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Municipal governments can hasten the assimilation of different cultures.
By Dacus Thompson, League staff
Cesar Aguilar, an El Salvadorian, was 17 years old when he was sent away from his parents and country to find work. It was 1985, and El Salvador was in the midst of a civil war that would claim an estimated 75,000 lives before it ended in 1992. With the help of extended family, Aguilar traversed Latin America to northwest Arkansas, where he got a job in the poultry industry and learned to dismember chickens; he knew three English words: one, two and three. In the 1980s and '90s, many Latinos followed a similar path as Aguilar. The poultry industry's high-turnover rate coupled with the explosion of new jobs created by northwest Arkansas's rapid growth opened the door for immigrants such as Aguilar to find employment. "There were a lot of jobs up here that weren't being filled because of low unemployment, job availability and other types of work," said John Sampier, Rogers's mayor from 1982-'98. "The difference is that the Hispanics who moved here were not migrant workers. The migrant worker phenomenon occurred in many parts of the country, but that's not what we experienced here; we experienced people who were moving here permanently, because they found a steady job." The Latino migration into northwest Arkansas is the largest ethnic movement in the state since Anglos populated the area in the 1800s. At DeQueen, in southwest Arkansas, the Hispanic population skyrocketed from 506 (10.2 percent of the city's population) to 2,225 (38.6 percent) between the 1990 and 2000 census.
Obvious and subtle cultural differences surface. Challenges towns and cities encounter during this shift range from the obvious language and cultural differences to the more subtle, such as Latinos traditional distrust of law enforcement. "In many poor Latin countries, police are corrupt, and you can't trust them," Rogers Mayor Steve Womack said. "But we've been trying to convince newcomers that law enforcement is on their side, and that they're not to be paid off." Womack added that in recent years the city has overcome many of these deep-seated social barriers. "Morally you should make it a good transition," Sampier said about the shift from a predominately Anglo community to a mixed one. "If not, then you have to do it pragmatically because it's happening and you really have no choice but to do something." Aguilar hopes to continue to help the transition in Rogers, his hometown for the past 20 years. "There are always going to be challenges when two cultures meld together," Aguilar said. "But I think the cultures can enrich each other." After years of studying English as a second language (ESL) and working in the community, Aguilar was hired as the executive director of Rogers Community Support Center, a position initiated by Womack in 2000. As executive director, Aguilar, who is now fluent in English, mentors Latinos new to the area. He is also the city's cultural liaison, smoothing over differences-which has become easier over the years. Frequent cultural clashes of the past now are rare or non-existent.
Bilingual text has laws, procedures, history. One of the more famous incidents occurred over a 1995 quinceanera-a Mexican girl's 15th-birthday celebration in which the girl is said to attain womanhood-and a goat. A few non-Latino residents in a Rogers neighborhood were alarmed when they saw a butchered goat dangling from a tree by its hooves and several Latino men in blood-soaked clothes carrying on joyously with knives in hand. It's a tradition that is common in Latin countries, especially for a girl's quinceanera. "It's not some barbaric ritual," Sampier explained. "It's a barbecue. If that had been some native Ozarkian in camouflage overalls skinning a deer, nobody would have paid any attention to it." He added that many of the cultural frays seem comical in hindsight, and can be attributed to basic misunderstandings. "None of these [clashes] seem like great issues on a big scale," Sampier said. "Hispanics need to understand that people laughing out-front and speaking another language and parking cars outside in the yard is a little intimidating to their neighbors, and Anglos need to understand that that's part of Hispanic culture. It's an educational process on both sides." For the past five years, Rogers has published a booklet, Friendly Facts for Living in the Rogers Area, which explains city ordinances, laws uncommon to Latinos and a few dos and don'ts for Latinos trying to assimilate to Arkansas's ways. Aguilar, the booklet's author, said it has helped squelch flare-ups among Rogers's natives and Latinos; a distinction that he said is becoming less and less apparent. The booklet is written in side-by-side columns of English and Spanish and is distributed free-of-charge to the community, Latino or not. Aguilar wrote the booklet because of the struggles he encountered when arriving in Arkansas. "It took me years when I first got here to figure out what was going on in this community, mostly because I didn't speak the language," Aguilar said. The book contains information for new arrivals, such as telephone numbers and addresses for emergency personnel and utilities, how to obtain building and driver's licenses, public activities and a brief history of Rogers. "I often get calls and questions about what to do," Aguilar said, "but normally everything is answered by the book." A Wal-Mart grant in 2000 financed the book's first edition. Since then, Aguilar's program has received other grants, notably from the Tyson Foundation. The fourth edition of Friendly Facts was recently published with 10,000 copies. Aguilar and Rogers did not copyright the book because they hope other communities confronting similar challenges will use it.
Door open to bilingual professionals. Other programs the city organized that have had a positive effect are Cops in Soccer, a one-day soccer tournament to enhance relationships with Latinos and local law enforcement officers, and the annual Rogers International Festival, which is held every May to promote cultural diversity. "Our theme is, 'Come out and get to know your neighbor,'" said Aguilar, "because we are afraid of what we don't know." Conversational Spanish classes are held through the Rogers Community Support Center for native English speakers, as well as Family ESL classes for Spanish-speaking parents (often Latino children speak impeccable English) to accustom themselves with English so they can help with their children's homework. Aguilar, who has two sons, called himself a "native with an accent," and added that his sons, both of whom were born in Rogers, have no accent. "It's not easy to learn another language-it took me more than a couple of years to learn to start a conversation," Aguilar said. "But Latinos know that if they want to succeed in this country, they have to pick up the language." Sampier said that Latinos know English is the language of business, and re-emphasized that Latinos in northwest Arkansas are here long-term. "Something like 60 percent of the Hispanics who live here are homeowners, so they have a stake in the community," Sampier said. He lives in a neighborhood with several Latino families. "And oftentimes they increase the property value of their neighborhoods dramatically."
More Hispanics increasing their buying power. Although Latinos initially migrated to Arkansas for blue-collar service jobs, such as the assembly lines at the chicken plants, the booming population has opened the door for bilingual and bicultural professionals in the medical, legal and other white-collar jobs. Latino professionals who are naturalized are moving to Arkansas from elsewhere in the United States, particularly the Southwest. "As you have a growing Hispanic population, it's important to have people who can cater to those folks as they move around the business community," Sampier said. And as the largest minority group in the United States, the potential impact of Latino buying power in Arkansas is colossal. "Latinos are soon going to have over a trillion dollars in spending power," R. Shawn McGrew, state director for the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) Arkansas, said. "Businesses are starting to see the possibilities, starting to advertise bilingually, reaching out to Hispanics." Cross-marketing to English and Spanish speakers isn't uncommon, said McGrew, but Latinos are becoming more visible in traditionally English-speaking markets. "Years ago, there weren't any Hispanic real-estate agents," McGrew continued, "but now there are real-estate ads and agents all over." Latino media outlets are mushrooming in Arkansas, with four Latino-owned radio stations in the state and at least four Spanish-language newspapers, including El Latino and Hola! Arkansas in Little Rock, Springdale's El Heraldo and La Prensa out of Fayetteville. Hispanic television is broadcast on cable in Little Rock and Pine Bluff. "Hispanic media is not common in general," McGrew said. "And to have so many here in Arkansas already makes a big impact on how the Hispanic market in Arkansas is playing a big part."
Municipal government "sped up assimilation." When asked what the Latino community brings to Rogers, Aguilar said: "I think we are influencing it a lot. We bring a strong work ethic and strong family values. Before the Latinos came in, people weren't use to seeing whole families in Wal-Mart. But when we go shopping, we all go together." Aguilar said the cultures are embracing each other through activities such as sports; Latino kids are now playing football and basketball, when they traditionally only play soccer. "I think that helps meld the cultures together," Aguilar said of the activities. "My son plays basketball, and I'm cheering for him and the rest of his teammates, no matter their ethnicity. And I think that helps bring the community together." Womack said he believes this community togetherness is a work in progress. "Whenever cultural pressures are brought onto a community, you do the very best you can to put it all together to kind of weave a common thread and to get everyone on the same page," he said. "I think we've done a very good job of it here in Rogers. I think we must continue to work on thelanguage barriers and educate people, both people." When Aguilar arrived in Arkansas he was a foreigner, but now he is as much of a local as any Arkansan; and he believes that with Rogers's help, other Latinos can do the same. "The Rogers municipal government starting this program has really sped up the assimilation," said Aguilar. "I think it is really helping people come into our community."
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