Curbside Contenders: Dignity and Distancing among Immigrant Day Laborers.

This paper examines patterns of self-identification among immigrant day laborers on the street corners of San Francisco, focusing in particular on the ways in which they seek and affirm dignity in the face of rampant stigmatization, ever-present uncertainty and poverty. Drawing upon interviews and ethnographic data, it presents evidence that many who work in this informal labor market maintain a sense of dignity and claim their moral worth by fashioning themselves as entrepreneurs, jacks-of-all trades and/or role models, taking pride in the seemingly unparalleled autonomy this work affords them as well as in the skill and work ethic their work purportedly exemplifies. These findings challenge popular perceptions about immigrant day laborers as well as existing scholarship on the relationship between work and dignity among the urban subproletariat. This paper furthermore argues that attempts to affirm this dignified status come all too often at the expense of others. Many of these street corner day laborers engage in a variety of practices of social distancing and differentiation, deflecting stigma onto other "undesirables" who share the same social space and joining in the dominant discourse of denouncing those who undeservingly profit from social assistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]