Tandas and Cooperativas

Abstract

Abstract Using a multidisciplinary approach, this chapter examines how Tandas (ROSCA) and cooperativas (cooperatives) are part of a system of social purpose business arrangements of mutual aid and group economics that assist in the integration of precarious immigrants to the United States. Historical political dynamics have set legal restrictions limiting the legal migration of people from Latin America to the United States; hence, vulnerable working-class Latin American immigrants entering the United States to work arrive into racialized economic environments where they are forced to function as full participants in society via direct engagement in the informal and gig economy. This chapter examines two case studies of indigenous Latin American immigrants organizing their social capital to bring together economic resources, in the form of formal community worker-owned cooperativas or under informal financial arrangements called Tandas that help them survive and integrate into local communities. Cooperativas and Tandas support community-based entrepreneurship that aids undocumented immigrants in their economic survival and integration. Immigrants of indigenous backgrounds have a long history of pooling economic resources to finance their activities outside the formal economy. Theories of immigrant integration combined with an analysis of racial capitalist theory help explain how capitalism and racism intertwined create an environment of limited resources that truncate social and economic mobility for poor Black and brown immigrants entering local US urban communities. Faced with limited options for economic survival, these immigrants tap into their collectives and cultural support systems to survive and develop their livelihoods in American business and society.