ICE Does It Again

When I heard about the ICE shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston I was reminded of the time I moved there to do construction work. It was November 1980, and I was hoping to get some experience, so I could move back north to qualify for union membership, at much higher pay. 

I was hired by Joe Swartz Electric, Houston's largest residential electrical contractor, to wire houses for $5 per hour. It was backbreaking work, "production," as speed was of the essence. The houses were pretty flimsy, built on the Houston flood plain, easily damaged by the many storms that plague Houston. 

The building trades were divided by ethnicity, with "whites" doing the premier skilled work of carpentry, electrical wiring and plumbing, Latinos - Mexicans primarily, doing drywall, bricklaying (done in precast panels), roofing, and African-Americans doing cleanup. 

I was living in the Siddha Yoga ashram, which was on Garrott St., in the Montrose, Houston's gay neighborhood. When my fellow workers found out where I lived, life became dangerous. I couldn't say "I'm not gay, I'm following a guru," so I ended up quitting before getting beat up. 

At lunchtime various crews would congregate to eat together, and it soon became clear that the prejudice against Mexicans was intense. One guy, who apparently had recently been released from "Huntsville," turned to another guy and said "Billy Joe (or some such), I just about hate a Mexican worse than I do a nigger!" It was for my benefit, having moved there from Michigan. I just laughed, which didn't please him. He also said to another guy, who had an Italian last name, "I hear you're a pretty good swimmer!", meaning a wetback. 

There was another guy just out of Huntsville, tied for the worst human being I have ever known. He told me "We have the Nazis and Klan down here to take care of things like that (black exercise of citizenship)." He likely ended up back in prison for good. His last name was Alexander, don't remember the first, in case you are curious enough to Google him. 

Houston would be a ripe place for ICE recruits, and likely many of them are indeed native Houstonites. Huntsville also would be a ripe place for ICE recruits.

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