Thread: Latinos' anti-DWI efforts a tough sell

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/n ... 630899.htm

Hoping to stem a backlash, Hispanic community tackles internal obstacles in raising awareness

FRANCO ORDOÑEZfordonez@charlotteobserver.com

Osiris Collazos squeezed into a booth inside a smoky east Charlotte nightclub so drinkers there, mostly Latino men, could hear her over the popping beats of Spanish rap music.

"Which one of you is driving home?" she asked bluntly.

Ignoring their blank stares, she prodded on. Someone at the table should remain sober to drive, she said in Spanish. Some chuckled.

Realizing that Collazos was serious, they finally pointed to a friend. "He's driving," said one.

A warm smile crossed Collazos' face as she grabbed the friend's beer and fastened a red band around his wrist, a signal to the bartender that his drinking was through. She gave each man at the booth an anti-drunken-driving T-shirt, then moved to the next table.

As Charlotte's Latino community struggles with the backlash of two recent DWI deaths involving Hispanic immigrants, Collazos, a 38-year-old Colombian-born radio host, is on the front line of a battle to stop Latino immigrants from drinking and driving.

She began visiting Charlotte-area bars and restaurants favored by Hispanic immigrants last month to promote her campaign. She also pushes the effort on her morning radio show, "Amanecer en America" or "Wake Up in America," on WBZK-AM (980).

While most patrons she approached at the east Charlotte club put down their beers in exchange for T-shirts, not everyone embraced the idea.

"I can only push so much," she said after being turned away from one table. "I can't force them."

The challenge

If Collazos is to succeed, she must convince people like Berly Hernandez, a 31-year-old immigrant from Chiapas, Mexico, who said he regularly drinks a dozen beers a night and doesn't think twice about driving afterward -- despite already having one DWI arrest."If I'm alone, I'll drive," he said, sipping a Modelo beer at another east Charlotte bar the following night. "The laws don't matter. I got nothing to lose."

Drinking, for Hernandez, is a daily ritual. It's a way, some immigrants say, to pass the time and escape the loneliness and stress of living in an unfamiliar place with little family -- often illegally.

Immigrants who drink excessively are a small fraction of the community, Collazos and other Latino leaders say. But they worry how the group is reshaping the perception of thousands of peaceful and law-abiding immigrants.

Charlotte's Latino community has been on the defensive since the deaths last year of a Mount Holly teacher and a UNC Charlotte freshman. Illegal immigrants are charged with driving drunk in both cases. The crashes triggered a rash of harassing phone calls, e-mails and letters to Latino advocacy and religious groups.

U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick, a Charlotte Republican, cited the deaths in her push for tougher immigration laws. And three Mecklenburg commissioners moved to deny county services to illegal immigrants. Latino leaders say blaming Hispanics won't solve what they consider a societal problem. They note several other drunken-driving deaths recently in Charlotte that weren't caused by immigrant drivers. But they acknowledge that drinking and driving among Latino immigrant men is not uncommon.

"We all know that the problem exists," said Ricardo Mata, a Venezuelan-born spokesman for the Latino Center for the Development of Leadership and Family, a local faith-based advocacy group. "Some just want to deny it. It's part of the machismo culture."

Of the roughly 1,800 Hispanic men arrested last year, more than half were for charges of driving while impaired , according to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, which this month began an effort to educate Latinos on the dangers of drunken driving. The average blood-alcohol level among those men was 0.16 percent, twice the legal limit of 0.08 percent, police say.

Lack of social capital

Interviews with experts and dozens of Charlotte-area immigrants suggest no easy solution to a social problem with cultural roots.

Many immigrants are coming to America from countries where drunken driving is tolerated more, says Angeles Ortega-Moore, executive director of the Latin American Coalition, who condemns drunken driving. In some Latino cultures, she said, offenders are let go after bribing police.

Also, women, family, churches and others structures of society that promote responsible behavior are less prevalent in the immigrant community. Drinking is one of the few social outlets available, immigrants say.

"If you put a group of men together, any group of men, without any social controls -- family, church, established relations -- you're going to have problems," said Rodolfo de la Garza, director of the Project on Immigration, Ethnicity and Race, at Columbia University's Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy.

The night after Collazos kicked off her anti-drunken driving campaign last month at Skandalos nightclub on Independence Boulevard, Hernandez was at another Latino bar in east Charlotte. Mexican folk songs boomed from a speaker system and crushed beer cans lined the floor.

Flashing a crisp white cowboy hat and alligator-skin boots, Hernandez chuckled, saying he "learned" to drink in the United States. He rarely drank in Mexico, he said, because few stores near his family farm sold alcohol. And he was usually too busy picking the family crops, maize and beans, he said.

Hernandez moved to the United States with a brother six years ago after their mother died. He makes $600 a week building homes in east Charlotte. It's a good salary, he says. He's not rich, but comfortable. He sends a small portion to his father in Mexico, but always has money to burn.

"We're drunks," Hernandez says of himself and his roommates, all Latino men. "This is what we do for fun."

Some nights they stay up drinking as late as 2 a.m. He prefers Corona in a bottle and Modelo in a can. Sometimes, he says he'll kick back a few beers before driving to work. Despite getting into a DWI wreck, he said it won't stop him from driving.

"I can't work, without driving," he said. "So I drive."

Outcasts in the U.S.

Alberto Cruz, picking away at the strings of a worn guitar, sits on a milk crate outside his north Charlotte apartment, a ladybug crawling up his leg, and plays a popular song, "La Jaula de Oro," or "The Golden Cage."

The lyrics reflect the struggles of an immigrant feeling like an outcast in America.Here I have settled in the United States. Ten years have passed since I crossed as a wetback. Papers not in order. I still am an illegal ... What good is my money if I'm like a prisoner inside this great nation?

Cruz, a 48-year-old from Oaxaca, Mexico, whose goal is to learn English, says people come here with big dreams. But when they arrive, he says, they find themselves shunned from society. They are bored, tired and scared. They drink because they have nothing else to do. They drive, he said, because consequences don't matter to them.

"It's just sad," Cruz says. "Music is my interest. But it's alcohol for many others."

Jorge Madrid, who lives in a two-bedroom sparsely decorated apartment with his wife, Lucia, and 2-year-old son, Yahir, moved here five years ago from Honduras. Madrid, a construction worker, said all he wants is to live peacefully and provide for his family.

But when tragedy strikes, as it did in November when an undocumented immigrant, charged with driving drunk, caused a fatal crash on Interstate 485, the whole community suffers, he said.

"We just want to be accepted," Madrid said. "We want to live with dignity. But these things make it harder for us to stay."

Collazos, the radio host, said most immigrants are like Madrid: peaceful and law-abiding. She realizes some are not. But she believes she can help build confidence in the community so that immigrants will take more responsibility for their actions.

On her radio program and in person, Collazos talks passionately about education and values. She knows it won't be easy.

"No society can change overnight," she says. "We just have to keep talking and talking about it until there is an echo in people's minds: `It's OK if you drink. Just don't drive.' "

Heightened Debate

The Latino community has been on the defensive since the August death of a Mount Holly teacher, in which an illegal immigrant was charged with driving drunk. Subsequent fatal wrecks in the Charlotte area heightened the debate. In one wreck, a Latino driver was accused of drunk driving; in another, a Latino was the victim.

• Authorities say Jorge Hernandez Soto, 35, was drunk and going about 100 mph the wrong way on Interstate 485 on Nov. 18 when he hit a car driven by 18-year-old UNC Charlotte freshman Min Chang.

• Robinson Lora, 22, a Dominican Republic-born husband and father of a 14-month-old boy, died Dec. 1 when his Dodge Neon collided with a pickup truck driven by Richard Lynn Sellers, 34, of Chesterfield, S.C. Investigators believe Sellers, who also died, had been drinking.

Who's Helping

For more information on the Latino anti-drunken driving campaign, or to help, call (704) 258-8310.

This is SO INFURIATING that I could SCREAM. They ALL SEEM TO HAVE DRINKING problems so this poor woman has her work cut out for her. It's just hard to BELIEVE that these people have NO PROBLEM with drinking a DOZEN BEERS A NIGHT AND THEN DRIVING. When will it EVER STOP??