September 2005

Above: Santiago Rodriguez, a former seasonal farm worker from Mexico, settled in Lake County. He owns Rodriguez Lawn Care. Photo by Toby Shingleton.

The Newest Minority: Latino immigrants in Lake County mainstream
by Laura Freeman

Santiago Rodriguez came to Lake County as a seasonal agricultural worker when he was 15.

Like many immigrant laborers toiling in the Lake County nursery industry, Rodriguez was not afraid of weather extremes and backbreaking labor.

As one of the first Mexican laborers to come here, he has seen many changes.

“When we first came here it was hard to find a translator,” he said. “Now almost everyone has a son or a daughter who speaks English. And the nurseries – they have grown.”

He is a business owner and a U.S. citizen now, but he didn’t plan to stay here in the beginning.
“At first my goal was to earn enough money to go back to Mexico and open my own landscaping business,” Rodriguez said.

Later he decided he wanted to live in Painesville year round. He worked in the nurseries for 10 years and then four years for a landscaper. He eventually became a U.S. citizen.

Six years ago, Rodriguez started his own landscaping company, Rodriguez Yard Care.

It hasn’t been an easy row to hoe. He started with one lawnmower, a truck and a trailer. Now he has five guys working for him, four trucks and quite a few lawnmowers. Last year he incorporated his small company.

“I’ve been working since I was 7,” he said. “I don’t think starting your own business is hard, it’s surviving that’s the hard part.”

While his story might not be so different from someone from Germany or Bosnia trying to make it in the business world, the added complications of learning a new language and becoming a citizen can be insurmountable for many. Paperwork, filing fees and attorney fees can add up to more than immigrants can afford.

Latinos here to stay

Northeast Ohio ranks as one of the most ethnically diverse areas in the nation. Widely known as a melting pot, it is a mix of people from countries all over the world, a reflection of how the United States was founded.

Since 2004, Latinos have been the largest minority in the country, totaling about 41 million people, or 14 percent of the population.

Americans tend to think of this as a relatively new phenomenon, but Spanish-speaking presence dates way back. The oldest European-influenced settlements in the U.S. are of Spanish origin and include St. Augustine, Fla., (1565), and Santa Fe, N.M., (1610), both established prior to any major English-speaking settlements on the continent. The oldest city under the American flag remains San Juan, Puerto Rico (1521).

Texas recently became the third state in the nation with a majority minority Latino population, behind California and New Mexico. While Ohio is still far down on that list, Latinos are an emerging population in several locations in the state.

Lake County has an overall Latino population of 1.9 percent. After Lorain, Painesville has the largest concentration of Latinos, about 13 percent, according to the 2000 census. The census also shows Latinos are the fastest growing ethnic group in the state.

As the population of American-born Latinos has increased, so has bilingualism. According to Pew’s 2002 National Survey of Latinos, 46 percent of second-generation and 78 percent of third-generation adult Latinos speak mostly English.

Still, some Ohio lawmakers want to make Ohio an English-only state.

English only spoken here?

A bill by State Rep. Courtney Combs, R-Hamilton, seeks to add Ohio to the 27 states that have made English their official language. This would mean state and county paperwork would be offered in English only.

Combs says the Ohio English Unity Act could provide an incentive for all immigrants to learn English. Proponents point out that taxpayers bear the burden of producing official documents in more than one language.

They say providing alternatives such as driver’s license exams in 17 different languages makes it easier for immigrants not to learn English.

Opponents say the change will pose problems for those whose primary language is not English.
Cora Rozo, a Perry resident who learned English in her native Colombia, said people need more support if English becomes the official language.

“People who come from other countries do need to learn English, but you can’t force them,” she said. “You can’t force them to speak English without having somewhere they can learn how to do it. You must be sure to have financial resources, have classes they can offer.”

Virginia Hoose, director of the English Language Learners/Migrant Program in the Painesville City Schools, thinks the proposal will be met with resistance.

“I would think all educators would oppose it,” Hoose said.

Sonia Brotzman of Brotzman Nurseries in Madison said some Latinos feel that teaching public school students in their native Spanish is holding them back. “They try to cater to them by teaching them in Spanish so they aren’t left behind, but then how can they go on to college without learning English?”

Marcelino Marcos, head of the language department at Lakeland Community College in Kirtland, agrees. “They are graduating with an imperfect command of both Spanish and English,” Marcos said.

Hoose says that’s not 100 percent true. “In the past three or four years, we’ve had about 15 students come to us from Mexico as high school students and we saw them pass all their proficiency exams in two years,” Hoose said.

A good English education

Many first generation immigrants don’t learn English, so it falls to Ohio’s public schools to make sure their kids do.

Several states have argued over how to educate these students. Three states have abolished bilingual education in favor of the immersion approach, which requires students to speak only English at school.

Superintendent Michael Hanlon Jr. said Painesville City School District now has a Latino student population of between about 33 and 35 percent. Just 10 years ago, Latinos made up only 5 to 6 percent of the student population.

“That gives you an idea of the rapid growth we’ve had,” Hanlon said. “We’ve really seen a demographic change that has required our school district to meet the needs of English language learners.”

Painesville first handled the influx of Spanish-speaking students with tutors. Then the school district went to a pull-out mode along with a summer intervention program.

“We really received a big boost from the Department of Education in 1996-97,” Hanlon remembers. “We were doing it all on our own, and as the student Latino population started to show up on the radar screen, they came up with a migrant education grant.”

Hanlon said school is more challenging for Latino students in other ways as well.

“Not unlike any other high school student, they are engaged in work here in Lake County. But, their families are depending on the dollars they are bringing in. That’s typical with other immigrants as well. There’s always a challenge between working and going to school for a family that’s new here. It always remains a challenge to get the student through high school.”

About six years ago Painesville schools opened an office just to work with Latinos. Several teachers in the school system have master’s degrees in Teaching English to Students of Other Languages, or TESOL.

The school system is also implementing training for faculty members to learn how to work more successfully with the students. Called SIOP – sheltered instruction operational protocol – it’s a way of using strategies that will help Spanish-speaking students. Hoose said it will help everybody.

“We’re here for the students and that’s our main focus. We want them to learn English, but we want them to learn the content also,” she said. “These students graduating have enough command of the English language to pass the proficiency tests and now the Ohio Graduation Test.”

Chinese, Bosnian and Vietnamese students also are in the program. Hoose said language is not the only problem.

“Some of our students, not all of them, are coming to us with some education; others are coming to us as freshmen at 16 or 17 years old after not being in school,” Hoose said. “Then we don’t have just the language, but the academics that they are lacking.”

Someone’s gotta do it

Several area nurseries use a Department of Labor program called H2A, a program that helps provide migrant laborers for the agricultural industry. Nursery Growers of Lake County Ohio, a trade organization, helps nursery owners use the program, which is essentially a government contract allowing them to bring Mexican workers here for a predetermined amount of time.

Brotzman Nurseries in Madison participates in the program. Six people live in a house Brotzman bought for their workers, but it can legally hold 10.

Homes are inspected periodically by the Health Department. Regulations cover square footage, number of windows, and other requirements, including the necessity for sewer systems rather than septic. Nursery owners also pay worker’s compensation premiums for their employees.

Sonia Brotzman, a Honduran immigrant who came to Willoughby at age 14 on a student visa to attend Andrews School in Willoughby, says it helps a great deal that she is able to communicate with the nursery workers.

Some employers think the H2A program is just too expensive. Why do the Brotzmans go to this expense and trouble?

“We can’t find people here to work; Americans don’t want to do it,” she said.

They’ve tried hiring Americans to do the work the Mexican laborers do, but not many stick around for long. Most don’t even come back after lunchtime on the first day.

“If you have people who want to work for something, they’ll work hard. I think they’re hard workers. They come to work, stay their nine months, and they’re anxious to get back.”

Legal or illegal?

Brotzman said they don’t hire illegal immigrants, at least not to their knowledge. Job applicants must fill out an I-9, a form stating they are legally permitted to work. But the employer has no way of knowing whether the person is actually legal.

“We can’t ask them if they’re legal or not,” Brotzman said. “We’re not allowed to check their Social Security number to see if they are correct.”

Brotzman said immigration officials targeted the nurseries once many years ago, taking all the workers in the middle of the busy season.

She says she has a simple solution to this problem.

“Give work permits to these Mexicans; they want to work,” she said. “We want people who want to work.”

At one meeting, a representative from U.S. Immigration & Naturalization Service wanted to show nursery owners how to recognize false documents, but cautioned them that if they didn’t hire someone with legal documents, that it could be taken as discrimination.

“We said it wasn’t our job to do that, that we weren’t police. They told us, ‘It isn’t our job to get you legal workers; our job is to catch illegal aliens,’” Brotzman said.

In the educational system, it is much the same way – a “don’t ask, don’t tell” kind of policy.
“It’s not the school district’s job to ask if they are legal or not; it’s for the government to enforce immigration laws,” Hanlon said. “It’s our job to educate the students. As long as students meet the general policies of our district, that’s all that’s required.”

Help for immigrants

The Department of Job & Family Services in Painesville has about 380 Latino cases on its books. Director Art Iacofano says the office employs two bilingual translators on a full-time basis, and three others as needed. Forms are printed in both English and Spanish.

“We do our own interpretation because you need to be able to understand what they need,” Iacofano said. “We don’t rely on a friend or family member; it’s really our responsibility to translate for them.”

There are about 15 different public assistance programs available for legal immigrants including Healthy Start, Ohio Works First, food stamps and Medicaid programs. The only assistance undocumented immigrants qualify for is alien emergency medical assistance.

“From time to time, we come across an identity that doesn’t look proper and we deal with it,” he said.

“Dealing with it” means reporting the undocumented residents to the INS, now a branch of Homeland Security.

“We don’t see a lot of them since they mostly know they will be reported,” Iacofano said.
To qualify for other programs, the individual must have some type of legal alien status, but they don’t have to be a citizen. There are many programs for U.S.-born children of undocumented aliens.

Michelle Herron, assistant administrator in the Income Maintenance office at Job and Family Services, said the department has come a long way in meeting the needs of the Latino population.

The biggest problem for the Latinos now is health care, Herron said. The IM department looks at covering inpatient hospitalization on a case by case basis. Other problems include day care.
“If they don’t speak English at all, a lot of day care centers won’t take them because they can’t communicate with the parents,” Herron said. “We help with payment, not placement.”
Herron said it’s a kind of snowball effect.

“In order to become documented they need money to go through the process. They can’t get a job if they don’t have proper documentation that gives them authorization to work.”

Establishing credit

Veronica Dahlberg, secretary of the Latino Business Association of Northeast Ohio, says Latinos here live in a type of limbo where they can work, but they can’t get a drivers’ license or even vote.
“They can reach a certain level but they can’t advance,” Dahlberg said. “They have a lack of legal status. So you have families who are living a seemingly normal life, but can only reach a certain point. They can’t send their kids to college because if your children are undocumented, there’s no college that will accept them.”

Dahlberg said Latinos need elected officials to represent their point of view. Robert Aufuldish, Lake County commissioner, has attended meetings of the Latino Business Association to “see how they operate.”

“They are getting a little bit involved in the political life as far as who they are comfortable with representing them, they’ve joined the chamber (of commerce) and a lot of them are starting up their own businesses,” he said. “They are trying to learn the language and the kids are helping their parents out too.”

The commissioners just appointed one of their number to the Lake County ADAHMS board, the agency that oversees mental health organizations. Marisol Colón works with Catholic Charities in Painesville.

“We felt she would be a good addition to our board since it furnishes money to all the other organizations,” Aufuldish said. “Now the Latino folks have someone there who can better relate to the needs of the Latino community.”

Bieterman said existing businesses are working to accommodate Latinos.

“We’ve focused on providing more services to the Latino population,” she said. “We have employees in recreation and utilities who speak Spanish and we provide printed materials as well.”

Dave Engel, first vice president of the Painesville Chamber of Commerce and a loan officer at Dollar Bank’s Painesville branch, says he does a fair amount of business with Latinos at the bank.

“It’s always nice to work with people who are working hard to advance themselves and their community,” Engel said. “It’s a hard-working group.”

Dollar Bank is one of the area banks that accepts nontraditional credit histories such as rent and utility bill payments for loan applications.

“Although it’s not focused solely on the Latino community, we have a program called Rent No More designed to help first-time home buyers,” Engel said. “It allows them to finance more and assists with closing costs and reduced rate mortgages.”

Another organization helping Latinos make their American dream come true is Lake Communities Development Corp. in Painesville. The organization has sold 63 low-cost houses since 1998, 10 going to Latino families.

Carol Anderson, program manager, says the organization holds seminars to inform the Latino population of the importance of establishing credit and checking and savings accounts.
“A fair amount of them want a house because they want to bring their families over,” she said.
The organization works with the banks to allow nontraditional forms of credit.

Opportunity knocks

Businesses can take advantage of the region’s multi-cultural assets by targeting the Latino population.

U.S. Census numbers only confirm what Latinos have known for several years - they are growing in influence and gaining buying power. About $3.4 billion will be spent on Latino advertising in 2005, according to the Association of Latino Advertising Agencies.

Ron Traub, director of community development in Mentor, said the city doesn’t specifically target population segments either, but welcomes those who want to be successful.

Traub said the Latino population has made its presence known in the number of Mexican restaurants that have opened of late.

“We enjoy in the community what appear to be waves of ethnicity,” Traub said. “When I came to Mentor there were probably less than a handful of Chinese restaurants. Now they seem to be in every strip mall. Mexican restaurants haven’t taken quite that much root in the community yet, but on the whole they have been larger establishments, several that have opened just in the course of the last year or so.”

Catherine A. Bieterman, economic development coordinator for the city of Painesville, said the Latino businesses are a huge asset to the city. Painesville’s business district has been revitalized by bakeries, grocery stores and restaurants owned by Latinos.

“I think the Mexican and Latino businesses add to the overall culture Painesville has; it has a unique sense, in terms of its downtown, its history,” Bieterman said. “And we really need more Latino businesses. Because of the diversity Painesville has, it’s important to have businesses that market to that individual culture.”

Laura Freeman is assistant editor of the Lake County Business Journal.