A lesson in U.S. democracy: Hispanic housekeepers empowered at negotiations

Wednesday, May 29, 2002 | 11 a.m.

If a face could be put on the Culinary Union's current contract negotiations, it would be female. And Hispanic.

One of the main issues at the table during six weeks of talks has been improving working conditions for the 9,000 women who clean hotel rooms on and off the Strip, some 70 percent of whom have Latin American backgrounds.

For many of these women, some of whom have sat at the table with union and industry officials, the negotiations have been a lesson in democracy, an affirmation of why they came to the United States -- and a reminder of the pain they left behind.

Take Ligia Betancourt, who cleans rooms at the Bellagio. Now 51, she left her native Chile when she was just 19 and newly married -- two years before Augusto Pinochet led a coup that would divide the country and result in thousands of politically motivated slayings and disappearances.

Having moved to Puerto Rico, where her husband had a job offer, Betancourt received word via telephone of family members fleeing to Canada, fearing for their lives due to their political beliefs.

Nineteen years later, she moved to the United States, and settled in Las Vegas.

In the past few weeks Betancourt has found herself standing up for her beliefs as a union organizer, arguing for a reduction in the number of rooms she and her fellow workers have to clean per shift.

"This has been an incredible experience for me," she said Tuesday. "It's a totally different perspective from Latin America that you get participating in these talks.

"Here, you have rights, there are laws. You can express what you want and the companies will listen. Coming from a country where they give you nothing, they ask you nothing. ... This is something."

Having Hispanics and other immigrants participate in democratic processes such as labor negotiations is not only meaningful for the participants -- it's good for the country as a whole, said Charles Kamasaki, senior vice president for the National Council of La Raza, a Washington-based Hispanic civil rights group.

"In lots of ways, like any intensive form of civic engagement, this is an empowering process for these women," he said.

"But it's also good for the community as a whole in the long term, since at a fundamental level our democracy requires people to be involved for it to work."

Bertila Guzman, 58, has also been at the table in recent weeks. She has cleaned rooms at Luxor for almost a decade after fleeing Guatemala in 1989.

One day, returning home from work, she witnessed a murder, Guzman said. A police officer shot a young man; it was her 18-year-old cousin.

At the time, such killings were common, as a bitter bloodbath between the state and leftists, both real and imagined, cowed the country.

After witnessing the killing, she began receiving anonymous death threats herself, Guzman said. Her car was pumped with bullet holes one day. She fled her hometown and, within several months, her country.

"Now I think back, and what I lived in my country is completely different from what I'm living now," she said.

"Here I feel free to say what I feel, to fight for having your rights respected. In a country in conflict like where I am from, you never feel this way."

Rosemary Garcia, also from Guatemala, has memories of the same period -- but they are a child's memories. Now 39 and also at Luxor, she left Guatemala when she was 15.

"I remember when I was about 8, the police would warn us on the radio not to leave the house because the guerrillas were coming and they were killing children and old people," she said.

Her mother crossed the Rio Grande when Garcia was 6 in order to pave the way for a better life for them here. Nine years later, she returned, and took them over the border, one by one.

Garcia was brought back to those times when she found herself across the table from Tony Alamo, Mandalay Bay senior vice president, last week.

"I was nervous and had a stomachache beforehand," she said.

"I was scared that something might happen to me if I spoke up. I guess you never get over that fear you bring with you when you leave your country."

John Wilhelm, the union's international president and chairman of the AFL-CIO's immigration committee, said the painful memories of immigrants are converted into the hopes of new Americans.

"The best interpretation of American history will show you ... that immigrants have always given fresh blood to our democracy, since they don't take our freedoms for granted," he said.

Kamasaki agrees.

"It's always been the case that people from abroad tend to come here and reaffirm what our democracy is about. That is the genius of America."