Who Is Rebuilding New Orleans?

"Thousands of men from Mexico and Central America were driving into the city. Word had spread throughout the Latino immigrant diaspora in America that the city had plenty of work, construction wages had doubled to $16 an hour and no one was asking for papers...

Latino workers have gutted, roofed and painted houses and hauled away garbage, debris and downed trees. Undocumented workers have installed trailers to house returning evacuees at New Orleans City Park, their pay coming from FEMA subcontractors...these immigrants offer another reminder of the country's reliance on undocumented labor from Latin America.

As New Orleans redefines itself after Katrina, the influx of large numbers of Latino immigrants is another jolt for a city that has historically thought of itself as black and white...Some blacks see the thousands of Latino immigrants as usurpers who've come for jobs they once had, now that wages have risen and black workers are displaced."