10 years makes difference for Peoria's Hispanic community
PEORIA - Catalina Zavala can remember when she left Texas for Peoria some 34 years ago.
Back then, Zavala, who goes by the nickname "Cata," said there were three or four Hispanic or Latino families in Peoria. How things have changed, she said.
"It was harder then. I spoke no English, and I was not driving. Back then, no one would hire translators because there was no community here. They just didn't care," said Zavala, who is the Hispanic outreach coordinator at the Friendship House, 800 NE Madison Ave. "But now, they want to hire
translators because there are Latinos here. It's just better now."
Jose Lozano, a physics professor at Bradley University, is happy he chose to come to Peoria in 2002. He was on the cusp of either going into industry or teaching. He chose BU and has never looked back. His wife, a teacher at Irving Primary School, came a few months later from their home in Austin, Texas.
"Never have I felt any discrimination against myself. Everybody has always accepted me and been very generous to me," he said.
But even he admits there was a time when being Hispanic was something different.
"My wife and I used to joke that we could talk Spanish in the store and no one would understand, but not any more," he quipped.
Preliminary numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2010 count show there are 5,628 people who call themselves Hispanic or Latino in Peoria, putting that ethic group at just shy of 5 percent of the city's 115,007 inhabitants.
What's even more striking is how that number nearly doubled from 2000 when the census recorded 2,839 Hispanics in Peoria. And Zavala said the true number is probably much higher, given there are likely about 2,000 people who are here illegally and didn't fill out a census form. Others, she said, were distrustful of the process.
But there's no denying the Latino community is on the rise in Peoria and statewide.
"The growth in Peoria is very rapid, very noticeable and very explosive," said Matthew Hall, an assistant sociology professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago. "Peoria's a growing place, and they (Hispanics) are going to go to places where everyone else is going."
The rapid change means that traditional enclaves like the city's North Valley are expanding to the East Bluff and even across the river and into East Peoria and other parts of Tazewell County. More restaurants and business have opened that cater to Latinos and the growth has had other effects.
Monsignor Paul Showalter of the Catholic Diocese of Peoria said the church has had to adapt to those whose native language is Spanish. There are now Spanish Masses and three nuns from Mexico who work in the area. The diocese, which covers much of central Illinois, also has Latino priests in areas such as the Quad Cities.
Down the street from the Friendship House sits Irving Primary School, where principal Michael Barber says they have doubled the number of bilingual classrooms in the four years he has been there. The program starts out with mostly Spanish instruction but moves gradually, over the years, towards more English.
When asked who these new arrivals are, the answers are broad and diverse. Barber says many of his new students hail from Mexico, Chicago or Georgia. Zavala said that in addition to Mexico, there is a large contingent from Guatemala.
They come seeking the "American Dream," she said, a better life and jobs. Word of mouth and the experiences of friends and family who came here before drives them to Peoria.
Hall said that's not uncommon and indicative of a decades-long trend away from more traditional immigration gateways like New York or Chicago.
"The traditional job openings are just lacking in areas like Chicago. Industries where immigrants were once able to find lots of work, they are just not there anymore. Latinos are continuing to seek out new opportunities," he said.
Another big issue is housing. It's simply cheaper to live here, all agree, than in a bigger city.