Thread: Immigrants from Latin America who sought out Big Easy reelin

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New start altered by nature
Immigrants from Latin America who sought out Big Easy reeling after hurricane leaves them displaced

BY JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER
STAFF CORRESPONDENT

September 15, 2005

SLIDELL, La. -- Even the howling winds and foreboding skies weren't enough to tell some residents of a rural trailer park that the mother of all storms was on its way.

Every year they've lived in Louisiana, after leaving countries such as Mexico, Honduras and El Salvador, had brought those conditions without much of an aftermath.

The Ramirez family, who live in the Shady Oaks trailer park in Slidell, a community across from New Orleans on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, had no cable in their mobile home and the two Spanish-language radio stations were off the air, leaving them unprepared for Hurricane Katrina.

On the Saturday night before the storm hit, police called and told them it was time to evacuate, so they drove to Houston. When they returned last week, their trailer, among others, was destroyed.

Not knowing where else to go, the Ramirez family, their two children and a New Orleans couple they're related to began squatting in a vacant home in the park that had working plumbing but no electricity. Squatters occupy two other trailers. On Tuesday, the trailer park manager told them to leave because the homes they're in belong to a finance company.

Feeling cut off from information before the storm and now left wondering what help is available, they've been spending afternoons outside, swatting flies and waiting to be thrown out. Their belongings are stowed in plastic bags.

"It's been hard, we've been living day by day," Luis Ramirez, 27, said in Spanish. "We don't have any place to live, to work, nothing."

Ramirez hopes to join a crew doing cleanup and reconstruction from the hurricane, and his wife Acuzena, 32, will fold linens cleaned at hotels.

Still Ramirez, who is from Mexico, and his wife, from Honduras, said though they now have less than when they left their countries, it is still better than a Third World existence.

"We're being ignored now, but we feel we're going to get help," he said.

The Ramirez family said they are afraid to reach out to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for help, and none of the relief workers that have come speak Spanish.

"We have plenty of Spanish-speaking workers," said Navy Lt. Kenny Cockerell, who is helping with FEMA efforts in Baton Rouge. "One of the problems is that everyone is so displaced and dispersed. We need to find them."

Community workers may not even be aware of outlying areas like the Shady Oaks trailer park. "I don't know that FEMA even knew there were families displaced there, but now we do," Cockerell said yesterday, adding that a Spanish-speaking crew would go there.

In the meantime, fliers with an emergency phone number were being posted in areas such as Slidell, where an estimated 700 Latinos live, 2 percent of the population.

Cockerell said non-English speakers could leave messages at the number, and calls will be returned by a Spanish speaker.

Miguel Ramirez, 10, said he saw hope in the church workers from Tennessee who arrived Tuesday to cut up and cart away a heavy tree that had fallen on the roof of the home. "It was like a blessing," he said of their arrival, pointing to the bedroom ceiling, which was sagging after being hit by the tree. "They said it wasn't going to fall anymore."

Josue Chinchilla, 25, who is also squatting in the trailer after his apartment in New Orleans was destroyed, said he hopes government officials can reunite him with his brother, Rafael, 19, last seen at the Superdome. He said he doesn't know how to go about finding Rafael.

For now, the pressing matter is securing a place to live.

Trailer park manager Joel Willingham said yesterday that the trailers the families have occupied are being repossessed. "I'm trying to be compassionate," he said. "But I can't have people who are not tenants living there."

He offered the Ramirezes another trailer. But Azucena Ramirez said it's uninhabitable. "The floor over there is rotten, the kids could fall through," she said. "There's no running water. It's useless to live there."

There is nothing in this article to state whether the people involved are legal or illegal.