June 11, 2007
 
An Immigrant Wave Is Transforming North Carolina
 
By Marsha Mercer
Media General News Service
 
Asheboro, NC (SHNS) -- It's tempting to think that time stands still in Asheboro.
 
When the textile-mill whistle announces quitting time, as it always has, the strongest drink in town anyone can look forward to, as usual, is sweet tea.
 
A newcomer occasionally gripes about having to drive 20 minutes for a "cold one," but the descendants of the Quakers who settled here 250 years ago like their town dry. Voters have repeatedly rejected the option to serve alcohol, and city manager John Ogburn sees no change anytime soon.
 
Maybe that's because enough change has already hit town without the added uncertainty of demon rum.
 
Asheboro, pop. 24,000, is not at all a village captured in amber. It's a small city immersed in one of the biggest changes of our time -- immigration.
 
Demographic upheaval once was an issue for South Florida and the border towns of the Southwest. Today an immigrant wave is transforming North Carolina and its towns, large and small.
 
With Congress debating an overhaul of immigration policy, I stopped by Asheboro to see how the issue was playing.
 
In 1980, less than 1 percent of people here were foreign nationals. Today, Latinos make up 20 percent of city residents and 30 percent of city school students. They're the largest minority, surpassing blacks.
 
Latinos come to work not seasonally in farm fields but in factories year-round. About 80 percent are here illegally, city officials estimate.
 
But nobody knows for sure. There's an unspoken "don't ask, don't tell" policy about legal status. While many local people criticize porous borders and hope Congress will tighten them, everybody concedes that illegal immigrants keep the economy humming. They praise the workers as family-oriented and having a strong work ethic. But there are costs.
 
"We're a typical small or medium-sized town that's been caught up with an influx we were not prepared for," said Mayor David H. Jarrell. The strain has been hardest on local schools and the hospital.
 
"Our national immigration policy is broken," the mayor said, "and local government can't fix the problem."
 
Jarrell isn't sure the current immigration bill would solve the problem, even if it does pass. The issue is so complicated and complex.
 
He understands what draws Latinos to his town. With other local and state officials last fall, Jarrell visited Mexico City and Puebla. He was struck by the harsh living conditions and poverty.
 
"People work for a dollar a day," he said. "I try to say if the situation was reversed and I was put in that situation, how would I react?"
 
Some Anglos complain about Latinos' living in overcrowded rental houses and the Spanish signs at the strip shopping centers north of town. Some have called for an English-only sign ordinance.
 
The mayor says that Latinos "naturally have their own culture and how they live."
 
The city tries to get them to adapt, but, "All we can say is, 'That's not normally the way it is in our community,' " he said.
 
At St. Joseph's, the only Catholic church in Randolph County, the Rev. Frank Cancro says 65 percent of his parish speaks Spanish. Two of the four Masses on Sunday are in Spanish. Parishioners tutor Spanish-speaking children and adult English classes will begin in the fall. But tensions exist. Many Anglos stay home when there's a bilingual church service, he said.
 
Cancro said it's inappropriate for him to ask whether someone is here legally.
 
"You don't need a green card to sit at the Eucharistic table," he said.
 
Juan Rios, who came from Panama as an exchange teacher, says Asheboro is "a good place," where the biggest problem is lack of understanding on both sides of the other's traditions and cultures.
 
Rios, who teaches English as a second language, founded the Latino Coalition of Randolph County, which counteracts news stories that he said focus on "bad stuff" -- Latino crime, including drug trafficking. The coalition sponsors festivals showcasing Latino cultures.
 
Assumptions often get people into trouble, he said.
 
Anglos assume all Latinos are Mexicans. "It has a negative connotation -- that you're an illegal immigrant, not very smart and can only do yard work," he said.
 
Rios himself had to change some assumptions about Americans.
 
"I used to think all Americans were Yankees," he said. Southerners, he learned, don't like being called "Yankees."
 
Contact Marsha Mercer, Washington bureau chief of Media General News Service, at mmercer@mediageneral.com. (Marsha Mercer is Washington bureau chief for Media General News Service. E-mail mmercer@mediageneral.com.)