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Brian Amos has, for 20 years, run a motorcycle repair shop in the tiny borough of York Springs in Adams County. Thiswhich occurred just south of York Springs. The borough of York Springs, to the extent it’s known for anything, is known for itsThe only grocery store in town is Lua’s Mexican Store. The only restaurant with a York Springs mailing address is El Rancho Grande just outside of town. York Springs is aptly known as “Little Mexico.
Amos long ago outgrew his prejudices, and he sees the large population of seasonal workers from Mexico as a boon. “They’re really good,” he tells me. “They don’t get no trouble. They’ll do anything to help you. They’re really nice people. They’re family people, kind of very religious people. They’re very hard-working people.”
Under H2A rules, the employer is required to provide no-cost housing and transportation to the workers. In Lebo’s case, he has built some housing in York Springs or converted homes into dorms. Each Lebo house has a house big brother of sorts — a longtime guest worker who has a U.S. driver’s license for taking the workers to the greenhouses or shopping.“I make good money,” Honda explains, “because I make dollars, and I send them to my town,” where his wife spends in pesos.
Unlike in Springfield or Charleroi, the locals don’t complain of cultural disruption. The migrant-worker housing is immaculately kept. “Here on Main Street,” Amos says, “any building that looks nice and has flowers on the front, it’s owned by Quality. And they have the nicest houses in town.”The unemployment rate in Adams County is 3.2%. Every employer I talk to says it’s painfully hard to find help. Lua’s Mexican Shop, like every business around York Springs, has a “help wanted” sign out front.
“I think that the whole labor shortage that we’re suffering from,” says John, the retiree at the bike shop, is because “young people growing up don’t do side jobs, don’t do summer jobs, don’t do after-school jobs anymore. … I have no malice against anyone that comes here to work legally, and if they’re filling a job void, it’s because we let the void occur.”
This is a crucial distinction for understanding where and when diversity causes problems. Often what people see as the problems of ethnic diversity are really the problems of rapid change. In Springfield and Charleroi, the population is rapidly increasing. Local Anglophone grocers catering to Midwestern, white Americans give way to patois-speaking shops catering to a Haitian clientele.
These workers don’t represent business for local car dealers or restaurants, really. York Springs is little more than a bedroom community. It’s quiet. And for a lot of locals, that’s a huge boon.“We’ve got no muggings,” John says. “We don’t have drug sales on the street. They are self-policing.” John passes along a line from the former police chief: “If they have a bad guy in the bunch … they rat him out to the cops right away.
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