Hispanic population struggles with growth

Ed Koch and Stephen Curran

Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2002 | 11:16 a.m.

The burgeoning Hispanic population is having a rough time in Southern Nevada, according to statistics released Tuesday by the Census Bureau.

But economic and Hispanic experts say that the seemingly alarming findings of below-poverty living resulting from low-income jobs and poor education may not be not so bad, compared with the tough lives many immigrants experienced in their native lands.

In short, the streets of North Las Vegas -- the city with the state's fastest growing Hispanic population -- are not paved with gold, but at least they are paved.

"I don't know if Hispanics are unhappy, because here they have jobs -- although low-paying -- freedom to make choices and good schools for their children," said Keith Schwer, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

"What is most significant about this data is that in the 1990s the biggest change in demographics was in ethnicity, especially in the Hispanic population because of rapid immigration."

North Las Vegas has one of the fastest growing Hispanic populations in the nation, according to the census, ranking 35th. North Las Vegas has the largest percentage of Hispanics in the state with 37.6 percent, well above the state average of 19.7 percent.

The latest release of census information is a cross-section of numbers, giving detailed demographic information about communities throughout the state. In North Las Vegas the census found a concentration of Hispanics in seven contiguous census "tracts" -- small sections of a town essentially broken down into neighborhoods by the Census Bureau -- that have 61.9 percent to 83.3 percent Hispanic populations, the census information shows.

That general area is between Interstate 15 and Pecos Road and between Bonanza Road and Evans Avenue.

For those areas, the census shows:

The numbers were similar for the census tracts to the east, in the Las Vegas city limits, that have a similar Hispanic populations.

Schwer warned that the census numbers -- which break down the socioeconomic status of neighborhoods -- tell only part of the story.

What isn't reflected in the data is that many of the Hispanics who come to the United States do so because of lack of education and job skills in their homelands.

Many such Hispanics choose Southern Nevada because there are jobs that do not require a lot of education or skills but provide a living and put food on the table.

"It's all relative," Schwer said. "Poverty is different things to different people. The poverty level is a number set by the government (about $17,000 a year for a family of four) to determine benefits. But some people do better on much smaller amounts of income than others."

That's evident at the Baja Market on Lake Mead Boulevard, one of many markets in North Las Vegas that cater to the Spanish-speaking community, clerk Bobby Mann said. Customers appear middle class, whether they are or not.

"There's a mix, but it's mostly medium-type people," Mann said. "A lot of the people who come here have jobs. They need a job to have money to spend."

Officials of the Nevada Alliance of Latin Americans and the city of North Las Vegas say the statistics confirm that the areas where they have been putting their resources to improve quality of life for Hispanics have been correct.

"No, I am not surprised by these statistics, because in 2000 we took our own assessment of this area and found 47 percent of the population at or below the poverty level," Teri De La Torre, executive director of NALA, said.

"The census numbers may be alarming to people who don't work with the Hispanic population on a day-to-day basis, but we see the problems every day, especially with people who come to us who are illiterate in their own language. They cannot read or write Spanish," let alone learn to speak English.

De La Torre said solutions cannot be found in census numbers, but rather in the establishment of more programs that teach people their own culture and merge that into English-as-a-second-language classes and services.

Both De La Torre and Schwer said the high concentration of Hispanics in the neighborhoods is not a great concern nor a surprise. It is common for people of similar cultural and language background to reside close to one another as a means of attaining a "comfort level," they said.

Steve Ludwig, whose family's auto shop, Mel's Automotive on Lake Mead Boulevard, has been in North Las Vegas since 1983, has seen the shift in the area's population. The changes don't concern him greatly, he said.

"Neighborhoods change," Ludwig said. The biggest effect on his family's shop is that the lack of a Spanish-speaking employee makes it tough to communicate with customers, he said.

The city has made efforts to bring improved public bus service to the highly concentrated Hispanic areas and the city has worked with Nevada Partners to bring work fairs to the area. And there are programs to assist Hispanics obtain down payments on homes, North Las Vegas spokeswoman Brenda Johnson said.

The most recent census numbers "confirm that we have targeted the right areas with programs that address poverty issues, transportation and employment," she said.

Johnson said the city has taken steps to increase Spanish-speaking applicants to the job pools for the fire and police departments and that police who learn to speak Spanish are given a $750 annual pay boost.

The Clark County School District is hopeful that its English Language Learners (ELL) Department will make tomorrow's Hispanic adults far more educated than today's, as reflected in the census findings.

"Last year, we had 39,875 (of the district's 258,000) students who utilized ELL services and we are projecting that number to rise to 51,837 this school year and to 87,605 by 2004-05," said Augie Orci, deputy superintendent of instruction for the school district.

"There are some schools that are 85 to 90 percent Hispanic, and we are expending considerable money in those areas to build new schools to meet the demand."

De La Torre is optimistic that future census numbers will show great improvement in quality of life for Hispanics in Southern Nevada.

"This is just the way things are at this point in history now," he said. "Things will improve. But it will take time."