Thread: Just a mere coincidence I suppose things are changing

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... e0414.html

Influx changing the face of Arizona

Mark Shaffer
Republic Flagstaff Bureau
Apr. 14, 2006 12:00 AM


PRESCOTT VALLEY - Here it was, midafternoon on a Wednesday, supposedly the slowest time of the week at Garcia's Market, and Norma Garcia hardly had time to talk.

She was hurriedly ringing up fresh-cut meat, imported candy and cans of baby formula, but she still couldn't keep up with the growing line of mostly Spanish-speaking customers.

"Mi cielo, ayudame (Honey, help me)," Garcia intoned into her cellphone to her husband, Rigoberto.

All this commotion in a traditionally Anglo city that barely had 500 Hispanics entering the 1990s. But that number has grown nearly eightfold since.

The once-staid businesses along Spouse Drive have been replaced by bustling Mexican-owned markets, such as Garcia's, and restaurants, jewelry stores and gift stores where checks are cashed.

As hundreds of thousands of Hispanic immigrants, many of whom took to the streets as part of Monday's massive march, have been reshaping the corridors of the Valley, a quiet but just as radical demographic shift is transforming the state's northern and central reaches.

The number of Hispanics living in northern and central Arizona's highland and desert cities nearly doubled to more than 40,000 from 1990 to 2000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Some of the biggest increases occurred in Prescott Valley (420 percent), Bullhead City (377 percent), Payson (173 percent) and Cottonwood (155 percent).

From 2000 to 2005, the number of Hispanics in northern and central Arizona rose to nearly 50,000, according to estimates by Claritas, a demographic research and marketing group that analyzes the country's population growth. That equals a growth rate of about 140 percent since 1990, surpassing the state's overall Hispanic growth rate of 110 percent, according to census and Claritas statistics.

"You can rest assured that number is way low, as have all the counts of immigrants been in the past," Tomas Bialet, director of the Northern Arizona Latin American Center in Cottonwood, said as he scurried from one client to the next, all seeking counseling, legal and social-service advice late one evening.

Immigrants are being lured north to work in the building boom in the Prescott Valley, Prescott and Chino Valley areas, in the casinos across the Colorado River from Bullhead City, in the resort hotels of Sedona, and in Flagstaff's hospitality industry, which is centered on Grand Canyon tourism.

The mass is such that:


• Immigrant-owned shuttle services based on the border have extended their reach 100 miles north of Phoenix to Cottonwood, in the Verde Valley.


• Hispanics accounted for nearly 40 percent of the births last year at Verde Valley Medical Center.


• The percentage of Hispanic students in the Cottonwood-Oak Creek School District has increased to 33 percent from 20 percent since 1999, according to the state Department of Education. The percentage in the Bullhead City Elementary District rose to 42 percent from 31 percent, and the percentage in Humboldt Unified School District, which includes Prescott Valley, increased to 24 percent from 13 percent.


• Two years ago, Bashas' Supermarkets converted its market in Cottonwood to a Food City, which caters to Hispanic customers.

And much more entrepreneurship has followed.

A Hispanic Chamber of Commerce recently formed in the southern part of Yavapai County and already has 70 members, said Sam Rodriguez, a Dewey-Humboldt insurance company owner who heads the group.

The rapid growth of immigrant-owned businesses is good for the overall business climate, said Marnie Uhl, executive director of the Prescott Valley Chamber of Commerce. "(It) only adds to our vitality, and it's mutually beneficial to all our businesses to have that blend. We're all in this together and it's just very valuable."

Flagstaff's Fourth Street, on the east side of the city's once-dying commercial corridor, has been renewed by a host of small Mexican-owned businesses. A big-box store once home to a Kmart is a swap meet, where norteño music pulsates during Saturday night dances.

Bullhead City officials note somewhat incredulously that carnicerias, or Mexican meat markets, now outnumber supermarkets in the city. And one of the fastest-growing businesses in the Verde Valley is Romero's Panaderia, or Mexican bakery, in Cottonwood, where owner Hector Romero says that more than half of his clients are non-Hispanic.

"These newer areas of the state for immigration and Hispanic-owned businesses are quickly catching up with the overall trends. More than one-third of the businesses overall are owned by Hispanics, and one-third of those are Spanish monolingual businesses," said Harry Garewal, president and chief executive officer of the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Phoenix.

Irma Hernandez, president of the Bullhead City/Mohave Valley Association of Realtors and a former housekeeper in a Laughlin, Nev., casino, said there are now dozens of Mexican-owned businesses spread throughout the river city.

The recent immigrants have also bought up almost all the affordable mobile homes throughout the area and aren't concentrated in any one part of Bullhead City, Hernandez said.

"Their influence is spread throughout now, and it has kept the city from getting a handle on the magnitude of how many there are because they keep such a low profile," Hernandez said.

She said many immigrants are moving from Bullhead City to nearby Lake Havasu City and Kingman as they progress beyond casino jobs. Census figures show that Lake Havasu City's Hispanic population was up 270 percent in 2000 from 1990. Kingman's was up 96 percent. But the figures do not show where the residents moved from.

Bialet, an attorney from Argentina who formerly worked for the Organization of American States, said he thinks the growth of the immigrant community in outer Arizona is in its infancy.

He said the bimonthly newspaper he publishes, El Latino, has grown from a circulation of 10,000 to 30,000 in the past four years and his number of clients at the Northern Arizona Latin American Center has increased to 1,500from 250 annually.

Bialet said he also is working on putting the first Spanish-speaking radio station north of Phoenix on the air within the next year.

Gabriela Gatto, education director for the center, also said the rapidly increasing numbers are creating problems in finding enough English-learner instructors in school systems throughout the Verde Valley.

All those problems, however, are secondary for the Garcia family, which runs the Prescott Valley market.

The Garcias emigrated from the Mexican state of Durango 12 years ago and took the lowest-end jobs in factories and hotels in the Prescott area, gradually saving money to buy a food market. They sold a mobile home and used the proceeds to make the deal work.

Now, they have so many customers that they have rented a site for another market near downtown Prescott, which they say will be that city's first immigrant-owned food store.

"We've had to sacrifice a lot, but now, finally, everything is coming together financially," Rigoberto Garcia said. "We always said that we would work here for three years and go back to Mexico. But we're happy we didn't now."

Originally Posted by mapwife

• Two years ago, Bashas' Supermarkets converted its market in Cottonwood to a Food City, which caters to Hispanic customers.

They did this in Cali also. Once they converted a mall into
an open market like in Mexico business started booming. They also
plan on building more spanish style homes for them also.
I'm telling in a short while our SW and West will FEEL, LOOK
and SMELL like Mexico.

The rapid growth of immigrant-owned businesses is good for the overall business climate, said Marnie Uhl, executive director of the Prescott Valley Chamber of Commerce. "(It) only adds to our vitality, and it's mutually beneficial to all our businesses to have that blend. We're all in this together and it's just very valuable."

What you really mean is it increased your Chamber dues, you Suckin' Sellouts!!

GRRRRR!!