ACCESS NUMBER: 30951-16804 

STUDY TITLE: Deepwater Program: Labor Migration and the Deepwater Oil Industry in 

Houma 

REPORT TITLE: Labor Migration and the Deepwater Oil Industry 

CONTRACT NUMBERS: 14-35-001-30660-19958 & 1435-01-99-CA-30951-16804 

SPONSORING OCS REGION: Gulf of Mexico 

APPLICABLE PLANNING AREA: Central Gulf of Mexico 

FISCAL YEAR(S) OF PROJECT FUNDING: 1998-2004 

COMPLETION DATE OF REPORT: July 2004 

COST(S): FY 98 $298,027; FY 99 $30,839 

CUMULATIVE PROJECT COST: $328,866 

PROJECT MANAGER(S): K. M. Donato 

AFFILIATION: Louisiana State University 

ADDRESS: Sociology Department, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 

70803 

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: K. M. Donato

KEY WORDS: Houma, Mexican Labor, Immigration, Migrant Workers 

BACKGROUND: With the rapid expansion of the oil industry into deepwater during the 

mid-1990s, the industry experienced a labor shortage, particularly of skilled, blue collar 

occupations. An early characteristic of deepwater activities is that shore facilities are 

hiring large numbers of green card workers for offshore support. This contrasted with 

an earlier boom which relied on more local manpower from an historical labor force. In 

small communities, such as Port Fourchon and its surrounding environs, a new, 

Spanish-speaking group has created difficulties for the social services of the area, 

including schools, hospitals, churches, and other community service organizations. 

OBJECTIVE(S): The principal objective of this project was to assess the impact of 

international immigration on port communities in the state of Louisiana, where deep-sea 

offshore drilling has rapidly increased labor demand since 1995. 

DESCRIPTION: Relying on data collected from employers, community leaders, foreign 

born workers, and other residents to describe how new immigrants first incorporate in 

these communities, the project examined consequences of the new immigrant presence 
ACCESS NUMBER: 30951-16804 

in four LA port communities situated along the Gulf of Mexico – Morgan City, Houma, 

New Iberia and Port Fourchon. 

Using data from CATI surveys of 200 households in each communities, we found that 

decisions by employers to import foreign-born labor had far-reaching implications for 

both immigrant workers and the communities hosting them. Most residents in the four 

port communities reported strong positive links between their local community and the 

oil industry. While consistent positive opinion was more likely among respondents from 

Houma and Lafourche than among those in New Iberia and Morgan City, on the whole, 

residents in all four communities reported some degree of positive sentiment toward the 

oil industry. 

We also explored residents= attitudes about the effect of immigration on their local 

communities. On the whole, sentiment about immigrants in communities ranged from 

neutral to moderately negative. While residents across communities may feel a threat 

to community solidarity and employment, they were fairly neutral with respect to the 

number of foreign born entering and they linked immigrant workers with good work. 

Only in Lafourche Parish did residents sentiment about immigrants tend towards more 

anti-immigrant views. New Iberia, on the other hand, reported more positive sentiments 

about migrants suggesting a more welcoming reception area for migrants. 

Our interviews with onshore oil and gas industry employers revealed an overall 

discontent with the state of the local labor force. Employers almost universally reported 

labor shortages in part because of an increasing trend toward completion of a college 

education. With fewer potential employees growing up in the communities, employer=s 

most salient concern was how to obtain qualified workers for the jobs they had. As a 

result, many began seeking out immigrant labor to meet the demand. 

Not only did foreign labor become a vitally important labor source for employers in our 

study areas, employers were generally very pleased with the quality of the foreign born 

labor pool. Employers reported that their foreign born workers, whether Latino workers 

in Houma and Morgan City or Laotian workers in New Iberia, were hard-working, loyal, 

and skilled in their trades. With respect to recently arrived Latino workers, employers 

liked their flexibility. Given the cyclical nature of the oil industry, flexibility made foreignborn workers even more attractive to employers. In this way, employers viewed 

immigrant labor as a good business strategy. 

SIGNIFICANT CONCLUSIONS: The community differences suggest variation in the 

immigrant incorporation experience. Unlike immigrants in the past, the newly arrived in 

the 1990s settle in nontraditional communities, where their experiences are linked to 

employment in a wider variety of local economic sectors than immigrants faced in the 

past. Our findings highlight the importance of understanding the unique contextual 

factors greeting immigrants in their communities of entry, especially in destination areas 

that have not attracted many migrants in the past and where economic opportunities 

derive from the gas and oil industry. This point is increasingly important as immigrants 

become more geographically dispersed throughout the United States. 
ACCESS NUMBER: 30951-16804 

Broadly speaking, findings reveal that decisions by employers to import foreign-born 

labor had far-reaching implications that differed by receiving community. In Houma, 

employers played the major role in shaping the early economic and social incorporation 

of immigrant workers by using temporary visas to bring in workers. In Morgan City, 

employers, community groups, and co-ethnic networks interacted to facilitate the early 

incorporation of newcomers. The result was high levels of satisfaction among new 

immigrant residents, despite a contentious public controversy that arose in the early 

1990s when a large employer attempted to house immigrants on commercial property. 

During the last 20 years, Laotian refugees resettled in New Iberia, where they have now 

accumulated economic and social capital and maintain middle-class lifestyles. To sum, 

communities in southern Louisiana witnessed different processes of early immigrant 

assimilation for both immigrant workers and the communities hosting them. 

STUDY RESULTS: From conversations with community leaders, residents, and 

immigrant workers, we assessed the impacts of immigrants on local communities. 

Although new immigrants to Louisiana shared similar background characteristics, the 

incorporation process varied significantly by community. Immigrant experience with 

employers, government policies, and co-ethnic networks explains most of the 

differences observed across these communities. 

In Houma, a formal system of contract labor used by employers was the dominant force 

shaping the economic and social incorporation of immigrant workers. Employers 

recruited migrants in their national origins, and brought them to the United States with 

legal documents as temporary workers. As the main caretakers, employers controlled 

where these migrants lived, what they ate, and when they worked. Without the formal 

and informal protection and support offered by co-ethnic networks, Latino workers were 

left to fend for themselves. The result was a group of disenfranchised workers suffering 

mistreatment at the hands of employers, with few opportunities to socially and 

economically incorporate into their new receiving community. 

In Morgan City, however, there was no one dominant force that shaped the early 

assimilation experiences of immigrants. All three forces Β employers, community 

reception, and co-ethnic networks Β facilitated the incorporation of newcomers. The 

result was high levels of immigrant satisfaction, despite an initial public controversy over 

an employer=s attempt to house immigrants on his work cite. Immigrants in Morgan City 

reported being satisfied with their current housing and employment, happy to live in the 

community, saying it was a peaceful and pleasant place to live. 

Finally, the incorporation experience of Laotians in New Iberia was different from Latino 

newcomers in Houma and Morgan City. Laotians were able to successfully and 

smoothly incorporate into the community as a result of all three contextual factors. 

Critically important was their status as refugees, which offered them a full range of 

federal services through a community-based resettlement program. As a result, they 

accumulated enough economic and social capital to become upwardly mobile and 

develop a middle-class lifestyle by purchasing homes and sending their children to 
ACCESS NUMBER: 30951-16804 

private schools. Unlike the new Latinos in Houma and Morgan City, Laotians were 

permanent members of their community just ten years or so after their first arrival. 

STUDY PRODUCT(S): Donato, K. M. 2004. Labor Migration and the Deepwater Oil 

Industry. U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Minerals Management Service, Gulf of Mexico OCS 

Region, New Orleans, LA. OCS Study MMS 2004-057, 133 pp.