Abstract

Although Scottsdale, Arizona, is an "upscale" tourist community, the city has relied on Mexican labor from its initial founding. Early Mexican laborers established a vibrant barrio, only to be dispersed through urban renewal. Recently the growing need for labor in the resorts has attracted many Mexicans who remain segregated into four enclaves. In spite of official city imagery that ignores the Mexican community, the working poor are vital to the local economy. The city faces increasing pressures to resolve public policy issues of affordable housing, transportation, racial segregation, and the role of the private sector in providing services.

Introduction

Scottsdale, Arizona, to most people signifies sun-basked resorts, lush golf courses, art galleries, Native American jewelry, and pleasant living in the arid Southwest. Indeed, this image is reality to many. Scottsdale, as a city manager stated, is an "upscale community," and tourism is big -- 6.7 million tourists visited in 1997, employing 27 percent of the workforce and contributing $2 billion to the local economy (Scottsdale Chamber of Commerce 1998). There are about 60 resorts and hotels in Scottsdale, providing nearly 11,000 rooms. But like many resort areas in the West, finding room for the "upscale" community and the workers who are needed to make the place function can cause problems. Affordable housing, transportation, and the clash of different lifestyles and values are tough policy and community issues. Often discrimination compounds the problems, making solutions for these very real concerns more difficult.

Scottsdale is not known as a Mexican-American town, nor do city leaders want it to be. Indeed, compared to the rest of the Phoenix Metropolitan Area, Scottsdale has a relatively low percentage Hispanic population (Figure 1). However, a large Mexican population (including both Mexican-Americans and Mexican nationals) is resident in the city today. This paper seeks to explain why a relatively poor community of Mexicans, many undocumented immigrants, lives in this expensive, upscale, resort suburb.

To explain the existence of the Mexican community in Scottsdale, this paper is organized into three parts. First, I address the historical precedence of Mexicans in Scottsdale. In spite of the image Scottsdale projects today, it has always relied on Mexican labor. Initial Mexican settlement occurred during World War 1 for labor in the cotton fields, creating an historic barrio in Old Town Scottsdale that was subsequently removed for urban renewal. Second, I examine the growth in the Mexican community that has occurred in the last decade or so. Scottsdale today has a much larger Mexican community, with many recent newcomers, than has ever previously existed in the city.

Settlement

Scant attention is given the Mexican influence in histories of Scottsdale or in contemporary promotional brochures (Granger 1956; Mathews 1965; Lynch 1978; Scottsdale Chamber [end p. 30] of Commerce 1998). "The West's Most Western City," as the city's slogan states, pertains to an Anglo West, with just enough Native American influence to ensure a thriving business in Southwestern jewelry and art. The city's image of wealthy residents in luxurious surroundings does not allow for a Mexican component. In spite of this bias, the Mexican community is quite strong and has been since Scottsdale's founding.

Winfield Scott started a ranch some ten miles east of Phoenix in 1888, the first settler in what would become Scottsdale (Lynch 1978). Scottsdale was a small community of ranchers and citrus growers, until World War I created a demand for cotton. Labor to work the cotton fields was recruited primarily from the Mexican community in Sonora and southern Arizona (Kimsey 1987). Included in this population were Yaqui Indians fleeing persecution in Sonora. A cotton gin was completed in 1916, and a two-block Mexican barrio developed: "They formed a neat little inner community of bright, colorful homes with lots of pinks and blues roughly between Main and Second streets, east of Brown Avenue" (Kimsey 1987:28) (Figure 2). One former resident of the barrio remembers no formal town of Scottsdale per se, but rather Anglo ranchers on the peripheries and what amounted to a Mexican labor camp in the barrio (Ruiz 1995). The barrio encompassed much of what is now Old Town Scottsdale, yet it had no running water until after World War II. Mexicans were targets of discrimination in the form of separate schooling and social segregation (Corral 1984; Ruiz 1995). The expanding agricultural production in the early twentieth century, combined with refugees from the Mexican revolution, institutionalized racial segregation in the Salt River Valley (Pendleton 1950; Solliday 1993).

Members of the Mexican community worked in the agricultural fields, construction, craft trades, and in the resorts since their initial opening (McElfresh 1984). They helped to build the Jokake Inn, part of today's Phoenician Resort, they were responsible for organizing and building Our Lady of Perpetual Hope Catholic Church, and one family still runs Los Olivos restaurant on their original property (CorraI 1984). Members of the community also initiated the Miracle of Roses festival, an annual event in Scottsdale of Mexican ballads and candlelight procession (McElfresh 1984). Solliday (1993) referred to the barrios of Tempe, situated south of Scottsdale, as the culmination of centuries of Spanish expansion. Yet the reality is that Scottsdale's Mexican community (albeit smaller) should be considered the true last settlement of the Sonoran frontier.

Dispersal

Today the Mexican barrio is no longer a part of Scottsdale. The city underwent a major renovation to change its image in the 1970s. Like most urban renewal of that era, this meant the replacement of 'undesirable' areas with. new construction. The plush lawns of the Scottsdale Mall, a pedestrian center with restaurants, the Center for the Performing Arts, City Hall, and the public library today exist where the barrio once thrived (Figure 3). Some buildings remain, including the former Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church (now home of the Scottsdale Symphony) (Figure 4), the Little Red Schoolhouse (Mexican elementary school, now home of the Scottsdale Historical Society), two small houses soon to be removed (the owner died in 1998), the renovated Los Olivos restaurant, and an old forge (now serving tourists).

Scottsdale's old Mexican community was essentially dispersed. There are two views about this historical dispersion. One claims that 'sinister' methods were used, such as health codes forced on people who couldn't afford new upgrades, and prohibitive tax assessments that amounted not to urban renewal, but to urban removal (Ruiz 1995). On the other hand, the mayor in 1969 claimed the city "wouldn't consider any program that did not provide new housing in or near the present residential areas" (Scottsdale 1978:4).

In reality, some truth exists from both views. Using federal grants, 53 new houses and 22 rental units were built (Scottsdale 1978). However, the new housing served mainly the [end p. 31]

Renewal

The largest increase of total numbers of Hispanics in Scottsdale began in the late 1980s, and a consistent stream of Mexican nationals, many undocumented (illegal) immigrants, have arrived in the Hispanic neighborhoods since then (Scottsdale 1994a; Estefano 1995, 1998). The 1990 Census recorded 6,195 Persons of Hispanic Origin, a 127 percent increase from 1980 (United States Bureau of the Census 1993). Hispanics in 1990 represented 4.82 percent of Scottsdale's population, and every census tract except one recorded increases. The estimate of percent Hispanic in 1995 was 5.8 percent (United States Bureau of the Census 1995).

The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) recently estimated that 1 in 4 Valley hotel workers is undocumented, based on Valley-wide raids that found 3,100 undocumented immigrant workers in 3 weeks (Overton 1998a). One community volunteer worker in Scottsdale's immigrant neighborhoods stated that the majority of the new arrivals she worked with were undocumented immigrants from Mexico seeking work in the resorts and the fast food services (Raczynski 1995). Immigrant birthplaces in Mexico, as well as detailed migration patterns, are unknown, but [end p. 33] Harner (1995) has shown strong migration ties between Arizona and northwest Mexico, particularly Sonora. The border city of Nogales has played an important role of re-distributor of migrants from interior Mexico into Arizona. Since the crackdown on migrants in southern California in the late 1990s, Arizona has become an increasingly important border crossing area. A new pattern of Mexican migration has also arisen since November 1994 -- Mexican nationals fleeing California in response to the approval of Proposition 187 (Scottsdale 1994a; Dominguez 1995; Estefano 1995).

This rapid growth is largely made up of laborers who serve the resorts, hotels, and restaurants. Scottsdale's unemployment rate was only 2.5 percent in mid-1997, and an incredibly low 1.7 percent in June 1998 (Scottsdale Chamber of Commerce 1998). All of the hotels and resorts in Scottsdale are understaffed, with open positions for maids, landscapers, and restaurant/bar workers (Overton 1998a). A city survey found that Mexicans were most likely to hold jobs as dishwashers, landscapers, waiters, car washers, busboys, maids, and private home cleaners (Scottsdale 1993). Of a sample of 50 apprehended undocumented Mexicans between 1989-1991 from Scottsdale, 46 percent worked in the general category of services, 22 percent were restaurant workers, 22 percent were maids or cleaners, and 10 percent were landscape, industrial, or craft workers (Harner 1993). Average wages range from $5.50 to $7.00 per hour (Reinhart 1998b), although a recent survey of apprehended undocumented workers found an average hourly wage of $5.35 in Scottsdale (Overton 1998a).

Mexican residential patterns are best seen at the block level, the smallest disaggregation of the Census (Figure 6). Four predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods are also shown in Figure 6: Paiute Park, Vista del Camino, Bellview, and Minnezona. Of the four largest neighborhoods, Paiute Park (also called Holiday Park) is the largest and most recent (Table 1). The census blocks that comprise the neighborhood gained 486 people between 1980 and 1990, increasing the percent Hispanic in the neighborhood to 29.7 percent.

A new Mexican immigrant community has developed in Paiute Park, southwest of the city center. Fully 15 percent of Scottsdale's Hispanic population lives in this one census tract. The City of Scottsdale has worked to accommodate the needs of the newcomers, as well as assuage the fears of the resident home-owner Anglos (Erickson 1995). The Paiute Neighborhood Center opened in 1994, offering activities and educational programs for all neighborhood residents. The Scottsdale Parks and Recreation Department sponsored a mural painting project, which was completed in early 1994 on the west wall of Paiute Park by neighborhood children and artist Martin Moreno (Scottsdale 1994b). Designed in conjunction with community residents, the mural depicts both Mexican heritage in the pyramid and its symbolic transformation into American society with the stepped United States flag (Figure 7). The Park itself is a social center, with soccer fields and basketball courts.

Tension exists between Anglo homeowners who have lived there for many years and the Mexican community. Anglo homeowners initially criticized plans to develop the neighborhood center. They worried about threats to property values, safety, and their very lifestyle, and felt that the neighborhood center would encourage Mexican immigration (Erickson 1995). A survey administered to residents to determine community needs prior to opening the neighborhood center revealed a near even split between homeowners who had lived there over 17 years and renters who had lived there less than four [end p. 35] years (Scottsdale 1994c). Clearly two groups share the space. A major goal of the Paiute Neighborhood center is to bring the two cultures together in a harmonious environment, and to acculturate them both to each other. Initial steps have been successful, as many retired Anglo homeowners today volunteer at the center, providing needed services and expertise in administering programs and support.

Vista del Camino is largely a Yaqui community and is the primary resettlement area built after the 1973 urban renewal. In spite of the historical animosity between Yaquis and the Mexican government, Mexican nationals agglomerate near Yaqui settlements (as in Guadalupe near Phoenix and the Pascua Yaqui settlement near Tucson). Much like Polish immigrants who were attracted to German settlements in the United States earlier this century (Allen and Turner 1988), familiar life circumstances, including diet, source immigration areas in southern Sonora, and the Spanish language, unite Yaquis and mestizo-Mexicans more than historical animosities deter them. Immigrants live in residential concentration near others of their own group, or at least others who share similar cultural characteristics, for mutual support (Massey 1985; Allen and Turner 1996).

The neighborhood consists of small houses, many with enclosed yards, and dogs wandering the streets. Crosses made of dried corn stalks, straw, and leaves adorn many houses, and in-situ accretion, a process of hoarding building supplies and materials for future use on the property, is often evident. Frequently observed in Latin America, in-situ accretion represents a continual state of construction in areas occupied by middle income and aspiring lower income groups (Griffin and Ford 1980).

The Minnezona-74th Street settlement has a longer history of established Mexicans, but is now mainly first-generation immigrants (Scottsdale 1994a). Illegal immigrants often live in crowded conditions with many individuals per room (Ruiz 1995). Minnezona has presented problems for community workers in the City of Scottsdale because there is no physical place to hold community programs (Scottsdale 1994a). Attempts to assimilate the newcomers is more problematic, and the rapid Hispanic increase has drawn the attention of the mayor. Today the neighborhood is in decline, with boarded up units and overcrowding. This neighborhood is near the expanding downtown of Scottsdale, and the residents most likely will be relocated as hotels and shops move north.

The final neighborhood concentration of Mexicans is Bellview Street, a well-established Mexican community that includes settlers from the Tempe resettlement. It is one of the earliest concentrations of Mexican settlement in Scottsdale outside of the old barrio. The availability of [end p. 36] inexpensive apartments here, in conjunction with an established Mexican community, may be the cause for continual growth throughout the 1980s. Both Bellview and Minnezona have small unit apartment blocks, one or two empty lots where local children play soccer, and both trucks and cars with Mexican symbolism.

Mexican housescapes frequently include property enclosure, bright exterior color, and yard shrines (Arreola 1988). These features derive from an idealized landscape with linkages to Iberian and pre-Columbian Mexico, and not to a symbolic ethnicity or revived ethnic identity. In spite of these characteristic features observed in Mexican-American barrios throughout the Southwest, very few of these features are evident in the Scottsdale Mexican community. Several factors may account for this, one being that the majority of Hispanics in Scottsdale rent apartments or homes (53.9 percent) rather than own them (46.1 percent) (United States Bureau of the Census 1993). Renters are less motivated and less able to paint and enclose houses. Another reason is the relatively recent arrival of many Mexicans, and the transience associated with Mexican immigrants (Ranney and Kossoudji 1983; Scottsdale 1994a). Their cultural stamp has not yet been placed on the dwelling units, a process which evolves over generations. The size of the Mexican community also simply may not be large enough; some critical mass of population or length of stay must be met to cross the threshold before the cultural identifiers are publicly displayed. Finally, the large undocumented component in the Paiute Park, Minnezona, and Bellview neighborhoods may not want to draw attention to themselves, but rather seek to be less conspicuous.

Despite the lack of strong landscape signatures, evidence of a Mexican community can be seen in these neighborhoods, including Mexican flags on windows and front license plates of cars and trucks, bumper stickers naming Mexican states, and emblems of la Virgen de Guadalupe. The preferred housing type seems to be small apartment complexes consisting of small buildings of a few units. Partly because of the small housing size, but also due to traditional cultural practices, the use of outside space for socializing is clearly evident. Walk through the neighborhoods and you will see children playing, women chatting, and men drinking beer, playing horseshoes, working on cars, or just sitting in groups, particularly on weekends. The neighborhoods are filled with the sounds of Spanish language radio announcers, along with norteño and mariachi music. The use of outside space for socializing is common practice in Mexico, and carries over to Mexicans in the United States.

Residential Location Factors

Although many Hispanics have undoubtedly assimilated completely into the Scottsdale community and live lifestyles similar to the majority of the residents, it is clear that Scottsdale's Mexican community is not an elite or "upscale" phenomenon. The 1990 Persons of Hispanic Origin data positively correlate with the Percent Below Poverty Level data, and negatively correlate with the Median Household and the Per Capita income data by census tract (Table 2). Other income statistics show a marked difference between Hispanics and the total population in Scottsdale, including a lower house and rent value and higher percent of renters (Table 3).

Three reasons explain why Mexicans concentrate into neighborhood enclaves: (1) the need to live as close to the resorts as possible; (2) the need for affordable housing, which is almost non-existent in Scottsdale; and (3) the need for social support networks common in immigrant communities. The multi-nodal nature of the Phoenix metropolitan area, combined with a relatively poor public transportation system to navigate through the vast sprawl, exacerbates the spatial mismatch between jobs and the core Hispanic community in south-central Phoenix. This reality draws Mexicans to seek housing in Scottsdale, near the abundant jobs available in the hospitality sector.

Much research on ethnic segregation and immigrant assimilation has measured the degree to which ethnic minorities become less concentrated in inner-city neighborhoods and move into [end p. 37] the suburbs (Massey 1985; Clark and Mueller 1988; Allen and Turner 1996; Katz and Allen 1999). At the metropolitan level, diffusion of Hispanics into suburban Scottsdale would indicate increasing integration into the mainstream social environment. Allen and Turner (1996) show that ethnic groups outside of concentrated enclaves are usually more assimilated, and that levels of assimilation increase with further distance away from the core inner city enclaves. However, for Hispanic residential location within Scottsdale, segregation and social distance are maintained. In spite of the increase in Hispanic population in Scottsdale, segregation is actually increasing, as calculated by:

where,

S = segregation index

x = number of Hispanics in Census Tract i

X = total Hispanics in Scottsdale

y = number of non-Hispanics in Census Tract i

Y = total number of non-Hispanics in Scottsdale

The index ranges from 0 (complete integration) to 100 (complete segregation), and increased from .248 in 1970, to .263 in 1980, and to .282 in 1990. While these indices are still low, the trend is clear. Rather than an assimilated suburban environment, the Mexican neighborhoods in Scottsdale are simply new ethnic enclaves outside of the central city.

A major factor for the increasing segregation of these new Mexican neighborhoods is the lack of affordable housing near the resorts in Scottsdale. Locating and funding low-income housing for the labor force in resort towns is a contentious issue in much of the western United States (Draper 1998; Lipsher 1998). Based on data from 323 United States metropolitan areas, Scottsdale has a compound cost-of-living index 9.5 percent above average (ACCRA 1998). People of lower economic means who move to Scottsdale looking for work need low-rent apartments, a problem compounded in Scottsdale by a vacancy rate as low as 3 percent, the second highest median rental rate in the Valley, and no public housing (Reinhart and Burgard 1998). Availability of affordable rental units in the Paiute Park, Minnezona, and Bellview Road areas is a major reason for the concentration of Mexicans in these locations (Erickson 1995). Regressing Percent Hispanic on Median Rent data at the census tract level for 1990 and 1980 in both instances revealed a significant negative relationship (Table 4). Median Rent explained 39.1 [end p. 38] percent of the variation in percent Hispanic data in Scottsdale in 1980 and 26.7 percent in 1990. Critics espouse the need for impact fees so that resorts could provide funding for low-income housing. This has worked in other cities lacking sufficient low-income housing, but such fees are strongly opposed by resort owners who claim it is unfair to target one industry (Reinhart 1998b). Although the growth of Mexican enclaves in south Scottsdale has enabled many to obtain jobs, most tourist resorts and restaurants are still quite a commute (Figure 8). There is still a spatial mismatch, a concern to resort owners who need reliable workers, but even more of a concern to city officials. The lack of housing near jobs for low-income households is a problem in many urban areas, and one that contributes to impoverishment (Bookout 1990) and decreases the overall social capital of the neighborhood (Immergluck 1998).

For example, bus route 72 northbound in the morning has primarily Hispanic riders, many dressed in maid and maintenance uniforms. They begin boarding in the south, and get off near the resorts in northern Scottsdale. In addition to riding buses, carloads of Mexicans stream north each morning as far as the Boulders complex near Cave Creek. Yet many resorts in Scottsdale are not served by buses, and even for those that are, the odd hours of employees in the industry conflict with bus schedules. Some resort employers pay drivers to carpool employees to work and often subsidize bus passes, but most recognize that reliable transportation is still a major detriment towards building a stable labor force (Curtin 1998; Reinhart and Burgard 1998). In spite of a known transportation problem, Scottsdale taxpayers recently voted down a tax for increased bus service, indicating they expect the private sector to fill the need.

Although transportation and housing are important, these two factors alone do not explain the concentration of the Mexican community into discrete neighborhoods. When the 1990 Percent Hispanic was regressed on median rent, residuals show that the model was least effective at predicting the percent Hispanic value in areas with [end p. 39] the highest concentrations of Hispanics. The percent Hispanic value was highly under-predicted in the census tracts with Paiute Park and downtown Scottsdale, as well as in the census tract with the Bellview and Vista del Camino neighborhoods (standardized residuals of 2.60, 3.05, and 1.46 respectively). Clearly other forces serve to aggregate Hispanics in these areas than simply the median rent of housing.

Social forces have long been recognized as important, if not dominant, determinants of migration, particularly for ethnic groups. Patterns of highly concentrated, channelized flows operating in a circulatory process reveal that migration is often much more complex than can be explained by a simple wage-labor construct (Mines 1981). Binational communities exist between barrios in California and small towns in Mexico (Baca et al. 1989). Massey et al. (1987) demonstrate that although the initial impetus to migrate to the United States is often economic, it is the social process that sustains the flow. Portes and Borocz (1989) challenge the very notion of wage-labor theory as the primary driving mechanism and instead point to the strong social network ties.

Networks serve to transfer information to family and friends, an all-important component of Mexican migration (Alvarez 1987). Once established, networks reduce the risk associated with undocumented migration to the United States, and provide a mutual support system for migrants at both the origin and destination (Portes 1978). Information flows back and forth within these networks, leading to chain migration patterns that build on themselves.

After earlier Mexican migrants to Scottsdale became occupationally secure, they later brought their families (Estefano 1995). These represented the earlier inhabitants of Paiute Park, Minnezona, and Bellview, from which even newer migrants then associated. The process created today's large communities. Thus, the regression equations in Table 4 show that for 1980 median rent explained 39.1 percent of the variation in Scottsdale's Percent Hispanic but, by 1990, as social forces became more important, median rent was less of an influence (R² = .267).

A sense of community is clearly evident in the large Mexican neighborhoods. Social forces are perhaps the most important reason Mexicans choose to locate in a neighborhood once the decision to move to the general area has been taken. Mexican immigrants face discrimination and overt hostility in much of Scottsdale, which many find terribly distressing (Scottsdale 1993). Community building is crucial to maintaining stability in these neighborhoods, which are still very transient (Estefano 1998). The ongoing work of the Paiute Park Community Center has made great strides towards this end, and today more opportunities for employment, social support, and educational programs exist for Mexican immigrants than ever before in Scottsdale.

Community Social Tensions

There are tensions between the structural forces that shape the Mexican community in Scottsdale: the INS, the City of Scottsdale, and the resort owners. The inevitable tensions between the workers themselves and these institutions also exist. The City of Scottsdale recognizes the need for a diverse community, especially the need for labor to sustain business (Scottsdale 1982). It has been very good at easing the transition of Paiute Park from retired, moderate-income Anglos to first-generation Hispanics, in spite of resistance from the neighborhood Anglo community. In particular, the Paiute Park Community Center provides many services: English as Second Language (ESL), assimilation packages, health care, legal help, job referrals, bus schedules, recreation, technical training programs, and youth activities. It is a big success and the only service available to many workers. Churches, corporations, and higher education institutions all sponsor programs, but a key problem is that the city funds most of these services. Because of low wages, a community of working poor reliant on city services lives in this wealthy suburb. The city's interest in seeing higher wages paid to the work force to alleviate needs for city-funded services conflicts with the interests of resort owners.

Some feel that the use of public money to provide needed services to the working poor is nothing short of a subsidy to an industry that pays wages below the level necessary to sustain a family. Even people who do not receive direct taxpayer-assisted aid require a subsidy when their wages are low, because the taxes they pay do not cover basic services such as road maintenance, law enforcement, public schools, emergency room visits, public transportation, and after-school programs. A large population of working poor benefits nobody but employers, who outsource payment for social services to the community.

The resorts counter that it is their taxes, and those of other retailers and industry, that fill the city coffers, not residential taxes from the populace at large. Resort owners feel they already shoulder the burden of providing for city infrastructure and services. So far, the city has sided with the hospitality sector. In spite of inherent tensions between the city and resorts, the benefits the city receives from the taxes that resorts pay far outweigh other conflicts of interest.

Issues such as affordable housing and adequate transportation require coordination among many governmental and community agencies, but the private sector also has to take some responsibility (Pugh 1998). In Scottsdale, the resort industry has not adequately addressed low-wage worker issues such as housing, transportation, wage increases, and daycare, in spite of a chronic under supply of labor. City officials will likely not introduce legislation forcing the resorts to help pay for these services for fear of jeopardizing the 25 percent of the budget they receive from taxes paid by resorts.

Into this conflict between city needs and resort privileges enters the INS, an agency criticized by all sides. The INS seeks to enforce immigrant labor laws, putting it at odds with resort 'owners and threatening the resorts' influence in city policies. The INS also seeks to punish employers of undocumented workers, creating conflicts with the city's efforts to attract new employers and a reliable labor force.

Advocates for the immigrant community claim that the INS merely manages migration rather than stopping it (Portes 1978). The INS can squeeze or relax depending on the United States economic circumstances, working in collusion with industries that depend heavily on undocumented labor. On the other hand, resort owners feel bullied by the INS. Resort employers scoff at the belief that immigrants take jobs away from legal Americans, and in fact feel the labor deficit is exacerbated because they are abiding by INS regulations (Curtin 1998; Overton 1998a). Resort managers claim it is difficult for illegal workers to get hired because all papers are carefully checked, calls are made to the INS to verify legality, and INS seminars train recruiters to recognize falsified documents (Dominguez 1995; Curtin 1998). They do, however, feel in a bind from the tight labor market and difficulty finding legal workers who will take the jobs. Major hospitality corporations have been forced to pay above-minimum wages and expand benefits, yet many in the community see the basic problem of employers not responding to basic principles of supply and demand by sufficiently raising wages (Overton 1998a; Reinhart 1998a). Some hoteliers see relaxed immigration laws as the solution (Overton 1998a), a move that would certainly provide an ample supply of labor and keep wages depressed.

The INS does routinely raid resorts for undocumented workers. But even though workers get deported, the resorts never get taken to court or fined, making some INS officials decry political influence by resort owners (Overton 1998b). Hiring undocumented laborers keeps wages and living standards depressed, a benefit to the hospitality industry. To the resort owners' claim that nobody with legal status will take these jobs, one INS official retorted: "They are totally right. Why would anyone take a job that pays so little that you have to live in a hole in the wall with eight other people and eat scraps off a hot plate?" (Overton 1998a). Wages should go up, but have not, in spite of the fact that turnover is the hoteliers' largest problem (Reinhart 1998a).

The Mexican workers are caught in the middle of these issues. Undocumented workers continue to be attracted to jobs in Scottsdale's [end p. 41] resorts and hotels, but lack affordable housing, ent wages, and reliable transportation. The city subsidizes services to them, but many still live in crowded conditions with extreme time demands between commutes, work, and family.

Conclusion

Cheap labor has been the story of Mexican settlement in Scottsdale, from the original cotton pickers to today's service-oriented workers. Somebody has to do the physical work, and this is no exception in a wealthy resort community. Today there are four nodes of concentration, with strong community developing in the Paiute Park neighborhood. Jobs and affordable housing were probably initial draws to this area, but now social enclaves sustain growth. At least a dozen new hotels are planned in the East Valley and are sure to attract even more Mexicans seeking work. With plans for new resorts and hotels farther north in Scottsdale, including a large Ritz Carlton beyond the limit of current bus lines, the spatial mismatch between housing and jobs will increase.

Scottsdale is making a strong effort to provide services to the newcomers, but the problems of the working poor have not entered the public realm in the context of a public policy issue. Scottsdale citizens are clearly against raising taxes to address issues such as increased public transportation, but they end up subsidizing the economy in other ways. The ultimate beneficiaries are the resorts that use political influence to sustain a supply of cheap labor while reneging on private-industry solutions. The hospitality industry corporations continue to post large profits while the city provides the working poor with needed services. City officials need to insert these issues into the realm of public debate, educating citizens about the full impacts of a large working poor community, and demanding accountability from all who benefit from this population.

Meanwhile, the Mexican community in Scottsdale grows, attracted by a booming economy and established enclaves for support. Scottsdale still projects the resort image of a clean, safe, luxurious place to enjoy in the Southwest. The tensions of such a place remain hidden, but for how long? To some Mexicans the dream of advancement may be realized as they move to a comfortable lifestyle and become established. Such success stories serve to enrich the community and our culture. To others, the hardships they endure and the glaring contrasts between wealthy vacationers and their own inability to advance will create disillusionment and resentment, a formula for increased social problems and segregation in society. Scottsdale is a case study that illustrates what can happen in our increasingly diversifying society and changing economic structure.

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Resumen

Aunque Scottsdale, Arizona, es una comunidad "de alta categoría," la ciudad ha dependido de la mano de obra mexicana desde el principio. Los primeros obreros mexicanos establecieron un barrio vivo, que después fue dispersado a causa del desarrollo urbano. Recientemente la necesidad creciente de la mana de obra en los hoteles ha atraído a muchos mexicanos quienes viven en cuatro enclaves segregados. A pesar de las imágenes oficiales de la ciudad que pasan por alto a la comunidad Mexicana, los obreros pobres sostienen la economía. La ciudad enfrenta cuestiones de política pública de vivienda, transportes, segregación racial, y el papel del sector privado para suministrar servicios.