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.
'It's better to stay together'
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Valentin Valenzuela gets a playful hug from his neighbor Ricardo Castanela, 8, while carrying a heavy load of picked peanuts to his storage room. Valenzuela has seen many men from his Mexican village migrate to the U.S. for better wages, but he has decided to stay in Sauta to be close to his family.As the lone police officer in the village, Elisio Rocha Figueroa deals mainly with petty thefts and drug- and alcohol-related offenses. Most involve the Nortenos — men who have gone to the United States and return home for the holidays. “They come back with a lot of money and big trucks,” he says.
“Sometimes they get drunk and run over the old people and little kids.”
Elisio sneaked into the United States once 16 years ago, but had to come back when his oldest daughter fell fatally ill. He and his wife, who works as a Santiago garbage inspector, spend all their energy and money trying to give their remaining daughter the thing they never had: an education.
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Vivian Reyes, 5, a kindergarten student, picks peanuts in the back of a pickup truck after school to help her family make extra money. She earns 90 cents a five-gallon bucket for the work.Their 16-year-old, Anjelica, wants to go to college in Tepic to become a lawyer, Elisio says proudly, putting on a pair of broken bifocals so he can find a photo to show some visitors — a picture of Anjelica receiving a school-achievement award.
But at 57, he doubts his ability to make that happen. His knees give him trouble, and the town doesn’t own a police cruiser. So Elisio is left to patrol the stony streets on foot.
He wants to return to the U.S. illegally, work for a year or so, then return home with enough cash to help with Anjelica’s school expenses — and to buy a police motorcycle for the village.
“But at my age, I’m afraid I wouldn’t make it through the desert,” he says.
Father Roberto Antonio Chavez hopes he doesn’t attempt the journey.
No matter how often he preaches against it, the priest says parishioners in his Catholic church continue fleeing Sauta for the north. That was one reason why, during a recent Sunday Mass, women outnumbered men three to one.
“I tell everybody, 'It’s better to stay together,’ but they don’t listen to me,” the priest says. “The money might help families, but in the long run you see a lot of conflicts.
“In the beginning, the men send money back. But sometimes they make another family in the U.S. and don’t come back again. It’s very sad.”
He blames Mexico’s economic woes on free trade-spawned foreign competition: the Mexican tobacco that used to green the countryside of Nayarit but is now grown in Brazil, for instance.
“We need new ideas for agriculture,” he says. “Instead of building walls, we need more work programs so the men can legally come and go.”
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