Discrimination, Hostility a Staple
of Life for Hispanics in South
Key Finding: 68% of Respondents Say They
Suffer Racism In Their Daily Life
MONTGOMERY, Alabama (The Southern
Poverty Law Center) April 23, 2009 ―
Discrimination is a humiliating part of
everyday life for many Hispanics in the
South.
Life for Hispanics — regardless of
immigration status — is an experience
where the most mundane chore becomes a
burden and where you must constantly
prove yourself innocent of violating
immigration law. It's an experience
where renting an apartment or renewing a
license can become a never-ending task
of providing identification — a task
people of other races and ethnicities
rarely face.
Then there's the hostility aimed at
anyone who appears Hispanic — hostility
ranging from disapproving looks to
physical attacks. This experience is
reflected in the SPLC survey findings.
Sixty-eight percent of the Hispanics
surveyed reported encountering what they
perceived as racism — from "looks" to
"physical abuse" — on a regular basis.
Two-thirds reported they have been
made to feel unwelcome by others in the
community.
Sometimes this hostility can turn into
violence. FBI statistics show,
nationwide, hate crimes against
Hispanics increased 40 percent from 2003
to 2007,1 a rise that has coincided with
the increasingly ugly propaganda about
Hispanic immigrants has seeped into
mainstream politics and media.
Hector Martinez, a church administrator
of Iglesia de Guadalupe in Tennessee,
attributed discrimination against
Hispanics to a region in the early
stages of coping with a swift influx of
immigrants. "Here in Nashville, we are
where we were in California 50 years
ago," said Martinez, who lived in
California for many years.
Other studies have also documented the
perception of discrimination among
Hispanics. In a 2008 Pew Hispanic Center
survey, one in seven Hispanics
nationwide said they had trouble in the
previous year finding or keeping a job
because of their ethnicity. One in 10
reported the same about finding or
keeping housing.
In the SPLC survey, 70 percent said they
have experienced racism in finding
housing. Another 20 percent were
"unsure."
While the nasty looks and bigoted
comments reported in this survey cannot
be stopped by laws, these findings
suggest that further actions are
necessary to protect Hispanics in the
South from illegal discrimination.
Rampant Housing Discrimination
Housing was the most significant source
of discrimination complaints. Many of
the stories recounted to SPLC
researchers appear to indicate serious
violations of the Fair Housing Act.
Most Hispanics in the SPLC survey said
they rent their residence instead of
owning — a rate of 75 percent versus 20
percent.
The respondents described a variety of
difficulties in obtaining decent housing
and dealing with landlords. Baltazar,
who lives in Charlotte, said immigrants
face "intense racism" in finding
housing. "It is very, very painful for
us."
Some landlords check immigration status
— but only for those perceived as
Hispanic. Some take advantage of their
tenants' vulnerable status by refusing
to make repairs or by imposing illegal
rent or utility increases. Some threaten
to call Immigration and Customs
Enforcement if Hispanic immigrants
complain about housing conditions.
"As soon as we show our face to a
landlord, they start asking for
documents — and documents they never ask
the Anglos for," one survey respondent
told SPLC researchers.
A New Orleans immigrant advocate
described how discrimination has a
snowball effect. Since landlords know
immigrants are often victims of
wage theft by their employers, they are
wary of renting to immigrants because
they may be cheated out of pay and
unable to pay rent.
The desperation to find a place to live
can be seen in the condition of the
residences some immigrants call home.
"I have seen people living in places
where even animals shouldn't live,
because it is so difficult to find
housing," a Mexican immigrant in New
Orleans said. "I lived in a place with
no hot water, no bathroom, with flies
and bugs, and I paid $300 a month."
Landlord tenant laws are weak in much of
the South, and there is little advocacy
on behalf on immigrants related to Fair
Housing Act issues. Housing advocates
reported, although discrimination
is rampant, immigrants rarely bring
cases to court because of the perceived
risks of taking such action. One
advocate told the SPLC he was
unable to assure immigrants their
immigration status would be kept
confidential if a complaint were filed
with the Department of Housing and Urban
Development.
A review of the docket in December
2008 of the Housing and Civil
Enforcement Section at the Department of
Justice's Civil Rights Division reveals
it is involved in hundreds of
lawsuits across the nation. However, not
a single lawsuit concerns Fair Housing
Act issues involving Hispanics in the
South, despite the fact the law protects
even undocumented immigrants from
discrimination.
In Greensboro, N.C., two Hispanics said
they endured apartments with roach and
rat infestations, unsanitary carpets and
walls, and broken windows. The
conditions spurred the men to file a
lawsuit alleging the apartment complex
violated the city's Fair Housing
Ordinance and discriminated against
Hispanics. The city of Greensboro joined
the men in the lawsuit.
But that suit is a rare exception.
"Hispanics don't complain," Yamile
Walker, the Greensboro Human Relations
Department's administrator, told the
local newspaper. "It has to get to a
very frustrating level for a Hispanic to
come forward and say, 'I'm being
mistreated for being a Hispanic.' So, we
don't get the number of cases that I
know are out there."
Housing Ordinances Target Hispanics
Local housing ordinances also are
causing problems for many Hispanics.
Dozens of local governments have passed
anti-immigrant ordinances in recent
years. Many of these appear neutral on
their face; that is, their language does
not appear to target immigrants. For
example, localities in Alabama have
passed laws to limit the number of
unrelated people who can live together.
While these ordinances do not mention
immigrants, the discussion and political
rhetoric surrounding them leave little
doubt they are designed to target
Hispanic immigrants.
When Prattville, Ala., adopted new
housing rules, the city council
president denied it was about
"driving illegal immigrants out of
town." However, two months earlier the
city's mayor told a meeting of the River
Region Minutemen, an organization
classified as a nativist extremist group
by the SPLC, housing ordinances are
one way to deal with the "aftermath" of
illegal immigration.
"We have areas in the city where we have
multiple folks living in a single-family
residence," Prattville Mayor Jim Byard
said at the 2007 meeting. "By and large,
most of these residences are inhabited
by immigrants — illegal or otherwise, I
really don't know. We have an issue with
multiple families, and what the city is
doing to address that is we are defining
more narrowly the definition of
single-family in our subdivision
regulations."
The intent isn't lost on the public
either. After the ordinance passed, a
letter to the editor of a local
newspaper praised the city for passing
the ordinance to do "something to take
care of the illegal alien problem in
this state."
One homeowner in Pelham, Ala., described
to a reporter how such ordinances target
the Hispanic community, even if the law
doesn't mention race.
"I think this is race-based," Misty
Gomez told The Birmingham, Ala. News.
"They are not going into white people's
$350,000 homes and checking to see who
is there. Since the U.S. can't pick on
black people anymore, they have to pick
on somebody, and now it's Hispanics."
There are signs some Hispanics are
fighting housing discrimination. The
Fair Housing Center of Northern Alabama
has seen an increase in complaints filed
by Hispanics and by people with
high-cost mortgages following a media
campaign about predatory lending
practices.
Immigration Status Doesn't Matter
Hispanics face discrimination regardless
of their immigration status.
"The assumption is every Hispanic
possibly is undocumented," said Angeles
Ortega-Moore, an immigrant advocate in
North Carolina. "So discrimination
has spread over into the legal
population. And people are having a hard
time renewing their licenses or going to
different places."
Efforts to crack down on illegal
immigration in Beaufort County, N.C.,
reached a point where a county
commissioner asked the health and social
services departments to tally the number
of clients with Spanish surnames to
determine the number of undocumented
immigrants using the services. That
didn't happen, but the county ended up
counting the number of people using
interpreters at the health and social
services departments to determine the
number.
Women Booted From Salon for Speaking
Spanish
"It's just discrimination," Cipriano
Moreno, pastor of Alpha and Omega, a
Hispanic Baptist church in Beaufort
County, told a newspaper reporter. "They
don't like Hispanics here. They think
all the Hispanics are here
illegally, but they're not."
Efforts in Beaufort County reached a
point where there were reports some
social services, such as federally
funded prenatal care for the poor, might
be eliminated completely since attempts
to exclude people would be illegal.
"When you're a pregnant lady sitting
there, that's a personal problem," said
County Commissioner Hood Richardson.
"That's not a public problem."
Richardson has twice referred to
undocumented immigrants as "wetbacks"
and has said he worries they will foster
political and social unrest, The
Raleigh News & Observer has reported.
Maria Eugenia, a 51-year-old legal
resident of Tennessee, has endured
treatment that harkens back to the Jim
Crow laws of the South. She applied for
work through unemployment and temporary
employment agencies — only to be forced
to wait in Hispanic-only lines.
"Americans come and enter at their own
pace," she said. "Sometimes we wait for
hours just to see if someone will come
and choose us to work for them."
'Go Back to Mexico'
Janet, a Hispanic teen living in
Charlotte, told SPLC researchers she
endures taunts in school, even though
she is a U.S. citizen.
"They be like, 'Oh well, you're just
Mexican, go back to Mexico.' You know,
'Learn English,'" she said. "I am not
even Mexican. I am very proud of my
background but it bothers me, the
stereotypes."
Ortega-Moore has seen the devastation
wrought by the hostile atmosphere toward
Hispanics. "I can't tell you when I've
seen so many suicides as I've seen
here," he said. "I mean very young
people — 18, 19 years old. Imagine every
day … being bullied."
In a 2007 study by Durham County, N.C.,
32 percent of the 46 Hispanic students
surveyed in high schools said they had
tried to commit suicide in the previous
year, compared to 15 percent of other
students.
Discrimination, hostility and the
isolation of immigrant families were
cited as possible reasons for the higher
rate.
"I'm surprised it's that high, but I'm
not surprised there's a higher suicide
rate, because of the pressure placed on
immigrant families," Hannah Gill, an
anthropologist at the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told The
Herald-Sun in Durham.
Not Welcome in Church
Discrimination can seep into every
aspect of life. That was the case when
Cristina, a U.S. citizen of Mexican
descent, sought out a church for her
family. She attempted to attend a
church's English service in Reidsville,
a small town in southeast Georgia, but
was told she should consider the
Spanish service held in a different
building.
"The other church was in this really
beat-up building, not as nice," she
said.
Even though she explained her
children were more comfortable with the
English service, she was told the
service was not for her and "Mexicanos"
were not welcome in that church. "After
a while, we just stopped going to
church," she said.
Laura, a 41-year-old Honduran woman in
New Orleans, described how something as
mundane as a ride on a crowded streetcar
can serve as a reminder of the hostility
harbored against Hispanics.
"When I bump into people, I often get a
bad look and get pushed back," she said.
"This is the hardest thing to deal with
sometimes because it feels so hurtful."
Even though she is still a teen, Janet
has seen the atmosphere worsen in North
Carolina as the immigrant community has
grown.
"As more of us Hispanics get here, then
you know, the discrimination gets
bigger, and it gets worse," she said.
"And, like, a lot of people look at it
like it's not even happening. They act
like it's not there — when it really
is."
