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El Corazon de Dixie
The ''Heart of Dixie'' is changing as unprecedented numbers of Hispanic immigrants seek a better life and support an economic boom
By Kelli Hewett Taylor, Jeff Hansen, and Mike Cason
The Birmingham News (AL), November 6, 2005

Hector Nolasco was 16 when he left his family farm in Ahualulco, Jalisco, Mexico, in 1996 for work in the United States.

His two older brothers and several uncles had gone before him, leaving their $5-a-day jobs at home for the chance to make more than 10 times that amount.

Nolasco, who is now a legal resident, and other immigrants who came here illegally broke the law when they entered the United States.

About 35 percent to 40 percent of all Hispanic immigrants in Alabama are believed to be illegal - roughly 35,000 in 2004 out of an estimated 98,388. Most of them are Mexican, according to population experts Jeffrey Passel and Roberto Suro of the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group based in Washington.

Nolasco is part of a massive entry of Hispanic people into Alabama and five other Southeastern states since 1990, a migration that has increased the population of Hispanics in the area by 456 percent, or 1.3 million people, according to Pew reports released this summer.

Growth in construction, poultry processing, farming, service and hospitality industries is fueling the migration. The impact is being seen at churches, retail stores, hospitals, public schools, social service agencies and law enforcement throughout Alabama and the Southeast.

Illegal immigrants see mixed messages coming from the United States. It's illegal to cross the borders without documentation, but once they're here, business owners are eager to hire them; counterfeit Social Security cards are available for $50 to several hundred dollars; and a shortage of immigration enforcement officers makes policing and deportation unlikely.

''I came to get a better life, to help my dad pay for the farm and get whatever he needed,'' Nolasco said. ''We are not coming to destroy America, we are coming to help America. And they (Americans) can help us, too.''

Facing a wait of several years for a legal visa as an unskilled worker, Nolasco chose the way that was immediate - as an illegal immigrant. He packed his ID, school papers, family snapshots, a few clothes and cassette tapes from church, and walked six hours in the desert. He paid a human smuggler - known as a ''coyote'' - $100 to drive him in an RV to San Diego.

Relatives told him about jobs in Birmingham.

About one-fourth of the immigrants who have arrived since 2003 are single males, as Nolasco was when he came. But that proportion is shrinking.

''There are, in fact, a large number of families,'' Passel said. ''About two-thirds are couples with children or single adults with children.''

They are drawn by a booming economy. Many employers don't ask about legal status, and illegal immigrants don't always tell.

Within weeks of coming to Alabama, Nolasco was taking care of horses on a Birmingham-area farm. At a horse show, he was offered another job in Atlanta. Then he returned to Birmingham.

His story echoes the experiences of other Hispanic immigrants.

After a trip in 1999 to visit his family in Mexico, Nolasco had a tougher time coming back. Coyotes demanded $1,500 to help him cross the border. Walking through the desert to sneak back to the United States, Nolasco was attacked by other would-be migrants who wanted his jewelry.

''We were in the middle of nowhere and these people pulled out guns and took my clothes, my money, everything,'' Nolasco said. ''I prayed real hard that if they kill me, my family find me - and if I get there, I will make sure I get my papers legal.''

Nolasco called another coyote, who charged him $1,800 to bribe a border officer and drive him to the United States. He spent a night in the rain, crawled through tunnels near the border and took a pre-arranged taxi past the border officer into the United States the next day.

The case of illegal vs. legal immigrant isn't always a simple one. From time to time, the federal government has given temporary opportunities for illegal immigrants to become legal. It happened in 1986 and again in 2001.

Nolasco took advantage of the opportunity offered for a few months in 2001 to pay a fine, prove his new American roots and become a legal U.S. resident. Nolasco now manages a carpet warehouse in Trussville; he and his American wife, Danielle, own a house in Leeds.

''To me it feels like when you can't see nothing, and someone says, 'Open your eyes.' You see the beautiful day,'' Nolasco said.

Alabama is his home, a place where he drinks Milo's sweet tea with his tortillas. He takes gallon jugs of the tea to his family when he visits Mexico.

Second-largest minority

By the Census Bureau numbers, Hispanics have become Alabama's second-largest minority group. But those numbers are widely seen as undercounts.

Most of the estimated 10.3 million illegal immigrants nationwide are Mexican.

Some Alabama residents are angered by the trend, concerned that taxpayer money goes to pay for additional health care, education, law enforcement and other expenses resulting from the presence of illegal immigrants.

''My thought is that illegal immigration is destroying our country,'' said Mike Jordan of Pelham, who attended a recent Birmingham rally of about 1,200 people opposing illegal immigration.

Jordan said his former wife's car was hit by a vehicle driven by illegal immigrants. ''They totaled our van and we had to pay for us, and them - through our taxes indirectly. Now you're getting gangs here, too'' originating in Latin American countries.

Nolasco said he feels the pressure to prove himself to Alabama residents, even though he's now legal.

''I don't hang out with Mexicans much'' now, Nolasco said. ''I don't hate them, but I don't like to wear earrings and have tattoos (as some do). I'm not like that.''

Nolasco said he rarely goes to Lorna Road in Hoover, which has a concentration of Hispanic businesses and residents. He doesn't like his wife, Danielle, to go, either.

''Things happen there, and I don't want them saying, 'Oh, he was standing nearby, he's a friend of theirs.'''

Nolasco said that while most people accept him, he feels the sting of prejudice from time to time.

''I've worked at a few places where they don't like Mexicans,'' he said. ''I say, 'I'm going to prove myself. I'm not what you think I am.' They never expect a Mexican to be a manager. I prove myself. I'm not bad people.''

Willing to work

The new Hispanic immigrants in the Southeast live in a mix of environments - rural counties, manufacturing counties, urban areas and even suburban areas such as Shelby County. Immigrants often take jobs that would otherwise go unfilled, some employers say. Companies are sometimes criticized for giving Americans' jobs to immigrants.

But Alabama unemployment statistics show that few people are jobless during this influx of immigrant workers. In August, the statewide unemployment rate was about 4 percent, one of the lowest in decades. In Shelby County, where the number of Hispanics has grown 786 percent since 1990, the unemployment rate was under 3 percent.

In Talladega County, 149 Hispanics are working at Avondale Mills' Eva Jane plant in Sylacauga. They are filling jobs left empty by workers who jumped into Alabama's growing automobile industry, especially Honda and its suppliers, said Margaret Morton, who heads a family support agency.

''These are entry-level jobs,'' she said. ''If we had not had the Hispanics, we would not have had the capacity to fill them.''

In high-growth areas such as Shelby County, contractors trying to keep up with the booming housing market say Hispanic workers are vital.

''I have heard several contractors say their sites would be shut down tomorrow if it weren't for Hispanic workers,'' said Jay Reed, vice president of the Alabama chapter of Associated Builders & Contractors, which represents the commercial building industry. ''It is that dire. That community is needed that much.''

Reed said some people castigate employers and say that work should go to poor Alabamians, not Hispanics.

Locals don't apply

Reed's reply is that he constantly solicits Alabamians, with little success. ''They don't apply.''

In northeast Alabama's Marshall County, where more chickens are slaughtered than anywhere else in the state, it's equally hard to find workers for the poultry plants.

''Most folks know there are illegals working there,'' said Matt Arnold, president and CEO of the Marshall County Economic Development Council. ''There's no doubt about that. Nobody likes it. The poultry plants don't like it.''

Arnold said illegal immigrants are hired because there is no foolproof way to screen the documents they present. He said employers can't turn down applicants just because they suspect false documents. They run the risk of being sued for discrimination if the documents are valid.

The poultry industry would vanish without a supply of Hispanic workers to fill most of the jobs, Arnold said.

Native-born workers have left the chicken plants partly because about 1,000 automotive jobs have been created, he said. In their place, Hispanics fill a majority of the county's 7,200 poultry jobs.

About 60 percent of Gold Kist's 2,900 full-time workers in Marshall County are Hispanic, said Rodrigo Lozano, director of employee relations. Their average starting pay is $8.25 an hour.

''It's basic economics,'' Arnold said. ''You couldn't afford to buy a chicken if they had to pay the wages the folks would want to work in poultry plants.''

The loss of poultry-processing plants would gut the county's economy because it also depends on the farmers, truckers, cold-storage facilities, feed mills, contractors, banks, insurance agencies and other services that support the plants.

''It would be devastating,'' Arnold said.

Driving wages down

An influx of immigrants can cause lower wages, mainly among American workers who have a high school education or less, according to several studies by the National Research Council and Harvard University immigration economist George Borjas.

Those American workers are already some of the nation's poorest citizens, said Steven Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies.

Others see the additional problems with immigration.

Marshall County Revenue Commissioner Joey Masters predicts a gradual decline in property values. He says immigrants who are buying and renting homes are causing widespread degradation and neglecting their properties.

Masters points to front lawns worn bare or filled with parked cars, scattered toys and furniture; Christmas lights left hanging from eaves; and other signs of neglect in middle-class neighborhoods. ''It's spun out of control for 12 years.

''No one in an elected position has stood up for the people of Albertville and said we've got to address the Hispanic issue,'' Masters said. ''Is it worth it to have the poultry business here to destroy our town?''

Sen. Jeff Sessions, a foe of illegal immigration, is unmoved by the argument that certain employers need the Hispanic workers. He stands on one side of a growing division in Washington over how to treat the nation's illegal immigrants.

''I know the businesses like this,'' said Sessions, R-Ala. ''They like the cheap labor.

''The business community,'' he said, ''is shameless.''

Back in Alabama, far from the heat of policy debates, a new trend is emerging. It appears that many of the state's new Hispanic immigrants are making plans to stay.