Thread: Hispanic exodus is under way

Workers leave Lee as jobs disappear.

http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll ... 90424/1002

In this case, cold, hard statistics don't tell the story. "I am not aware of anyone who would track that locally," said Glen Solier, business development specialist for the Lee County Department of Economic Development.

"Those people are off the grid. Undocumented," said Susanna Patterson, economic analyst for the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation.

But the oh-so-human snapshots of everyday living are revealing.

Like a weekend soccer league down from 32 teams to 25 because more than 100 players have had to leave.

Or a church that has cut two Sunday services to one because about 200 former members have returned to their homeland.

Or the western-wear clothier who gave up one of his three shopping center units and said business is off by 40 percent because customers are gone.

Put these and other pictures together and the collage tells the story of Hispanics who are leaving Southwest Florida to find work or to return to the support of their families back home.

"There is a loss in the number of Hispanics in our communities," said Robert Selle, director of the Amigos Center, which aids Hispanics with immigration issues and offers other services in Lee County. "The underlying reason is economic; the same reason they came here in the first place."

Population drain

The loss comes from a good portion of Lee County's population. The U.S. Census Bureau listed the county's Hispanic population at more than 90,000 - about 16 percent of Lee's 571,000 population - in 2006.

What the statistics further show is that work is gone. Unemployment in the Fort Myers-Cape Coral region has risen this past year, from 2.7 percent to 6.3 percent.

Many of the lost jobs are in construction, which has been put on hold as the sluggish market struggles with a glut of unsold houses.

Because many Hispanic construction workers are believed to be illegal immigrants, because construction and agricultural workers are a mobile population anyway, because many are single with families back in their native lands, and because their leaving was often spur-of-the-moment, no governmental or social service agency is keeping accurate records of this exodus.

Lee County School District reported a loss of Hispanics in all grades totaling 388 pupils through January of this school year - this after growing by almost 3,000 Hispanic students a year earlier.

But the white student population dropped as well. The big difference was while dropout rates tend to increase as the year goes on in the upper grades, the Hispanic population was the only one also to lose ground in the kindergarten through fifth-grade range. It fell by 87 pupils - an indication their families moved from the district, according to Michael Smith, director of planning, growth and school capacity.

"Many workers in the construction industry and related industry are leaving the area and following the money," said Barbara Hartman, spokeswoman for the state's Career and Service Center in Fort Myers. "It seems to be an increasing number of people who are temporarily relocating. I wish we did track that."

Hartman said she knows people are leaving because they tell counselors when they come in seeking work, saying they need the higher construction industry wages, which begin at $10 to $11 an hour for the most unskilled, to maintain their standard of living.

Ripple effects

Bob Droud, co-owner of B and D Plastering and Drywall, knows the situation from the other side. He's had to lay off about 80 workers, most of them Hispanic, keeping his staff to about 20.

He's philosophical about the slump, sees Hispanics as great workers who survive by going elsewhere when jobs are scarce and coming back when the work resumes.

"You can see it in east Fort Myers, where they rent houses to 10 or 12 people and the 'House for Rent' signs are everywhere," he said.

The empty houses and loss of Hispanic buying power are impacts of the exodus.

"It affects every sector of the economy," Hartman said. "Many of the Hispanics have high-level skills. They were plumbers, carpenters, electricians - the sorts of skills that bring a lot of money into the economy."

Hard hit

The Rev. Rafael Santiago of the First Spanish Church of God at Ballard Road and Ortiz Avenue also is optimistic.

His congregation was made up largely of Guatemalans, a staple in the construction industry. Many have gone home.

He's down about 200 members, cutting from two Sunday services to one. But the church goes on with 170 to 200 people, and Santiago is a stalwart.

"Nobody stops the work of the Lord," he said. "Nobody."

Juran Romero organized a soccer league made up mostly of Mexicans. He has had 20 players each on his teams, but he's down to eight teams - about 160 players.

"We have had to cancel games because we didn't have enough players," he said. He figures the Hispanic population has dropped by 20 percent in the Bonita Springs area.

Martha Vivas, director of the Hispanic program at the Bonita Catholic Charities office said about 50 of her former clients are gone.

"In a lot of families, the children are citizens because they were born in the United States so they stay here with their mothers and the fathers have gone elsewhere to find work," she said.

Some construction workers are moving to the lower-paying agriculture jobs to earn money to go back to their homelands, according to Gloria Hernandez, a Hispanic activist with Immigrants United for Freedom in Immokalee.

"It is piecework, and it takes about a month to pay your rent, buy food and buy a ticket home," she said.

Alfredo Lopez and Luis Pineda feel the loss. They run a business, one of what the census says is the 4.4 percent of Lee enterprises owned by Hispanics.

Lopez works the counter at Bonita Springs' Bonita Bakery, which his father owns. He estimates the number of Hispanics who've left Bonita Springs as in the 500 range.

"The situation is pretty bad. There is no choice but to leave," he said.

The bakery sells lunches, dinner platters and sandwiches. Lopez figures business is off 70 percent, leaving him alone at the counter, even on weekends when "there were three of us, and it wasn't enough."

Pineda owns El Forasto, selling western clothing, hats and boots.

"I am doing enough to keep open, but I am not making a profit now. Just enough to survive," he said.

Pineda also has a house framing business, where he's had to cut his staff from 47 to 17.

For him, the loss of workers is personal.

His brother-in-law, a laid-off roofer, left three months ago for Colorado for work. He had been in Southwest Florida for 20 years. He now sends money home to Pineda's sister and their three children.

It also is personal to Jorge Beltre of Gateway, who was operating a Fort Myers real estate firm with 15 employees when business dried up.

He has seen former employees, including relatives, scatter to other places in America for work and has opened a new office in Santo Domingo.

"We will go where the jobs are," he said. "We will go where there is work. We do not go on welfare."

A dual citizen, Beltre plans to relocate his family to Miami, where it will be an easier commute to run his business while in the Dominican Republic as he keeps his lifestyle in the United States.

Turning the tide

Leonardo Garcia, executive director of the Southwest Florida Hispanic Chamber of Commerce is banking on a turnaround, saying experts see an upward spurt by the end of 2009.

"We are hoping they are right," he said.

Garcia is hedging his bets with an aggressive program of encouraging locals to invest in Latin America, especially his native Dominican Republic.

This week, he took Fort Myers engineer Dean Martin and Naples developer Brand J. Black to the Dominican where Martin announced the opening of an office there and Black said he's investing $30 million in a 70-unit resort.

"In the end, the profits they make will come back here," Garcia said.

Fighting to stay

A number of Hispanics are struggling to stay until times are better.

Brandy Pagan and her husband, Joel, who's originally from Puerto Rico and who lost his job at a cleaning service, are in that group. They moved from Lehigh Acres where they paid $950 a month in rent to Fort Myers, where they pay $450.

"I am just waiting for the income tax check to get me by for a few months," she said. "Everybody is waiting for it."

What happens if neither she nor her husband finds work when the tax money runs out?

"We'll be homeless," she said. "I guess I'll be living with my husband's family."

It's the same for Santiago Cossio, 40, who came here from Mexico at 12. He's a laid-off tile setter.

Cossio has two houses in east Fort Myers. He plans to sell one, live in the other and try to hold out until times are better.

Eight or nine of his friends have moved north to find jobs.

"They used up all their savings and got to a point where they had to make a decision between sticking around or moving to survive in another city," he said.

Juan Martias, an employee of Hampton Inns for the past 12 years, watches a game Sunday during the Bonita Adult Soccer League. Martias has steady employment, but many Hispanics are leaving the area because they can't find jobs, according to Juan Romero, founder of Casa Mexico.

Going home

People who are going home to Latin American countries and have children who are U.S. citizens concern Christina Leddin, a counselor with the Amigos Center, which helps Hispanics with such issues as immigration. She tells parents to make sure their children's citizenship documentation is updated while they are away so that they can resume their life seamlessly when they come back.

"I have these kids who were born in the '80s and the parents left when they were young, now when the kids come back at the age of 20, they have a lot of issues. Even though he has a birth certificate, he can't get a valid ID because he doesn't have a Social Security number.

"So I tell parents to be sure to get their U. S.-citizen children a birth certificate, a Social Security number and a U.S. passport, then go to the American consulate every five years and renew it. "Then, he can come back as (an) adult with full rights."

A number of Hispanics are struggling to stay until times are better.

Brandy Pagan and her husband, Joel, who's originally from Puerto Rico and who lost his job at a cleaning service, are in that group. They moved from Lehigh Acres where they paid $950 a month in rent to Fort Myers, where they pay $450.

Was Puerto Rico handed over to some foreign country last night after I went to sleep?

Originally Posted by NoBueno

A number of Hispanics are struggling to stay until times are better.

Brandy Pagan and her husband, Joel, who's originally from Puerto Rico and who lost his job at a cleaning service, are in that group. They moved from Lehigh Acres where they paid $950 a month in rent to Fort Myers, where they pay $450.

Was Puerto Rico handed over to some foreign country last night after I went to sleep?

Yea, I thought that reference somewhat out of place also. I think the News Press was struggling to make this a sob story and were trying to use the reference to help tie it together or something.

Good riddance!

I added my comment to that article. Makes me livid to see the reference as a Puerto Rican in the same category as an illegal alien! I have friends who are Puerto Rican and I will be forwarding this article to all of them!

I would like to start a blog called the DEPORTATION CHRONICLES

I am so cruel---that not a tear fell.

I did get a little misty eyed when I thought of my oldest son who passed away a few years ago. he came to live with me in Florida and could only get $6.50 per hour because the market was glutted with illegal aliens. He ultimately made $8.50 an hour by getting a commercial drivers license to drive a moving van. He asked for more there too and was told he was lucky to have the job because they could hire an illegal for less money.

Remember this---it is your fellow American citizen who is betraying you for the almighty dollar. There would be no or very little oproblem with illegal immigration if the greedy, selfish business ppeople did not hire them at lower wages than Americans.

There is a lot more to being an American than the size of your profits. If you don't believe me,ask our boys and girls in the military.

This has nothing to do about open borders.

If we went into their countries and did to them what they have done to us we wouldn't have been able to get away with it for long.

This is all the same old story about lying, cheating and stealing when it serves your purposes better. The real problem is that we still have the Revolutionaries in the government and the criminals in business still here and still out on our streets.

It will be business as usual until they are brought to justice.