n increasing numbers, Hispanic immigrants are putting down roots in the Roanoke Valley. They're pouring concrete, opening hair salons and filling classrooms. Some employers, meanwhile, are attributing their success to this new labor pool. In this occasional series, The Roanoke Times explores the local impact of the national debate about immigration.
During a busy Friday night dinner waiter Jesus Malaga serves an armload of food to their Anglo customers. Malaga came to America four years ago from Mexico and, like many Mexican immigrants in Roanoke, first landed a job at El Rodeo.
An outsider's point of view
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At the end of a long shift picking vegetables in the fields, workers cram into the back of a pickup truck for the hourlong ride home. A vendor peddles his fresh bread by the workers as they leave for home.On the outskirts of town, in a large rambling ranch house, Flora Carillo names a host of reasons why she’s the rare person who experienced life in the United States — and then chose to return to Sauta.
Flora grew up bilingual in La Habra, Calif. — a town so full of Mexicans from Guadalajara that its nickname is “Guadalahabra.” Her father emigrated illegally from Sauta when she was a baby, then sent for his wife and kids. The family received legal residency in 1986, but all along her parents’ goal was to build a home they could retire to in Sauta.
Every summer as a kid, Flora visited relatives here. She remembers crying when it came time to go and her mom made her leave her favorite clothes behind for her cousins.
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Elpedio Lopez (from left), Maximiliano Valenzuela and Rutilo Diaz play dominos at twilight as Valenzuela's son Valentin carries a load of peanuts for storage. The men work long days picking vegetables or peanuts in the fields.While everyone else was scrambling to get out of the village, Flora’s parents put every spare penny toward returning, which they did last year. Flora’s dad even opened a small hardware store to cash in on returning Nortenos’ zest for home improvement. Four months ago, Flora and her husband and children followed her parents home to Sauta.
She knows the payoffs of Third World living are harder for the average person in Sauta to see: Everyone knows everyone. There are more kids for her son to play with, and no one spends the day indoors watching TV or worrying about credit-card debt. Neighbors regularly congregate outside, and parents routinely pitch in with craft projects and meals in the schools.
“I tell my friends who are thinking of going north: 'Never leave your kids behind; it’s just not worth it,’ ” she says. “But then, I’ve always had all the necessities, haven’t I?”
Flora knows she might react differently had she grown up like her fellow villager, Emerita Salamantes Lamas, who is only a few years older than her but already has nine children. A junior-high dropout, Emerita and a small group of middle-aged women take weekly night classes offered at the elementary school.
She can read and write a little, but Emerita says she wants to learn to add and subtract.
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