The flow of immigrants in the U.S. is responsible for increasing the richness of the racial and ethnic diversity of the American workforce. In addition, immigration is responsible for maintaining a positive workforce growth rate in America. New immigrants to the U.S. accounted for 50.3 percent of the growth in the Nation's civilian labor force during a three year period (1999-2001). In other words, during this period, one out of two net new labor force participants was a foreign immigrant.

Where do America's immigrants come from? Increasingly, they come from Mexico. Some scholars have noted that there are some ways that the current Mexican immigration differs from previous waves of immigrants who came to America from the 17th through the 20th centuries. And these differences are important for us in occupational safety and health to consider when we think about how best to communicate with an immigrant workforce. At least five factors make Mexican immigration different than other types of immigration and require us to think differently about how best to safeguard Mexican immigrant workers.

First, Mexican immigrants country of origin is contiguous with the US. This proximity makes it easy for Mexican immigrants to maintain contact with friends and family, which may impair assimilation into the American cultural paradigm.

Second, the dimensions of the current Mexican immigration exceeds that of any other category of immigrants. Mexican immigrants to the U.S. constituted 27.6 percent of the total foreign-born US population in 2000 (US Census Bureau). The next largest groups, Chinese and Filipinos, amounted to only 4.9 and 4.3 percent of the foreign-born population. In 1990, the Latino population of the US represented 9% of the American population, by 2000 the Latino representation was 12.5%, and by 2050, Latinos will represent one out of every four persons in the United States according to the US Bureau of the Census.

Third, illegal Mexican immigration is a recent phenomenon. For instance, the US Border Patrol noted that the 1.6 million apprehensions in the 1960s rose to 8.3 million in the 1970s, to 11.9 million in the 1980s and 14.7 million in the 1990s.

Fourth, Mexican immigrants differ historically from other immigrant groups. No other national immigrant group has asserted or could assert a historical claim to US territory. Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada and Utah were a part of Mexico until the mid-19th century. Indeed, the native cultural heritage of nearly the entire American Southwest is that of the Mexican culture. Some sociologists and political scientists point out that "Mexican Americans enjoy a sense of being on their own turf that is not shared by any other immigrant group."

Lastly, Mexican immigration shows no sign of abating any time soon. It may become a persistent feature of 21st century America, and, as a result, a persistent aspect of 21st century American occupational safety and health. Until the economic well-being of Mexico approximates that of the US the major impetus to Mexican immigration will continue to exist.

The persistence through time of Mexican immigration is a reality that we in the private and public sector occupational safety and health field must confront from risk assessment, through risk control and risk communication. In doing so, we must be mindful of all of the social, historical, economic and cultural characteristics of Mexican immigration so as to ensure that our transcultural safety paradigm is effective.

Over a third of all unskilled jobs are now held by immigrants. Latino men and women are more likely to be employed than non-Latino workers in riskier blue-collar and service occupations. Furthermore, data show that racial and ethnic minorities suffer disproportionately more from both fatal and non-fatal work-related injuries and illnesses. Even though private industry injury and illness rates dropped 35% between 1992 and 2001, fatalities among Latino workers increased 67% during the same period. And even though Latino fatalities decreased by 6% in 2002, the 840 deaths in 2002 represent the second highest annual total of Latino worker fatalities recorded by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to date.

In 2003, fatal work injuries among Latino workers were lower for the second consecutive year (down from 840 to 791), although Latino workers continued to record the highest rate of fatal injuries among the racial/ethnic groups reported at 4.5 fatal work injuries per 100,000 Latino workers). Importantly, fatal work injuries among foreign-born Latino workers declined for the first time ever in the fatality census, although fatalities among native-born Latino workers rose slightly in 2003. And the disparities we see between Latino work-related fatalities and non-Latinos and not the only level of disparities in the Mexican immigrant population--there are disparities in general health status that are becoming a serious issue.

In the November issue of the Journal of AIDS, researchers report that as many as 1% of Mexican migrant workers -- about 20,000 people -- are infected with HIV, which is more than three times the rate of HIV in the general US and Mexican populations. The rising HIV infections among migrant workers echoes the increasing HIV infection rates among Latinos overall. In 2000, Latinos accounted fro 34.2% of AIDS cases diagnosed in California, even though they make up only 30.8% of the population. Last summer, Latinos became the largest group of people in Los Angeles County diagnosed with AIDS. They now account for 40% of the county's AIDS cases compared to 39% for whites and 21% for blacks.

These health disparities, coupled with workforce safety disparities, are going to be just confined to California. Even though Mexican immigrants are concentrated in certain regions of the California and the American Southwest, Latino workforce safety is fast becoming a national issue.

Data from the 2000 Census tells us that the transcultural challenges in occupational safety are not limited to those states traditionally associated with large Latino populations—such as California, Texas, New York and Florida. Rather, the challenge of developing culturally integrated approaches to workplace safety will impact numerous other states not traditionally known for large Latino populations—such as North Carolina, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Nevada, South Carolina, Alabama, Kentucky, Minnesota and Nebraska. These ten states showed anywhere from a 150% to a 350% increase in their Latino populations between the 1990 Census and the 2000 Census.

These workforce demographic changes make it imperative for us to fashion a risk communication paradigm that builds both on a worker's cultural values as well as building on an employer's cultural values. In the 21st century, we will need to fashion a risk communication paradigm that builds on workers' cultural values instead of ignoring them; a risk communication paradigm that is effective without assuming a "standard" educational attainment on the part of the worker; and a risk communication paradigm that incorporates hands-on demonstrations of safety principles instead of relying on a worker's oral or written language literacy.

Transcultural safety will require us to fashion communication that does not assume a "standard" educational attainment on the part of the worker. Rather, hands-on demonstrations of safety principles can be more effective than relying on a worker's oral or written language literacy. Training that is hands-on, that is participatory through role-playing and other active methods should be explored.

Transcultural safety recognizes that there are powerful motivators of immigrant worker behavior that are not a part of a more traditional native-born workforce safety paradigm. For many recent immigrants to the United States, their biggest worry is how they can continue to remain in the U.S. and not have to return to their country of origin and to a life less full of opportunity. These worries can be more powerful than the traditional safety paradigm messages encouraging workers to report safety hazards to their employer or to the government. Lodging a complaint about working conditions can bring about their worst nightmare--loss of the thing that they value most--their ability to remain in the United States.

Continuing awareness of this major difference between the native-born worker and foreign-born worker—whether documented or undocumented—is very important; and our awareness of this difference needs to better integrated into all of our risk communication strategies.

NIOSH is making a concerted effort to provide information to the Latino working population online and by telephone. On the NIOSH web page, a prominent link, "NIOSH en espanol," directs users to a page where we have posted a wide range of information in Spanish, plus Spanish-language access to NIOSH’s extensive data bases. This page will continue to grow dynamically. We have also instituted an automated Spanish-language answering service on the NIOSH toll-free information number, 1-800-35-NIOSH.

These efforts are helping us serve the growing Latino audience, and our partners in safety and health, using the information and tools at hand. They will also help us determine how we can use our evolving base of knowledge, methods, and channels of communication to improve our services. Several new and planned initiatives will build on what we have already learned and practiced. Workplace fatalities involving Latino employees are receiving priority attention under NIOSH’s Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation program, or FACE program. This program funds efforts by several of NIOSH's state partners to identify and investigate selected job-related fatalities, and to report findings and recommendations widely to prevent future tragedies. The investigations are focused on fatalities involving types of workplaces or worker populations at particularly high risk. The reports to date have offered valuable guidance on providing Latino employees with safety warnings, training, and learning materials consistent with their language and literacy needs. I am glad Hank is here today to tell us about the California FACE Program.

NIOSH is also assessing ways to make the Hazard Evaluation and Technical Assistance program or HHE program more useful and accessible to Latino employees and their employers. We are meeting with Latino community groups to explain the program, and developing Spanish-language summaries of hazard evaluation reports in industries with high proportions of Latino employees, such as construction and food processing. As with FACE reports, hazard evaluation reports are key resources for offering practical, effective information for addressing serious and emerging workplace hazards.

With several partners, including the Center to Protect Workers' Rights and their partners, NIOSH is conducting and funding research efforts to prevent job-related injuries and illnesses among Latino employees in construction. In construction, Latino employees face a significantly higher risk for work-related death than non-Latinos. Under various projects, researchers are assessing the value of Spanish-language training programs, comparing fatalities involving Latino and non-Latino employees to identify unique risk factors, developing new Spanish-language education materials, and assessing education and outreach to Latino employees. The types of employees being served by these efforts include laborers, sandblasters, and highway construction workers.

In closing, I would emphasize that continuing to increase our own awareness of the safety and health issues of the Mexican immigrant worker, as ASSE is doing here in Los Angeles, and increasing our awareness of the major differences between the native-born worker and foreign-born Mexican immigrant worker—whether documented or undocumented—is critically important for the health and safety of the whole American workforce--todo obrero Americano--and our awareness of this difference needs to better integrated into all of our risk communication strategies.

Muchas gracias, and I wish each of you a safe, healthy and secure workplace.