Hispanic workers hit hard by layoffs

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Monday, Oct. 1, 2001 | 9:55 a.m.

Enriqueta Salazar, 31, is worried about the $200 she sends to her daughters in Mexico twice a month. Octavio Ramo, 50, is holding a garage sale this weekend to raise money for household expenses. Marilyn Lopez, 34, has trouble explaining to her 5-year-old daughter why she can't have Maizoro, her favorite cereal, every morning.

This is what's happening in thousands of households across Las Vegas since layoffs hit the city within days of the Sept. 11 attacks on Washington and New York.

Many of these households are Hispanic, since an estimated 42 percent of the Culinary Union's 50,000 members are from Latin America. In some trades, such as housekeeping, it's 70 percent.

Salazar worked in housekeeping for the Holiday Inn, where she earned $6.50 an hour and worked a 40-hour week. Until she was laid off on Sept. 15, nearly half of her paycheck went to her two daughters living with her mother in Veracruz, Mexico.She called her mother to explain what happened. Her mother told her they still have rice and beans to eat.

"But I'm worried about what would happen if they got sick," she said.

Ramo turned to the garage sale after his wife, Nancy, was laid off from her job as banquet coordinator at the Excalibur a week after the attacks.

She has applied for unemployment and is looking for work as a secretary, he said.

"The only thing we can do is keep calm. I try and comfort my wife by telling her that at least we don't have children -- unlike some of my friends who have been laid off with three, four children."

Lopez worked as a porter at Bally's Las Vegas, where she earned $11.30 an hour. She was born in Chicago to Puerto Rican parents, and her husband is from Mexico. She has four children from 5 to 16.

"Luckily, my husband still has his job in construction, where he earns about $300 a week. But we're having trouble with food right now," she said.

The Nevada Association of Latin Americans is doing what it can to help such workers, Lupe Melgarejo, client services coordinator, said. The nonprofit group, which has a federal grant to provide emergency food and shelter, has seen a 20 percent increase in calls daily since the layoffs began, Melgarejo said.

The agency is also providing intensive English classes and job training, Executive Director Teri de la Torre-Azeman said.

"Many of these people are not very competitive in the job market because of their limited English. So we're trying to do something about that," she said.

Meanwhile, the laid-off Las Vegans are being encouraged by family members to come home.

Salazar said her daughters told her to go back to Mexico. "This is really tough to hear," she said. Her husband, Guillermo, would stay behind and work. "I don't want to separate from him."

She's not the only one. Marjorie Chavez, 28, had her hours cut back at Harrah's. Her family in Los Angeles could take her and her 2-year-old son in, but her husband, who still has work, would stay behind.

"I don't want to break up my family," she said.

"But this city lives off of tourism, and if there's a war, no one will want to go anywhere."