Program transcript

LOS AMERICANOS

And it's hard, you know, so, I'm too lucky to have my papers now.

They cross the border at great personal risk to themselves, I mean these are good hard working, family people.

Good morning to you; speak your piece.

A lot of them were super clean and decent, a couple I encountered in downtown boutiques; I wanted to wash my hands.

It's not just the fluffy feel-good sort of things, but the real significant changes that must take place.

So help me God.

So help me God.

What a sweet day, not just for farmworkers and not just for Latinos, but for the state of Idaho.

And I said I want to be like him, I was working in the fields and I know that I can do it because he did it.

(MUSIC)

FRANKLIN:
Good evening, I'm Marcia Franklin.

ENRIQUE:
Buenas noches. I'm Enrique Martinez. And welcome to "Los Americanos," another in our series of FocusWest programs.

FocusWest is a joint effort of Idaho Public Television, Wyoming Public Television, and KNPB Reno Public Television to bring you discussions on important public policy topics.

FRANKLIN:
Tonight we look at the growth in the Latino population in our region, specifically the increase in people of Mexican descent. What gifts has this increased diversity brought us, and what are the challenges?

To talk more about those issues, we've assembled an audience, including some special guests. We'll introduce them in a moment, but first let's take a look at a piece by Idaho Public Television's Joan Cartan Hansen.

ROGELIO VALDEZ, IDAHO DEPARTMENT OF LABOR:
It's a fact we're the fastest growing minority in Idaho.

CARTAN-HANSEN:
In the last 10 years Idaho's Hispanic, or Latino, population jumped to 7.9%. Wyoming's increased to 6.4% and Nevada's Hispanic population tripled between 1990 and 2000, up to 19.7% of the state's total population.

VALDEZ:
Well I think it's more than numbers, I think historically attitudes, perceptions, that's changing also and that's important.

CARTAN-HANSEN:
Hispanics have a long history in our region.

ERROL JONES, BOISE STATE UNIVERSITY:
We see them here as early as the 1860s and very, very evident in the mining operations. They were considered brown people, and in a highly racial atmosphere as the United States was after the civil war, they were a people who for the most part were regarded by Anglos as folks to be exploited and treated as second class citizens.

CARTAN-HANSEN:
Overt discrimination continued well into the 20th century as Latino populations increased, finding work mainly in agricultural industries. But as their numbers went up, so has their economic strength.

VALDEZ:
I think the trend of individuals that come from other states to work in agriculture has shifted to them pursuing longer-term jobs.

CARTAN-HANSEN:
And with economic strength comes political power.

MARIA GONZALEZ MABBUTT, COMMUNITY ACTIVIST:
We're at a cusp right now, there will be more Hispanic legislators, there will be more Hispanic policy makers, administrators, and I think that that is good not only for the Hispanic community, but for everyone. And so if we're not at the table as Hispanics, then are those rule-, policy- and lawmakers really taking into account the issues that affect Hispanics?

JONES:
And if they're being excluded and if they're not given the opportunities that everybody else enjoys, then you begin to see that you continue to maintain an underclass.

GONZALEZ MABBUTT:
It's about equality, that's what it comes down to.

ENRIQUE:
Welcome back to Los Americanos. If you wish more information on this program, check out our website at focuswest.org.

FRANKLIN:
Enrique and I are joined in the studio by audience members from Idaho, Nevada and Wyoming, who will play an active part in our discussion.

In addition, we have some special guests:
First, Alan Simpson. Senator Simpson was a United States senator from Wyoming from 1979 to 1997 and is an expert on immigration issues.

Twenty years ago, the U.S. Senate introduced his Simpson-Mazzoli Bill, which eventually became the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act.

Senator Simpson is also the author of a book, "Right in the Old Gazoo: What I've Observed in A Lifetime of Scrapping With the American Press."

So perhaps we'll add another few paragraphs to that book tonight--we're glad to have you with us.

SIMPSON:
It's a great honor and privilege to be here.

I'd like to introduce next John Phillip Santos.

Mr. Santos is an author and documentary filmmaker whose memoir, "Places Left Unfinished At the Time of Creation," was a finalist for the national book award in 1999. Mr. Santos was also this country's first Mexican American Rhodes Scholar. Thanks for being here.

Seated next to Mr. Santos is Liliam Lujan Hickey. Ms Lujan-Hickey is the regional chair of the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Las Vegas.

Ms. Hickey was also the first Hispanic woman to be the president of the Nevada State Board of Education. Welcome to you.

And Martin Torres also joins us. Mr. Torres is the Mexican Consul for this region, located in Salt Lake City.

Prior to assuming his current position in Salt Lake City, Torres spent seven years as the Head Consul of Mexico in Orlando, Florida.

He has also served as the consul for media affairs at the Mexican consulate in Los Angeles. Welcome to you.

TORRES:
Thank you very much.

FRANKLIN:
Well, let's get started with our discussion. Senator Simpson, you saw the numbers, you of course live in Wyoming and have seen the change. Is this what you expected twenty years ago when you started working on this issue??

SIMPSON:
Well it's what I expected because I live in Park County, Wyoming, which is a very large sugar beet production area. In the communities of Powell and Ralston, there are great numbers of seasonal workers who come. I practiced law there for 18 years, and represented many of those people.

FRANKLIN:
What still needs to be done in your view on immigration issues?

SIMPSON:
Well, you have to have some kind of more secure identifier system. The one we suggested was either the slide card at the Sears store, or phone that you call in. It said very clearly that it would not be used for law enforcement, it would not be carried on the person, and it was distorted beyond all dimension.

So now you're going to get retina scans, that's Diane Feinstein, Senator Feinstein and Senator Kyl, a Democrat and a Republican, they're talking about a card, which would have the maiden name of your mother and that person's birthday. Those things I never brought up. I got a rich fraction of hell just because I was trying to talk about some kind of more secure identifier and that's why employer sanctions failed is because you didn't have a more secure identifier. So unless you penalized the employer who's knowingly hiring, unless you have some kind of something, but every time we try to do something somebody would call it a national I.D. or Nazi Germany, or tattoos. And now they're talking about stuff I didn't even have in my head. So here we go.

ENRIQUE:
Senior Torres, in your opinion do we need another immigration reform act?

TORRES:
Well I think we, what we need is a more comprehensive immigration agreement that we are already striving for at the highest levels of both administrations.

Just a few years ago we're talking about pointing at each other, "it's your problem on drugs." "No it's your problem on drugs." "Well, you supply them." "No you consume them." Well it's both. We need to sit down and talk in a bilateral dialogue because it's a bilateral problem.

Same thing with immigration. You cannot take unilateral decisions because they're not going to work entirely. You'll solve some problems, you'll create others.

Immigration is there to stay because it's a fact of, of economic development among nations. All, I mean the history of the world, is history of immigration. We're back and forth.

SANTOS:
There's been a presence, an Hispano, Latino, Americano presence in, here in Idaho, in Wyoming and in Nevada for at least 150 years and in fact considerably longer than that. And in part Latinos are called upon now to recover that history for ourselves.

We are becoming what Jose Vasconcelos, the Mexican philosopher and political leader called "la raza cosmica," the cosmic race. He thought of Mexicans being the cosmic race, but in fact all of the Americas are emerging as kind of a global republic.

ENRIQUE:
The immigrant experience did not come to an end with a closure of Ellis Island. It's alive and well as we speak.

LUJAN-HICKEY:
I'm in the other world, I'm in the successful American, I'm out of the immigration problemas, all those things, I'm out of it. In Idaho I'm trying to establish a Hispanic Chamber of Commerce where there's a high percentage of wealthy Hispanic business people that themselves can help other businesses to become business owners.

FRANKLIN:
Let's open this discussion up a little bit more. I saw you shaking your head back here a little bit as you were listening, tell us why.

REX GAVIN, KETCHUM:
I know a lot of people may think me as a bigot, but that's not the case. It really isn't. I have no problem with the Hispanic community and their beliefs, but I feel that they're trying to force it upon the United States of America. You know we have a problem with legal immigration that's my biggest beef.

FRANKLIN:
Illegal immigration.

GAVIN:
Illegal, I'm sorry. Lazy tongue. We need to do something about it, we need to close the borders, we need to get rid of all the illegal immigrants in this country and start all over and, allow them, there's people waiting for five years to come to this country legally, but there's that's why they're waiting is because all the illegal immigrants are coming into this country, they're taking welfare, they're using school money, tax money, they're killing us, they're eating us alive.

ORALIA MERCADO, MOUNTAIN PLAINS AG. SERVICE:
I do believe that Latinos bring a richness to our, to our country, to our states. They do jobs that no one, that no one else will do and that, and that is a fact. This country is rich because of the Latinos, I think that we have a lot to contribute. Those of us who have been here longer than a lot of the Anglo community that's been here I think we have hundreds of years. I'm from New Mexico and so my generations go back to the 1500s.

SAM BYRD, IDAHO MIGRANT COUNCIL:
Recently a study was done in the state of Minnesota specially with regard to the economic impact of the presence of illegal immigrants in that state, and overwhelmingly the evidence indicates that there is a positive, in fact the economic downturn would be worse in that state, in all of the states if they weren't here.

JESSE GUTIERREZ, NEVADA HISPANIC SERVICES:
The misperceptions that the illegal immigrants are taking welfare, more than what they're contributing to the country is false. There is evidence about that, there's studies about that, that they contribute to much more money. Those people that are contributing to the taxes because they never take it back. They may be using illegal numbers or whatever, but they never see any of that money and all of that money, where does it go? There's facts that there is more money going into that system than is being taking out by social services.

We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us when the big expansion of the Madison government took over when they bought the amount of land that was originally Mexico.

FATHER JESUS CAMACHO, ROMAN CATHOLIC DIOCESE OF IDAHO:
Each generation of Hispanics had their presence felt here. From St. Augustine in Florida, Santa Fe, San Francisco, San Jose, Nevada, Montana. Up to the current generation.

PETER PADILLA, AZTECA AMERICA:
It's important that a lot of us realize that a lot of Hispanics are being born in the United States. Like I was. And many of us are treated the same way as if we were immigrants when in fact we have generations upon generations of family that have lived in the United States.

ANTONIO SALCIDO, IDAHO FALLS:
You know this program is called The Americans, Los Americanos. Y toda la gente que está aqui, all of us here, are Americanos. Okay my eyes may be different, but I was born in America. A little bit south, you know but I was born in America.

FRANKLIN:
Most immigrants, Mexicans included, come to this country to pursue their version of the American dream. For some it's the chance for a better future for their children. For others it may be the opportunity to start a business. But at the core is often a desire for more education. In this next piece I look at the lives of two of our audience members, Sergio and Mary Gutierrez and the role education has played in their lives and the lives of those they inspire.

MARY GUTIERREZ:
Do you want your number?

SERGIO GUTIERREZ:
Yeah, Thank you.

MARY:
It's cold.

SERGIO:
It is. And that wind makes it even colder.

JUDGE SERGIO GUTIERREZ:
IDAHO COURT OF APPEALS: Running for me is the best way that I can deal with stress. You know; it's a part of learning for me. I've learned so much.

MARCIA FRANKLIN:
For Sergio Gutierrez, most everything he does turns into an opportunity for learning.

He's always pushed himself to achieve. And today is no different, as he prepares to run a marathon.

GUTIERREZ:
I've been at 3:14 and 3:15 the last three or four years, so my goal is to shoot for 3:10.

I started training for this in November.

RACE STARTER:
3,2,1&

MUSIC:
"Who let the dogs out?!"

SERGIO:
So this should be easy&with all that training&this should be easy.

FRANKLIN:
But it hasn't always been easy. Born in Mexico, as a baby, Gutierrez moved to California with his mother and stepfather, who were farmworkers.

When his mother became ill, he and a sister went to live with a grandmother in New Mexico. He still feels her influence.

GUTIERREZ:
She was really both father and mother to me. Gave me a lot of good values and principles to live by.

FRANKLIN:
Gutierrez needed those values when his grandmother suddenly died, and at age 13, he was on his own.

GUTIERREZ:
Dark days, the darkest day for me. I felt very lost, very alone.

FRANKLIN:
He and his sister went back to his stepfather, only to find that the family had grown to 13 children.

GUTIERREZ:
And so I realized that he couldn't afford to feed two more mouths, so I left school. I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to leave school. But the economics of poverty pretty much took me in that direction.

FRANKLIN:
Soon, Gutierrez had met Mary, a young, pretty girl in his church. When he was only 17, and she 15, they were married and started having children.

The young family eventually went on the road and landed in Idaho. After a series of dead-end jobs, Gutierrez enrolled in a new bilingual education program at Boise State University.

GUTIERREZ:
In the back of my mind, there was always that desire to go back to school. I also saw very early in my life the difference that it makes in one's life to have an education or to be without one and sort of be struggling.

FRANKLIN:
That affinity for those who struggle, particularly those with his background, led Gutierrez to become a lawyer.

GUTIERREZ:
Especially the farmworkers in Idaho&I realized there was much to be done and that I could hopefully help in some way.

MARY GUTIERREZ, BILINGUAL ED TEACHER:
How are you this morning?

CLASS:
Good.

MARY:
Good-alright!

Meanwhile, for his wife Mary, who had also dropped out of high school, the same Boise State program trained her as a teacher.
Then, with four children, she went on to receive her master's degree in education.

MARY GUTIERREZ:
It was a struggle, but you know when you finish, you feel such a relief, such an accomplishment.

MARY:
We're going to make a timeline.

FRANKLIN:
Today, she teaches in Nampa, in a bilingual second grade program.

MARY:
Carla, let's have you read the next page.

FRANKLIN:
For part of the day, the children who speak English do their lesson, while across the room, another group completes the same lesson in Spanish.

The method is controversial.

GIRL:
Las personas que vienen de otros lugares&(people that come from other places&)

FRANKLIN:
But Gutierrez says research-- and her own experience -- convinces her that bilingual ed helps keep non-English speakers in school.

CHILDREN:
Si!

GUTIERREZ:
We want to develop their foundation in their language because the research has shown that students who have a stronger foundation have more success.

Those students who we immerse into English immediately have a high rate of failure.

FRANKLIN:
And she says bilingual education might have kept her from dropping out, too:

MARY:
I remember going through school and many times not understanding what was going on in the classroom.

And I think had she'd been able to just translate some of the concepts that she was trying to get across and teach in my language, that I would have understood much better.

FRANKLIN:
Role models were another element missing in her childhood. So, today, Mrs. Gutierrez tries to provide that mentoring to her students.

MARY:
I encourage my students. I tell them about how they can become a teacher, they could become a doctor, they can become any professional that they want to be, but that they have to make sure that they work hard in school to do that.

Even when my husband got his appointment, I used that as an example of what they can do.

GOVERNOR KEMPTHORNE:
So help me God.

JUDGE GUTIERREZ:
So help me God.

GOVERNOR KEMPTHORNE:
God bless you, Judge Sergio. I'm so proud of you.

FRANKLIN:
That appointment was to Idaho's Court of Appeals, making Judge Gutierrez the first Hispanic to sit on that bench.

His ceremony was attended by hundreds of people of all political and racial backgrounds:

GUTIERREZ:
What a sweet day. Not just for farmworkers and not just for Latinos, but for the state of Idaho to have seen a common person with my background, be able to rise to that level of public support and to serve as a public servant for all. It was a great day.

FRANKLIN:
For one girl in the audience, though, Judge Gutierrez was anything but common.

ANGELES JACOBO, STUDENT:
I was so impressed with him and I said I want to be like him. I was working in the fields and I know I can do it because he did it.

FRANKLIN:
Angeles Jacobo is the child of farmworkers from Mexico. But like Gutierrez, she wants something more. And like him, she wants to be an attorney.

JACOBO:
There's a lot of disadvantages for Hispanic people, maybe because we don't know English or because we work in the fields. I will do whatever I can to help them.

FRANKLIN:
Her first job outside the fields is as a pre-school teacher's aide. For Judge Gutierrez, stories like those of Angeles give him inspiration.

GUTIERREZ:
It's still in many families not acceptable that young girls should aspire to go to universities to build careers, build professions. I think that's very unfair. And I'm just delighted to see her with her goals and her ambitions and her motivations, with probably only three years or so of exposure to the English language. That's unbelievable.

GUADALUPE JACOBO, ANGELES' FATHER:
(In Spanish) I've always encouraged them to study so they can have a better future.

FRANKLIN:
A better future. It's what Judge Gutierrez wanted for himself, and what he and his wife hope to inspire in others, despite the odds.

MARY GUTIERREZ:
Way to go, babe. Way to go.

SERGIO GUTIERREZ:
You never give up. There's a race to run and it doesn't matter what place you're there, you just continue doing your part. And that's what I'm about: is do whatever I can that is within my abilities and never giving up.

MARY:
Good job!

FRANKLIN:
And Judge Gutierrez joins us now. You talked in the piece about running a race and the metaphor in that in your life. How have you managed to do that? I know you've had mentors and that's been a big difference for you.

SERGIO:
I think sometimes we tend to segregate ourselves, but when you look at the accomplishments of someone like myself or others, it's not just your background and your culture, but it's the acceptance of the dominant community, the majority, really, who has been there whether it is through professors or the woman who introduced me to Job Corps where I got my G.E.D. It's been that kind of extension or outreach that has helped me to reach my dreams.

ARNOLDO HERNANDEZ:
We must seek out these persons that are willing to go out and help us and show us the way. It's not just the Latinos that are mentoring, we see a lot of Anglo students that are very interested in showing us the path as well.

ANGELES JACOBO:
I went to school in 9th grade. We didn't have any bilingual teacher, so I was alone doing my best. I learned English by myself and it was really hard. I had a teacher, she told me that I should not go to school anymore because I didn't understand anything. So I felt really bad. Finally I learned English and since I know English, I have been involved in many clubs, such as FHLA, Future Hispanic Leaders of America. I have attended state meetings from all over Idaho. I encourage them to go to school to study really hard and to be professional because I know that education is the key to success.

ROSA JACOBO:
It takes a lot of "ganas."

ENRIQUE:
Desire.

JACOBO:
Yeah, desire because when I came it was really hard, I have five years being here and it has been really hard, but I tried my hardest to learn English and to be able to be out of high school. Many teachers, I mean, they didn't talk to me, because I didn't know any English so I was like, I need to learn English in order to be successful.

JOSEFINA ESTRADA, RENO:
In the past we've all been encouraged to assimilate and in that struggle and race to assimilate to the American culture, we forget that we were once immigrants too, that our parents came possibly from another country. Instead of mentoring those Latin American young women, like I was when I was young, like the young lady who is here, we walk over them, we forget about them.

TORRES:
In Mexico education is totally free. They could have an easy life as far as education is concerned in their country. When they come here they have to face many different challenges and when they overcome those challenges, you're talking about the best of the crop and I believe that the one that is absolutely winning is this country. Those are the very best that we have and you're taking them and you're keeping them.

SIMPSON:
Every one of you who has spoken has used the word "success" and everyone of you who has spoken, has spoken as the most articulate people in this entire session. So it isn't just education that got you there and, don't throw anything, it's English that got you there. And English is the language of success.

LUJAN-HICKEY:
One of the first things I learned is that to receive funding from the federal government is like marketing. When I talk about bilingual, that word doesn't exist in my language anymore. When I claim I want English language learners for these Hispanic students, and you know what, I'm getting the funding for it because the federal government understands that language.

JULIO ELIZONDO, STUDENT:
I understand that, that English is, is our main language here in our nation, but at the same time we're a nation of diversity, we do not want to become isolated. Ignorance is caused because you're not open to learn other people's cultures and understand what their difficulties are.

MARCIA:
How do you respond to people who are not in favor of bilingual education?

IRENE CHAVOLLA, ID. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION:
We tell them that the ultimate, the ultimate goal in education in any, any program in education is to teach the children English and we might go through the route of bilingual education, but we might go through a different route. What we really want is we want the students to learn English, to be successful and to be productive citizens.

ALAN CREECH, NAMPA POLICE CHIEF:
I spent quite a bit of time recently researching crime prevention and particularly juvenile delinquency. Research has clearly shown that competency development will prevent crime. No matter how we teach it, if we can get kids to read and write and understand those competencies, their chances of being involved in crime are less.

MARY GUTIERREZ, BILINGUAL TEACHER:
My primary job is to teach those kids skills and concepts and regardless of what language they speak that's my primary job. And it's a bonus for these children both the children that are learning each other's languages and not only learning each other's languages, but also sharing each other's cultures.

LESLIE MIX, NEVADA HISPANIC CHAMBER OF COMMERCE:
In our city, it's almost one out of every four or five people is Hispanic. 85 percent of the people that live there prefer to speak Spanish over English. So if you can cross over in both languages, it's to everybody's economic opportunity and advantage to speak and be bilingual.

SAM BYRD:
If you know another language, you know there's some things that can't be said in English and so when you lose a language, whichever language that is, including English, but in this case we speak of losing Spanish. We lose forever all of us, todos los Americanos, all of us Americanos, lose the ability to interpret and ever know that view or that perspective of the world. That is too high a cost.

FRANKLIN:
Actually recently Laura Bush, first lady of the United States, was in town and I asked her her thoughts on bilingual education.

Where does bilingual education fit into this? A lot of people feel that in order for a child to learn to read they first need to acquire their skills in their native language. Are you supportive of bilingual education?

LAURA BUSH:
Well I am if, if we know it works. I'm supportive of anything that helps children learn to read. The goal is to make sure children learn to read in English. That's what we want American children to do because that's how they can be the most successful. I know parents want that as well. And if a bilingual program helps them learn to read in English eventually then I think that's great.

I also want to say for children who are bilingual--and certainly I come from the state where there are a lot of bilingual children-- if parents can make sure their children are biliterate, if they can learn to read and write in English and read and write in their native language then they have a huge advantage. There are very few Americans who are bilingual, truly bilingual and there'd be a really great advantage for your child, if you can make sure your child is truly bilingual.

FRANKLIN:
I was surprised that she made such a demonstrative &

SANTOS:
I don't know if i've ever heard a first lady endorse the idea, the goals of bilingual education and a Republican first lady.

SIMPSON:
Not a stereotype, is it? (Laughter)

SANTOS:
But in fact the Republican party has just announced that they are preparing a television show that they're going to create particularly to address the concerns of the Latino community in Spanish.

But you know if I could just take one moment to, to quarrel with a little bit of how we've discussed questions relating to bilingual education. While it's true that, that English is, is the language of success, it's a language, it's a global language now, I don't want to think about bilingual education or, or trilingual education, quadralingual education exclusively in terms of economic success that, that part of the "testimonio" that we offer as latinos is to bring goals in terms of the way we live our lives that go beyond just economic success, that we want to maintain our spiritual values, that we want to maintain a sense of connectedness to our ancient histories.

ESTRADA:
I was born bilingual. I will always be bilingual and my children will struggle to be bilingual because they're growing up here in America, but I do think that two languages is important because it continues your awareness of who you are, where you came from, your family. Latin Americans, Mexicans especially because I know my culture, familia is very important.

BYRD: Education is probably the biggest issue facing the Latino community throughout this country. It is the biggest human rights issue facing our community. And our businesses will not continue to be productive and our communities will not continue to be vibrant if we are missing the contributions that many of us can make.

ENRIQUE:
While many Mexicans like Judge Gutierrez and Angeles Jacobo first came to the U.S. for farmwork, increasingly they are moving into service jobs. And many are going to tourist towns like Sun Valley, Idaho and Jackson, Wyoming.

While Wyoming has seen a 23 percent growth in the number of Hispanics since the last census, Jackson itself has seen a 350 percent increase in the same population just since 1995. 12 percent of the city is now Latino.

Producer Katharine Collins of Wyoming Public Television followed one recent immigrant family to see how their lives have been transformed. She also looked at how one of the richest communities in the nation is adapting to an almost overnight demographic change.

MEXICAN WOMAN:
They've left us and gone far away to work; they've left their fields.

MEXICAN WOMAN:
Some are waiters, some are cooks.

MEXICAN WOMAN:
No one earns anything here. The earth is all there is. Sometimes it gives, sometimes it doesn't.

CLARENE LAW, MOTEL OWNER:
We have about half of our work force comes from Mexico, and that would be more than 30.

In about 1986, 1987, we began our dependency on foreign workers. We began to have year-round business we had not had heretofore. At that time we began to need more year-round employees.

KATHARINE COLLINS:
The wealthy town of Jackson, Wyoming, is one of many Rocky Mountain resorts whose service economy is propped up by low-wage workers from Mexico. The hours are long, the jobs difficult, but Arturo and Esther and hundreds of other parents focus on the benefits for their children.

ARTURO ORDONEZ:
They are going to be better off, in a better life, with the education they'll get, for the education they're getting is quite good.

JEAN CARRYL, KINDERGARTEN TEACHER:
When he first came into the situation in kindergarten, he was pretty shy. But since, has made many friends.

He is an emergent reader, his number skills are good, he has good abstract thinking skills, so he's probably in, I'd say, about the top third of the class.

BOY:
Hey diddle diddle, the cat in the fiddle&

MARY KITTO:
Esther is a wonderful student. She is very high academically. She's above grade level as far as reading goes.

She's a wonderful writer. She writes great stories.

Her parents are very supportive of Esther's education.

And we work together on things like getting her to wear her glasses, the natural kid things.

TEACHER:
Do you have a puppy, or would like to have a puppy one day?

GIRL:
I would like to have a puppy.

ESTHER ORDONEZ:
They learn by doing their homework, and I, too, learn. Sometimes a word comes up that I don't know, so I see it,
and the next time it comes up, I know what it means.

COLLINS:
Like hundreds of other Mexican service workers, they used to commute from Idaho, a hazardous one-hour drive away.

ARTURO:
What we didn't like was the commuting back and forth, having to cross Teton Pass. In summer it was okay, but in winter it is very dangerous.

COLLINS:
So their reward for hard work was subsidized housing closer to work.

LAW:
Arturo and Esther have been very fine employees of our establishments for several years. They live in a trailer here in town. It's one of our properties. We put up a great many of our own employees.

ARTURO:
So moving to Jackson, living here in Jackson, has been a step forward, with a little more economic advantage.

I have two jobs. I also work at the Red Oak Grill. I'm a cook there. I have very little cooking experience, but they gave me the chance to learn this work, to take on new challenges by working as a cook. And I like it. I like cooking and working in the restaurant.

I work 90 hours a week at my two jobs. It's somewhat burdensome, but it's very nice to have work.

COLLINS:
Residents of the resort community of Cody, however, had a negative reaction to the prospect of a new and different work force.

RADIO PROGRAM:
Good morning, speak your piece.

WOMAN:
I've been listening to this, reading about it. We were in Jackson last summer. A lot of them were very nice. A lot couldn't speak one word of English and they're working in the stores.

ANNOUNCER:
Yeah.

MAN:
Are these people when they're coming to town, paying taxes?

COLLINS:
In Jackson, too, there was initial negative reaction when large numbers of Mexican workers arrived.

CANDRA DAY, COMMUNITY ORGANIZER:
There were fights on the school grounds, on the elementary school grounds, between Hispanic kids and American kids that were of concern to us. And there were nasty letters in the paper about housing issues that were of concern to us.

ARTURO:
Yes, there are a lot of difficulties with the Latina people here. Mostly among young guys because they don't have a driver's license, and they like to drink, so they have problems, and those are the problems you mainly see in the courts.

KITTO:
The whole community is struggling with becoming a multi-cultural city.

COLLINS:
Accommodating two separate cultures, one that is affluent and one that is not, is never easy. But Jackson recognizes its dependence on foreign workers. Now, there's a Mexican soccer league, Spanish story hours at the library, and a weekly Spanish-language radio show.

ARTURO:
We've encountered no difficulties. It's been a very happy experience, living here. Of course, when you have work, life is easy, harmonious.

Our own plan is to return to Mexico. As for my children's decision, I'm not going to force them in any way. I won't be the sort of father who says, "If I return, you come with me." No, they are going to make a lot of decisions in their lives, and they'll decide if they come with us, or make a future for themselves here.

MARCIA:
Senator this is your state, and we see both the positive and some negative. Some people in your own town of Cody calling in with some fears.

SENATOR:
That little squib of Cody, Wyoming, that's a talk show where they get the goofiest people on earth in that show. It's called, it's called "Speak Your Piece." And to pull a little segment off of there about some, you know, racist or bigot is unfair to my community. That is Cody, Wyoming, and we have outreach of all types in Cody, Wyoming.

MERCADO:
I disagree that that was just a short segment because of it being one of those little radio stations in Cody, Wyoming, because as I understood the full picture in Cody, there were people in the community who were concerned and have xenophobic ideas of Latinos coming there to work and even the individual who was hired to do all the legal paperwork, the visas, the petitions, the labor certifications I understood his life was threatened and he quit.

CARMINA OAKS, LATINO RESOUCE CENTER, JACKSON:
Let me tell you that I feel very fortunate, very fortunate to be in Jackson because I have seen tensions, and I have lived through that, but this town has embraced the Latino population very, very well. I mean people need them very badly because it's a, it's a tourist town. So they need that input, they need the workers. And they've been really catering to them. I mean they're helping them, they are trying to get legal visas for them.

SIMPSON:
I put together the H2A worker program which was a legal way to get people to come so that they had proper sanitation, proper facilities. In Powell we have toilets in the field, when I was a kid they didn't have anything in the field.

MERCADO:
Those programs do provide protection for workers who are coming here to work, but we still have the unfortunate attitude by some--and I'm not going to say the whole ranching community--by some ranchers where there's still exploitation regardless of whether or not there are regulations that regulate them.

ESTELLA ZAMORA, IDAHO HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION:
When we talked about Jackson and the Mexicans coming into our communities and working in our restaurants, in our laundries, in our hotels. And that's fine, we need them, we want them in our communities doing those jobs and they appreciate those jobs, but keep 'em off our streets, we don't want to see 'em there. That's a concern. That's an issue that we need to deal with.

MITO ALONZO, ID. DEPT. OF CORRECTION:
You know one of the things that's always bothered me is that when we say, in fact we've been using the word immigrant mostly here, but a lot of time on the street you hear the word "illegal alien". The following word that comes with that is Mexican. I work for probation and parole, serving the state of Idaho. We supervise Anglo, Mexicans, Blacks, Laotians and we have several that are illegal aliens maybe and they're not all Mexicans.

MARCIA:
The police are on the front lines of ameliorating any tensions that exist. What has been your philosophy in approaching the change that has happened in your community and making sure that those tensions are ameliorated?

CREECH:
My philosophy has been that the police department needs to mirror the community. When I became the assistant chief we had no Hispanic officers, we had some bilingual Hispanic civilian people and I kept asking "why don't we have bilingual people, why don't we have Hispanics?" The common response I got was "we can't get the good people to apply."

And so we started really trying to change the texture of our department, because what happens, young men come up here. Our officers don't understand their culture, they don't understand what it's like to be a young Mexican male, and driving is usually the first thing that brings 'em to our attention.

I was one of the chiefs in the state this last year that supported a Bill to allow illegal aliens to obtain driver's licenses. It was a very practical bill to me because what happens is that they get here, they don't have driver's licenses, they can't get insurance, they don't understand our rules and they we end up cross hairs of them and it starts a cycle that is hard to stop.

SALCIDO:
They come here to better themselves and their families.

VOICE OF REX GAVIN:
Why?

SALCIDO:
Why? Because here it is.

GAVIN:
Because it's free money.

SALCIDO:
I'm glad you ask the question.

GAVIN: Free money.

SALCIDO:
I'm glad you ask the question. Here it is. We here are not going to fix the problem. All right. It is our governments that need to fix the problem. The reason why people come here is because if I, if I'm in Mexico and I weld a piece of metal I make only 50 cents an hour and if I come to the states I make $5.50 an hour.

GAVIN:
So why don't you go back to Mexico and make Mexico a better place?

SALCIDO:
Just a minute, just a minute. Just a minute.

MARCIA:
Hold on just a second let's...

SALCIDO:
Hold on okay? I come here legally or illegally because I need to survive.

TORRES:
This boils down to economics. There is a high demand for Mexican workers and we have the supply. Why is there such a high supply and the demand to be met? Because Mexicans don't find enough jobs or they don't find the jobs that pay them enough to stay home. So let's try also to increase the opportunities at home, so they won't be leaving.

SANTOS:
These are things that we live much more intensely in places like Texas, and New Mexico and Colorado and Florida over the last 30 years. So we're, what we're seeing is an emergence of issues, conversations in parts of the country that we've lived for a very long time in the borderlands, the lands of "la frontera."

ENRIQUE:
Adelante, go ahead.

CAMACHO:
I would like to, to say something from different perspective.

ENRIQUE:
Yes sir.

CAMACHO:
We are talking about immigrants coming into the United States as if they bring nothing. Just needs. All problems. And it's not true. It's not fair. We have filled the mouths of Americans with salsa and salsa.

ENRIQUE:
I like that move!

CAMACHO:
Sure. So it's, it's not just money, it's not the only way to make people valuable. What about life? We Hispanics know how to live lives.

PADILLA:
Many people do make positive contributions and we need to focus on those things. Certainly we have problems within our own culture, but we contribute in many ways. In the armed forces, we have outstanding Olympic athletes, we have professional football players and basketball players and we contributed in many ways to make society better.

CURTIS MENDENHALL, BURLEY CITY COUNCILMAN:
It's a human factor. I'm colorblind, I mean I'm not physically colorblind; I am colorblind. You're, you're my friends, you're Americans. Your blood flows the same, the difference is that we have a different heritage. We may have different lifestyles. But within our community we try to embrace everyone the same.

ZAMORA:
You know I want you to see the color of my skin. I want you to look around you and notice the diversity, notice the richness of who we are as individuals and I would suggest that to anyone else who thinks or says that they are color blind because you're missing out a lot by being color blind.

MENDENHALL:
Please don't get me wrong I, I am color blind to that, I admit that. I don't, I don't care whether you're Mexican, White, Spanish, I don't care. But I do care about your culture.

BYRD:
Imagine a day without Mexicans. And imagine the social cost and the richness that would be lost. Imagine the economic crisis that would occur and imagine the human costs.

MARCIA:
There are now more than a million Hispanic-owned businesses in the United States. 40 percent of those, or more than 470,000, are owned by Mexicans or Mexican Americans, according to the 1997 economic census.

600 of those businesses are in Reno Nevada, and many line one of the main streets there, Wells Avenue.

KNPB Reno Public Television reporter Erin Breen introduces us to several of those entrepreneurs.

ERIN MEEHAN BREEN:
The Pepper Tree is an award-winning small business featuring southwest gifts and clothing. And owner Rose Ann Capriotti is the queen of customer service here.

Rose Ann immigrated from Sonora, Mexico when she was just a child, and became a citizen with her parents more than 50 years ago. As a retired social worker she still focuses on helping others.

ROSE ANN:
Sometimes I feel there's not enough, a lot of assistance for the Hispanic population. I've helped them with driver's licenses, with permits and so on.

BREEN:
Because of her experience building her own business and dealing with government agencies, many other business owners look to her as a sort of unofficial mayor of the avenue.

At meetings like this one, she keeps tabs on proposed developments along the avenue.

And here, other family business owners have become like a family to Rose Ann.

ROSE ANN:
It is my family. I try to take care of them as much as I can. Sometimes when I get out, like the Hispanic businesses, especially now that it's getting a little warmer, the tradition is that they do not close until 8 or 9 o'clock in the evening. And our American tradition is we close at 5:30, 6 o'clock. So sometimes after I get out of work, I'll go to different businesses and see if they need any help, are they doing okay?

ROSE ANN:
How's everything, how's business going okay?

BREEN:
Juana and Thomas Gomez run a party supply store about a block from the Pepper Tree. And they've built up a good bank of supplies and customers over the years.

JUANA:
I make everything by myself&

BREEN:
And their son Edwin helps out making deliveries and printing t-shirts. And everyone watches out for three-year-old twins, Veronica and Bernice, and two-year-old, baby Bridget.

Even though Juana and Thomas have been here 20 years, they remember their border crossing as if it was yesterday.

JUANA GOMEZ: We have to walk so many miles, two, three days you know. And stay in the desert with no water, no food, you know. No blankets, anything.

BREEN:
But once here, Juana and Thomas were able to take advantage of amnesty programs . These days security is tighter, quotas are stricter, and fees are much higher for those looking for permanent residency.

JUANA:
The office they have to help people, sometimes they charge a lot of money. $350 or $400, $500 to fill out application for immigration, sometimes the people they don't have enough money to pay.

THOMAS GOMEZ:
And there is not enough communication with Immigration and the Hispanic community.

BREEN:
There is a lot of paperwork involved in doing anything through immigration and all the forms are printed only in English. One regional official told me that according to federal law, if the forms were made available in Spanish they'd also have to be made available in French, German, East Hungarian and a host of other languages. So a lot of Hispanic people find themselves turning to others for help in filling out the forms. Sometimes they turn to full-fledged attorneys, and sometimes they turn to notarios.

Martha Martinez runs a combination travel agency and notary service on Wells Avenue.

MARTHA:
I'm a public notary, I do all kinds of translations, power of attorneys, all the immigration forms. We do letters to take children out of the U.S. and the latest, I'm beginning to do divorces.

MARTHA:
INS is very hard. They are very demanding. They want everything in a certain order, and sometimes even if you have everything in a certain order, they could still say no when you want something else.

BREEN:
And immigration is a big part of this law office across town, too.

ALAN HUTCHISON, IMMIGRATION ATTORNEY:
Nationwide we know it's 8 million undocumented aliens in the United States. Probably half of those are from Mexico.

And right now, there's a great delay at the INS because they have to check all these names against a new security database. As I understand it, many of the computers are not capable of doing this, and in some cases the personnel aren't capable of doing it. So the backlog is getting only bigger.

And I tell them in spanish they need pacienca, patience, tranquilidad, they have to be tranquil and avoid problems with the police because that will lead to deportation, and esperanza, which is hope.

ROSE ANN:
We need more services, we need more translators. We need--oh, there's so much. We need to help the people that are below the average.

JUANA:
I wish everybody that think the Spanish people, from Guatemala or wherever, they're coming to work hard, you know, and make a better life for his family. I know that.

ROSE ANN:
We are here to stay, and I know that I am doing everything in my power to help as many people as I can.

ENRIQUE:
Leslie Mix, you're from the Nevada Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and in your city you've seen a transformation.

LESLIE:
Yes we have, that's one of the states that we've seen a huge dramatic percentage growth increase in the last 20 years of Hispanics coming to the state because there's jobs. When people come over here, legally or illegally, what they're really looking for is economic ambition. We do get the best of the best because it's very difficult to cross hell and high water to get to our country and come here without family and without language or without education. People bring hard work.

Now you've got this emerging economic market that's really what the United States is seeing when you talk about a million businesses. The backbone of America is small business and that is really what, it's not just the American dream it's everybody with any ambition's dream.

What we don't have are any Hispanic either politicians or corporate people who are making decisions at higher levels. So the Hispanic chamber has taken on the role of developing leadership and moving leadership into those power positions.

LUJAN-HICKEY:
And I like that this is the last part of the program because we are very active, we don't talk about immigration problems. We talk about the positive side that you're going to be a "jefe", you're not going to be working for anybody, you'll be "el hombre." Tu vas a ser el patron de tu negocio. You're going to be there owning your own business and we, I'm very proud of the city of Reno. They're going to have a building, they're going to get in funding and I just think they're going to go in the right direction.

GUTIERREZ:
There's still a lot more work, and the future is our children. We are now on the verge of starting a dual language immersion charter school in Reno, Nevada, that would be the first of its kind. First through sixth grade. We also were able to put a big Cinco de Mayo celebration downtown Reno to bring culture to the rest of the community. You improve one part of the community, you improve the entire community and you bring it together.

TORRES:
There are millions, as the piece said, millions of Mexicans that are already here that are part of this economy, that are part of this country, that are part of this economy that need to be legalized.

SIMPSON:
The strictest laws in this hemisphere about entry and restriction are on the southern border of Mexico. So how can we ever get it done when the Mexican government asks us to help and release and take them and the strictest and most stringent laws in the hemisphere are on the southern border of Mexico where they are very, very restrictive of who enters their country?

CAMACHO:
My question is why cannot we get along? Anyway, we will stay here. And we come here to stay not, laying on the ground, working.

We are not requesting favors. No. Favor costs too much. We are just requesting for the opportunity to grow together. My message for Idaho, Wyoming and Nevada is persons are more important than ideas. Persons are more important than business. Sorry. Persons are the most important resource any country has. So let us get along.

LEOBARDA ELIZONDO, AGRICULTURAL WORKER:
Dile a ella que para mi no hay discriminacion, porque para Dios no lo hubo en ninguna.

JULIO ELIZONDO:
She brings into the religion impact&she says there should not be discrimination, where God does not discriminate, who are we to?

PADILLA:
I do believe that things are getting better in the United States. I think people are beginning to realize that America stretches from Argentina to Canada and we're all Americans and we're all after the same objectives, the same goals. We all want a great life.

BYRD:
I just want to comment on "Los Americanos" because we are all Americanos and I think the title of the show as I was commenting to my colleagues gives me hope because it begins to define that term "Americano" and give it that new definition, which I think is very consistent with that new future that all of us are hoping for.

ENRIQUE:
That's all the time we have for the program. If you've tuned in late, you can find this whole program, as well as the others in the series, on our web site, focuswest.org.

MARCIA:
On that site, you'll also find a whole host of additional information, including interviews, statistics and activities. So check it out!

We'd like to thank our audience and other guests for participating, as well as you, our viewers, for watching.

For FocusWest, I'm Marcia Franklin.

And I'm Enrique Martinez.

MARCIA:
Good night.

ENRIQUE:
Buenas noches.

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