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Posted on 11/27/2005 9:14:48 PM PST by Graybeard58
PAHOKEE, Fla. -- Ernesto and Carmen Vasquez are staying home for the holidays this year despite the SUV-sized hole in their living-room ceiling -- a calling card left by Hurricane Wilma -- and the red "X" on their door marking the mobile home as condemned.
It's been one month since Wilma struck their Everglades mobile home park in western Palm Beach County, flattening many of their neighbors' homes, but the couple have yet to be visited by aid workers or local officials. Shelters here are scarce, so they plan to remain in their two-bedroom trailer with their two children -- if the rest of the roof doesn't cave in.
"We still have a house, so I suppose we are among the lucky ones," Carmen Vasquez said.
They are among thousands of Florida's uninsured farmworkers still awaiting help since Wilma thrashed South Florida on Oct. 24, in the nation's worst hurricane season on record. Wilma killed 35 people in the state, destroyed or damaged tens of thousands of homes, and caused widespread power outages across South Florida.
Farmworker advocates say Wilma has underscored a larger problem: the state's failure to respond to the needs of the mostly Mexican and Central American workers who have reshaped Florida's agricultural communities, replacing many of the native black and Jamaican workers who once dominated the sector.
Vasquez, who emigrated more than 20 years ago from Sinaloa, Mexico, is better off than many neighbors. She and her husband Ernesto, who transports cut sugar cane, are permanent residents. They registered with the Federal Emergency Management Agency days after the storm. But in front of their home, a trailer housing nine illegal immigrants was mostly destroyed by Wilma and those men were afraid to tell authorities for fear of being deported, she said.
Local and state officials are unprepared to deal with people who speak Spanish.
In Miami, just 70 miles to the southeast, it is often assumed that residents speak Spanish. But in this Palm Beach County region on Lake Okeechobee, and in many parts of central and northern Florida, few public officials or staff speak Spanish.
Vasquez, who speaks little English, and half a dozen other farmworker wives recently attended a regional meeting to discuss hurricane recovery issues for the area's most vulnerable.
Public officials expressed surprise that many of the women didn't know how to register with FEMA or about plans to build a low-income housing complex.
However, the officials had made little effort to spread the information in Spanish and didn't even hire a translator for the meeting. The official running the session complained that informal translations were slowing the meeting down.
"We need to improve communication with Hispanics," Pahokee City Manager Lillie Latimore said after the meeting. "I could tell we're missing them."
Palm Beach County, thought of as the winter playground for retired New Yorkers, is home to an estimated 190,000 Hispanics, up from about 140,000 in 2000, according to the U.S. Census. That is about 15 percent of the county's population.
"The language can cause big problems for those most in need even if they are here legally," said Francisco Garza, an organizer with the Farmworker Association of Florida, an advocacy group that claims more than 6,000 members.
On one recent evening, staff at a FEMA relief center pleaded with a reporter to help translate for Spanish-speaking storm victims because the volunteer they relied on -- a high school student -- had gone home. The center had two translators, but only for Creole-speaking Haitians.
"FEMA is so strapped," said Tom Kerr, who headed the center. "We really don't know what these people are going to do."
Gov. Jeb Bush has pushed for farmworker housing that can withstand Florida's repeated storms.
"We can't keep replacing substandard housing with substandard housing," he said Monday during a news conference in Coral Gables.
A new Joint Legislative Commission on Migrant and Seasonal Labor will look at housing solutions among other issues.
Carmen Vasquez said she hopes help comes before the next storm. She hopes to build a more permanent home.
"We just finished rebuilding from last year, and now it's destroyed again," she said. "I want to get a loan to buy something a little better. Otherwise, it will be the same thing," she said. "I don't expect them to do everything. I just want a little help."
That being said, while I pity our legal guests, there is ample aid available for all of them.
As for the illegals, why...WHY are we not arresting and severely fining any companies that hire them?!? Cut off the jobs for illegals and there will be none. Punish those who encourage and participate the crime.
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Considering that the primary purpose of American government is to provide everyone with housing, food, medical care, computers and instructions, it is hard to imagine who or what to blame for the delay here. Racism, no doubt.
How about learning to speak english? That would help a whole lot and considering you've been here for 20 years, it might mean you could earn more and buy YOURSELF a stronger house.
As a "victim" of Rita, I have first-hand knowledge that the bias shown to Katrina victims is worse than you can imagine. Our local churches were still feeding Katrina people two hot meals a day until the day we were issued a mandatory evacuation. But...
The Red Cross didn't have our zip code listed as a disaster zone "because Katrina victims have abused the system." Walmart didn't have eggs or milk for three weeks because there was no electricity into our entire town. There was no gasoline for a week so people with generators could only use them at night. The temp was near 100 during the day.
There are only so many people to do repair work so you get in line and wait your turn. I have tar-paper on my roof and uprooted tree stumps in the yard. I feel lucky I don't have a tree in my house like the people across the street and next-door, on both sides. We all have insurance but we still are waiting because there is more damage than there people to do the work--and they have come in from all over the country. There are out of state trucks all over town.
Entire towns were wiped out in SE Texas and SW Louisianna but you don't hear about them.
Katrina is the "politically correct" hurricane. It's as simple as that. And when you've been in one you know that the POTUS is not who you need; "rednecks with chainsaws" are who you need and they came through --as always. They cleared the roads for FEMA and they brought MRE's, water, and ice.
We didn't have a single death due to the hurricane because our elected officials did a great job of getting people out--including hospitals and nursing homes.
Tell them to go home, like over the border back home. These people are here illegally. PERIOD!
And they would never even think of getting into their Cadillacs or Town Cars and driving from Palm Beach or Boca Raton over to places like Pahokee and Belle Glade - those towns may as well be in the Andromeda Galaxy as far as the retired NY'ers are concerned. These are people who consider driving up Florida's Turnpike to take the grandkids to Disney World as the equivalent of traveling through Indian Country in a covered wagon.
That's because you folks don't vote for democrats and never will vote for democrats, no matter how many taxpayer-funded generators they give away to your neighbors to hock at the local flea market. As far as the media's concerned, you deserve everything you got from Rita and then some because you vote for Republicans. Besides, you might have nice things to say about the GOP, or you may actually talk about "self reliance", and the media can't be having any of that.
Everybody has had some problems but that's normal considering the vast area and numbers of people that were displaced.
I was gone 4 weeks but from what I've been told, FEMA did a better job than the Red Cross.
The big red "X" (usually put on by county officials) means they're not supposed to be living there -- the house is uninhabitable. "Aid workers" don't visit people who aren't supposed to be lving in a condemned dwelling, but that's too logical for this reporter.
They should have gotten a visit from specific "local officials" though -- to tell them to get out. It's a little thing called code enforcement/public safety -- but that's usually ignored when it comes to illegal immigrants. Mustn't discriminate.
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