For Some, Clowning is a Full-Time Job
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| | Mexico has the lowest unemployment rate in North America, largely because so many people are considered employed even if they just hustle intersections or work odd jobs. |
A dropped rubber ball bounced off the pavement and rolled into fast-moving traffic. It came inches from the wheels of a screeching sedan, as did the right leg of the unflappable clown who kicked it out of harm's way at what seemed the last millisecond.
“You get used to it,” said an unfazed Jorge Laurend, 38, a veteran street performer who says he has smiled, frowned, juggled, whistled and teased motorists at the same intersection in the southern part of this city for the past 20 years.
He not only dodges cars, but weathers rain and shine.
“I see it all here,” he said of his intersection. “Everything happens.” He even has been flashed.
Experience has taught Laurend that the poor are more likely to share spare change than the rich, and women are more likely than men. Smiling at children and respectfully complimenting women about their beauty are good for business.
He said that by working the same corner day after day, people grow comfortable with him. They realize he's not trying to work a scam or is part of a potential carjacking plot — valid concerns in a city famous for everyday violence.
Laurend said he keeps faith that his street work, along with the occasional children's party, will provide for his family. But as with many Mexican street performers, what started out long ago as a temporary way to make a living in a merciless economy has become a lifelong vocation. “For most Mexicans, this is a normal sight,” Roberto Bermudes Sánchez, a Mexico City sociologist, said of street performers, beggars and windshield washers.
It is no secret here that the reason Mexico, with its harsh poverty, has year after year had the lowest unemployment rate in North America is because so many people are considered employed even if all they do is hustle intersections or work odd jobs.
There are no unemployment benefit checks in Mexico. If you want to live, you've got to do whatever it takes to get by.
President Vicente Fox bragged about Mexico's unemployment rate during a news conference late last month in which he discussed his five years in office.
“We have an unemployment rate of 3.7 percent — the lowest in America, lower than Europe, all of Europe,” Fox said. A government report last week downgraded that rate even further, to 2.99 percent for the month of November.
A study released by the Pew Hispanic Center on Wednesday found most immigrants left Mexico not because they couldn't find jobs there, but because they could find better-paying work in the United States.
The finding was no surprise here, where people long have had to make choices such as whether to hustle like Laurend or sneak into the United States.
Hustle Or Migrate
Laurend has family in San Antonio who he boasts entered the country years ago illegally, but now are legal U.S. residents and own a trucking company.
But he has no plans to leave Mexico, and so he has become a fixture in this neighborhood. Most people know him only as “The Clown.”
“Güero,” shouts Fernando Álvarez, 53, a baker, as he walks by Laurend, whose lighter skin and hair earn him that nickname, roughly comparable to “Blondie.”
Álvarez later explains he's seen the clown working the intersection for years and often exchanges pleasantries but doesn't know anything about him.
Álvarez, motorists and others may not realize it, but behind face paint — red and white on this day — is one of the neighborhood's own sons. He grew up tough on these same streets.
It would seem that the tears, painted on his cheeks, wouldn't be far from how he feels. He said his parents divorced and he ran away from home when he was 12, a decision that cost him his childhood.
He tried to make money washing windshields, performing fire-breathing tricks with gasoline and, he admits, muggings.
He found the most success as a clown. Performing aboard a Route 22 bus, he began teasing a woman who would later be his wife. Despite money troubles, they have stayed together and have two children.
“My wife has always known me as a clown. We do not have a big place, but we do have a place and we eat,” Laurend said.
Just Getting By
He realizes his sixth-grade education limits what he could earn at most companies, but on the streets, he need only work harder and work longer to make ends meet. These days, he says, he works seven days a week and can usually earn at least US$20 in an eight-hour day. “There is no health insurance, no doctor, no Christmas bonus,” Laurend said as he took a short break from juggling atop a folding ladder.
“A minimum-wage job is miserable; I can't live on that,” he said of US$5 per day employment. His self-analysis is this: His best quality is that he works hard; his worst, that he loves women. His clowning blends the two.
With each red light, he has about a minute. He climbs atop a folding ladder and whistles as he juggles three balls. Then he switches to what look like three lightweight bowling pins, which are actually juggler's tools known as Indian clubs.
Before the light turns green, he manages to hop off the ladder, stash it on the curb and move along the line of cars.
“How are you, my doll?” he said to one lady who seemed to ignore him.
All told, he got change from about one in five motorists, including a man driving a silver Mercedes-Benz convertible that blared rock group Queen's “Under Pressure” from its speakers.
“The hardest part is always smiling,” Laurend said. “No matter what is happening or how you feel, you have to smile.” |
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Vallarta Living | December 2005 
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