Thread: Hispanic residents seek shelter from Katrina in Robertsdale

http://www.al.com

Hispanic residents seek shelter from Katrina in Robertsdale
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
By ROY HOFFMAN
Staff Reporter
The word "hurricane" has its basis in the Spanish "huracan," a word itself derived from the name of the ancient Mayan god of wind, fire and rain. Along the halls of Robertsdale High School on Monday, "huracan" was heard as frequently as its English equivalent.

In the high school converted to a shelter, 351 refugees from Katrina passed their time napping on bedrolls, playing cards, watching the weather news on TV, and talking about their plight in English -- or Spanish.

More than half of the people who had signed in to the shelter were Hispanic, estimated San Juanita Belanger, a bilingual worker with the Robertsdale Health Department who had offered to stay at the shelter as a translator for the Mexican and Mexican-American population.

"What's impressed me," said Belanger, "is how everyone has pulled together and become a unit."

Belanger explained that at least two-thirds of the Hispanics whom she talked to at the shelter were from families who had been in the area five years or more, many intending to return one day to Mexico. Others, she said, were workers in the area for only a few months, or weeks, most of them single, young men who bunked together in shared housing and sent money home.

One young married couple lounged on a blanket, watching through the windows as the wind whipped through the school parking lot.

"We stopped in because we were driving from Orange Beach looking for a safe place to stay," said Fernando Jimenez in Spanish. Jimenez and his wife, from Guadalajara, Mexico, work as painters in Orange Beach, having moved to the seaside community for work in the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan.

"It's like being in Mexico," said Jimenez, looking about at the families filling the school.

Jimenez said he was not sure, given the damage from Katrina, how long he and his wife would be staying in Orange Beach. If their work as painters was to be long delayed, he said, they might leave, heading elsewhere.

"Vamos," he said waving his hand in the air.

Wayne Young, a Robertsdale High maintenance worker since 1992, said he had helped out at the shelter during many hurricanes, although this particular shelter had not been open during Ivan and Dennis.

"The Hispanic population has grown considerably," he said, reflective of the growing Mexican-American population throughout south Baldwin County.

Among those who have settled in to Baldwin County was the Rosas family, a friendly, talkative group who sat, three generations together, on bright blankets. Among them were grandfather Wilfredo, a native of Michoacan, Mexico, who speaks no English, and his three, American-born grandchildren -- Uriel, 13, Ana, 11, and Dulce, 5, who all go to school in Summerdale.

Wilfredo, wearing a cap emblazoned with "U.S.A.," said he had worked in South Carolina and Florida but loves this area best. His family all live together, three generations, in Summerdale.

Little granddaughter Dulce, when asked in Spanish her feelings about Hurricane Katrina, answered, "I don't like it because I had to leave our house."

Like many at the shelter, the Rosas family were bundling up their belongings to try to return home, though some people who had attempted to do so earlier in the day were already back, looking downcast, at Robertsdale High.

Alberto Velasquez, a lean 23-year-old in a cowboy hat he bought in Foley, said in Spanish he had been working in the area for seven years, from the time there were fewer Hispanics. Recent hurricanes had brought Mexican workers from Atlanta and Texas, he observed.

Velasquez admitted to being anxious about what he would find when he returned with his family to their mobile home in Orange Beach.

Velasquez said his relatives had sat on their blankets at the shelter and offered a group prayer before going to sleep Sunday night, as Katrina approached.

"We prayed that everyone would be safe," Velasquez said. "All of our family, and all of 'los Americanos.'"

"It's like being in Mexico," said Jimenez, looking about at the families filling the school.

You don't need to come to America to experience Mexico so "vamoose" on home. Home would be Mexico unless, of course, you came here illegally, the probability of which is zero!