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.
Only 'temporary'
The first time Carlos Ortiz tried to sneak into the country, the plan was to go to Roanoke. He had a sister, already working for the El Rodeo Mexican restaurant chain, who could set him up. Once he saved enough money, he’d hire a coyote — a guide, essentially a human smuggler — to bring Rocio and Roberto to “El Norte,” as they called the United States. The North.
Many Hispanic immigrants who migrated in the early and mid-’90s came to work just long enough to save money — for a house, a needed surgery, a daughter’s quinceanera — then returned home. More than anything, Rocio wanted her own house in Mexico.
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Rocio Ortiz gives an order for food to her husband Carlos to prepare in the kitchen of El Charly and Family, the couple's restaurant and store on Melrose Ave. in Roanoke.
But U.S. immigration officials caught Carlos near Tijuana and sent him back. When Rocio found him on the doorstep — pale, dirty and dehydrated — they both burst into tears.
The second time around, in 1993, the plan worked. Carlos found himself in Virginia, living 10 restaurant workers to a house. He borrowed $2,000 from a co-worker and hired a coyote from Colombia.
To avoid being raped by corrupt Mexican police or gangsters, Rocio wore multiple shirts and dressed like a man, hiding her hair under a cap. The coyote helped her carry 4-year-old Roberto across the desert.
Eight hours and several pre arranged car rides later, she was staring at the strangely clean streets of San Diego and clutching Roberto’s hand.
In Roanoke, Rocio bused tables at El Rodeo while Carlos cooked in the back. When a bout of strep throat landed her at an area hospital, it took an hour just to explain, using hand gestures, what was wrong.
Roberto would not feel that shame, she vowed, enrolling him in a free Baptist-run preschool on Elm Avenue. She rode the bus with him from her sister-in-law’s house. For three hours every morning, she waited outside while teachers taught him his colors and how to count to 10.
When a teacher spotted Rocio on the porch, she invited her in and gently asked: “Does your boy need socks?”
He had socks, albeit holey ones, and only a single pair. But that was OK, Rocio tried to explain, because she washed them out in the sink every night when he went to bed.
The next day, the teachers gave the boy a bag full of stuffed animals, clothes and several brand-new pairs of socks.
“They even had tennis shoes for me,” she recalls. “In Mexico, nobody gave me anything. In Mexico, if you have one pair of socks, even holey ones, you have enough. If you have two, that’s plenty.
Rocio was grateful for the gifts. But, she adds, “I was so ashamed.”
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