Recently a friend shared a recent banking experience. My friend, Clara, is an undocumented worker who makes her living cleaning houses. Her current employer is a wealthy woman with an 8 bedroom mansion in an exclusive suburb in Silicon Valley.
Her employer recently paid her by check before leaving town. Clara and her co-worker, the other cleaning woman (it takes two women to clean this house every week), went to the local bank from which the check was drawn thinking that would be the most efficient way to get their money.
The teller asked for a social security card and a drivers license. Having neither, Clara presented her Matricula consular and credit cards. The teller, apparently unfamiliar with the Matricula called up on the branch manager. The branch manager then instructed the teller that the check could be cashed upon two conditions - that Clara be photographed and her full fingerprints taken.
When I heard this story I was taken aback. All that was lacking was the number held up to her chest to make it a full mugshot. All to cash an $80 check.
Often, experts wonder why immigrants refuse or are reluctant to engage with banks. Are they ignorant? Are they financially illiterate? Don't they know that check cashing facilities exploit them?
Perhaps they behave the way they do to avoid the humiliation.
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