For Northfield’s Hispanic Immigrants, the Recession Hits Twice as Hard
BY LEAF ELHAI
Homes at Viking Terrace. Photo by Hai Ngo.
When his car broke down in mid-November, José Ramos and his family faced a difficult decision. The cost of replacing the vehicle’s broken water pump put a considerable strain on José and his wife Angelica’s budget, but the repair was “a necessity,” Angelica and José decided.
Without a car, José wouldn’t be able to drive to the sites around Northfield where he finds occasional home improvement odd jobs.
A sturdily built, unfailingly polite father of two, he was laid off from his full-time construction job five months ago, and now spends all of his time looking for these irregular employment opportunities.
“Sometimes I work for a week, and then not at all. Sometimes there will be work for two days, then none,” he explains.
The Ramos’ situation is a common one in Northfield’s Latino community. Though few have completely avoided the effects of the global economic recession that began in 2008, Latino immigrants across the country have been especially hard-hit by the declining job market.
A nationwide study by the Pew Hispanic Center, a non-partisan research center based in Washington D.C., showed a dramatic increase in unemployment among immigrant Latinos during 2008, to 8 percent from 5.1 percent. The unemployment rate for Latinos, including both immigrants and the native-born, now stands at 13.1 percent, compared to a national rate of 10.2 percent, according to the latest employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Mexican Cooking
Immigrants in Northfield have not escaped these trends. Official data is unavailable, but several immigrant workers at St. Dominic Catholic Church’s Spanish mass report that employers in Apple Valley and Lakeview have made dramatic layoffs and cuts in weekly hours.
Like the majority of Latino immigrants now suffering from unemployment, the Ramoses, who asked not to identified by their real names, came to the United States seeking better economic opportunities for themselves and their family.
José immigrated 20 years ago from his home in Veracruz, Mexico, and Angelica followed seven years later. The couple now lives in the Viking Terrace Mobile Home Park with their two daughters, 12 and 6, in a small house full of the smells of Mexican cooking. Viking Terrace is home to much of Northfield’s immigrant population.
Back in Veracruz, José’s widowed mother and other relatives depend on the regular remittances he and Angelica send home. But with Angelica’s low-paying job at a nearby plastic components factory now providing the family’s only steady source of income, paying the bills and buying food are their top priority.
Expendable Jobs
When there was money, Angelica says, the family took trips to visit relatives in California and Wisconsin. She recalls being able to take the two girls on vacations to Disneyland and Hollywood. “Now,” she added, “these things are luxuries.”
With winter’s higher electricity bills on the way, and no sign of a steady job for José, the Ramoses must budget carefully to buy essentials like shoes and clothing for their daughters.
Angie Koch, the director of HealthFinders Collaborative, a free clinic for uninsured Rice County Residents, is well-positioned to observe local employment trends. She says that the high unemployment rate among Latino immigrants, who make up an estimated 60 to 70 percent of the clinic’s patients, can be attributed to the type of jobs most are able to hold. Latinos tend to work “more expendable jobs,” that are the first to be cut during tough economic times, she says.
A 2005 study by the Pew Hispanic Center reports that about two-thirds of Mexican immigrant workers are employed in the construction, manufacturing, agriculture, and hospitality industries. The construction and manufacturing sectors have suffered the most job losses in recent months, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Support Programs
Of course, Latinos are not the only ones in Rice County experiencing unemployment. Koch notes that in the last six months the unemployment rate among white HealthFinders patients has climbed so that it is now “pretty close to being equal” to the unemployment rate among Latino patients.
However, the situation for Latino immigrants in the area has certain distinct characteristics. Latinos are “struggling more with trying to find employment,” so tend to be out of work for a longer period of time than white workers, Koch says.
Latinos also make up a disproportionate percent of workers who are employed part-time for economic reasons, like José Ramos.
Undocumented immigrants have a particularly difficult time finding work, since many companies that employ low-skilled workers now conduct careful screenings for unauthorized residents. These immigrants also face the added disadvantage of being ineligible for government support programs that are available to poor legal residents, including unemployment benefits, food stamps, and non-emergency medical care.
How does the immigrant community deal with these economic challenges? Like others trying to make ends meet, immigrant Latino families rely on strict budgeting, personal sacrifice, and public assistance. But the Latino community also “has its own way of supporting each other,” says the Rev. Dennis Dempsey of the St. Dominic Catholic Church, who holds a weekly Spanish mass and is active within the local immigrant community.
Community Bonding
“When they come up here, they’re coming because there’s a connection,” he adds, explaining that many immigrants choose to live in Northfield because family members, friends, or neighbors from their home communities have already settled here. When times are tough, Father Dempsey says, immigrants’ extended families will provide extra food or a place to stay.
José and Angelica are no exception—they help support a cousin who also immigrated from Mexico, by providing food and a room in their already-full house for only $300 per month.
The Church of St. Dominic provides a support network of its own for the local Latino community. Every week, immigrants and their children gather to pray and connect with other Latinos, who Angelica says are all “going through the same situation.”
“More than anything, it’s a comfort,” she says of the church. Father Dempsey and the church do more than provide spiritual comfort and community bonding, however.
St. Dominic parishioners donate used furniture and cars, which are distributed to church members in need. Father Dempsey says the program is so popular that his own garage, where the donated sofas, chairs and tables are stored before being claimed by parishioners, is “like a used furniture shop.”
Safety Net
But the church’s efforts to aid the immigrant poor are secondary to those of the Community Action Center of Northfield, Father Dempsey said. “It’s just a tremendous blessing,” he says of the 40-year-old non-profit organization, which provides a “safety net” for low-income families in the area.
Though they make up only 7 percent of the Rice County population, according to Minnesota Department of Health estimates, over half of the nearly 2400 individuals the CAC served last year were Latino.
Katie Fuentes Rivera, a bi-lingual CAC social worker who works with Latino families, says that she has noticed a “definite increase” in the use of support programs by Latino families in the past year. These include the Sustaining Food Shelf program, the distribution of Thanksgiving meal baskets at St. Dominic’s, and programs that distribute Christmas gifts and school supplies to families in need.
The efforts of the CAC, HealthFinders, and St. Dominic’s Catholic Church make Northfield an especially supportive community for Latinos suffering from the economic strain of job loss.
Family Network
“We have a very unique situation here in Northfield and Rice County,” says Angie Koch of the variety of social services available.
Katie Fuentes Rivera agrees, noting that even the larger town of Faribault, where she lives, doesn’t have the same resources as Northfield. “There’s just not as much assistance,” she says.
For José and Angelica Ramos, nothing will ease their economic worries but a secure job for José. “The main thing is having work, nothing more. That’s the only reason we came here—to work,” says Angelica.
For the time being, though, the Ramos family and other Northfield immigrants may have to weather the economic storm. Their tight-knit family network and an uncommon array of public support programs help lessen the sting of unemployment, but local Latino immigrants continue to be some of the most serious casualties of the ongoing economic recession.
This article updates an earlier version with additional quotes and background information throughout.
To contact the author: elhail@carleton.edu
Copyright @ 2009 Pressville
