http://www.decaturdaily.com/decaturdail ... avor.shtml

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2006


Photo by Emily Saunders
Sylvia Aguilar, 8, plays with her nephew Ivan Arriaga, 1, at La Hacienda grocery off Austinville Road Southwest. La Hacienda is one of numerous Hispanic-owned businesses that have blossomed in Decatur during the last six years.

Decatur's Hispanic Influx
Fusion Cultural
Go tell it at the grocery: Latino flavor grows with population

Editor's note: This is the second of a seven-part series on Decatur's Hispanic influx.

By Martin Burkey
mburkey@decaturdaily.com· 340-2441

To see the growing Hispanic influence on Decatur, you need look no further than a booth at the city's newest Mexican restaurant.

There, at Mi Hacienda, Kathy Summerford is trying to expand husband Eric's culinary awareness beyond fast food and the fajita nachos dish to which he is accustomed.


Daily photo by Emily Saunders
Elizabeth Hernandez works at Las Novedades on Central Parkway Southwest. The store displays a wide variety of items of interest to Hispanic consumers.

"I had really not had that much Mexican food until I started seeing Kathy," he said. "I thought everything was spicy. I'd had Taco Bell. She got me started on fajita nachos."

Now, said Kathy, she is interesting him in quesadillas and chimichangas. Prompted by Kathy's enjoyment of Mexican food, his once-a-year visit to a Mexican restaurant is now once a week.

The Hispanic influence can be that subtle, like walking into a store's electronics section and seeing the "Música Latina" section for the first time or the English/Spanish instructions and warnings in businesses and government buildings, or the rush of Hispanic males cashing checks at convenience stores and check-cashing businesses Friday afternoon.

In this store, you will find first communion dresses, western boots, work jackets how fast change occurs. One store alone has a generous inventory to meet various needs, much like a combination 5&10 and department store of the 1950s.

The difference? Price.

In this store, you will find first communion dresses, western boots, work jackets, coming-out dresses, soccer uniforms and a plethora of items needed to live north of the border with a Hispanic identity.

There is a checkerboard of such businesses and groceries across the city, mainly along Sixth Avenue Southeast and in the Southwest. Decatur now has 10 Mexican restaurants that outnumber pizza places and are approaching the number of Asian and barbecue places. But Decatur's majority ethnicities sometimes find that chalupas and burritos go down a lot better than the other impacts of the growing Hispanic influence.

"I'm just seeing my city deteriorate," said Patricia Puckett, who was so worried that she wrote her city councilman about it, demanding action. "This illegal alien thing is destroying our city."

She has nothing against legal immigrants, Puckett said. But the illegal residents are driving the streets uninsured, causing accidents, throwing out beer cans and McDonald's bags, and living 30-40 to a house, she said.

"They are not in our culture of taking care of property," she said. "Do we not have a city ordinance that five families can't live in one house? Just those kinds of things are really grating on our nerves, that they are not respecting our country. I don't have a problem with people coming here legally and assimilating. These people are not assimilating."

City Councilman Ronny Russell, while acknowledging the impact on his district and the city, confesses most of what he knows comes from constituents, not from Hispanics. He gets complaints about uninsured drivers, property values "or just the sheer numbers."

The city is reluctant to get into the thorny legal issues of prosecuting illegal immigrants or extended families living in one house, Russell said. It hasn't seen much trickle-down help from state or federal officials, although Decatur police were able to get help this year from the two federal immigration officers assigned to the state.

"It's a very tight-knit community," Russell said. "The Hispanics in my district are not politically active yet. As a council member, I have incredibly small amount of contact or interaction. They're really just kind of below radar in a lot of what they do as a community. I think that will change, especially when their kids grow up in our society. I think we're all aware of that potential for changing the fabric of our society."

Local officials have few ways to determine exactly how the growing Hispanic population affects the city. Decatur schools struggle to address the influx. Decatur police work accidents and crime. Both, along with social service agencies, struggle with the language barrier.

Growing fast

Officials are certain only that the Hispanic community is growing fast.

Decatur's Hispanic population grew by 705 percent in the 1990s compared to 58 percent Hispanic growth in the U.S. for the same period.

They work in construction, agriculture and in industry, including three local Wayne Farms poultry processing plants, where 498 of the 1,380 employees are Hispanic.

The Rev. Aida Lee Barrera-Segura, a United Methodist minister, estimates the Decatur area has 10,000 or more Hispanic people, about 75 percent of them of Mexican origin.Decatur Morgan County Chamber of Commerce Vice President Jim Page said the influx attracted the attention of a bank exploring the idea of opening a Decatur branch and marketing to the Hispanic community.

"I think they've done it in other areas of the state, and it's been fairly successful," he said. "From a business sense, they think there's a good market here. Also, this bank has said they feel like it gets the Hispanic population more acclimated to society when they actually use a bank and invest their money and save their money. It helps them possibly purchase homes and cars because they are more responsible with their money."

As the Hispanic community becomes more entrenched, it has also created more Hispanic entrepreneurs who sound American in their values, priorities and business philosophies. To them, Decatur represents opportunity and prosperity, education for their children and a better life for their families. They appreciate Decatur's small-town feel in ways that Huntsville cannot match.

Family business

Ines Magana, 45, moved to Decatur in March and opened Mi Hacienda restaurant June 24. He was a maintenance technician in the refinery business in California. He decided to move to Alabama for a better life. He is a first-generation citizen. Both he and his wife grew up in Penjamo in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico, a city of 27,000.

He and his business partner are married to sisters. His partner was in the restaurant business in Mississippi for more than a decade and persuaded his brother-in-law in September to open a business in Decatur.

"The main reason is just to try something different," Magana said. "In California, things are getting tough. There are gang bangers and drugs wherever you go, but I wanted to find a better place to raise my kids. I was doing good. But money is not everything in your life. For myself, my kids are more important than money."

Raymond Barajas' story sounds similar. Originally from Texas, he moved to North Alabama six years ago, bought a house in Hartselle at 21 and opened his first business earlier this year at age 24. Hispanic friends here have opened barbershops and car dealerships, he said.

"Some are coming over to live a better life," he said. "It's a nice place to live. It's nice laid down kind of people. Life is a little more settled than down in Texas."

A third-generation citizen, Barajas worked for his brother's custom car business, saved some money, and decided to move to North Alabama after visiting his sister here. His handiwork is displayed in front of his Sixth Avenue storefront, Sin City Kustoms. He installs hydraulics and fold-up doors and eye-popping paint jobs, largely for a clientele of white and black customers. His advertising consists of hanging out where young people hang out.

"I'm kind of starting to get my reputation going," he said. "I pretty much do everything, unlike other businesses that do rims or paint. If I don't have it, I'll get it. I treat my customers the way I like to be treated when they stop into the store."

Yadira Sanchez, 19, tended the front counter at La Hacienda Mexican grocery on Bradley Street Southwest. She said her parents wanted more than a future in factory work. They opened the grocery four years ago. Along with a wide selection of spices, tortillas and other foods, customers can buy CDs and a jersey in the colors of the Cruz Azul soccer team.

"If you go to Huntsville, it's got a lot of traffic and more stuff going on," she said. "It's more tranquil here."

The 2005 Decatur High School graduate said she hopes to enroll in community college or night school classes in accounting.

Construction sector

Hispanics are now embedded in the construction industry in Decatur and elsewhere. Builder Steve Reeves said he sometimes has trouble finding good workers, regardless of ethnicity.

"I use them to clean up my job sites and just do manual labor like footings and backfilling slabs," he said. "I've got some guys that lay my tile. I really like them. They all seem to work hard, and they're appreciative, and they're glad to have the work. I pay them the same as I would pay anybody else, $8 to $10 per hour."

His only problems with Hispanic workers, he said, are the language barrier and finding workers with proper documentation.

"That's why I'm landscaping a yard by myself today," he said recently. "I'm just trying to play by the rules."

As for taking American jobs, Reeves said he has problems finding laborers for different reasons.

"I think a lot of our labor problem is just a drug problem," he said. "Like white people, (for example) I pick them up, but they don't last any time. They've got addiction problems, and so many personal problems they just don't last. Except for the occasional drinking, I haven't seen that in any Mexican I work. The attitude is the amazing difference, though. If they've got a good work ethic, I don't care if they're red, white or blue."

Decatur's Hispanic influx attracted Mexican missionary Barrera-Segura with the United Methodist Church. She serves the Hispanic community through La Casa Del Pueblo. In addition to religious services, the organization sponsors English and Spanish classes Monday through Thursday evenings. She spends about 30 percent of her time working immigration issues.

The ordained minister moved to Decatur six years ago. On May 23 this year, she became a U.S. citizen so she could vote.

Much of the Hispanic community here still consists of single men, but more men are bringing their families with them, she said. In most cases, their employers are deducting federal and state taxes, so it's not true that they aren't paying for public services. In many cases, they are bringing home $180 to $200 a week from jobs that most Americans don't want, she said.

The Hispanic people she sees most often rise at 5:30 a.m., work all day, then do housework and take care of children at night. Most live in a closed society because they do not speak English. Their employers do not encourage English speaking because they do not need language skills, just fast hands. Despite the economic and social obstacles, many attend language class from 6 to 8 p.m.

Barrera realizes illegal immigration is an emotional political issue. She believes the economics of shipping home thousands of illegal immigrants are more difficult than most Americans realize. But what she wishes most is that Americans knew more about the Hispanic community.

"I would love for them to pray, to put apart the politics. They can say, 'I would love to ship all the Hispanics back to their country, but as a Christian I want these people while they are here in Decatur to know Jesus Christ as their personal savior. I'm going to help them in any way possible. Here is my money. Here is my time. Here are my resources.' Maybe, they are here to help us to have a better relationship with God, who knows?"