“¡Soy Libre!”

This chapter centers on the agency and flexibility demonstrated by migrant workers at the Portbridge Day Labor Center (DLC). Day labor offered the freedom to earn more money in a short amount of time compared to other labor sectors, the ability to choose with whom to work, and the option to decide what type of jobs to accept. These opportunities have made day labor an appealing source of employment. Workers at the DLC also enjoyed geographic mobility, gained skills across a variety of trades, and maintained the flexibility to set their own schedules. While for many, day labor presented their only option for employment as undocumented migrants, even tempered freedoms were preferable to limitations in other sectors. Further, migrant workers expressed creativity in their approaches to finding, keeping, and securing future income by investing in their assets, learning new job skills, and networking with both workers and employers at the DLC. These practices reveal a degree of entrepreneurship that points to innovation and strategy, broadening how we understand the autonomy that migrant workers exercise. Thus, workers at the DLC utilize day labor both as a way to survive, and because it allows for many freedoms, a juxtaposition explored in this chapter.