Williamsburg, NY – After years of waiting on a Brooklyn street corner trying to land jobs cleaning houses, Teresa Bucio decided there had to be a better way to earn a living.
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Like dozens of Latina immigrants, Ms. Bucio, 33, used to stand at the corner of Division and Marcy Avenues in Williamsburg every morning, hoping to be hired.
The intersection – a bare cement triangle overlooking a sunken stretch of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway – is an unusual all-women day labor site where residents of the heavily Hasidic neighborhood find people to clean their homes. Ligia Guallpa, an advocate for day laborers who has assisted women at the site for years, estimated that some 200 women congregated there over any given week, and many of them are illegal immigrants.
But work is by no means guaranteed. Before the Sabbath or Jewish holidays, the demand for cleaners increases; on other days, many women never leave the corner.
So some of them decided they would take matters into their own hands and start a business.
“If they pick you up for two or three hours, that’s good,” said Ms. Bucio, who moved to the United States from Michoacán, Mexico, with her sister in 1997. “And if not, in any case, you go like you arrived, with empty hands.”
The Bucio sisters founded the Apple Eco-Friendly Cleaning cooperative with a handful of women whom they met at the Williamsburg hiring site. The group advertises on recycled paper and makes its own cleaning products, forgoing harsh chemicals for ingredients like lemon juice, glycerin, borax and fruit oils.
The women taught themselves to make the cleansers and refined their recipes through a combination of Internet research and trial and error.
“When we say we’re from a company with a business card, they treat you differently from the time you arrive,” Yesenia Bucio, 32, Teresa Bucio’s sister, said. “I feel very good, very happy and I have very high self-esteem.”
The group is using its environmentally conscious approach to attract customers and also to protect the health of its workers. Yesenia Bucio said she used to suffer migraines from using large quantities of bleach and other chemicals.
You have to admire these women and how they refused to simply give up and not work. Instead they used their heads and work ethic to start a business and support their families. It would be wonderful if all the young yiddeshe boys and girls who whine about not being able to find jobs because they don’t have advanced degrees would show similiar entrepreneurial spirit and start their own business rather than depending on their parents and inlaws for support.
The mexicans are good when they work but after 2 weeks they don’t know what you want from them no home today my sister maybe work you ,other hand BH a lot of yidishe yingeliet with no education started on their own and are BH very successful
If they are illegal, they have no right to start a business in America. I don’t care what nationality they may be. Illegal aliens are illegal aliens. Don’t give me this “undocumented worker” or “day laborer” garbage.
They should be required to check the legal status of each worker they have and if they don’t pass the sniff test- send them back!
is this a comedy? how can they run a business when they are illegal aliens? it’s called “putting on airs”, so they can charge more. before Pesach they ask for any amount and some stupid people actually pay them!
Instead of occupy wall street why don’t they get off their backside and start companies and work. The problem they all want minimum $25 To start, half day Friday and late Monday morning encase of hang overs. I had employees like that
when they started their own companies found they worked into 3 or 4 in the morning and on Sundays also
I would not use anything other than a bonded cleaning service. They may cost a bit more, but they get the job done! I would never pick up some lady from a street corner. BTW those of you who are complaining that “heimishe women” don’t work and can’t speak English, I have a university degree in Mathematics, I work full time and my husband learns in kolel but he is retired after working a full time professional job for 35 years!
all i know is i am happy to come home to a clean house on the day my cleaning lady comes. i dont see anyone else offering to wash the floors, bathrooms etc even if i paid them $10 an hour.