Thread: Newspaper Propaganda-Accept the Invasion 101

This is a series of articles from the journal review newspaper with an obvious effort to convince the people of Crawfordsville a city of approx. 25,000 to accept the invasion of their city. One of these is being published everyday in this paper.


1/12/2007 11:42:00 PM Email this article • Print this article
City reaches out to Hispanic population

Wade Coggeshall

(Editor's note: This story is the first in a series exploring the ways an influx of Hispanic immigrants affect and are assimilating into the local economy and culture.)

Dan Rogers knows firsthand the heart and spirit of Crawfordsville's Hispanic community.

The Wabash College Spanish professor has done outreach to Hispanic youth in Crawfordsville, mostly through Wabash's Hispanic student association.

He spent his 2005 fall semester on sabbatical in Mexico to conduct research. But he also wanted to give back somehow while he was there.

After finding an orphanage in Leone, Rogers and his family lived there for a while and helped out. They got to know its inhabitants pretty well. Upon returning to Crawfordsville, Rogers enlisted the local Hispanic community to donate anything they could to this orphanage. The response, he says, was overwhelming.

"(The owners of) Little Mexico have been incredibly helpful and generous," Rogers said. "They've helped us raise through the Hispanic community several thousand dollars for that orphanage. Faculty and staff from Wabash have also helped. Their generosity has been amazing."

Such unselfishness doesn't surprise Rick Warner, an associate professor of history at Wabash and a Latin American historian. He says Hispanic culture is known for being family-oriented and deeply religious, which explains why such immigrants feel at home in a community like Crawfordsville.

"I think both those things are true about Crawfordsville, and the small-town Midwest in general," Warner says.

"Compared to a lot of places, Crawfordsville is a more comfortable place to be. That's probably because most of the families who've lived in this area for generations look at people as human beings first before they think about politics or anything else."

That's been the case for Ernesto Manzon and his wife Patricia. They were concerned about their children when living in El Salvador after civil war started there in the 1970s. Patricia was an exchange student at North Montgomery in 1979. Her host family helped them move to Crawfordsville.

"From the first time (I was here), I was in love with Crawfordsville," Ernesto Manzon says. "(It) was exactly what we were looking for - a peaceful place and a nice place to raise kids. Since I've been here I've been embraced and treated like one of them."

Such acculturation hasn't always been so smooth. In fact Rogers says there's proof of that right here in Crawfordsville.

"I think about what this part of the state was like a hundred years ago, when German immigrants were pouring in," he says. "There must've been tremendous concern. Are these people going to learn English? Guess what - some of them decided to retain their cultural and religious identities so strongly that they still speak German down in Parke County."

Both Rogers and Warner agree most immigrants want to assimilate into their new culture, but also keep some semblance of their original identity.

"Like any other person who's had to immigrate for economic reasons, their heart is torn," Warner says. "In the immigration debate, you hear a lot about how it's bad they're here, but on the other hand they've left a lot of themselves when they left their country. That's not easy to do."

"The phenomenon of people coming with a different language and culture and trying to make it here, I'm amazed when people think this is somehow a new problem," Rogers says. "This is the story of the United States."

Citing history once again, Rogers says there were families of English, Irish and German descent intermingling in Crawfordsville a century ago. The Irish were hated at the time. There's stories of this immigrant class being segregated in town. Now, a hundred years later, everyone lives side by side.

"I sincerely believe in a hundred years from now, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren of the Hispanic immigrants here today and all of us will be living together and celebrating Cinco de Mayo the way we celebrate St. Patrick's Day now," Rogers says. "There will be the cultural memory of heritage and identity, but there will also be the assimilation that is natural and inevitable and important."

Manzon says all immigrants try to maintain a delicate balance between their old and new cultures.

"I really believe to have a good life, you need to understand, respect and learn your roots," he says. "Just because I move to Crawfordsville doesn't mean I'm not Hispanic anymore. It doesn't mean 33 years of my life disappear. So it's important to maintain your roots.

"But on the same token, they are American. As Americans, they know all about their country and respect its culture. To be part of that society, you need to assimilate to its culture. It's no different from any of the past generations."


1/14/2007 11:45:00 PM Email this article • Print this article
Donnelley helping Hispanic population find employment

Wade Coggeshall
Reporter

If there's any problem concerning the Hispanic community, it's the fear of finding work.

But even that anxiety is subsiding as more businesses work to accommodate immigrant workers.

RR Donnelley is one of the more prominent examples of this in Crawfordsville. The commercial printer has about 100 Hispanic employees, representing 8 percent of its workforce.

Gary Calleo, Donnelley's vice president of manufacturing, says it wasn't really a case of his company seeking out Latino workers, but them coming to their door.

"We saw this labor pool as an important and valuable resource to tap into," Calleo says. "We couldn't run this plant without those jobs."

Recognizing the need, Donnelley set about trying to be as accommodating to these workers as it could. Chiefly, that meant English-as-a-Second-Language programs. Donnelley is a member of the Book Manufacturing Institute (BMI), a leading trade association in its industry. BMI regularly donates to programs that promote literacy. For five-plus years, Donnelley has helped support the Crawfordsville Adult Resource Academy (CARA) through BMI.

Montgomery County Economic Development also sponsors free ESL classes in its SkillsNet training room, which it's done for local business for about a year now. There's three classes to choose from, each about two hours. MCED tries not to structure them too much so people have more flexibility to attend.

"We're always responsive to industry needs," says Bill Henderson, MCED president. "Industry has requested from us to give them some assistance with those classes. We were able to work with CARA out of Lafayette. They were able to get a grant, so we're hooking them up with industries who need them and letting them use our training room. It's kind of nice we have a place to do that."

Henderson says the basic need right now is attacking the language barrier.

"If industry asks us to be responsive for the community, then we'll try to help out."

Ernesto Manzon, a native of El Salvador, is Donnelley's information technology manager for Indiana and Michigan. He couldn't speak any English when he interviewed with the company.

Donnelley now has one in-house translator in Samantha Gonzalez. They use translators in the community too. Other workers are bilingual, which today is an attractive attribute in many employers' eyes. Manpower assists many businesses in placing Hispanic workers. Marilyn Foster, who manages Manpower's Crawfordsville branch, says it's easy to find work for bilingual employees if they have the right skills set.

Manzon notes how many more bilingual services there are now compared to when he first came here.

"There's many more opportunities now to assimilate in the society, and play a bigger role in the community," he says.

Nancy Alexander, who heads Donnelley's human resources department, says the cost of hiring a translator and offering ESL programs has been worth it.

"Hispanics want to be here," she says. "They're grateful to be here. They're very dependable, work hard and are loyal."

Donnelley officials do admit some immigrant workers aren't motivated to learn English. That hurts the company. While you don't have to speak English to work entry-level at Donnelley, you must be fluent in the language to work in a skilled position. Those who can't speak English can't be promoted.

"It's not just for the company's benefit," Gonzalez said. "You should want to do it for yourself, to better yourself. You'll get further in life if you try."

Gonzalez grew up in Chicago speaking Arabic, so she knows what it's like learning a new language. She's articulate in three languages now.

Though relations between natives and non-natives, both in the workplace and community, are generally healthy, observers do note some tensions.

Rick Warner, an associate professor of history at Wabash College says much of the conflict arises in school. That, he says, is mostly younger people not relating to people of different backgrounds. Adults have their difficulties too. Warner says there remains an unease about natives being displaced in their jobs, even though unemployment in Crawfordsville and Montgomery County remains relatively low.

Donnelley has experienced that before.

"There used to be an undercurrent of resistance from non-Hispanic workers years ago," Calleo says. "I think they eventually realized this was a population that wasn't going away."

Any discord now generally arises from the language barrier. That's minor at worst.

In fact there's evidence of cultures merging. It's most noticeable when, say, an employee celebrates a birthday. Workers from his or her division might have a pitch-in meal and there'll be food from both cultures. Alexander says you'll still see both sides sitting apart in the break room. It's human nature to want something easy when you're on break. Gonzalez says most of the camaraderie occurs on the line, because you're forced to interact there.

Manzon's toughest test when immigrating to the United States was learning English. Everything else was relatively painless thanks to the community's help.

"We always found people in town who were willing to give us a hand," Manzon says. "Whatever minor challenge we faced, we were able to overcome (it) with the help of the people."


1/15/2007 9:18:00 PM Email this article • Print this article
Wabash professor shares his views

Wade Coggeshall
Reporter

This story is the third in a series exploring they ways an influx of Hispanic immigrants affect and are assimilating into the local economy and culture. The previous stories appeared in the Weekend and Monday editions.

Large numbers of Hispanic immigrants are somewhat new to Crawfordsville, but not to the country.

What's interesting to Dan Rogers is how relatively new the Mexican invasion is to the Midwest. Growing up in Colorado, a former territory of Mexico, he's used to such a heritage.

"I grew up around Mexican families, some of whom were immigrants, some of whom had been living in Colorado for much longer than the Anglos had," the Wabash College Spanish professor says. "Coming from a place where Hispanic culture had been in place for longer than England has been in place on the Eastern seaboard, it's been curious to come here to Indiana, where it's a new thing. There isn't a history to help place that in context, the way there was in states like Colorado. But the people of Crawfordsville are generous."

Rick Warner, an associate professor of history at Wabash College, says get use to it.

"People have always come for economic reasons, and always will."

Especially Mexicans. Their native land remains a third-world plagued by official corruption. It doesn't help that the U.S./Mexico border is one of the few in the world to separate a rich country from an excessively poor one.

Warner says the influx will continue until Mexico lifts itself out of poverty. The good news is the party that ruled there for some 70 years is no longer in power. It's more open politically now. The rampant corruption in its government goes back to the Colonial period, Warner says. Contrary to recent protests, he thinks the latest presidential election in Mexico was fair, though other recent ones haven't been.

"They're moving toward less corruption, and that can only be good," Warner says.

Tactics like throwing up a fence won't keep Mexicans from crossing the border either.

"Everybody wants a short-term solution," Warner says. "But if you build an 11-foot-tall fence, then somebody's going to get an 11-and-a-half-foot ladder. The long-term solution is to try to invest in Mexico's infrastructure so they can develop in a manner that doesn't require (its citizens) to cross the border."

Most of those coming here aren't intending to harm the United States.

"These people coming to work in Crawfordsville aren't trying to take down Western civilization," Warner says.

But that doesn't mean the floodgates should be opened. There are undesirables you don't want coming in.

Another part of the equation is this country's quota system. Annually only a certain number of immigrants from specific countries are properly credentialed to come to the United States and become citizens. There are way more Mexicans coming to America than the set allocation. That leads to stolen identities. Try as employers and employment agencies might, they can't always confirm a person is who he says he is.

Warner doesn't fully understand Americans' predilection for being a legal citizen.

"We're fixated on that, more so than what may be the human element of it," he says. "At the end of the day, these people are human beings. My father's side of the family was here during the American Revolution. They were illegal immigrants. The Indians didn't ask them to come. Where do you draw the line?"

Ultimately a melting pot of nationalities is what helped make the United States the richly-integrated place it is, and a continued bastion of hope and prosperity for others seeking a better life. Rogers believes that will continue, even if right now it seems like a problem.

"There's tensions, sometimes fraying around the edges," he says. "But by and large, people here in Crawfordsville are good-hearted, generous people. They are the sons and daughters and grandchildren of immigrants themselves. Deep down they understand - it's change, it's different, but it's part of what makes America, America. What would Crawfordsville be without its Irish and German past? It would be a culturally-improverished place."

http://journalreview.com/main.asp?SectionID=1

What would Crawfordsville be without its Irish and German past?

A better question would be how Crawfordsville will fare without its' Irish and German decendants in the future.

It sounds like brain washing to me!! or trying to make people feel guilty if they say any thing against illegal immigration. Well towns that ignore it will reap the same rewards California is reaping right now. before they know what hit them they'll be paying for medical for half of Lower north America and South America's citizens living in their towns, their schools will be over crowed and jails full. I'll bet in 3 to 5 years their town will grow to at least 40,000 at least.



WE NEED OUR BORDERS CLOSED AND SOME CONTROL ON IMMIGRATION

(quote)

Gary Calleo, Donnelley's vice president of manufacturing, says it wasn't really a case of his company seeking out Latino workers, but them coming to their door.

And coming & coming & coming
[/quote]

They might as well return to Mexico now, our business owners have sent a lot of our manufacturing over there! Mex.'s President better enforce a hugh pay raise so they will stay there.......because those jobs that were here, ARE GONE!

Originally Posted by SOSADFORUS

It sounds like brain washing to me!! or trying to make people feel guilty if they say any thing against illegal immigration. Well towns that ignore it will reap the same rewards California is reaping right now. before they know what hit them they'll be paying for medical for half of Lower north America and South America's citizens living in their towns, their schools will be over crowed and jails full. I'll bet in 3 to 5 years their town will grow to at least 40,000 at least.

These are the kind of stories we were indoctinated with in SoCal 25 years ago. Now that the invasion is almost complete there, the invasion moves on to the heart of america.