Temple University Press Daily Labors: Marketing Identity and Bodies on a New York City Street Corner

On street corners throughout the country, men stand or sit together patiently while they wait for someone looking to hire un buen trabajador (a good worker). These day laborers are visible symbols of the changing nature of work—and the demographics of workers—in the United States. Carolyn Pinedo-Turnovsky spent nearly three years visiting with African American men and Latino immigrant men who looked for work as day laborers at a Brooklyn street intersection. Her fascinating ethnography, Daily Labors, considers these immigrants and citizens as active participants in their social and economic life. They not only work for wages but also labor daily to institute change, create knowledge, and contribute new meanings to shape their social world. Daily Labors reveals how ideologies about race, gender, nation, and legal status operate on the corner and the vulnerabilities, discrimination, and exploitation workers face in this labor market. Pinedo-Turnovsky shows how workers market themselves to conform to employers' preconceptions of a "good worker" and how this performance paradoxically leads to a more precarious workplace experience. Ultimately, she sheds light on belonging, community, and what a "good day laborer" for these workers really is. Review "A formidable account of the lives of day laborers in early twenty-first-century New York City, Daily Labors makes an important contribution to the literature on migration and urban studies. Pinedo-Turnovsky's book is a uniquely valuable resource for scholars and students of the ethnography of contemporary work and labor."--Immanuel Ness, Professor of Political Science, Brooklyn College, City University of New York, and author of Southern Insurgency: The Coming of the Global Working Class "This ethnographic study of a community of day laborers who sought work at an intersection in Brooklyn, New York, deepens our understanding of not only how the labor market for this important, precarious form of employment functions but also how--despite the constraints produced by hierarchies created on the basis of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, immigration, and legality--workers maintain a sense of dignity and agency. By so doing, Pinedo-Turnovsky's study enhances our knowledge of how structural conditions affect individuals' interactions."--Arne L. Kalleberg, Kenan Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author of Precarious Lives: Job Insecurity and Well-Being in Rich Democracies From the Author Carolyn Pinedo-Turnovsky is a sociologist in the Department of American Ethnic Studies at the University of Washington. About the Author Carolyn Pinedo-Turnovsky is a sociologist in the Department of American Ethnic Studies at the University of Washington.