Latino doctors or lawyers, so you really had to develop this matrix of people who could provide these services.” The interdependence within the community grew out of necessity, Cruz says. He says his family was fortunate because his father learned to speak English. “My father had this knack, he was actually very proficient in English,” Cruz says. “So people like business owners and farmers would ask him to help with translation.” The Spanish language is something Latinos have in common regardless of where they are from, Cruz says: language acts as a unique bond. “It’s important to remember that ‘Latino’ is a very broad brush,” he says. “We come from many places and we’re not the same. But one of the things that really helps our communities — whether it’s Puerto Rican, Dominican, Cuban, or one of the Latin American countries — is that we’re all bound by the same language. So you could go to any one particular house, it doesn’t matter where we’ve come from, and we’re able to communicate with each other almost 100 percent of the time.”
“It’s important to remember that ‘Latino’ is a very broad brush.” - Jose Cruz
Rochester City Council member and businesswoman Jacklyn Ortiz was born in
the continental US, but her mother was born in Puerto Rico, and her grandmother was Mexican. She says that the Latino community in Rochester has had several periods of growth, and that the community today is definitely in transition. “At this moment, we’re on the rise again,” Ortiz says. “And it’s not just from a population standpoint; it’s happening from a cultural awareness standpoint, too.” Ortiz says the wider public is much more familiar with Latino foods, customs, music, and artists than it used to be. Rochester school board member Melisza Campos says her mother was the only member of her family who graduated from college. But more first- and second- generation Latinos are earning college degrees, running businesses successfully, and assuming positions of higher responsibility today. “I think our community is progressing economically and politically,” Campos says. Many Latinos organized support for former Mayor Duffy’s election, she says, and the community can become a game-changer when it’s engaged. “I think we have to harness this opportunity we have and make it even more powerful,” she says. “And we can do that by raising our voices where there is an issue.” One extremely sensitive local and national issue for many Latinos is immigration. Immigration reform became a highly contentious political issue during the 2012 presidential election, with Democrats supporting a path to citizenship for the approximately 12
Opposite page: The Reverend Laurence Tracy. Above, from left: Jackie Ortiz, Melisza Campos, and Jose Cruz. PHOTOS BY MARK CHAMBERLIN
million noncitizens living in the US. The majority are believed to be Latinos, many living here discretely for decades. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said during the campaign that people who are here illegally should voluntarily deport themselves. Romney later conceded that the comment probably alienated many Latino voters. “I think honestly it’s horrendous,” Ortiz says. “How many people in this country can say that they or their families, or however you want to describe it, were here from the beginning? Rarely can anyone say that.” Ortiz and many Latinos say it’s a matter of fairness. Ortiz says she has trouble understanding why millions of Europeans were allowed to come to the US years ago, and when Mexicans and other Latinos come here for the same reasons — searching for a better life — they’re treated differently. “What is the difference?” she asks. “Who are politicians to say, ‘Sorry, the doors are now closed. I got mine. My family is here.’ I don’t care how long you’ve been here and how many generations [of your family] are here, you have no right to say that it was OK for my descendants and family to come here, but yours can’t.”
Former Monroe County Legislator Saul Maneiro, whose family came to Rochester from Puerto Rico by way of Brooklyn, likes to say he’s a “New Yorican.” And he says he’s especially proud that a lot of Puerto Ricans are at the forefront of immigration reform efforts. Maneiro says he’s concerned that earlier groups of people who came to the US seem to have forgotten what that experience was like. “They were once in that position where people distrusted them and there was fear and xenophobia,” he says. “You know there was a certain point when pizza and bagels went from being ethnic cuisine to being on every other corner.” Equally concerning to many Rochester Latinos
is the community’s ongoing struggle against poverty. While it’s true that many Latinos have achieved success in almost every area of the private sector, politics, and academia, some city officials say the Latino community is the Rochester area’s poorest. In a 1989 report, 37 percent of Monroe County’s Latino community lived at or below the poverty line, compared to 32 percent of the AfricanAmerican community, and 7 percent of whites. And according to a 2011 US Census American Community Survey, the situation is still grim. The median family income for
Latinos living in Rochester at that time was about $27,000. More than 1,300 Latinos under age 18 had no health insurance. And more than 5,000 between ages 18 and 64 were not covered. Poverty seems to create more poverty, Maneiro says. And ironically, it’s expensive to be poor, he says. “The cost of things tends to multiply when you’re poor,” he says. “If a person has bad credit, everything becomes more expensive to them. When you have a person with bad credit coupled with low income, their resources are extremely strained.” A major contributing factor to the Latino community’s challenges with poverty, says school board member Campos, is lack of education. When immediate family members have a college education, it changes the trajectory for the next generation, she says. Campos recalls a conversation she had with a group of young Latinas in a city school fifth grade. “I asked them what their goals were,” she says. “They all had the same goals as you would expect from girls that age: going to college, having a great career, getting married, and having a family. When I asked what gets in their way, one young Latina stood up and said, ‘I can’t even do my homework because I’m too busy watching my brother and sister.’” The mother worked nights, so the young girl had to do the cooking, cleaning, and laundry. The young girl is resilient, Campos says, but the distraction from her homework and the lack of educational support at home for all three children put them at risk for a life of poverty. And many parents take their children out of school to return to Puerto Rico to visit family for a week or more, Campos says, not realizing how far it can put their children behind academically. While the graduation rate for students in city schools hovers around 50 percent, it’s even lower for African American and Latino males. A major problem waiting for these students is continues on page 8 rochestercitynewspaper.com
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