MPR’s Jeff Horwich presents a Mainstreet Radio series looking at the growing role of Spanish in the Minnesota work place. Horwich spent an evening with one rural Minnesota police officer helping his department relate to the town's changing population.
Minnesota's Hispanic population has grown dramatically in the last decade. So has the demand for Spanish language skills in the workplace. Clients who can't speak English are also becoming common for hospitals, courts, police departments and social service agencies.
This is the third in a three-part series.
Click links below for other reports in series:
part 1: https://archive.mpr.org/stories/2001/11/26/spanish-minnesota-the-growing-role-of-spanish-in-the-workplace
part 2: https://archive.mpr.org/stories/2001/11/27/spanish-minnesota-the-growing-business-trend-to-provide-spanishspeaking-employees
Awarded:
2001 Minnesota AP Award, honorable mention in In-Depth - Radio Division, Class Three category
Transcripts
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SPEAKER 1: for that about 104.
SPEAKER 2: 104.
PEDRO ORTEGA: The numbers are so hard to see at night though.
JEFF HORWITZ: On a typical Saturday night officer, Pedro Ortega takes his cruiser into every corner of Melrose. But he often ends up in one particular part of town, a trailer park called Rose Park.
PEDRO ORTEGA: This is where most of the Hispanics live. And Saint Cloud PD got a couple of juveniles shoplifting at one of the area stores. And they didn't have any idea where they lived. And they told them they lived here in this park here.
JEFF HORWITZ: So tonight, he wants to find out where those two shoplifting teenagers live. It's hardly a dramatic assignment. But it means doing what Ortega does better than anyone else, chatting up the locals, making connections, bringing the Melrose police into the Hispanic community.
PEDRO ORTEGA: [SPANISH] Gabriel
JEFF HORWITZ: The new census says this Stearns County town of 3,000 has a Hispanic population of about 12%. But Hispanics here, as in similar Minnesota towns, may be significantly undercounted. Ortega was born in Plainview, Texas, and came to Minnesota as a teenager when his parents moved to Wilmer. After law enforcement training, he was hired here.
Ortega says he knew as a teenager he wanted to get into police work. It didn't have anything to do with his language abilities but his skills have turned out to be valuable. He estimates about half of his calls are now in Spanish.
PEDRO ORTEGA: They couldn't speak English. So a lot of times that's the reason that they wouldn't speak with other officers anyway because they wouldn't understand them anyway so they deal with things in their own way.
JEFF HORWITZ: Their own way often meant fights. People thought the police were useless so they wouldn't even bother to call. Ortega says when they did arrive, officers would have trouble sorting the situation out.
Craig Morse is the other officer on duty tonight. It's usually quiet enough that he and Ortega can team up on calls in Rose Park or elsewhere. He was on the force for a few months before Ortega joined.
CRAIG MORSE: We tried to get across what we could with our little bit of Spanish skills. And a lot of things were misunderstood between what we were trying to tell the Spanish-speaking people and what we were actually telling them. So with Officer Ortega here, communications have been 20 or 30 times better than what we ever could have without him being here.
JEFF HORWITZ: Calls about trouble in Rose Park have dropped off significantly. Ortega says many Hispanic residents are still ignorant or contemptuous of some rules that don't exist in Mexico. Minnesota's open container laws are one example. But just by speaking their language, he's helped the police become a presence in their community.
PEDRO ORTEGA: They respect me because they know I'm doing my job. And they know that I'm out there to help them out as far as-- I'm out there to help them and also to uphold the law too. So they understand that.
JEFF HORWITZ: Tonight, Ortega searches for the homes of two teenage shoplifters. After an hour in Rose Park, groups of young people hanging out in the dark point him to the right trailers. Ortega stands in a doorway with one man explaining he'll need to drive to Saint Cloud, 40 miles away, to pick up his brother from the police station.
PEDRO ORTEGA: OK. We found the individual. He doesn't speak English though. They gave him a call. What did he need us to do for him to pick him up?
JEFF HORWITZ: Ortega started out just wanting to be a cop. But in two years on the job, he's realized speaking Spanish gives him another role to play and in Minnesota, he'll only become more important. In fact, he says he heard the State Patrol is looking for a few good Spanish speakers. He might be just what they need. Jeff Horowitz, Minnesota Public Radio, Melrose.
[SPEAKING SPANISH]