Native Americans take pride in working on high iron - BY ANGELA CARA PANCRAZIO, Asbury Park Press, NJ
The Mohawks of Canada and New York are legendary for erecting such monuments as the Empire State and Chrysler buildings and Rockefeller Center. Mohawks helped build the World Trade Center, and in the fall of 2001, a younger generation returned to help clear the twisted metal from the site.
Their history with ironwork dates back to the 1880s when Iroquois men were hired to build a railroad bridge in exchange for permission to include a piece of that bridge on their reservation. From that point on, generations of Mohawk ironworkers followed one another to the urban areas to earn a good wage at a trade that held a sense of pride.
"We were so good at climbing around," said Richard Glazer-Danay, a retired Mohawk ironworker. "From there on, we did ironwork. You grow up with it, it's good pay, you go to the union hall with your dad. . . . Everybody does it."