|
Concerns shift with population Cities work to adapt to Hispanics' growth 04/29/2001 By Carolyn Barta / The Dallas Morning News Dallas and Houston are cities in transition in a state in transition.
|
Language trends provide an indication of changing demographics in urban areas that are attracting new immigrant populations.
Here are signs of transition in Dallas – in communication and other areas – as agencies and businesses strive to serve a larger Hispanic population.
• English is not the first language for 55,000 students in Dallas public schools, or one-third of the enrollment.
• The Dallas County Community College District offered 1,452 ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) classes last fall.
• The number of Hispanic credit students in the community college district increased 80 percent in the last decade while the total credit enrollment dropped 6 percent.
• Parkland Memorial Hospital employs 64 people as translators in different languages and uses telephone devices for outside translator services. Spanish is the foreign language most used, followed by Vietnamese, Arabic and Korean.
• Berlitz, a language-teaching service, reports that Dallas is one of seven cities in the country where more than 45 percent of all enrollments are English-speaking people learning Spanish for business and an increasingly bilingual society.
• A $7.7 million Latino Cultural Center will open in Dallas in 2002 to showcase Latino arts, artists and culture.
• One Dallas Spanish-language radio station, Estereo Latino KLNO-FM (94.1), is in the top 10 most listened-to stations, and seven of 10 Hispanics turn to Spanish-language TV for news and entertainment. – Carolyn Barta
|
By 2005, demographers predict, whites will be the minority in Texas. And the cities of Dallas and Houston are ahead of that curve, the latest census figures confirmed.
The 2000 census shows that, for the first time, Hispanics are the largest ethnic group in the state's two largest cities, bringing potentially far-reaching political and public policy challenges.
Power-sharing, education and health care lead the list of concerns. However, changes won't come overnight, and not without tension, community leaders say.
Mayor Ron Kirk says of the future, "We can be a city that is distinctly Dallas, with a little soul and a little salsa."
But residents should buckle up for the ride.
"The politics in a tri-ethnic community are going to be a little more fluid and challenging than in a bi-ethnic community," said Mr. Kirk, Dallas' first black mayor.
Steve Murdock, chief demographer at the Texas State Data Center at Texas A&M University, which is compiling census data for the state for congressional and legislative redistricting, expected Hispanic growth but not the dramatic urban change.
Dallas is now 36 percent Hispanic, 35 percent white and 26 percent black. Houston is 37 percent Hispanic, 31 percent white and 25 percent black. In nine of 27 major Texas cities, the whites' share of the population declined over 10 years. Of the five largest cities, whites are the majority only in Austin.
Texas State Data Center officials say the 2000 census is not directly comparable to the race-ethnicity data from 1990 because, for the first time, respondents could check more than one racial category. There may be slightly different numbers, Dr. Murdock said, "depending on where you decide certain combinations should go."
But the numbers clearly indicate that "there is a continuing diversification to multiracial, multi-ethnic cities where no one group is a majority, but where the largest single group is Hispanic," Dr. Murdock said.
The new demographics create opportunities for the cities because they reflect the international economy. But the challenge, he said, is to make sure those residents with limited socio-economic resources "get access to the kinds of skills and schools they need to be competitive."
Representation
Hispanic leaders say the numbers demand more political representation.
As Rep. Domingo Garcia, D-Dallas, puts it: "Mañana is today."
But experts caution that numbers don't reflect voting strength.
Hispanics have a larger under-18 population than blacks and whites, and their numbers include noncitizens. Also, Hispanic voter registration and turnout is lower.
In 2000, Hispanics made up about 16 percent of the state's electorate, the same as blacks, who are fewer in number.
Citizenship data from the census won't be available until next year. But Nestor Rodriguez, a sociologist at the University of Houston, doesn't see an immediate transfer of power.
"It will take a generation growing up here," he said, largely because only a minority of Hispanic immigrants who can become U.S. citizens do become citizens.
Maria Hernandez's journey shows what a long haul it often is for a Mexican immigrant to become a voter.
Ms. Hernandez came to Dallas 20 years ago, worked as a housekeeper, married in 1985 and now has two sons in Dallas public schools. She has taken English classes at St. James Catholic Church in Oak Cliff and is working on her high school equivalency diploma.
Last year, she finally became a citizen and cast her first vote in the presidential race. "I wanted to get citizenship because I want to vote," she said. Her husband still is not a citizen.
Political power for Hispanics also will require districts drawn that are more favorable to the election of Hispanics.
Currently, the nine-member Dallas school board has one Hispanic member, although Hispanics are 54 percent of enrollment. The 15-member Dallas City Council has two Hispanics. Two of 16 state representatives in Dallas County are Hispanic.
In Houston, Hispanics also are represented below their share of the population.
At the Dallas County and Harris County courthouses, Hispanics can count their elected officials on one hand in each, though Dallas County is 30 percent Hispanic and Harris County 33 percent.
Some black political leaders, meanwhile, fear Hispanic gains will come at the expense of the representation they have sought for more than three decades.
Richard Murray, a University of Houston political scientist, said the census has created anxiety among the mostly white, mostly Republican judiciary and countywide elected officials.
"After about 2006, unless you're getting a lot of minority votes, it will be hard to win," he said. "Democrats will come back up, unless Republicans figure out how to attract Hispanics," he said.
Because no one voting bloc will be large enough to elect a mayor or county judge, coalition politics will prevail.
"You need to develop a culture that emphasizes working across racial and ethnic lines, as opposed to leaders trying to achieve narrower objectives by polarizing people," he said.
Education issues
Meanwhile, some leaders say political clout should take a back seat to what they see as the most important social issue: educating children to succeed in an altered society.
"There's so much concern for redistricting and making sure opportunities are created. But the significant public policy issue is education," said Ed Rincon, a Dallas market researcher who specializes in the Hispanic market.
Mr. Rincon warns of future job market problems as a result of the high Hispanic failure rate on the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills test. Almost 36 percent of Hispanics in Dallas public schools fail the exit-level TAAS and don't graduate, according to the Texas Education Agency.
School Superintendent Mike Moses has voiced concern about the language barrier that deters many students. He wants to beef up the bilingual program with English-intensive language institutes at the seventh- and ninth-grade levels.
"With 55,000 LEP [limited English proficiency] students, if we're going to make a difference in Dallas in the next five years, that's the big issue," he said.
However, the district has enormous difficulties filling bilingual positions, even with recruiting outside of the country. It currently has 57 bilingual vacancies, but school officials said the district could use 800 more bilingual teachers – if it could find and afford them.
Hospital's challenge
Like the school system, hospitals face a huge problem finding bilingual and bicultural physicians and nurses.
A growing immigrant community and the high Hispanic fertility rate also add to the financial squeeze on Parkland, the county's public hospital.
Parkland cares for a disproportionate share of the uninsured. Among Hispanics, 55 percent are uninsured, compared with 29 percent in the total Dallas County population, according to Dr. Ron Anderson, Parkland's president and chief executive officer.
Three of every four babies born at Parkland are Hispanic, and much of the pre-natal care for expectant mothers is provided at the hospital's community-based clinics.
Dr. Anderson said more clinics in different areas of the city and county are needed to ease the burden on the hospital for preventative medicine, public health and primary care.
Last year, Parkland received its largest tax increase ever, almost 30 percent, but a gap remains between the cost of charity care and tax revenue. County officials have appealed to state and federal lawmakers to soften the blow to public hospitals from ballooning health care costs.
Citing the need for bilingual staff, Dr. Anderson said, "It's a challenge every day. I can't overemphasize how important it is. It's going to be an intergenerational challenge."
Seeking opportunities
As for the economic implications, the Hispanic population is increasingly being looked on as a market rather than just a source of workers who have kept a number of area industries healthy – from home construction to hotel and food service and landscaping.
At the same time, some immigrants are educated but under-employed because they don't speak English and are unable to pass state certification tests, said Fela Alfaro, dean of students at El Centro College and a longtime community volunteer.
"Many people living here have degrees from their country of origin – teachers, engineers, architects, doctors, nurses, social workers," she said. "We need to work with them to become English-proficient and credentialed in their fields."
Dr. Rodriguez of the University of Houston doesn't expect massive society upheaval because of the new population.
"It will just be a continuation of what's happened in the past. Immigrants come, they learn English. We don't see this bifurcation of society. They just want to cash in on the opportunities that are here. They don't come to change it but to prosper from it."
Still, cities like Dallas and Houston might draw a lesson from San Diego, where the City Council recently banned the word "minority" from city documents and discussions.
Because of new census figures, the council said, "minority" no longer applies to groups it used to describe. |
