Changing face of county’s Hispanics

Study shows Mexican immigration has declined for the first time since 1970s

Ryan Pelham/STAFF

Julio Perez, owner of the grocery store and sandwich shop Julio’s, stacks sections of Cuban bread into a bag for storage on Wednesday.

BY PALLAVI AGARWAL

Highlands Today

Published: August 8, 2011

Updated: 08/08/2011 08:47 am

SEBRING – Getting this year’s oranges picked almost came down to the wire for Barben Fruit Co. Inc.

Fewer laborers, almost 25 percent less than previous years, were here for this citrus harvest season, and some even left in the middle of picking season to go elsewhere, said John Barben.

Barben got his fruit picked, but it took much longer.

The citrus grower partly blames the anti-migrant sentiment for driving away agricultural laborers to other jobs in perhaps, cooler places.

A Pew Hispanic Center study released recently shows that for the first time since the 1970s, Mexican immigration has sharply declined.

The lack of jobs here, combined with increased border security, has slowed the flow of new arrivals. Births accounted for 63 percent of the 11.4-million-person increase during the past decade, as Mexican women had more children than other women, including other Latinas, the study concludes.

Augustina Anaya, whose family owns the Anaya Produce Stand in Avon Park, also has seen sharply fewer Mexicans buying tomatilloes and jalapenos peppers from her this year.

“There has been a decline of Mexicans coming here,” she said.

She’s heard there are more getting deported.

“Six to 10 years ago, they would not deport you unless you got into trouble or had a felony,” she said. Now, it appears all undocumented workers who get caught get sent home, she said.

The decline and or shortage of agricultural laborers, many of whom are of Mexican descent, is not just having a potential impact on Highlands County’s agriculture.

It’s slowly changing the face of the Hispanic population in Highlands County.

When Julio Perez came to Highlands County in 1989, most of the Hispanics he encountered then were Mexicans.

The Hispanic wave had not hit the county like it would about 10 years later.

Highlands County was still a sleepy part of Central Florida. The 1990 U.S. Census had the county population at 68,500, about a third less of what it is now.

Perez, who bought Julio’s from a Cuban woman who probably introduced the Cuban sandwich to the county, then started to see the change.

Puerto Ricans like him started to filter in and settle here. Then the South Florida Cubans started moving here.

Today, the composition of Hispanics in Highlands County has become more diversified even as their numbers steadily grow. In 2000, 12.1 percent of the county classified themselves as Hispanic, according to the Census numbers. Ten years later, that figure has grown to 17.4 percent.

At 8.2 percent or 8,147 people, Mexicans still comprise the largest bloc of Hispanics in the county, but in places like Sebring, their numbers are neck-in-neck with Puerto Ricans, the second largest Hispanic group in the county with 5,160 local residents.

Cubans come third with 1,711 living here, according to the 2010 Census numbers.

Highlands County’s Hispanic population is somewhat at odds with Florida’s.

While Mexicans comprise 75 percent of the country’s Hispanics, Puerto Ricans and Cubans generally outnumber the Mexican population in the state.

It appears Highlands County is moving more in line with the Latino population statewide although some places in Highlands County still have big pockets of local Mexicans.

The largest concentration of Mexicans is in Lake Placid, where 39 percent of its 2,223 residents describe themselves as Mexicans. Avon Park follows second where 17 percentage or 1,481 residents classified themselves as Mexicans, according to the 2010 Census numbers.

The subtle shift in the Latino population is happening statewide although in different ways.

In 2000, Puerto Ricans and Mexicans accounted for about 5.3 percent of the state’s population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, putting them on equal footing with Cubans, who made up 5.2 percent.

A decade later, Puerto Ricans and Mexicans are 7.8 percent of the state’s residents, eclipsing the 6.4 percent that Cubans account for. And many of those new residents — more than 365,000 of them — are Puerto Ricans.

In Orange County, Puerto Ricans now account for 13 percent of the population and a quarter of the total population growth since 2000, according to the Census bureau. In Osceola County, the increase has been even more notable. Almost 44 percent of the population growth has come from Puerto Ricans, who now account for more than a quarter of the county’s total population.

The political implications of the shift could reflect in the polling booths.

Puerto Ricans can vote while only naturalized Mexicans have that right.

Puerto Ricans and Mexicans tend to lean Democratic while Cubans, especially the older generation, have been considered a solid Republican base.

Humberto Ramirez, chairman of the Highlands County chapter of the Democratic Party, agrees.

But no matter where the Latino population leans politically and despite their growing numbers, Hispanics have a poor voter turnout in Highlands County, he said, and he wants to change it.

A Hispanic himself, Ramirez said the local chapter is aggressively seeking to register more Hispanic voters.

One option they are reminding voters is to send in mail-in ballots since they are more convenient, he said.

“We are trying to register as many people,” he said.