By Denise H. Horton
The statistics are staggering. Forty percent of the students attending Dalton schools are Latino or Hispanic. A decade ago, the percentage in the city schools was less than 4 percent.
The growth in Dalton, home of Georgia’s carpet industry, is being mirrored in other areas of Georgia as Latino and Hispanic families move to the state searching for work. Athens--Clarke County, Gainesville--Hall County, and Buford--Gwinnett County are all seeing dramatic increases in their Hispanic and Latino populations, a third of whom are estimated to be illegal immigrants.
 As part of a university-led effort to begin assessing the needs of this growing population, 50 people--representing the poultry and carpet industries, social-service agencies, school districts and UGA--spent two hours listening to rapid-fire reports on current efforts to assimilate Georgia’s Latino population and discussing what needs to be done next.
“We want to be able to speak to the real concerns, issues and opportunities,” said Eugene Younts, vice president for public service and outreach, at the Feb. 16 meeting at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education.
In order to know what those concerns and issues are, the university is seeking a seed grant of $75,000--with plans to contribute an additional $47,000 in matching funds--to conduct a year-long needs assessment. Based on the findings, Younts said, the next step will be a major grant to begin an organized program in the four target communities.
“We are hoping that the initial funding will come from those industries that employ large numbers of Latinos,” said David Boyle, an associate professor in the School of Social Work. “Our overall theme for this study is ‘Healthy Families for Healthy Employees,’ because we believe that the employers ultimately benefit from having employees who have healthy and well-cared-for families.”
Presentations during the Feb. 16 meeting included information on programs already established by the School of Social Work, the College of Education and the Dalton and Whitfield County school districts.
For the past few years, the School of Social Work has sponsored a multifaceted approach to preparing social work students, faculty and practitioners to work with Latino families.
Locally, the school has established the Garnett Ridge Family Support Center in Clarke County, in a community that’s nearly evenly divided among Latino and African-American families. The center offers an after-school program, English classes and nutritional programs. Garnett Ridge provides opportunities for UGA students to work with Latino families.
The School of Social Work also has a long-term relationship with the University of Veracruz, Mexico. UGA students, practitioners and faculty have gone there, taking intensive language and culture courses to prepare for working with Latino families. Social work professors from Mexico have traveled to Athens for similar stays.
Similar programs for UGA students are beginning in the College of Education and the College of Family and Consumer Sciences.
Julia Reguero de Atiles, of the College of Education and the College of Family and Consumer Sciences, said public school teachers are struggling to teach their Latino students.
“There are lots of teachers who require help with basic language barriers,” she said. “Some teachers pretend the children aren’t there because they’re not trained to deal with this diverse population.”
Two years ago, the Dalton-Whitfield County communities decided to take aggressive action to help deal with the Latino immigrants arriving to work in the carpet industry.
“We don’t profess to be miracle workers,” said Erwin Mitchell, a Dalton attorney who has worked closely with the Georgia Project, a program funded by local and federal dollars.
Through the Georgia Project, 13 teachers were brought from Monterey, Mexico, to Dalton for the 1997--98 school year. This year, another 17 Mexican teachers are in Dalton, working with teachers and their Spanish-speaking population to bridge the language and culture gap. In addition, 24 teachers from Dalton spent a month in Mexico last summer, learning how to work with their Latino students and their families.
Nick Dale, an associate professor of poultry science, emphasized the resources available. He listed about a dozen Latinos, many of whom earned doctoral degrees at UGA, who hold significant positions in a variety of poultry-related industries.
Dale also emphasized that North American students earning degrees in areas like poultry science should be introduced to Latino culture.
“I think it would be nice if they could find El Salvador on a map,” he said.
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