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July 12, 2007 - New Orleans City Business
Businesses cater to growing Hispanic population
By Emilie Bahr
NEW ORLEANS - Taco trucks are not the only prominent symbol of the New Orleans metro area’s changing demographics.
The changes are reflected in Spanish billboards cropping up around town, Spanish language options at governmental offices and a growing contingency of Latin-American restaurants.
“It’s as simple as just driving down the street,” said Martin Gutierrez, director of the Hispanic Apostolate of the Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans. “You see Hispanics all over the city.”
While it’s hard to determine the precise size of the Latino community, the Hispanic population has likely more than doubled in the 22 months since migrant workers began arriving from Central and South America to assist in the recovery.
Census figures put the New Orleans metro region’s Hispanic population at roughly 60,000 pre-Hurricane Katrina, said Gutierrez, who believes at least 20,000 people went uncounted then.
Today, the Apostolate estimates up to 150,000 Latinos live here, a number Gutierrez stresses is a “guesstimate.”
The changes are evident at Union Supermarket, a tiny Kenner store in a strip mall on Williams Boulevard. The neighborhood grocery, open 30 years, has been in demand like never before since reopening less than a month after Katrina.
“Since the storm, we’re much busier,” said manager Ronaldo Rodriguez, the only English-speaking person in the store crowded with customers one recent lunch hour. They waited in line to wire money home and stock up on familiar fare ranging from plantains to Central American soda. Some carried out steaming containers of tacos and empanadas.
“A lot of new people come around here now,” Rodriguez said.
It’s a story repeated at many Hispanic businesses in Union’s neighborhood and throughout the metro.
Specialty stores aren’t the only ones catering to an expanding population experts believe will stick around after the recovery.
“We’ve added displays of flour and corn tortillas,” said Bill Burger, manager of a Kenner Sav-A-Center, which has expanded its ethnic foods section. Most area supermarkets are now better prepared to satisfy Latin-American palates.
Before Katrina, much of the metro area’s Hispanic population was concentrated in Jefferson Parish, Gutierrez said. Latinos are now moving from the suburbs into parts of the city where their presence has historically not been strong.
“We are seeing Hispanics moving into neighborhoods where Hispanics were never found before,” said Gutierrez.
Immigration lawyer Cynthia Ceballos said there is record demand for legal services such as procuring skilled worker visas.
Ceballos, president of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Louisiana, said the Chamber’s Kenner-based Hispanic Business Resources & Technology Center has been swamped with requests for help since opening last year.
“We’re at capacity at the center with everything from (English as a second language) classes to computer classes ... to giving instruction on filing taxes and starting a small business,” she said.
The chamber plans to open a similar center in New Orleans.
Plans are also in the works to reopen the Mexican consulate, which closed in New Orleans in 2002. At the time, the population of Mexican nationals was considered insufficient to justify keeping it open.
Eugene Schreiber, managing director of the New Orleans World Trade Center, said the consulate would reopen soon.
“Top officials from Mexico City have already been here to scout out the best location and they have budget approval to move forward,” Schreiber said. “They are definitely planning to reopen.”
Lisa Ponce de Leon, New Orleans director of international business development, said the population mix is overwhelmingly positive.
“This brings so much opportunity to the city,” she said. “It brings more business to the city. It brings more nationals. It gives us a better selling point.”
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