Dixie’s Hidden Minority : Anti-Latino Biases Rise in Old South

In the four years since he moved to this rural northwest Georgia town, Tony Cervantes has been harassed by his neighbors, threatened at gunpoint and terrorized by a cross-burning in his front yard.

Once, when he and his wife, Angela, stopped at a Main Street convenience store for a simple purchase, they were accosted by two men who snarled at them: “On this side of town, we kill niggers and Mexicans. Mexicans are niggers that don’t talk plain.”

Cervantes, a 43-year-old Mexican-American from Montana, is one of the growing numbers of Latinos who have been flocking to the “New South” in recent years in search of work and a better life.

But, as his experience illustrates, they often find their dreams marred by some deeply rooted “Old South” ethnic attitudes. Like blacks in the South, the Latino newcomers--sometimes called Dixie’s “hidden minority” because of their still slight representation in the total population--face a constant struggle against prejudice and discrimination.

Feelings Take Subtle Forms

Much of the anti-Latino feeling is subtle. It most often takes the form of Anglo Southerners shunning Latino neighbors because they “look different” and “talk funny” or landlords refusing to rent to Latino tenants because they “don’t take care of other people’s property” or employers denying jobs or promotions to Latino workers because they’re “just not qualified.”

To many Latinos, there also is a not-so-subtle message in the rash of “English-only” laws approved in recent years by states in the “Old Plantation” South--a region extending from Louisiana and Arkansas, across Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia and up through Tennessee, the Carolinas and Virginia.

At other times, though, the bigotry is patently blatant and--especially in communities where Anglos feel economically threatened by Latino laborers--can result in incidents of harassment, intimidation and violence.

‘Could Even Get Uglier’

“What we are seeing is a new part of the underbelly of the South’s race relations,” said Steve Suitts, executive director of an Atlanta-based regional research foundation, the Southern Regional Council. “And there are probably a lot more warts than people can imagine. What’s more, if our economy ever begins to sour regionwide, it could get even uglier.”

Before the Sun Belt’s economic boom, there were very few Latinos in the “Old Plantation” South, except in such coastal cities as New Orleans and Savannah. With the region’s growing prosperity, however, Latinos have been attracted in ever increasing numbers from the Southwest and Northeast--the traditional strongholds of the nation’s Latino population--as well as from Florida and the Spanish-speaking countries of the Caribbean and Central and South America.

In Arkansas, for example, the Latino population has climbed from 18,000 in 1980 to between 25,000 to 30,000 currently, with the largest concentration in the Little Rock metropolitan area.

Latino Population Doubles

In Georgia, the increase has been even more dramatic. The Latino population has more than doubled from 61,000 in 1980 to around 130,000, with more than half that number in the Atlanta metropolitan area.

Overall, Latinos are still a minuscule fraction of the region’s total population--less than 2%. That compares with about 20% in each of the states of California and Texas and with around 9% in Florida.

Nevertheless, they have not been spared from the sting of bigotry and discrimination in the “Old Plantation” South.

Cedartown: Dramatic Example

Cedartown, a predominantly white and extremely conservative community of 8,600 about 60 miles northwest of Atlanta near the Alabama border, provides one of the most dramatic examples.

Latinos were drawn here in the early 1980s by job openings at a local meatpacking plant that aggressively sought cheap, unskilled labor, which the Latinos were willing and eager to supply.

In rural Mexico, where most of Cedartown’s Latino newcomers were from, the average wage is $3.50 a day.

“You could make more money here in one day than you could in a month in Mexico,” said Juan Chavez, a former employee at the plant who was among the first Latinos to come to Cedartown.

But the sudden influx of the Latino workers--about 300 in all--alarmed many residents of this community, particularly coming as it did around the time that a local textile mill had shut down operations. The mill closing left 600 workers without jobs and created a “ripple effect” that put several Main Street stores out of business and sent the unemployment rate soaring.

‘Belong South of Border’

“I don’t have no use for the Mexicans at all,” one white Cedartown resident complained, expressing a widespread sentiment. “They belong south of the border. Our country is being used as a garbage dump for the rest of the world.”

Into this tension-ridden situation stepped the Ku Klux Klan, which launched a “reign of terror” that seized this community for almost two years.

Signs went up outside a trailer park housing most of the Latino workers: “Mexican Border Stops Here.” Latino cars were rammed from behind by klansmen in pickup trucks. A Mexican walking to Mass early one Sunday morning was threatened with death unless he stayed off the streets. He never returned for church services.

The trailers and homes of Latino workers were shot into at night. In separate incidents, two Mexicans were killed in confrontations with Cedartown whites. The accused murderers were both acquitted by juries on grounds of self defense.

Blacks Join With Klan

And, in one of the grimmest episodes, several black workers joined with robed klansmen and white workers in a picket outside the meatpacking plant that was part of the klan’s unsuccessful efforts to form a union and drive out Latino workers. “Deport the wetbacks,” read many picket signs.

“Those dudes up there in sheets?” one black demonstrator said when asked what he thought about standing with klan members. “It don’t matter to me. He’s OK with me if he can help us get in the union.”

Anti-klan activists and local community and religious leaders rallied and mounted a campaign that was successful in countering the klan and ending the “reign of terror.” But Cedartown still seethes with ethnic tensions.

According to a report by the Atlanta-based Center for Democratic Renewal, formerly known as the National Anti-Klan Network, there were at least 25 incidents of anti-Latino harassment, intimidation or violence in the town last year.

Among the incidents were the threats made to Tony and Angela Cervantes at the Big H convenience store on Main Street. The Cervantes are a particular target of anti-Latino hatred because she is a local white woman who married Cervantes not long after he arrived in Cedartown.

“Most of the incidents in this town are because some white feels the Mexicans are either taking his job or taking his women,” said Pat Kelly, a field representative for the Center for Democratic Renewal who lives in nearby Tallapoosa.

Would Prefer Oregon

Says Cervantes: “If I had some money, I’d get out of here and go somewhere else--like Oregon.”

The rapidly urbanizing counties just northeast of Atlanta form another hotbed of anti-Latino feeling. In the DeKalb County community of Doraville, for example, a Mexican patron at a bar was handed a Ku Klux Klan card by another customer and was told that he was not wanted there. “I left, and I won’t go back,” the Mexican said. He added that he and his roommates often stay at home at nights because they fear going out.

In Gainesville, in neighboring Hall County, the owner of a poultry-processing plant that employs many of the community’s growing number of Latino residents was publicly denounced by a county klan leader after he was quoted in a local newspaper as praising the strong work ethic of his Latino workers, who are mostly Mexican.

‘Excellent Workers’

“Our experience with them is they’re excellent workers,” the plant owner told the newspaper. “Their attendance records are good, and we have not had any discipline problems with them.”

Latino residents of Gainesville also recount numerous incidents of being followed by patrolmen and stopped for minor traffic violations. Last March, a Mexican immigrant’s arm was broken in a scuffle with police officers who claim that he was resisting arrest for driving under the influence of alcohol.

“Many Hispanics are afraid to go out because they think they might be arrested and sent back to Mexico,” Susan Colussy, an attorney with Catholic Social Services in Atlanta, said in a recent interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It seems as if the local police have been overzealous in stopping Hispanics.”

Gainesville is about 20 miles northeast of virtually all-white Forsyth County, where thousands of civil rights demonstrators converged in January for a march protesting a klan-led attack on a smaller march held there the week before to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Gainesville Police Chief Jerry Forester attributes his department’s poor image among Latinos to the language barrier between officers who know no Spanish and Latinos who speak little or no English.

In an effort to remedy the problem, two patrolmen, a detective and a jailer recently have completed Spanish language courses, and the captain of detectives is scheduled to begin one later this summer.

Mexican-American Priest

The Roman Catholic archdiocese of Atlanta also is assigning a Mexican-American priest to St. Michael’s Church in Gainesville to help ease tensions by assisting Latino parishioners in their adjustment to the new environment and the new culture.

“One of the biggest problems is that we have a lot of single young men, living apart from their families,” said Sister Barbara Harrington, director of the archdiocese’s Latino social services arm. “Sometimes they do get into bad habits, and that leads to feelings and attitudes of prejudice on the part of the rest of the community.”

The Catholic church has been in the forefront of the fight against anti-Latino discrimination in the South.

Archbishop Issues Policy

In New Orleans, for example, Archbishop Philip Hannan signed last month a 93-page policy document for the city’s Catholics stressing the elimination of discrimination against Latinos, as well as against blacks and Asians.

The document, the product of a seven-year-long archdiocesan synod, said in part: “Although no evidence of racism or discrimination--whether economic, social or cultural--is to be found in the church’s official stand, the attention of the clergy and the faithful alike is called to the fact that the manifestation of prejudice and indifference has by no means died out.”

Father Ted Keating of St. Julian Eymard’s parish said: “We have Hispanics, Vietnamese and poor whites competing for jobs, especially here on the west bank of New Orleans, where the oil boom has busted. There’s mutual suspicion and mutual hostility.

“The Americans, for example, don’t understand why the Hispanics keep on speaking Spanish and the Hispanics don’t understand why the Americans don’t accept their speaking Spanish,” he added. “But in a conservative culture like the South, there isn’t all that much hospitality to cultural change. And that never becomes more exacerbated than when there’s competition for jobs.”

In Greenville, S.C., which has seen an influx in recent years of hundreds of Latinos seeking jobs in the area’s textile mills, St. Mary’s Catholic Church set up the Jesuit Free Employment Agency to help Latinos get jobs, find homes, buy clothing and furniture and fit into the larger society.

English Classes Set Up

The agency also established English classes for the Latino newcomers, who are mostly Colombian.

“Language is the biggest problem the Hispanic people have here,” said Rudy Davalos, a Bolivian-born pastoral assistant at the agency who teaches the English courses. “The people of Greenville sometimes become impatient when people cannot speak their language, and they need to understand that some people cannot immediately speak their language.”

South Carolina is among six states in the nine-state “Old Plantation” South region that recently have passed laws making English the state’s official language. The others are Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina and Virginia.

But Davalos’ experience with his agency’s English program reveals the difficulties many Latino immigrants face in overcoming the language barrier. When the program started off he had 35 students. That number has since dwindled to seven.

“What happened is that as soon as someone found a job, they’d stop coming to English classes because of the long shifts and hard work in the mills,” Davalos said. “Now, they’re trapped because they’re not going to get promoted or get a better job unless they improve their English, but they can’t improve their English because they don’t have the time to come to classes.”

Many Latinos Prosper

Despite the barriers to their acceptance, many Latinos in the South have managed nevertheless to prosper and to find the better life they sought--especially in the larger cities. Atlanta, for example boasts more than 300 Latino physicians and thousands of Latino businessmen, ranging from restaurant owners and travel agents to the chairman of Coca-Cola Co., Cuban-born Roberto C. Goizueta.

They are by no means immune from bigotry, though. A millionaire Puerto Rican tells of moving into a wealthy Atlanta community and being given the silent treatment until his neighbors learned that he and his family were not illegal aliens.

However, as Carola C. Reuben, publisher of Atlanta-based monthly Mundo Hispanico, says: “If you’re educated and speak English well, the South’s a good place to be in spite of the Ku Klux Klan and the free-lance racists. If you’re not, you’re screwed. But even sweeping up meat guts in Cedartown and not feeling very welcome is better than starving to death without a job in Mexico.”