Thread: DL-Georgetown immigrants still living a world apart

Georgetown immigrants still living a world apart
Guatemalans in Delaware thriving, but at what cost?
By SUMMER HARLOW • July 6, 2009

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GEORGETOWN -- From the window of his office on Race Street in the heart of Georgetown, Police Chief Bill Topping watches as two Latinas -- a mother and daughter, perhaps -- walk down the street.

He can't be sure, of course, but more than a decade in Georgetown has taught him that most likely the daughter is a U.S.-born citizen, the mother an undocumented immigrant from Central America.

"Looking at a person and knowing they're an illegal immigrant doesn't even faze us anymore," said Topping, a wad of tobacco stuffed in the side of his cheek. "If it were sporadic we might pay attention. But when you see hundreds every day, it numbs you after a while."

According to the U.S. Census, 5,157 people lived in Georgetown in 2007. Police estimate that about 4,000 undocumented immigrants, mostly from Guatemala, are living in the town. Officially, the Census recorded 2,846 Guatemalans living in Delaware for 2005 to 2007.

Officials and longtime residents say the sheer number of Guatemalans who have settled in Georgetown in the last decade -- mostly in the town's historic Kimmeytown section, located within walking distance of jobs at the town's Perdue poultry plant -- has meant an increase in housing code violations and crime, overcrowded schools, shortage of housing and general communication problems.

While the immigrants' hometowns, most in the Guatemalan department of San Marcos -- Guatemala's equivalent of a state -- are benefiting from thousands of dollars sent back each month, many in Georgetown's non-immigrant population have begun to question just what it is they're gaining from a community that speaks another language and lives by a different culture.

"In some ways Georgetown would have been better off if the immigrants had never come," said Bob Ricker, a town councilman and former mayor and fire chief. "We'd never have been able to weather the housing boom without them, but our town wouldn't have the housing problems or crime it has now, either. What it takes is for someone to weigh whether what they bring to the table is worth the cost. All things considered, San Marcos benefits from us more than we benefit from them."

In 2008, 48 percent of all code violations in Georgetown were in Ward 2, where the bulk of the immigrant population lives, said Town Manager Gene Dvornick. Also, more than 70 percent of DUIs were attributed to Latinos, Topping said.

"Things like that stir up the citizenry, and they should," Topping said. "The point is those people shouldn't have been here in the first place, and you can't really argue too much with that."

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported 5,373 immigrants from Delaware, Pennsylvania and West Virginia in 2008. That's up from 3,407 in 2006. Regional numbers are not broken down by state or country of origin.

Nationally, 361,222 immigrants were deported in 2008, and a record 27,645 were sent home to Guatemala.

Topping said he and his officers have learned -- the hard way -- that ICE isn't going to go after the average undocumented immigrant working at Perdue.

"The average person wants to know what's going on with illegal immigration, and they look to us as police to do something about it, which we really can't because it's a federal issue," Topping said. "But it's still an issue that reaches down into the grass roots of America, especially right here in southern Delaware."

The chicken factor
Ricker said residents point the finger of blame at the local poultry industry: Perdue in Georgetown, Mountaire in Selbyville and Millsboro, Allen's in Harbison.

Sussex County is the nation's top broiler-producing county, with more than 223 million broilers produced on nearly 700 farms, according to data contained in the latest Census of Agriculture released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Tired of the life of a migrant laborer, moving from Florida to Georgia to North Carolina and back to harvest whatever crop was in season, immigrants say what first drew them to Georgetown was steady work in the poultry industry -- Perdue wages average $9.75 an hour.

Otilio Robledo Roblero, vice mayor of Tacaná, San Marcos, who has three children living in Delaware, said he's never heard of chicken plants recruiting in Guatemala.

"Allens, Mountaire, Perdue," he said, rattling off the companies. "They never needed to recruit here. Everyone here knows those names because that's where they all go to work. Everyone here knows someone who works at a chicken plant."

Perdue Farms Inc. spokeswoman Julie DeYoung said one can't assume that just because a lot of Latinos live in Georgetown they all work at Perdue's Georgetown plant.

"Jobs are a draw for people to any area," she said. "Poultry is just one industry with jobs in this area, and Perdue is one company in that industry."

Neither Mountaire nor Allens responded to inquiries.

Leonel Ramirez, 27, left Tacaná in 2006 with a mission to earn enough money to build his own casita in Guatemala -- he was tired of living with his family of 10 in a tiny house constructed of corrugated metal and wood.

He followed his older brother and four cousins to Georgetown, his head filled with stories of all the money his relatives said they had made working at the pollo plants.

"It was weekly pay, making $8, $9 or $10 an hour," said Ramirez, who worked at Mountaire before returning to Tacaná in August to open a butcher shop with the money he earned in Delaware. "That much money is unheard of here. We had enough to buy a television, beds. Life was good, and it wasn't that hard to integrate, because everyone there was from Tacaná."

In 2007, an estimated 65 percent of Perdue workers in Georgetown were Latino, but over the past year the number of Hispanics applying for jobs has declined, DeYoung said.

Topping said it's because last year ICE made an arrangement with the local poultry plants, giving the companies time to phase out and replace any undocumented workers so that a raid didn't "cause the industry to crash."

Perdue uses the federal government's E-Verify program to determine whether workers have provided a valid Social Security number, DeYoung said, adding that the company does not provide statistics on how many people have been terminated for failing to provide legitimate work authorization papers.

Although he did not provide specifics, regional ICE spokesman Mark Medvesky said last year that immigration officials cooperated with the Sussex County "food processing industry" to arrest five vendors selling authentic Puerto Rican birth certificates and Social Security cards to undocumented immigrants.

"ICE is committed to working cooperatively with all employers who want to strengthen their adherence to legal hiring practices and reduce and eliminate the unlawful employment of illegal aliens, but who may be subjected to the victimization caused by the presentation of fraudulent documents or other attempts to unlawfully gain employment outside of the employer's control," Medvesky said.

"With that stated, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is committed to investigating and prosecuting egregious employers and individuals that are violating laws regarding the unauthorized employment of illegal aliens in Delaware and throughout the country."

Kimmeytown
Whether they came for jobs in the poultry industry, construction or tourism, most immigrants' first stop is Kimmeytown, the area running from the train depot east to Albury Avenue, to New Street in the north and Market Street to the south.

Once the thriving home of blue-collar workers, Kimmeytown has long been in decline.

"It's been a hellhole for a long time," said Carleton Moore, chairman of the executive board of the Historic Georgetown Association. "People talk about being scared of getting lost in Kimmeytown. They see it as the bad part of town."

Moore, who has lived in Georgetown all his life, said none of the problems of Kimmeytown should be blamed on the immigrant population.

"They moved into a terrible area, because that's where the available houses were, even though they were in bad shape," he said. "But they also haven't done anything to keep the area up or make it better."

Joining forces with other builders and developers, Moore thought Kimmeytown could be fixed up in just five years. Sixteen years later, Moore is still saying it will take another five years.

More than 20 new houses have been built in Kimmeytown in the past few years, the train depot, renovated to house the Greater Georgetown Chamber of Commerce, reopened in 2004, and the group is hoping to bring Georgetown's original firehouse to what they're referring to as the "railroad village."

"In four or five years, Kimmeytown will be more cleaned up," Moore said. "There will be better housing, with the houses razed or restored by that time. I don't think it will be primarily Guatemalans living there anymore. They'll keep coming, as always, and they'll work hard, but they'll have to find affordable housing somewhere else."

While Kimmeytown continues to be the destination for newly arrived immigrants, Guatemalans have begun buying houses in neighborhoods citywide.

Still, native residents and immigrants alike agree that, even as Guatemalans become more integrated, Georgetown remains divided.

"It's not just the language, but if you can't communicate with someone, you're instantly suspicious of them," Ricker said. "There are also cultural issues, and frustrations about what's happening to our beloved town. Really, there's no interaction."

A town divided
That lack of interaction carries over into the business world, said Karen Duffield, executive director of the Greater Georgetown Chamber of Commerce, housed in the Kimmeytown train depot.

She doesn't have numbers to back it up, but Hispanic businesses are the fastest-growing in Georgetown. And unless they're Latino-owned, there are no new businesses opening in Kimmeytown.

"It would be remiss or inappropriate if we didn't recognize the businesses that are developing and becoming part of the fabric of the Georgetown community," Duffield said. "But right now these businesses are just serving their own populations, and the problem we keep running into is the language barrier."

Sergio Escalante, 40, is one of Kimmeytown's Guatemalan business owners.

After leaving Tacaná at age 22, he landed at Perdue in Georgetown.

"It was the same thing every day, and I was bored, so I made a plan," said Escalante, now a legal resident. "I wanted more."

His first step was to obtain a credit card to establish credit. He started working with a friend, also from San Marcos, selling imported Guatemalan products to stores along the East Coast.

Nearly three years ago, he opened his own store in Kimmeytown, selling everything from anti-fungal cream, vitamins and shampoo to key chains with soccer team logos, baby dolls and prayer cards of the Virgen de Guadalupe. There are even back issues of Prensa Libre, a Guatemalan newspaper, for customers to peruse.

"We sell whatever people ask for," Escalante said.

But by people, he said, he means fellow immigrants, because few Anglos ever enter his store.

The Chamber of Commerce needs to do a better of job of reaching out to Hispanic business owners, Duffield said, adding that such an effort is getting under way now.

While having so many Guatemalans in the area is something that should be promoted, she said, the lack of Anglo-Hispanic interaction is likely to preclude marketing the town for its cultural diversity.

Moore said the "Latino flavor" of Kimmeytown, Spanish speakers and signs in Spanish, are what keep so many people from feeling free to visit or shop there.

Ricker, too, said he doesn't see Kimmeytown as a "Guatemalan Town" tourist destination.

"I went to Chinatown in San Francisco, and everyone spoke English back to me," he said. "Try that on Race Street and see where it gets you."

Escalante acknowledges that immigrants should learn English. He's picked up a few words and phrases over the years, but he's never had time to really study English.

Language experts say that for immigrants like Escalante, who had little formal schooling in their own language, trying to learn a second language as an adult is made all the more difficult.

Plus, as long as he stays in Georgetown, surrounded by so many of his countrymen, Escalante said, knowing English seems less critical.

No 'loyalty' to community
It's not that the Anglo community wants to kick out the immigrant population entirely, residents said -- just the ones who are here illegally.

Still, in the next breath they say that acceptance for even those here legally is conditioned upon "fitting in."

Ricker said Hispanic immigrants need to "pull their own weight. They need to prove they're paying their way and working themselves into society. ... If you're coming out of the backwoods of Tennessee and you want to eat at the country club, you're going to have to find shoes."

Topping said he'd like to see how San Marcos has changed since so many of its residents began migrating to Georgetown.

"They're taking the things they learn here home," he said. "I'd like to see what kinds of upscale things are happening for them in San Marcos that they're not doing here.

"The workers here are saving money, living Spartan lives, and since they know they're going home, they don't have a lot of loyalty to this community. Georgetown is just their means to an end."


http://www.delawareonline.com/article/2 ... /1006/NEWS

According to the U.S. Census, 5,157 people lived in Georgetown in 2007. Police estimate that about 4,000 undocumented immigrants, mostly from Guatemala, are living in the town. Officially, the Census recorded 2,846 Guatemalans living in Delaware for 2005 to 2007.

In fairness to the Guatemalans the statement is probably garbled. That should probably read "According to the U.S. Census, 5,157 people lived in Georgetown in 2007. Police estimate that about 4,000 Latinos mostly undocumented immigrants, and mostly from Guatemala, are living in the town. Officially, the Census recorded 2,846 Guatemalans living in Delaware for 2005 to 2007.