Coming Into Their Own Latinos in RI

HACIENDO HISTORIAMAKING HISTORYLatinos in Rhode Island

The Providence Journal-BulletinNovember, 1996

Compiled by

Tomás Alberto Avila

COMING INTO THEIR OWN.............................................................................................................. 3

RELATED STORY: Puerto Rico........................................................................................................3RELATED STORY: Guatemala......................................................................................................... 3RELATED STORY: Dominican Republic...........................................................................................3RELATED STORY: Colombia...........................................................................................................3

WORD SPREAD FAST.............................................................................................................................. 4AND PEOPLE ARE TAKING NOTICE.......................................................................................................... 4PUERTO RICO.................................................................................................................................... 6GUATEMALA..................................................................................................................................... 8DOMINICAN REPUBLIC................................................................................................................. 10COLOMBIA....................................................................................................................................... 12

INVESTING IN EDUCATION PAYS OFF.........................................................................................15

Providence expands bilingual effort................................................................................................15

STARTING YOUNG FOR BEST RESULTS......................................................................................20

FINDING QUALITY HEALTH CARE A CHALLENGE FOR LATINOS......................................23

THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE MUSIC, ARTS BRIDGE GAP BETWEEN ANGLOS, HISPANICS.......................................................................................................................................... 28

LATINOS BECOMING POLITICAL FORCE..................................................................................33

RADIO IS KING IN GROWING LATINO MEDIA MARKET........................................................37

But Hispanic leaders say radio is king in the robust Latino media...................................................38market............................................................................................................................................ 38

LATINOS REENERGIZE CATHOLIC CHURCHES MUSIC, ARTS BRIDGE GAP BETWEEN ANGLOS, HISPANICS........................................................................................................................ 40

RELIGION SERVES as an anchor for immigrants struggling to adjust to life..................................43in the United States, Hispanics say.................................................................................................43

LATINOS CARVING NICHE IN BUSINESS.....................................................................................44

11/17/96

Coming into their ownIn politics, business, music and the arts, R.I. Latinos are making their presence felt

RELATED STORY: Puerto Rico

RELATED STORY: Guatemala

RELATED STORY: Dominican Republic

RELATED STORY: Colombia

By TATIANA PINAJournal-Bulletin Staff Writer

When Raymond Lavandier came to Providence from the Dominican Republic in 1964, he went straight to the second floor of a three decker at 145 Chester Ave.

There the aroma of rice and beans wafted down the hallway. Spanish voices welcomed newcomers.

On that second floor, Josefina and Tony Rosario, who had moved there four years earlier, shared their apartment with newly arrived compatriots while they looked for work and got settled.

Josefina, known as "Fefa," accommodated the extra people by putting up curtains to create new spaces in her roomy apartment. She would pack her three children in her blue station wagon and go on forays to New York City to purchase the platanos, yuca, coffee and spices Dominicans could not find in Rhode Island. She provided warm clothes for her guests, accustomed only to the tropics.

When he lived with the Rosarios there was an average of five families staying there, Lavandier says. "We never needed to talk on the telephone, there were so many people around," he laughs.

The couple helped their guests find jobs in restaurants, jewelry factories and textile mills, jobs that at the time were so abundant that bosses took to the streets to look for workers. Fathers or mothers who had come to the United States alone sent home word of the employment opportunities with the money tucked inside their letters.

Word spread fast.

The Rosarios saw their Latino community grow from a handful of Caribbean families to cities that now teem with Latino markets, travel agencies, newspapers, social service agencies, boutiques. Today, people from all over Latin America live in Rhode Island. The number of Hispanics has grown from nearly 8,000 in 1970 to 58,598 today. That number is projected to grow to 70,000 by the year 2000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Agencies that work with Latinos, however, say the numbers are a quarter to a third higher.

After more than 30 years of being called "new immigrants" and shouldering the growing pains and backlash that historically come with that name, Latinos here are slowly starting to assert their potential.

And people are taking notice.

This year, Latinos made politicians and the press listen when they said "no mas" (no more) to Washington's attacks on immigrants and plans to cut their benefits. They did so by rallying against Joseph R. Paolino Jr., a 2nd Congressional District candidate whose campaign featured slights against more recent immigrants and plans to make English the official language of the United States.

For the first time in Rhode Island history, seven Latinos ran for seats in the House and Senate this year. The candidates were Puerto Rican, Dominican, Guatemalan, Panamanian, Argentinian and Mexican-American. Five lost in the primaries, and one lost and one won in the general elections. The majority of the candidates who lost say they will try again. The emergence of the Latino community in Rhode Island echoes a national trend in growth and assertion of power.

Patricia Martinez of Progreso Latino, a Central Falls social agency that helps Latinos, says this year's events were a window into the future.

"It was the beginning," Martinez says. "We have been here 25 to 30 years. I see the growth in our community. As we head toward our 40th year, like any other immigrant group, you will see people taking more active roles in the political arena. I see more kids graduating from college. I see more of our people in good positions in the Health Department and in Human Services. As we saw with the Irish and the Italians, it took time before they took over."

But who are these Latino people who make up the largest minority group in Rhode Island? They are often lumped together into one category - "Hispanic" - but they come from 19 countries from North America to the Caribbean and South America, where political situations range from democracy in Costa Rica to Communism in Cuba. Latinos are a mixture, in varying degrees of Indian, black and Spanish blood. They are the blue-

eyed blonde riding her bike down the street, the brown-skinned girl sketching in her notebook, the black boy walking to school.

The biggest groups in Rhode Island are the Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Colombians, Guatemalans and the Mexicans, whose community church officials say is rapidly growing. The state is also home to Salvadorans, Bolivians, Peruvians, Cubans, Chileans, Ecuadoreans and others.

Like most immigrants, the majority came looking for a better life.

Little written history is available about their arrival in Rhode Island because they are a relatively young group. The Catholic Diocese, which first witnessed the growth of Latinos through its congregations, is one of the few institutions to recognize the growth of the Latino community. In 1970 Bishop Russell J. McVinney, at the Latinos' request, established the Latin American Apostelate of the Diocese of Providence to serve the community with Father Raymond Tetrault as the director.

Aida Hidalgo, director of Hispanic Ministries, says there are 13 churches in Providence, Pawtucket and Central Falls that celebrate Mass in Spanish. She estimates that in 10 years these churches will be completely Spanish because the Anglo members are older and their children are attending churches in the suburbs, she says.

"Latinos are bringing faith to this country," she says. "If it were not for Latinos, the Catholic Church would not exist."

One person who has watched the Latino community grow over the last 20 years is Providence Mayor Vincent Cianci Jr. He has seen them gain a presence in businesses on Broad Street, noted their steady participation in housing programs, and their pride in their culture.

"Eventually Latinos will make up the backbone of the city," he says.

Latinos often mention Cianci as the one politician who attended their festivals and cultural events years ago when nobody else came.

While their community presence has strengthened, their political clout has not reached its full potential, in part due to poor voter turnout, Cianci says.

But that, too, is changing. Cianci points to the District 20 General Assembly race, in which Latinos came out in the September primary to vote for Victor Capellan, 25, in his bid to unseat 16-year incumbent Representative George A. Castro, D-Providence. Capellan fell just 11 votes short of victory.

"That was a race that shows some movement," Cianci says. "They are a force to be reckoned with."Copyright © 1997 The Providence Journal Company11/17/96

PUERTO RICO

He overcame barriers in life and loveBy TATIANA PINAJournal-Bulletin Staff Writer

Angel "Tato" Cosme, 66, quit school after the ninth grade to help his mother earn money for the family. He left the poverty of his home in Puerto Rico to work as a dishwasher at the Old Grist Mill in Seekonk in 1955, in hopes of earning enough money to send some home.

In those days, the boss (who was Argentinian) paid for employees to come to the United States and allowed them to pay him back after they started working. "I worked from 1 p.m. to 12 p.m. six days a week for $42.94," Cosme recalls. "It was hard work but it was better than I would have done at home."

He came to the United States with three other Puerto Ricans; the four shared an apartment in Seekonk.

"It was very wooded and secluded there. You never saw people," Cosme says. "I came from the city. I was used to seeing people and having them around me. What made it worse was not being able to speak English."

After a year he moved to East Providence with friends.

According to the Catholic Diocese, the first group of Hispanics to arrive in Rhode Island were Puerto Ricans who came in the 1950s to work as migrant farm hands in South County, Barrington and Newport. Unlike other Latin Americans, Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens and are not bound by immigration laws.

Three years after getting his restaurant job, Cosme found a job as a color mixer for jelly beans at the Schoolhouse Candy Co. in Pawtucket. He worked there for 33 years.

"Jobs were so abundant back then that you could try one place and if you didn't like it go somewhere else. You could visit five places in a day," he says.

"It's funny, back then they needed workers so badly they gladly took in Latinos," Cosme says. "Today there is a different attitude toward the Latino."

Cosme said the most difficult thing about life in the United States was trying to speak English. "Back home you learn proper English, but here people shorten their words. They talk fast. It is hard to keep up," he

says.

In 1961 he met his future wife, Albertina. Of Irish and French descent, Albertina was orphaned as a child and had been raised by a Portuguese couple. They met when he came to the building on Eddy Street in Providence where she lived, looking for an apartment.

Albertina tried to get rid of him, but he eventually rented a place in the building. In time they became friends and, later, married.

The Cosmes play down the problems they've encountered as a mixed-race couple.

"I don't know why people make a big fuss," says Cosme. "We all bleed in red."

They have two daughters, now 26 and 29, who grew up speaking Spanish and English.

In 1968, the Cosmes moved to a three decker on Borinquen Street (the Indian name for Puerto Rico) in the shadow of Rhode Island Hospital; they have lived there ever since.

Albertina, 63, who works at Colibri, a company at 100 Niantic Ave. that makes cigarette lighters, is quite conversant in Spanish. She has also become a pro at cooking Spanish dishes.

"I can make pigs feet with garbanzo beans, codfish (bacalado) with okra, rice with gandules (pidgeon peas) and chicken with rice," she says. "I make codfish fritters every Sunday and they love them."

Copyright © 1997 The Providence Journal Company

11/17/96

GUATEMALA

Three generations, one goalBy TATIANA PINAJournal-Bulletin Staff Writer

Raul Guerra, who is Guatemalan, moved to Rhode Island in 1974 after six years in New York City because he didn't want to lose control of his children in such a big city. "I was terrified that they might get into drugs or fall into the wrong lifestyle," he says.

"Providence is small and at the time the Latino population was so small that everybody knew each other," he says. "You could walk down the street and someone would tell you if they had seen your kid. New York was huge and I was afraid they would disappear."

Guerra emigrated to the United States from Guatemala City, where he worked as a bill collector and his wife, Francisca, ran a small coffee shop.

Guatemala has been at civil war for more than 30 years, during which time thousands of people have been killed. In the 1980s during Lucas Garcia's reign of terror, large numbers of people began to flee the war and hunger in their country. Many came to Rhode Island. Today the current administration has embarked on a mission to bring peace to the country.

"In Guatemala City," Guerra says, "we were not affected much by the civil war. I moved to the United States to find a better life and to make sure my children got a good education."

In New York he worked at an injection-mold factory and Francisca worked in factory that made electrical switches. "My wife made as much as I did," he said. "I didn't mind. We needed the money. We sent my mother $200 a month to help with four of our six children who were still there."

In Rhode Island Guerra found a job at Atlantic Knitting Mills on Charles Street in Providence, where he worked for 20 years until he was laid off. Today he and his wife are retired, but he is looking for a part-time job.

Their daughter, Wilma Ruiz, who was 16 when the family moved to Providence, says she decided she didn't want the life her parents had working in factories.

"When I first came I didn't want to learn the language and started working in factory that made milk caps," she says. But soon, "I decided I did not want to do that all my life. I would never progress that way."

She enrolled at Central High School's James L. Hanley Career and Technical School to learn English and cosmetology.

Cosmetology school was difficult because she barely knew English and had a hard time understanding her instructors. "I sat in the front to make sure I heard everything she was saying. I watched her lips," Ruiz says.

When the teacher demonstrated how to cut hair, how to do manicures or paint fingernails, Ruiz says she didn't understand a word at first, but "I got all the techniques down so at least I knew how to do it." She credits two of her teachers for their compassion in helping her to learn.

"It wasn't always easy because I knew that some of the girls didn't like me because I was Hispanic. They made fun of me and they hid my uniform, but I had to ignore them. Eventually I could defend myself."

At Central, she was enrolled in a 10th grade English as a Second Language (ESL) program, where 80 percent of what was taught was English. For the three years she was enrolled she mostly learned cosmetology and English.

"You get bored all day learning English," she says. "We didn't learn many other subjects. . . ."

"When I got to the 11th grade I looked around and realized I was not learning English well. I went to complain to my counselor. He told me I was passing and that was what counted.

"Looking back I felt cheated," she says.

After school Ruiz worked in a jewelry factory on Pine Street.

"After high school we girls would all walk to the factory. We worked from 3 to 9 at night. I always helped my parents with money."

Today Ruiz, 40, is a cosmetologist and esthetician, a skin specialist. She does makeup, cuts hair and gives facials at JC Penneys. She likes her job because she can put people at ease while they are being pampered. They talk to her.

She keeps abreast of her field and has come to realize that people are not willing to pay much in Rhode Island for skin care. So she must assess what to do with her career.

Her daughter, Pamela, a senior at Classical High School, wants to study business administration and go into cosmetology, then open a string of health spas. She wants to put her mother in charge of visiting other countries to study their beauty techniques.

"It seems like a big dream. She says she will start small," says Ruiz. "She is very determined."


11/17/96

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

She lived 'Mi casa es su casa'By TATIANA PINAJournal-Bulletin Staff Writer

Josefina "Fefa" Rosario, now 68 and living in the Buttonwoods section of Warwick, says she left the Dominican Republic hoping to earn a good living in the United States.

In 1949, at age 23, Rosario set out for New York, where her sister lived. While waiting to catch a train to the Bronx one day, she met the man she would later marry, Tony Rosario, who was Puerto Rican. They moved first to Connecticut and then to Rhode Island to work in Les Shaws Restaurant in Warwick. Tony worked in the kitchen as a chef and Fefa was "the salad lady."

"A year later the business went bankrupt and the bosses went back to Connecticut. I wanted to go with them because I was familiar with the area. They had my Spanish foods there. But Tony wanted to stay in Rhode Island," Rosario says. The two found work at Johnson Hummocks, a seafood restaurant in Providence.

Their apartment on Chester Avenue eventually became home to other newly arrived Dominicans.

Two things made it favorable for Latinos and other immigrants to emigrate to Rhode Island 30 years ago: the abundance of jobs and a liberalization of immigration laws. The 1965 amendments to the

Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 gave preference to family reunification. Spouses, parents and children of U.S. citizens were first in line when visas were awarded. U.S. bosses were willing to sponsor foreign-born workers.

To sponsor a family member back then, Rosario says, "All you had to do was fill out an affidavit and show proof that you had $300 to $1,000 in the bank."

The couple held a series of jobs, all the while saving to buy a house and to start their own business. Rosario fondly recalls working at Providence's Frank Morrow Co., manufacturer of decorative metals for the lighting industry, in the 1960s.

"The boss, Robert Morrow, opened a night shift for all the Dominicans that came," she said. "He was nice and he treated us with dignity. That was good, because in those days we could barely speak the language. At Christmas we had a party to bring in our special foods."

But today, Morrow says, foreign competition "is killing our customers," and there is only one shift. He said that years ago, 75 percent of his employees were Italian. Today 75 percent are Hispanic.

Rosario opened her own bodega, "Fefa's Market," in 1969 on Broad Street across from Roger Wiliams Park, selling the Spanish foods and other items she had so craved earlier. She opened a restaurant next door and served mondongo (tripe, prepared in a soup) and other dishes such as fried steak and tostones (fried green plantains). Tony split his time working there and as a chef at the Metacomet Country Club in East Providence.

"Sometimes we opened after concerts by Latin musicians that came from New York. The people loved to dance but in those days we had no clubs. People would rent the Rhodes-on-the-Pawtuxet for the concert. I figured I could make a little money so while the concert was going on I would send someone to the restaurant to start warming up food. After the concert I would open the restaurant and serve sancocho, soup with plantains, meats, squash and vegetables."

Tony died in 1978.

In 1980, Fefa bought her house in Warwick.

Her life today is very different from the days when she hung curtains to cordon off space for newly arrived families in her Chester Avenue apartment.

She no longer operates a business, but she keeps busy with her three daughters and grandchildren. She is a big fan of Jose Luis Rodriguez, "El Puma," who is a Venezuelan singer. She counts him now among the three important men in her life along with her husband, Tony, and John F. Kennedy. Once she cornered Sen. Edward "Ted" Kennedy at a function at Rhodes-on-the- Pawtuxet and asked him to give her a picture of his brother.

"He got me the picture and I hugged him," she said. "To this day I am a Democrat."


11/17/96

COLOMBIA

The fabric of his new life was woven in Central FallsBy TATIANA PINAJournal-Bulletin Staff Writer

Dapper in white pants, dark jacket and hat, Pedro Cano Sr., 76, proudly pulls out articles from a Colombian newspaper that were written about his emigration to Central Falls in 1965. He points a cuff-linked sleeve at a proclamation on his living room wall from former Providence Mayor Joseph Paolino Jr. recognizing his efforts in the Colombian community.

"It isn't everyone who gets one of these," he says.

He is, after all, one of the first Colombians to arrive in Central Falls to work in the textile mills that once dotted the city.

"I was always interested in educating myself so I went to technical schools to learn to work with textile machinery," says Cano, originally from Medellin. "I worked in several large textile mills and became known as a great loom fixer."

As did many other textile mills in the state, Lyons Fabrics Co. of Central Falls needed skilled weavers and loom fixers to work in its mill, which made silk cloth for ties. Cano was a hot commodity.

Lyons personnel manager at the time, Jay Guittari, recruited Cano from Colombia. Cano traveled to Rhode Island with the wife of his friend,

Gustavo Carren#a, who had arrived the year before to work as a weaver at Lyons. Two other Colombians followed shortly. Soon more were coming to work at Lyons as those already here recommended others from home.

Cano left his wife, Olga, and 11 children in Colombia with a plan to earn enough money to send for each of them. He sent home practically every penny he earned.

Communicating at work was not hard, he says. "The boss and general manager spoke Spanish and the foreman spoke Portuguese," he says.

"I couldn't speak a word of English, but I learned the English terms for broken, stuck and off quilter. It was easy because I knew my job well."

When he started at Roosevelt mill, the men and women who worked at Lyons were North Americans, he says, but gradually more Colombians came and changed the face of the work place.

In the early days Cano and his compatriots walked everywhere because they did not have cars. "The police and the people would stare when they saw us walking because they knew we were not from here," Cano says. "When we got out of work we left through the parking lot. Everybody would get into their car and leave. We would be the only ones left."

He worked 12 hours a day, earning $2.20 an hour.

"That didn't leave much time to do much else," he says. When he could spare a moment he spent time talking with his friend, Freddy Ramos, a Spaniard who had befriended him and rented him an apartment. Or he watched television on a small set he bought.

"It wasn't until about 10 years after we arrived when our families were with us that we started to get together at people's houses on Sundays. We would have a meal and dance," he says.

While Cano maneuvered his way around work with relative ease, getting along outside work without English was another story. There was shopping to do, but he couldn't read labels or count or ask for products. Trips to government offices were virtually impossible. Even going to the dentist was a challenge.In restaurants "they always had pictures of what they offered on the wall and you could point to what you wanted. One time they brought me the wrong thing and I went after the guy into the kitchen. I don't know what he thought, but he grabbed me by the arm and threw me out of the restaurant."

It took Cano eight years to bring his wife and all his children to this country. Today all his children except one live in the United States.

Cano's youngest daughter, Ana Maria Cano, who was born here and works as a social worker, says she accompanied her father to city and government offices when her father had to do business. Though just a little girl, she served as his translator. "It was difficult for him because here is an adult depending on a child to translate for him," she said.

Today Cano owns a home on Enterprise Street in Providence. The basement is his refuge, equipped with a sound system and a table where he and his friends can play cards.

Central Falls has changed so much from the way it was, Cano says. Today Spanish restaurants, markets and specialty shops dominate Dexter Street, with some on Broad Street. Colombians share business space alongside Dominicans, Guatemalans and others. Colombians number near 5,000 in the city.

"The city back then was textile mills, some jewelry factories, a few shops," he says.

Cano worked for Lyons from 1965 until 1984 when it closed. Six years ago he started working in housekeeping at Memorial Hospital.

"I wasn't feeling good being retired and the doctor suggested it. It was the best thing for me."


11/18/96

Investing in education pays off

Providence expands bilingual effort

RELATED STORY: Starting young for best results

By ELIZABETH RAUJournal-Bulletin Staff Writer

Nine-year-old Silvia Antigua is a long way from her native Dominican Republic, but she felt at ease on her first day of school in the United States.

In her sixth-grade bilingual class at the Oliver Hazard Perry Middle School in Providence, she spoke only Spanish as she tackled long division, multiplied 4,756 by 305 and colored a map of North America.

Her teacher, Sara Melin, shudders to think what could have happened if Silvia, who speaks only a few words of English, had been relegated to a class taught in that language.

"She would have been very confused," says the Chilean-born Melin. "She would be crying. She wouldn't want to come back."

While other communities nationwide are thinking about dismantling their bilingual education programs amid questions about their effectiveness, Providence is bucking the trend and expanding its programs for Latinos, the fastest-growing segment of the school population.

As anyone who witnessed the recent controversy involving congressional candidate Joseph Paolino Jr. knows, bilingual education is a heated political issue, with Republicans - and even some Democrats - pushing to establish English as the nation's official language.

It is an issue exploding in communities across the country as immigrants continue to pour into the United States. Nationally, of the 40 million children in public schools, about 2.7 million do not speak English, according the National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education. In Rhode Island, about 9,000 of the 146,000 children in public schools do not speak English.

Programs to teach English to foreign-born students emerged in the 1960s

when the federal government, under pressure from civil-rights groups, required states to establish Limited English Proficiency classes.

There are two kinds of programs: English as a Second Language (ESL) and bilingual education.

Students in ESL classes receive several hours of English instruction daily and are taught academic basics in English. In bilingual classes, however, students learn the academic basics in their native language and receive some English instruction.

A common misconception is that students who are not fluent in English are required to enroll in ESL or bilingual classes. In fact, both programs in Rhode Island are voluntary.

New students who indicate on a questionnaire that a language other than English is spoken at home are required to take an English proficiency test. Those who score poorly are given three options: They can enroll in an ESL class, a bilingual education program or all-English classes.

The controversy is mostly over bilingual education.

Critics, including some Latinos, cite recent studies that found Latino students who take their courses in English do better in school than students in bilingual programs, and that most parents want their children in all- English classes.

But bilingual education advocates say programs should be improved, not eliminated. They say students have sometimes fared poorly because of a lack of qualified bilingual teachers. And they remind critics that it can take years to master English.

"Speaking English is not the only tool that you need to have," says Jaime Aguayo, a native of Puerto Rico, who spearheaded a campaign to expand bilingual education in Providence. "You also have to know math and the sciences. If you don't have those tools, you cannot be part of the mainstream society."

Many communities in the state offer ESL classes. Providence and Cumberland are the only communities that offer bilingual education.

In Providence, bilingual classes are offered only to Latinos, who account for 43 percent of the 25,000 students. The School Department approached Southeast Asians - the second-largest non-English-speaking group in the schools - about starting bilingual classes, but community leaders said they preferred to keep their children in all-English

classes.

Bilingual classes in Portuguese are offered in kindergarten through Grade 3 in Cumberland, which has a large population of Portuguese immigrants in the Valley Falls neighborhood.

In Providence, the debate over bilingual education seems to center on how long students spend in the program. Many Latino parents support bilingual education, but want their children moved to all-English classes after two years. On average, students are in the program three to five years.

"They start to feel isolated from the rest of the community," says Colombian-born Patricia Martinez, director of Progreso Latino, a nonprofit social service agency that helps immigrants. "Why is a child in a bilingual program for five years? Why is he or she not learning enough in five years? In two years, a kid usually picks up the English language very well."

School officials disagree; they say it takes years to become proficient in English.

"Many people who are not in the trade believe if you have social English - 'Hi, how are you?' - you shouldn't be in a program," says Fran Mossberg, administrator of Providence's bilingual and ESL programs. "But there's an academic language that's not a social language.

"When I talk to groups that are English-speakers only, I'll say constantly that I'm a very educated person, but if you were to put me at M.I.T. in advanced quantum theory, I don't have the academic language to even begin to understand the concept."

As immigrants continue to make Rhode Island, and especially urban communities like Providence, Cranston, Central Falls and Woonsocket, their home, the state Department of Education would like more school districts to offer bilingual classes - to all ethnic groups.

But taxpayers are likely to resist for financial and political reasons.

"It's a fear of spending money on immigrants," says Maria Lindia, an education specialist for the Education Department. "I get calls from many school administrators saying, 'I'm concerned these children are not living to their potential. Can you help me get more resources? Can you help me get more support? How can I go to the School Committee and get $50,000 to hire bilingual teachers?' "

Providence decided to make the investment.

Alarmed by a 37 percent dropout rate among Latino students, the city last year hired more bilingual teachers fluent in Spanish and established more bilingual classes.

Currently, 13 of Providence's 37 schools offer bilingual education to about 2,230 Latinos, according to Mossberg. Another 700 or so are enrolled in ESL classes.

It's too early to say if the new program is a success, says Mossberg. If the dropout rate declines and test scores of Latinos go up, it worked, she says.

Latinos, of course, are not the only non-English-speaking students in Providence. About 1,570 students from 20 different countries - Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Haiti, Liberia, Nigeria and Russia, to name a few - are taking ESL classes.

This year, the city will spend about $35 million to educate all non- English-speaking students, says Mossberg.

It is money well spent, says Tomas Ramirez, principal of Perry Middle School, which offers bilingual education to about 170 students.

"We have many successes," he says. "I would say if we didn't have the bilingual program in place at Perry, we'd see failures."

Silvia Antigua, he says, is one of his successes.

She arrived in the United States from the Dominican Republic three months ago with her mother, Altagracia Trinidad, and four brothers and sisters, three of whom are also in bilingual education programs in Providence.

Like many immigrants, Silvia's mother came here to escape the poverty of her country. A single parent, she supports her children on what she earns working in a jewelry factory.

It was her decision to place Silvia in bilingual education.

In all-English classes, "she would be lost," she says, through a translator.

And that, she says, would be a pity, for Silvia "has a brain that learns fast."

On her first day at Perry, Silvia and her 25 classmates, all Latinos, learn math, social studies and reading in Spanish, then receive 45 minutes of instruction in English.

Melin, the teacher, keeps it simple.

"What's your first name?" she asks Silvia.

"My name is Silveee . . ." she answers.

"Okay, again," says Melin.

"Silv-i-a," she says, firmly.

Her classmates say learning a new language is hard. They say English- speaking students tease them, call them "geeks." They would like to see how Americans fare in Mexico or the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico.

"I feel bad because they are laughing at me," says Rafael Rodriguez, 11. "I say that's not good because what if somebody laughed at them."

"I'm not listening," says Abel Tapia, 11. "I put my ears like that" - he puts his hands over his ears - "because I don't want to listen to what they say."

"They think to learn a language is easy," says Rafael. "It's not easy. It's hard."

Silvia continues her lesson at home. At the kitchen table, as chicken sizzles in a black pot on the stove, she reads aloud from her English workbook, underlining with her fingertip each word as she speaks slowly, deliberately. Her mother, who reads some English, turns the pages.

"Where's Bob? He's in the living room. Where's Mary? She's in the bedroom. Where's the car? It's in the garage."

Silvia's sister, Rocio, 8, also in a bilingual class, is listening in a corner. The two sisters are in a race to see who can learn English first. Rocio clutches a red book to her chest that she's been carrying around since school started: The Happy Hollisters.By page 21, Silvia and her mother are reading together, at first, only a few words - "hospital," "breakfast," "yard" - then, entire paragraphs. In unison, they say: "The Jones family is in the park today. The sun is shining. The birds are singing."

Later that evening, Silvia, squished between Rocio and her mother on the sofa, learns more English, this time from a perky woman on television who is the star of the English-instruction videocassette, "English with No Barriers."

"Where do you live?" the woman asks.

A few seconds of silence, then two words appear on the screen.

"At home," says Silvia.


11/18/96

Starting young for best results

By ELIZABETH RAUJournal-Bulletin Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- After a lunch of Sloppy Joes, corn and milk, the children at the Gilbert Stuart Elementary School stream out of the cafeteria and fan out on the playground.

They frolic, giggle, shout.

Far from the madding crowd are Kristine Morales and Nicole Beasley, both 6, who are involved in more serious pursuits. They sit cross-legged next to a chain-link fence, teaching each other Spanish and English.

"Pantalones," says Kristine.

"Pants," says Nicole.

"Rojos," says Kristine.

"Red," says Nicole.

The first-graders are among the 78 students at Gilbert in two-way bilingual classes, an innovative program that mixes Latinos and English- speaking students in the same class so they can learn both languages.

Gilbert started the classes two years ago in kindergarten and now offers it through Grade 3. The school plans to expand to Grade 4 next year and eventually to Grade 5.

The goal is to teach children Spanish or English at a young age - when they are able to learn a language quickly - and expose them to different cultures in the hope of fostering more ethnic tolerance.

"By understanding someone's language, you grow to understand their culture and then you grow to understand them," says Laurie McKenna-Therrien, who teaches the English section of the class to Nicole, Kristine and 24 other students. "And the best time to do it is when they're babies like this. This is when we can form their good behavior about each other."

Supporters of the program also say that children who learn a foreign language, especially Spanish, will prosper as adults in an increasingly global economy. Latinos are the fastest-growing ethnic group in the country. According to projections by the U.S. Census Bureau, Latinos will account for 31 percent of the population in the United States in the year 2000 and 49 percent in 2020.

The program at Gilbert is voluntary. Nicole's mother, Adrian Cox, says she enrolled her daughter in the class because she wants her to learn Spanish so she can communicate with her Latino friends in their Elmwood neighborhood. She also says knowing a second language will improve her daughter's job prospects as an adult.

"Spanish is like the new English for this country," she says. "If you can speak a second language, it can be an advantage for you. As she gets older it's going to be more beneficial for her."

Generally, students in the program at Gilbert receive 70 percent of their instruction in their native language and 30 percent in English or Spanish. (If the program expands to Grade 5, students will spend 50 percent of their time being taught in English, and 50 percent in Spanish.) The children are taught by English-speaking and bilingual teachers.

An English-speaking child, for example, might take science in Spanish but math in English, while a Spanish-speaking student might take science in English but math in their native language. All students receive language instruction in either Spanish or English.

On a recent day, Nicole, who speaks a few words of Spanish, and Kristine, who speaks some Spanish - her father is a native of Puerto Rico - and wants to learn more, plop down on a brightly colored mat in their classroom and start singing in Spanish.

"Lo ma#s que nos reunimos, reunimos, reunimos. Lo ma#s que nos reunimos, seremos felices." The more we get together, get together, get together, the more we get together, the happier we'll be.

Nicole hesitates at first, then joins in as everyone repeats the song. Their teacher, Mary Aquino-Dailey, writes several words on the blackboard - reunimos, felices, cantamos - and asks the children to pronounce them.

"Felices," says Aquino-Dailey.

"Felices," says Nicole, blushing.

Then the class defines the words through an illustration. Nicole draws two stick figures, singing. "Cantamos," Aquino-Dailey writes on the top of her paper.

"Escriba su nombre," she says to Nicole.

"N-I-C-O-L-E," she writes.

"Excelente," says Aquino-Dailey.

After class - and before their conversation on the playground - Nicole and Kristine strike up a conversation in the bathroom.

"One day you can come to church with me if you want to because they speak Spanish," says Kristine. "Would you like to come?"

Nicole nods her head.

"Just in case you don't know where it is you can call me," says Kristine. "Want my number?"

Nicole nods again.

Kristine picks up a pencil from the bathroom floor, writes her number on a scrap of paper and hands it to Nicole. It disappears inside her pocket.


11/19/96

Finding quality health care a challenge for Latinos

By FELICE J. FREYERJournal-Bulletin Medical Writer

The Guatemalan woman had been to several doctors in Rhode Island, and none could ease the intractable pain in her abdomen. They had tried medications. They had resorted, even, to surgery, removing an ovary.

The pain persisted.

When the woman finally arrived in the office of Dr. Pablo Rodriguez, a gynecologist who is a native of Puerto Rico, he could find nothing physically wrong with her.

So he decided to spend a little more time talking with her, learning about her past. At one point, he asked her directly: Have you ever been sexually abused?

The woman burst into tears. Indeed, she had been raped repeatedly by the Guatemalan military, and again by the men who helped bring her family to America. When Rodriguez told her the emotional trauma of those assaults might be the source of her physical pain, and referred her to a therapist, she began to feel better.

If the woman had been speaking to her doctor through a translator, would she have been able to discuss being raped? What if - as is so often the case - the translator were her 10-year-old son?

The story of the Guatemalan woman illustrates many of the obstacles that Hispanics in Rhode Island face in obtaining good health care. Communication is one - and it's not just a matter of language.

A doctor unfamiliar with Hispanic culture might not know that emotional problems commonly manifest themselves as physical complaints. He or she may be unaware of the severe trauma many immigrants had suffered in their native countries, leading to depression and anxiety. The subtleties of body language, the role of other family members in decision-making, and practices such as the use of herbal treatments can be lost on the Anglo care-giver.

The Latino community in Rhode Island is a vast and diverse amalgam of people who don't see themselves as part of a monolithic "population." They are well-assimilated professionals from Puerto Rico, first-generation Dominicans, and recent immigrants from rural Guatemala, to name a few - an assortment of Spanish-speaking people who often have

as many differences as they have commonalities.

One of those commonalities, however, may be difficulty in obtaining good health care. Many Hispanics, although certainly not all, live in poverty, struggling to survive and hard-pressed to make their way through the complexities of the American medical system. A high percentage of Hispanics have no health insurance, or they have inadequate health insurance. Hispanics are frequent visitors to hospital emergency rooms, often seeking treatment for preventable problems.

The result is a crisis waiting to happen. Most Rhode Island Hispanics are young - the median age is 25 - but as the years go by, chronic diseases that are often symptomless, such as hypertension and diabetes, will take their toll. Undiagnosed, untreated diabetes is a serious problem among Latinos, resulting in costly, devastating - but preventable - afflictions such as kidney failure.

Already, one disease of the young - AIDS and HIV infection - is disproportionately affecting Hispanic Rhode Islanders. Many of the victims are young married women infected by their husbands.

Rodriguez and others believe that many of these difficulties would be eased if there were more Latino care-givers in this state. For example, he remains the state's only Hispanic gynecologist.

Although most health care institutions have translators, Rodriguez says, often they are janitors or secretaries with no medical knowledge. Many patients rely on their young children to translate. Much gets lost in translation. Intimate topics a patient might share with a doctor won't be raised through a translator.

The frustrating thing, Rodriguez says, is that numerous Hispanic health care professionals live in Rhode Island holding menial jobs because language problems prevent them from passing licensing exams.

"Many, if not most, are losing their skills," he said. "They end up assembling G.I. Joes at Hasbro."Legislation proposed in the last General Assembly session would have set up a system whereby foreign-trained professionals could be certified and then work under the supervision of a licensed physician. The bill failed, but a commission was formed to explore the question.

Meanwhile, doctors treating Latino patients have several issues they need to keep in mind, experts say.

Chief among them is the powerful role of the family in an individual's

life. The Hispanic family tends to be closeknit, even meddlesome by Anglo standards. Decisions are often made by the family, not the individual.

Dr. Mark Polisar, medical director of Blackstone Valley Community Health Care, which runs two clinics serving a large Hispanic clientele, says that there is often a "hidden power" at home that might not be present at doctor's appointments.

"The advice I give," he says, "the mother may be perfectly happy with. Mom brings the baby home and grandmother nixes it."

There are other reasons why doctors' advice may go unheeded.

"This population is not going to question authority directly," Rodriguez says. "The person is saying 'yes' in deference and respect, not because they're understanding what you said and not because they're going to do it. The provider needs to be able to understand that and cut through cultural barriers to get to the issue."

Often the cold bureaucracy of the American health care system can itself be a barrier. Latinos tend to put high value on personal relationships, and need time to get to know a person and develop trust.

This can pose problems for those seeking mental health treatment in the era of managed care, says Maria Garrido, a Spanish-speaking clinical psychologist who treats many Latinos. Even if the patient can find a Spanish- speaking professional, to get an appointment he or she often must first navigate a system that English-speaking people find daunting.

Then, once a person finds a Spanish-speaking therapist, managed care poses another obstacle: restrictions on the number of visits. Some managed care plans expect the therapist to provide a detailed treatment plan after three visits; but, says Garrido, "Some Latinos need that many sessions to get to know if they can trust you."

"They need to feel that they can talk to you," Garrido says. "It's our way of doing things to spend time nurturing that. It speaks to a value called 'personalismo' - to identify you as a 'persona confianza.' To sense that, you need time."

"People tend to get attached to individuals, not institutions," says Cynthia Garcia Coll, a Brown University professor of education, psychology and pediatrics who has written on Hispanic health issues. "If there's a personal relationship, people will buy almost anything."

Indeed, once that personal attachment is made, it can be abused. Rodriguez says Hispanic people sometimes become victims of unnecessary surgery by unscrupulous doctors.

"You can do almost any surgery on a Hispanic person of the lower socioeconomic groups," Rodriguez says. "There is an absolute surrender of my body. 'I'm in your hands.' They're not interested in understanding. . . . They just want to get better.' 'Si, doctor' - that's the most popular phrase."

But if a person feels well, he or she often doesn't understand the need for medical care. In the native countries of many immigrants, well-baby visits and cancer screenings are unheard of: you go to the doctor when you're sick. An overburdened, impoverished mother might not see why she should drag her children on two bus rides and then wait several hours in a clinic for a checkup when everyone feels fine.

This lack of understanding, combined with the trials of poverty, makes it hard for care-givers to promote healthful living and preventive medicine.

"We tell people to buy fresh vegetables," Polisar says. "They say, 'Yeah, sure.' But the fact is if they don't have the money, they're not going to be buying it. . . .

"If your major concern in life is food and shelter, then relatively minor symptoms go by the wayside." Until they become major - and the patient ends up in the emergency room.

Interestingly, studies have shown that more recent immigrants, despite extreme poverty and often no prenatal care, tend to have healthier babies than those who have been acculturated. That's because when they become acculturated, they're entering a culture of poverty, with junk food instead of beans, corn and rice, and drug use instead of the guidance of a closeknit family.Then, social problems become medical issues, as stress or depression find expression in physical complaints.

"They're coming from a lot of countries that are politically in turmoil," says Polisar of Blackstone Valley Health Care. "We get a lot of patients with post-traumatic stress disorder because of something that happened to them or that they witnessed.

"Many patients who come here are leaving families behind. They have real separation issues, major, major depression that may not appear as depression. It may manifest itself as stomach pain, joint pain, but

they're sad and lonely."

Even when a mental health issue is recognized as such, it helps to understand the culture when treating it, psychologist Garrido says.

Depression often masquerades as anxiety, because it's commonplace for people in emotional distress to refer to "los nervios" - "my nerves" - and appear very nervous. "It's a culturally sanctioned way of expressing what's going on," she says. "Then when you start exploring things, you start seeing depression." Garrido has patients who were put on anti-anxiety medications for what turned out to be depression.

Garcia Coll, the Brown professor, recalls being struck, on a recent visit to Hasbro Children's Hospital, by how many Hispanic children were occupying the beds. Many would not have been there if they had access to good preventive care, she says. "All of a sudden I feel like we're building a hospital for emergencies that could be prevented," she says.

"This is a right," adds Garcia Coll, "a right to good health care.

"Most of us are not here for the weather. We're here to work, to raise our families. We're not these people coming here to suck up medical resources. This is a growing, growing population, full of potential."


11/20/96

The universal language Music, arts bridge gap between Anglos, Hispanics

By BILL VAN SICLENJournal-Bulletin Arts Writer

On a clear day, Providence's new Westin Hotel offers some of the best views in the city. Yet even with a full-fledged northeaster raging outside, hotel guests can still enjoy sun-dappled views of Benefit Street, the Rhode Island State House and the downtown financial district.

That's because every room in the hotel is equipped with a pair of brightly colored lithographs depicting these and other local landmarks.

But in a reversal of socio-cultural expectations, the Westin's prints weren't made by a native Rhode Islander. Nor were they made by an artist born in any of the other 49 states.

Instead, they're based on a series of paintings by Tony Aristy, a 33- year-old artist from the Dominican Republic.

"At first, they just wanted a few paintings of Providence," says Aristy, who grew up surrounded by swaying palm trees, white-sand beaches and some of the worst poverty in the Western Hemisphere. "Then the people at the hotel decided they liked them so much that they wanted to make prints out of them. They wound up putting them all over the hotel."

Now comfortably settled in the Pawtuxet section of Cranston, Aristy says he has no plans to return permanently to the Dominican Republic. But like many transplanted artists from South and Central America and the Spanish-speaking islands of the Caribbean, he still finds himself grappling with a kind of dual cultural citizenship.

One side is impulsive, emotional and Hispanic. The other is restrained, rational and Anglo. One side is familiar with the artistic traditions of Europe and North America. The other is steeped in the myths and memories of his homeland. One side moves to the brassy rhythms of salsa and merengue. The other listens to everything from blues to Bach to rap.

"What we're seeing is the creation of a new culture," says Julio Ortega, a Peruvian-born poet and novelist who is chairman of the Department of Hispanic Studies at Brown University. "It's not really North American or

Latin American. It's a hybridization of the two."

At the center of this new hybrid culture, according to Ortega, are Latino writers and artists living in the United States. If anyone can bridge the gaps between between north and south, Anglo and Hispanic, they can.

"There are physical borders and there are cultural borders," he says. "In the past, Latin America sent people north for jobs and money, while North America sent its products and culture to the south. Now you have Americans playing soccer, eating Mexican food and dancing to salsa and merengue. On a cultural level at least, the border has opened up tremendously."

Ortega also makes another important point: in contrast to the politically popular view of Spanish-speaking immigrants as mostly poor and uneducated, Latino artists tend to be well educated and highly motivated.

Certainly that's true of Aristy, who began his artistic career at age 12 by painting beach scenes to sell to tourists. Later, he attended the National School of Fine Arts in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic.

In 1984, he moved to the United States to be with his then-girlfriend, a student at the University of Minnesota. In 1986, he moved to Rhode Island.

Since then, Aristy has supported himself, his wife, and their 2-year-old daughter by working as a textile artist for Rothtec, a New Bedford-based manufacturing company. He also makes prints and paintings for private clients, including the Westin Hotel.

A softspoken man with a round face and neatly trimmed mustache, Aristy is proud of the work he did for the Westin. But he's quick to add that it was just a job. Most of his creative energy, he says, goes into his own paintings - paintings in which realistic images of brooms, lanterns and other household objects are animated by his memories of growing up in the Caribbean.

"One of my favorite subjects is the lantern," he says. "Because of the bad political situation in my country, the power stations are always having blackouts. So lanterns are very important to us. They help us see in the dark, but they give us hope that maybe one day things will be better."

Another artist who doesn't seem to have a problem with motivation is

Peggy Sandoval, a Rhode Island College student who founded her own Bolivian dance troupe in 1991. She was 16 at the time.

"Dancing is very important to Bolivians," she says during a break in one of the group's rehearsals at St. Patrick's Church in Providence. "It's a way of expressing pride in their culture. But before we started our company, nobody around here was doing it. Now we have 40 to 50 dancers."

Sandoval's troupe specializes in "caporales," a style of dance that's associated with Bolivia's black population - former slaves who were brought from Africa and the Cape Verde islands by the Spanish.

Composed mainly of children from Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts, the troupe performed last month at the annual Columbus Day parade on Federal Hill. When it did, it brought a traditional Bolivian dance created by African slaves and performed by the children of Latin American immigrants to the heart of Rhode Island's Italian community.

"It was wonderful," says Sandoval. "I'm not sure how many people knew what we were doing, but they seemed to enjoy it."

Sandoval also offers a unique perspective on the Latino experience in Rhode Island.

A petite woman with long black hair and piercing eyes, she was born in Providence but lived in Bolivia for two years. She speaks Spanish at home, but punctuates her English-language conversations with slang terms such as "like" and "awesome." This former cheerleader at Mt. Pleasant High School is proud of her Bolivian heritage.

"Sometimes it's confusing," she says of her cross-cultural background. "Like if you're a cheerleader, there's this idea that you have to have blond hair and blue eyes. But I have this other culture in me. It was a problem, especially in junior high. But now I know that I'm a Latina-American and I'm comfortable with that."

Aristy and Sandoval are just two of the many Latino artists living and working in Rhode Island. But if the new Hispanic-American culture described by Ortega is going to capture the attention of mainstream America, chances are it won't be through art or dance or poetry.

Rather, it will make its presence felt in the way up-and-coming cultures often do: through music. In fact, it already has.

"Latin American music really started to take off in the mid-1980s," says

Tony Mendez, co-owner of Poder 1110, a Spanish-language radio station based in North Providence. "That was when people like Gloria Estefan and John Secada began crossing over into American popular music."

The 1980s also saw the arrival of another popular Hispanic import: merengue.

Pronounced "mar-ENG-ay," it began in the Caribbean, spread to South and Central America and is now one of the most popular forms of dance music in the world. If you haven't heard it, imagine a tango played at breakneck speed and backed by a pounding, disco-style backbeat.

At Poder, which means "power" in Spanish, the deejays play mostly merengue or its slower, smoother cousin, salsa. Also popular is cumbia, a mid- tempo dance music from Colombia.

But to fully understand the many varieties of contemporary Hispanic music, it helps to visit some of Rhode Island's Latino nightclubs - places like La Fragrancia and International in Providence or La Cabana and Club 220 in Pawtucket.

Here you'll find a hip-shaking merengue followed by a lilting ballad by Carlos Bibe, a former Latin American soap opera star who combines traditional Colombian folk music with a loping dance beat. You might even hear the latest craze in Latino-American music, a mixture of merengue and rap called "merengue house."

"The young kids really like it," says Juan Rodriguez, owner of Tropical, one of several Hispanic nightclubs in the Broad Street area of Providence. "It's not as graceful as salsa or merengue, but it has that kind of boom- boom-boom rap beat that the younger guys love to dance to."

While most Caribbean and Latin America immigrants come to the United States looking for better jobs and education, Cuban-born filmmaker Vladimir Ceballos came for a more idealistic reason: freedom of expression.

"I could not show my films in Cuba," he says. "It was forbidden."

Specifically, Ceballos was forbidden to show Maldito Sea tu Nombre Libertad (Cursed Be Your Name Liberty), a documentary about Cuban teenagers who deliberately injected themselves with the AIDS virus. The teenagers, who called themselves "roqueros" or "rockers" after the term for American rock musicians, were protesting government censorship and repression.

"They wanted to die," Ceballos says of the 300 to 400 "roqueros," most of whom have since died of AIDS. "They had all the problems that teenagers usually have, but they also hated the government. All they wanted to do was grow their hair long and listen to American music, rock music. But the government wouldn't let them."

In 1994, Brown University invited Ceballos to Providence to finish his documentary.

"I had made a promise to the roqueros that I would tell their story to the world," says Ceballos. "But it was illegal to work on the film in Cuba. They said it was anti-government, anti-Castro. So I had to come to America."

But Ceballos, who is also writing a novel about the roqueros, paid a high price for his freedom: his passport was revoked by the Cuban government and he was forced to seek asylum in the United States.

"When the Castro government falls, I will go back," he says defiantly. "But until then, I will go on making films and writing. It is all I can do."

A former philosophy major at the University of Havana, Ceballos was the only Latino artist interviewed for this article who wanted to return to his native country.

"Most people who come here from Latin American or the Caribbean think they're going to go back," says Aristy. "But after a few years, they get used to living here. They go back, but they say, 'It's not the same.' "

As for himself, Aristy says he's happy living in the United States, despite the recent backlash against Hispanic immigrants and the rise of English-only movements in California and other states. But he's also tried to spare his daughter any problems with anti-Hispanic bias.

"Her named is Kerslie Veronique Aristy," he says, drawing out each syllable like a man savoring a favorite line of poetry.

"We chose the first name because it sounded Anglo, the middle name because it's French and the last name is Spanish. When she grows up, she can live anywhere she wants. She can be a citizen of the world."


11/22/96

Latinos becoming political force

RELATED STORY: Radio is king in growing Latino media market

By CHRISTOPHER ROWLANDJournal-Bulletin State House Bureau

PROVIDENCE -- At his campaign headquarters in a vacant apartment above the Spanish bodegas of Broad Street, Victor Capellan is cleaning up the refuse of an unsuccessful bid for state representative.

Crumpled posters are strewn across the bare wood floors, marking a path toward a heap of old food, empty cartons and voting lists. Garbage cans are stuffed to overflowing.

You'd think Capellan, 25, a native of the Dominican Republic who learned English in Providence's public schools, would be downcast in the wake of his narrow Democratic primary defeat in September. He lost to incumbent Rep. George A. Castro, D-Providence, by just 11 votes, 297 to 286.

But weeks after the primary, Capellan is still excited, marveling at the powerful forces he tapped in the neighborhoods of lower South Providence and Washington Park.

Capellan had no political experience, and his campaign workers were all members of a Dominican youth group called Quisqueya en Accion, meaning motherland in action, of which Capellan is president. They marched down the streets, these groups of Latino youths, distributing flyers and taping posters in storefront windows.

And they almost pulled off a huge upset.

"It was everybody's first time," says Capellan. "They didn't see us as a voting power in the past."

Capellan's sudden emergence in South Providence was an encouraging development in a year that featured an unusual level of activism by Rhode Island's Hispanics.

Their growing participation sprang in reaction to proposals in Congress to deny benefits to immigrants. They also rallied against the Rhode Island congressional candidacy of former Providence Mayor Joseph Paolino Jr., whose campaign featured a call for English as an official national

language.

Capellan's performance was the strongest among seven Latinos who ran in General Assembly primary races this year. The state's first Hispanic Eagle Scout, Capellan has a master's degree from the University of Rhode Island. He promises to run again.

Two other Hispanics ran in the general elections: Rep. Anastasia Williams, D-Providence, the state's first Hispanic legislator, retained her seat; Republican Daniel Garza lost to Rep. Maria J. Lopes, D-East Providence.

A Puerto Rican candidate for Providence City Council, Luis Aponte, ran strongly against the incumbent and lost by a tiny margin for the second year in a row.

The wave of candidates and media attention they received has encouraged Latino leaders who have dreamed for years of gaining a share of political power.

The City Councils in Providence, Pawtucket and Central Falls are devoid of Latinos. Central Falls, with a public-school student population that is 51 percent Hispanic, does not have a single Hispanic teacher. So anything that resembles progress is being trumpeted by community leaders.

"The clique is no more," declares Mildred Vega, a community activist in Central Falls who ran unsuccessfully for the House District 72 seat against Vicente Caban, another Hispanic, and incumbent Rep. Joseph Faria. Another Latino candidate, Leonel Bonilla, appeared on the ballot in House District 73.

"Times are changing," Vega said, "and in the near future there will be representation."

"The fact that we lost (the primary races) was not that bad," adds Marta Martinez, chairwoman of the Governor's Commission on Hispanic Affairs. "What's important is the fact that we came forward with seven candidates for the first time and made a mark on the political scene."

Says Delia Smidt, who ran for Senate in Coventry: "We might have lost the battle but not the war. Going into the 21st century, we're going to become a very powerful political movement in Rhode Island."

Leaders credited Paolino's controversial position on English and immigration for focusing media attention on Rhode Island's own Latin

Americans. All of a sudden, the rest of the state wanted to know what Latinos were thinking.

"I think it really empowered a lot of people," says Martinez. "I often got the impression that people thought all Hispanics were recent immigrants on welfare and sitting around and not doing much.

"I don't think people realized how strong and educated the Hispanic community was until this year," she says.

In Providence, voting patterns seem to indicate growing participation by Latinos.

The neighorhoods where Capellan and Aponte ran are both within the 2nd Congressional District, where Paolino lost to Lt. Gov. Robert Weygand. In the voting precincts where Capellan and Aponte did well, Paolino did poorly.

But still, these active voters number in the hundreds, not the thousands. As they seek an increased share of political power, Latinos must grapple with the same problems that have held them back for at least two decades.

For instance, while the Hispanic population is growing, the number of people becoming citizens, and thereby winning the right to vote, is not keeping pace.

In Central Falls, Vega says, only about 25 percent of Hispanic residents are citizens of the United States - making it difficult to find someone eligible to vote.

Another obstacle is that many urban Latino families rent their homes. They frequently move in and out of voting districts, making them difficult to track from election to election.

Their transient nature also contributes to a certain lack of attachment, or lack of ownership, in the communities where they live, say Hispanic leaders. Persuading them to vote is not easy, even when they become citizens.

Vega, in Central Falls, said she tracked down 70 new citizens and registered them to vote. But she said it is doubtful many of them turned out to cast a ballot.

"They say, 'What for? What does the mayor do for us? What does the council do for us?' And it's hard to break them out of that," says Vega.

Ethnic differences play a role in city politics, Vega adds, and it is difficult for Latinos to break down those barriers.

In Central Falls, French-Canadians and Portuguese have forged an alliance over the years that controls city government. In Providence, an African- American middle-class, with a longer history in the city, is better established in minority neighborhoods than the Hispanics.

Aponte, the Providence City Council candidate who lost to incumbent John H. Rollins by a mere four votes, describes some of the political problems Latinos face.

"It's difficult to build coalitions when, rightfully so, African- Americans have seen themselves disenfranchised for so many years," says Aponte. "They have some sort of political power, and there's a new group challenging for it."

Finally, Hispanics are sometimes their own worst enemies when it comes to developing a unified movement, Latino leaders say. Immigrants closely identify with their homelands - the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Guatemela, Mexico, Colombia and at least 15 other Latin American countries - making it difficult to agree on a single agenda.

Among the frequent mistakes Hispanic candidates have made over the years, says Aponte, is concentrating on immigrants from their own country, instead of attempting to bridge differences.

"Candidates and campaigns tend to focus on that one community, and ignore the importance of all the other votes," said Aponte. "You can't count on just one community to get elected."


11/22/96

Radio is king in growing Latino media market

Spanish-language radio stations are exploding forces in urban centers; In New York, Miami and Los Angeles, Spanish stations are at or near the top of the charts.

By CHRISTOPHER ROWLANDJournal-Bulletin State House Bureau

NORTH PROVIDENCE -- The booming vibrato of a Spanish radio announcer rolled from a closet- sized studio at radio station WPMZ-AM, mingled with the taped voice of a counselor advising couples on problemas sexuales.

The pulse-thumping promotional spot was for an upcoming program about people with family problems, just one ingredient in a daily medley of salsa, news, politics, talk shows and contests that is broadcast from a shopping plaza on Mineral Spring Avenue.

"Everything's not politics," said Tony Mendez, co-owner and marketing director of WPMZ "Poder" (The Power) 1110, grinning sheepishly and explaining the attraction of hour-long afternoon segments featuring family counselor Elida Araujo.

Mendez, 31, his brother Dilson Mendez, 37, and partner Zoilo Garcia launched the Spanish-language radio station a year ago, tapping Rhode Island's fast-growing Hispanic market and attracting flocks of listeners.

They were quickly followed by another station, Super 1290 WRCP-AM, which changed from Portuguese to Spanish about nine months ago.

Super 1290 is the state's only 24-hour Spanish language station and carries news and call-in advice shows and features a two-hour block of love songs in the afternoon.

"We've got an audience from Massachusetts to Connecticut," boasted Manolo Pazos, station manager for Super 1290 and an immigrant from Spain with 40 years in broadcasting.

Tony Mendez at Poder 1110 estimated his potential audience at more than 30,000 Spanish-speaking people. He pointed to ratings that showed his station tied with talk station WPRO and ahead of WHJJ last spring among

all listeners age 18 to 49.

"The market is big," Mendez said.

And growing, experts say.

National surveys have shown Spanish-language radio stations to be exploding forces in urban centers, attracting both local and national advertisers hungry to tap these huge consumer markets. In New York, Miami and Los Angeles, Spanish stations are at or near the top of the charts.

In addition to Poder 1110 and Super 1290, Rhode Island has WRIB, 1220 on the AM dial, which broadcasts in Spanish in the late afternoon and evening, and other part-time stations.

The state also is home to two competing Spanish newspapers: Presencia, leaning to the left on the political spectrum, and Shoreline en Espanol, tilted to the right. The Journal-Bulletin publishes a page of news in Spanish once a week in its Blackstone Valley and Metro editions.

Latino viewers also can find some Spanish offerings on cable television, such as Video Mundo, a two-hour weekly show that is produced by the Mendez brothers in a studio at their radio station, and Univision, a syndicated Spanish-language network.

But Hispanic leaders say radio is king in the robust Latino media

market.

Marta Martinez, chairwoman of the Governor's Advisory Commission on Hispanic Affairs, said Poder 1110 and Super 1290 provide a vital service to the community, especially because of a high illiteracy rate among Latin American immigrants.

"The media is a very important thing for Hispanics - keeping in touch with your culture, your language," she said. "There are a lot of Hispanics who particularly rely on the radio much more than the newspaper."

The Mendez family came to the United States from the Dominican Republic 20 years ago and has found success with supermarkets and liquor stores in Providence. Tony Mendez graduated from the University of Rhode Island with a communications degree and ran a salsa and merengue program on the college's public radio station, WIRU 90.3.

Tony and Dilson Mendez worked at a New Bedford radio station for six years before they leased the North Providence-based Poder 1110 and started broadcasting on the frequency formerly occupied by a country music station.

Mendez frequently broadcasts information about bills in Congress that would affect immigrants, such as moves to remove legal immigrants from the food stamp and welfare roles. The station urges listeners to call or write Rhode Island's delegation.

To satisfy a hunger for news from Latin American, Poder 1110 offers its listeners reports from its own correspondents in the Dominican Republic and Colombia. With a satellite dish on the roof of the shopping plaza, it also hauls in feeds from Latin American radio networks.

The station has three local news reporters who cover stories of interest to the growing Latino communities in Central Falls, Pawtucket, Providence and West Warwick - areas that are largely ignored by the mainstream media.

The station has broadcast stories about a cable station's move to reduce Spanish programming (a plan that was scrapped after it received heavy attention) and reports about violent crimes among Hispanics. It reports live from Latino festivals around the metropolitan area. It also covered the controversy triggered by congressional candidate Joseph R. Paolino Jr.'s call for English as the official national language.

Paolino visited the station for an hour-long call-in show at the height of the debate and triggered a heavy response.

"We wanted to hear from him as opposed to all the rumors that were around," says Tony Mendez. "We couldn't really keep up with the calls."


11/23/96

Latinos reenergize Catholic churches Music, arts bridge gap between Anglos, Hispanics

By MARIA MIRO JOHNSONJournal-Bulletin Staff Writer

The Catholic Church refers to its liturgy as "the celebration of the Mass," and many Hispanic worshipers take the celebration part seriously.

Great, soulful hosannas and hallelujahs are sung to a Latin beat at 11:30 every Sunday at St. Charles Borromeo Church in Providence - one of 13 Catholic churches in Rhode Island offering Mass in Spanish.

On this particular Sunday, the church, though large, overflows with 1,000 people. Extra folding chairs have to be brought in.

Against the noisy protests of restless children, parishioners pray in loud, clear voices, many with their arms moving slowly in the air.

They applaud the deacon's sermon. They sing "Happy Birthday" to another deacon's mother. During the "sign of peace," even strangers get a long hug.

When, after the last of the multitudes has received Holy Communion and the Mass ends, the Latin band plays a closing hymn - seven verses of it. Many people stay for the whole thing, singing and swaying in the pews and aisles.

"We're going to have to add a second Mass very soon," says the Rev. John Randall, the pastor.

The crowds are a welcome change.

From the late 1870s until the late 1970s, he said, St. Charles was a mostly French-Canadian parish. The stained-glass windows bear the names of French donors - famille J.B. Trottier, for example - and the walls are adorned with French prayers.

As the demographics of the neighborhood changed, the congregation shrank so much that the church nearly closed. To Randall, who arrived in 1978, the course seemed obvious: reach out to the Hispanic population "or die."

Randall learned Spanish. He instituted the Spanish-language Mass. And he

began broadcasting the 10 a.m. Mass on WRIB (1220-AM.) He also brought in two Hispanic men, married deacons, to strengthen the church's connection to the community.

In short, he opened the church to the people, and the people came.

LARGE, JUBILANT MASSES are only one way in which Hispanics express their religiosity.

At Murdoch Webbing in Central Falls, five women - three from Colombia, one from the Dominican Republic and one from Portugal - meet for 40 minutes at lunchtime each Tuesday to pray, read the gospel and reflect on how it applies to their life.

"We are like a family willing to help each other out," says Evelia Castillo, a lay woman trained in ministry who serves the Hispanic community in Central Falls.

Her employers approve of the practice, she says, because it's made the women more willing to pitch in and help one another.

"It's more efficient," says Castillo.

Lucy Santa, the Hispanic pastoral assistant at St. Michael's Church in South Providence, says the future of the Catholic Church lies in small Bible study groups and prayer services such as the one held on a recent Wednesday in St. Michael's basement.

About 30 people - young and old, men and women - gathered around a candle as an exuberant, auburn-haired woman with a microphone led prayers and songs, some of them loud and lively, others nearly whispered.

During the service, an altar was carried into the circle. Communion wafers, already consecrated by a priest, were distributed. Then the people broke into groups of five or six to read the coming week's gospel. They discussed how it relates to their lives, then assembled once more to share their thoughts.

The last prayer of the night was for a stranger - Fermin Santana, who was here from the Dominican Republic for a bone marrow transplant.

The people encircled the seated man, raising their arms over him.

Then Lucy Santa anointed his head with oil and places her hand on his forehead as the chanting began, a deep droning of gloria and gracias and

si, Senor repeated again and again, until it reached a loud crescendo.

"Jesus brought me here," says Santana, through a translator, as people head for home, "because I have him as my doctor. He is the only one that can resolve my medical condition. I feel an enormous joy of Jesus inside me. Joy. Much joy in my heart. Overwhelming joy."

PROTESTANT FAITHS, too, are deepened by the Hispanic influence.

Interviewed at a Central Falls restaurant as he breakfasted on yucca and coffee, the Rev. Michael DeVine, pastor of St. George's Church in Central Falls, talked about the Hispanic impact on his own religion, Episcopalianism.

Of the 200 Hispanic families in Rhode Island who are Episcopalian, he says, 180 of them attend St. George's, the only Episcopal church in the state to offer services in Spanish. That represents more than half of the congregation's 260 families.

Episcopalianism, having been born in England, is a religion whose guiding principal, he says, can be summed up by the phrase, "decent and in order."

In other words, he said, God is experienced in a very logical, rational way, usually through reading. "Everything," he said, "is very much contained."

The spirituality of Latin America, by contrast, is more passionate, he says.

And what happens when reason meets passion?

At St. George's Church, says DeVine, passion wins the day. The church tries to satisfy the people's longing for certain Catholic practices that may seem exotic by Episcopal standards.

The Episcopal church, for example, does not require people to confess their sins to a priest before receiving Communion, but some Hispanics want to, so St. George's hears them on request.

In keeping with another Catholic custom, the church will arrange novenas - nine days of prayer - to be said for those who have died.

Finally, for people who believe lighting a candle enhances their prayers, there is now a small table of votive candles near the front of the church.

"We inaugurated it for the Spanish Masses," he says, "but now everybody uses them."

RELIGION SERVES as an anchor for immigrants struggling to adjust to life

in the United States, Hispanics say.

Here, economic hardships and a changing culture can often strain families. Couples work extra shifts to get ahead; husbands feel threatened by the new independence displayed by their working wives; children come home from school with attitudes their parents consider disrespectful, says the Rev. Raymond Tetrault, pastor of St. Teresa's, a Roman Catholic Church in the Olneyville section of Providence.

Those families who are doing well risk falling victim to materialism, says Evelia Castillo.

"We are a culture that is very much aware of the needs of our community. We grew up on a country where we care more for people than things," she says. "We come here and we are looking more at things than people. Sometimes, even, people work two shifts, looking for money to get things.

"People think more of their careers. They have things, and they lose the sense of family."

Lucy Santa, who ran the prayer service at St. Michael's, has avoided that trap. In fact, she says her own spirituality has deepened since she came to the United States and that she considers the people of South Providence to be her true family.

Though, back home in Puerto Rico, she did everything that her Catholic faith required, she says she wasn't challenged to seek Jesus within herself.

"Here, we express our faith together, we sing together, it's beautiful. And that's why you find more Jesus inside, because you're with your brother and sister more closer."

In South Providence, she says, Hispanic people hail from so many different countries, with so many different religious practices, that each culture is enthusiastic about learning from the others.

This makes practicing their religion more exciting, she says, and also

more connected to the practical concerns of daily life.

What religion comes down to, she says, is helping one another.

"I can't say I know Jesus if I don't know you," she says. "If I don't love the people, I can't say I love Jesus.

"I think we find Jesus in the United States. I think, deeper inside, we find Jesus over here."


1/30/97

Latinos carving niche in business

The Central Falls commercial community is changing

By TATIANA PINAJournal-Bulletin Staff Writer

CENTRAL FALLS -- In a sunlit shop at 905 Broad St., Nelly Gavidia and her sister Emilce Leon mark the season by the garments they sew.

In the spring they make lace and ruffled dresses for high school girls to wear to proms. In the summer and fall they pass the time making spiffy party dresses for women who like to make an entrance.

All year round they are called up to make quinceanera dresses, the traditional coming-of-age celebration for a Hispanic girl when she turns 15.

But winter is mostly a cruel season. There usually isn't much to do. They pass the months of pale sunlight mostly mending clothes, hemming pants and doing alterations.

Gavidia, a biology teacher from Venezuela, started working as a seamstress two days after arriving in Central Falls six years ago. After three months, she opened her own business, Nelly's Dress Shop. Her sister, also a teacher, joined her two years later.

During her six years in business on Broad Street, Gavidia has seen Latino merchants change the face of Broad and Dexter Streets. Latinos have opened grocery stores, boutiques, travel agencies, beauty salons,

bakeries and health stores.

Ten years ago, there were very few Latino-owned stores, but today 40 percent of the people applying for a license to operate a business in the city are Latino, says Elizabeth Crowley, the acting city clerk.

"They are having a big impact on the city," Crowley says. "They are changing the face of the city. They are coming into their own."

Crowley estimates that three or four people go before the Board of License Commissioners each month to obtain business licenses. Of those, three- quarters are immigrants, the majority of them Hispanic, she says.

The City Council serves as the Board of License Commissioners. Latinos who cannot speak English appear before the board with interpreters to answer questions about the businesses they are proposing, Crowley says. Sometimes it is hard to make understood what the laws require for businesses and what the owner must do, she says.

She points to the Latino businesses recently opened: International Restaurant last year; El Sombrero, 1994; Felix Market, 1995, and Rimak Poultry, 1994. Some of the owners of established restaurants, such as Javier Restrepo of La Fonda Antioquena, a Colombian restaurant, have opened new businesses, including La Nueva Antioquia Market on Washington Street.

"Imagine the strength they will have if they stop thinking 'I'm Colombian' . . . 'I'm Guatemalan,' " Crowley says. "When all the groups unite, they will be a powerful force. This city will truly change."

In 1977, for instance, 50 percent of the business owners were French Canadians, 15 percent were Polish and the rest were Syrian, Portuguese and other nationalities, she says.

In that year, there is no record of Latinos with a license to own a restaurant that serves liquor. Today, there are 27 such licenses in the city, and 5 of them are held by Latinos.

Twenty years ago, there were mom-and-pop stores on every corner in the city, Crowley says. "Now the Hispanics are the merchants in the city," she says.

Luz Meza, a Colombian, and Elfego Rojas, a Mexican, met three years ago while studying English at Progreso Latino. In 1994, they opened El Sombrero Restaurant, which serves Mexican food. They say they opened a business in Central Falls because the rent was lower than at sites in

Providence.

They said they were warned against opening at the Dexter Street location because it was a "bad area with a lot of vandalism."

"To date, we have not seen it," Meza said.

Dexter Street exudes the Latino influence. It's in the music that wafts down the street . . . signs that advertise sales in Spanish . . . the smell of food that escapes from a doorway.

Meza and Rojas share Dexter Street with jewelry stores, Colombian restaurants, grocery stores owned by Dominicans and Syrians, beauty salons, and offices that send money to Latin American countries.

Rojas, who learned to cook from his parents, prepares all the meals while Meza serves the customers. They also get help from two other women.

Rojas and Meza work from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. On their one day off, Tuesday, they end up buying food for the restaurant.

They depend more on their North American customers because those are the people who frequent the restaurant more. While Latinos tend to come out more on the weekends, Meza says, North Americans eat out at any time. But it was the steady business of the Latin Americans that helped the business when it started, they say.

The two dream of getting a college education. Meza attends the Community College of Rhode Island to study English so she can take other college courses, and Rojas would like to continue his education in architecture, which he had started in Mexico.

"Although education is expensive here, it is very valauble," Rojas says. "If a person really wants to, they can attain it."

Mario Moncada helps his brother-in-law, Octavio Munoz, with his new cafe, La Sorpresa, which opened in December on Broad Street, next to Cumberland Farms. La Sorpresa is near City Hall and other offices, and Moncada says people have been coming in the morning to buy pastries.

"We noticed this place unoccupied, and we knew there was a need for a bakery in this area," he says.

Out of their sparkling cafe, they sell fruit pastries, bread pudding, flan and Colombian specialties. They also sell beer from all over Latin

America.

Mayor Lee Matthews says that historically the city has welcomed people from all countries. "Latino business owners, like the other immigrants, help the city," he says.

Matthews says the Police Department, through its Community Policing Unit, plans to put officers on a walking beat on Broad and Dexter Streets to assure that the area remains secure.


Documents

Coming Into Their Own Latinos in RI