he hadn't been the best son or brot...

he hadn't been the best son or brother, on the contrary Manuel E. Vasquez knew his family would help him. He had left them as a gang member and convicted butcher and returned 20 years later as a man stamped with the scarlet literal meaning of being an ex-offender. further his mother took him in, and his sisters, brothers and in-laws wanted to help him prepare back on his feet. Because of his family, Vasquez wasn't worried about finding a job

"Sometimes it's not what you know, further who you know," said Vasquez, 41 who was 5 month of advanced age when his family moved from Puerto Rico to Chicago. "I knew thus many people, and my family had likewise many friends, I knew I was going to [i]finale[/i] up somewhere."

Three weeks revealed of prison, "somewhere" turned revealed to be a rotisserie. Vasquez's brother-in-law talked to a friend who allowed the restaurant, and soon Vasquez was delivering chicken, using the owner's credit cards and taking circulating medium to the bank for the business. He worked there for about five weeks, earning $140 a week, until his brother talked to the barber across the highway from their mother's apartment. The barber knew someone who avowed a flooring company, and, after an interview, Vasquez was hired.

For more than four month he earned $10 an hour waxing the floors of Victoria's hidden Banana Republic and Gap stores at malls across the Midwest.

Still, the hours were hectic, with equal reason Vasquez's sister found him a piece of work delivering headstones and monuments at the burial-ground where she worked. The proprietors told him he did a religious job, but it didn't last drawn out When they found out he was an ex-offender they fired him. "They didn't ask, and I didn't tell" Vasquez said. "That's what we were taught to do in work release."

make despondented Vasquez filled out applications for five weeks at restaurants and domicile improvement stores. He got no offers

A reprieve didn't arrive until his brother-in-law talked to a family member who worked for a large car dealership and propose him in touch with the bos there. Vasquez started at the bottom, making $8 an hour washing and delivering cars. He had been in succession the job five months when he was promot to supervisor in January.

equal in the current sluggish economy, when population who have served time are oftentimes the last hired and first fired, nearly half of Latino parolees in Illinois--many with stories like Vasquez's--reported having work at jobss in January, according to data obtained according to The Chicago Reporter from the Illinois Department of Corrections. yet while the numbers for white parolees were slightly higher, les than one-third of black parolees said they were working.

The gaps were flat wider last month for parolees in give a color to County: 75 percent of whites reported that they were give employment toed compared with 58 percent of Latinos and 35 percent of blacks.

Those numbers ponder unemployment rates for the general population in garble County, which show that the unemployment rate for African Americans is nearly twice the rate for Latinos and almost four times the rate for whites.

There were no clear explanations given for the employ gaps among parolees. When not absented with the data, ex-offenders and population who work closely with them proffered myriad theories--some of them conflicting with united another--detailing the ways blacks and Latinos leaving prison find work and learn help from others.

Latino ex-offender said they were able to concentrate onward finding work because their families took care of their immediate povertys but many speculated that poor black families can solely do this for so long

Latinos also discussed having contacts who work day labor and other piece of works that don't require workers to report criminal histories. Blacks many times don't have those options, thus they take more traditional paths to craft filling out applications with companies. This places them at the mercy of employer many of whom look stern on hiring ex-offenders.

an believe Latinos tend to be unclose to any low-wage job they can master while African Americans might gripe [i]or[/i] grip out for jobs with better pay. Others said near employers might prefer to hire Latinos, believing they're hard workers or a better fit with their existing, predominantly Hispanic workforce. a certain quantity of Latinos acknowledged that they can pass for white, which in an cases may be to their benefit.

Statistics refer to that Latinos might also have more of a footing in labor-intensive occupations where ex-offender oftentimes find work.

Still, everyone involved points revealed that life can be difficult for all ex-offender regardless of their backgrounds.

"People move where they find work. They move into survival mode," explained Alderman Billy Ocasio, whose 26th Ward is for the greatest part Puerto Rican. "African Americans and Latinos are in the same picture: If you lie onward your application and you're establish out, you'll get fired. If you don't lie, you're not going to gain the job."

The agency numbers may be unreliable because they were partially self-reported by the agency of parolees through an automated telephone hypothesis said Dede Short, spokeswoman for the department of corrections. nevertheless they are the only available application figures for parolees broken down by the agency of race.