’t like you because you’re Puerto Rican. I don’t like you because you’re white."
“I don’t give a damn what color you is. We’re all human beings. We’re all going to die. You can believe that. I love to see everybody doing good.”
