Becoming New Yorkers: Ethnographies of the New Second Generation

CHAPTER 5: WHO’S BEHIND THE COUNTER? RETAIL WORKERS IN NEW YORK CITY

CHAPTER 5 WHO’S BEHIND THE COUNTER? RETAIL WORKERS IN NEW YORK CITY Victoria Malkin Awalk down Thirty-fourth Street in Manhattan’s midtown becomes a corporate shopping oasis; music, clothes, cosmetics, and shoe stores compete for clientele from New York City and beyond. But anyone entering these stores will see that while customers cram the aisles, try on clothes, discard items, hunt for bargains, and return goods, a small army of employees, many of them indistinguishable from the shoppers, are wandering the floor, restocking shelves, responding to customers, and fighting with faulty cash registers. This labor force represents one cross-section of New York City’s population—mobile, mostly young, and as diverse as the shops in which they work. The importance of retail as an employment sector for young adults in New York City is evident not only from anecdotal accounts of shopping in Manhattan’s midtown mall but from the Immigrant Second Generation in Metropolitan New York Study’s data, which show retail to be an employment sector in which all ethnic groups participate to some extent (see table 5.1). In this chapter, I use the case study of one corporate retail chain to examine this workplace and its employees. Retail workers interact with a corporate power structure, experiencing and responding to managerial systems that exercise control in novel ways—from direct supervision to the technological and bureaucratic measures that are part of any contemporary workforce (Lamphere, Stepick, and Grenier 1994, 9)—while at the same time they are involved in complex social interactions with the customers whom they serve. The focus on the workplace as a space that “restructures” diversity is nothing new (Lamphere, Stepick, and Grenier 1994). Nevertheless, this chapter departs from the focus on immigrant low-wage work sectors, immigrant en115 TABLE 5.1 EMPLOYMENT AMONG EIGHTEEN- TO THIRTY-FIVE-YEAR-OLDS, BY GROUP AND BY INDUSTRY Colombian, Ecuadorean, and Puerto West Native Russian Native Peruvian Dominican Rican Indian Black Chinese Jewish White Agriculture, fishing, forestry and mining 0.3 0.3 0.3 Construction 1.3 2.0 2.0 1.4 5.8 2.4 2.3 2.6 Manufacturing 7.4 6.5 4.3 5.2 3.1 8.5 4.6 11.3 Transportation, communications, and public utilities 9.7 8.5 7.3 10.1 9.6 6.1 3.2 9.4 Wholesale and retail trade 22.5 26.1 28.7 22.0 14.3 19.8 25.2 16.1 Finance, insurance, and real estate 14.8 7.8 7.7 10.1 6.8 16.2 11.0 12.9 Business repair and personal services 17.1 14.7 17.0 11.5 20.5 18.1 21.1 16.1 Professional services 22.8 30.0 28.0 32.5 30.7 25.9 31.2 25.5 Public administration 4.4 4.2 5.0 6.6 9.2 3.1 1.4 5.8 Total (numbers) 298 307 300 286 293 425 218 310 Source: Adapted from Zeltzer-Zubida (2003); data from the Immigrant Second Generation in Metropolitan New York Survey sample. claves, and “immigrant entrepreneurs,” all of which have contributed to the revitalization of New York’s outer boroughs and inner-city neighborhoods. Instead, it focuses on the corporate retail sector—a sector that depends on as large a customer base as possible in a city famous for its consumer choices. It also needs “acculturated” employees who have the skills necessary to interact with a demanding and often confused public. Native minorities, white ethnics , and the children of immigrants are all assets to the corporate employer seeking a diverse labor force to match and serve its varied customer base (Goode 1994; Waldinger 1999; Waldinger and Lichter 2003, 132–78). To date, research has been more focused on documenting how economic restructuring, labor demand, and immigrant or ethnic networks permit the emergence of ethnic niches, ethnic enclaves, and the sectoral concentration of different groups in specific labor markets (Goode 1994; Kim 1999; Logan and Alba 1999; Lopez and Feliciana 2000; Portes 1995; Rath and Kloosterman 2000; Waldinger 1996; Wilson 1999), all the while asking whether these social formations restrict or encourage economic and social mobility among different groups (see, for example, Logan and Alba 1999; Wilson 1999). An ecological model of assimilation and ethnic succession provides the backbone for a popular version of an American Dream: immigrants...