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.
Crowding classrooms
“Counting Latinos is like herding cats,” said a half-joking Vivian Sanchez-Jones, a school liaison for Roanoke’s Refugee and Immigration Services. But one place where the blurry numbers come plainly into view is on the rolls of area schools, which are federally required to serve all children who register, legal or not.
Gallery 
A group of mostly Latino students wait nervously for the class assignments outside their English Language Learner Summer School at Westside Elementary School in early July. This is the first year that the Roanoke City Schools have brought all the ELL elementary students together in one school for summer education, and in large part to a growing Hispanic population in the city.A record number of Hispanic preschoolers are registered for Roanoke City Schools this fall. Census takers may have reported that Hispanics made up 2 percent of Roanoke’s total population in 2004. But this fall’s citywide class of English Language Learners is 7.4 percent of the city’s school population, almost 10 times the number a decade ago. The bulk of the 1,000 students is from Latin America.
“My biggest challenge is the teenagers, especially the guys, who are more at risk of cutting classes or dropping out to go to work,” said Sanchez-Jones, who coordinated a Cinco de Mayo youth conference at William Fleming High School aimed at dropout prevention. Many teens were left behind in Mexico with relatives while their parents established themselves here; they arrive at school alienated by the language barriers and have trouble accepting authority, Sanchez-Jones said.
Soundslide Soccer players rest near a player's wife, Iriz Limus (right), and her son Jan Carlo Amaya in the shade during halftime of their game at Green Hill Park. The league is made up of 14 area teams which are made of nearly entirely of local Latinos. All of the players on this team, called real Maya, are from Honduras. The season finished with a championship match on July 23 at Rivers Edge Park.At Fleming, there are 84 ELL students out of a total student body of 1,668; the soccer team alone hails from 12 countries, with half of the team Spanish-speaking.
Fallon Park and Westside elementaries report brisker growth. Ten percent of Fallon Park’s student body, or 51 students, is now ELL. At Westside, the number is 16 percent ELL, or 91 students.
“I had 36 students four years ago, and they [administrators] thought that was a lot,” said Westside ELL teacher Margaret Whitt.
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