Mainstreet Radio’s Tom Robertson reports on how Anderson Fabrics in Blackduck, Minnesota is looking for immigrants to solve a labor shortage problem. After a failed attempt with Hmong employees due to a culture clash, company hopes to find a solution in the Twin Cities Latino community. Nearly 40 Latino workers moved from the Twin Cities to Blackduck in the fall of 2004. Blackduck school and community leaders are now bracing for what's expected to be a wave of Latino families.
Anderson Fabrics in northern Minnesota is the largest maker of custom drapery products in the country. It's located in the small town of Blackduck, a half hour north of Bemidji. Because of its geographic isolation, the company has struggled to find the skilled workers it needs.
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TOM ROBERTSON: Blackduck's population is only about 650 people. The numbers have dwindled in recent years. So has school enrollment. No one here expected the turnaround would come from Latinos.
SPEAKER 1: To cook tacos, we need to cut.
SPEAKER 2: Cut.
SPEAKER 1: Cortar.
SPEAKER 3: Cut.
TOM ROBERTSON: This Blackduck community education classroom is full of Latinos eager to learn English. They're all new Anderson Fabrics employees hired through a Twin Cities employment agency.
SPEAKER 1: In order to cut, we use a knife.
SPEAKER 4: A knife.
SPEAKER 1: Knife.
SPEAKER 5: Knife.
SPEAKER 6: Knife.
SPEAKER 1: Cuchillo, sí. Knife.
TOM ROBERTSON: Most of the new arrivals are Mexican, but they also come from Peru, Guatemala, Brazil, El Salvador. Francisco Matalo is from Ecuador. Matalo says he never expected to find himself in a Northern Minnesota town.
FRANCISCO MATALO: [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
INTERPRETER: I like Blackduck. The nature is beautiful. There are many lakes, and the people are very relaxed.
TOM ROBERTSON: Like many of the newcomers, Matalo left his wife and kids back home. He'd like to become a US citizen and start a new life in Blackduck.
FRANCISCO MATALO: [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
INTERPRETER: Well, we've spoken about this with my friends, my co-workers, and I would estimate that about 70% of us would like to stay here, bring our families here.
TOM ROBERTSON: That's good news for Ron Anderson. He started Anderson Fabrics 25 years ago with just a handful of workers. He now employs nearly 400 people. But turnover remains high, about 45% Anderson struggles to find and keep skilled employees. He's tried to lure workers from about a 50 mile radius of the plant. But not everyone is willing to travel so far for a starting wage of $9 an hour.
At one time, Anderson was so desperate, he considered moving part of his plant up to the Red Lake Indian reservation where unemployment is typically more than 50%. It would have included daycare and a training center. But Anderson abandoned the plan because of concerns over absenteeism among Red Lake workers.
RON ANDERSON: The people coming from the reservation are very talented. It seems like they're just not on, for a lack of a better way of putting it, on the same time clock as we are. They work out for a few weeks or a month or so, and then the absenteeism starts and the problems start.
TOM ROBERTSON: Anderson says his labor shortage problem will soon become critical. He's taking on some new customers next year that will require the business to grow. Anderson says he's convinced Latino workers are the answer. He expects their numbers to grow to 100 or more next year. When Anderson first set his sights on the Twin Cities labor market two years ago, it wasn't the Latinos he turned to. Anderson worked with a Hmong Employment Agency and hired about 30 Hmong workers. He purchased seven mobile homes for them to live in.
RON ANDERSON: We filled up the mobile homes practically overnight with the Hmong community, but it didn't work out for the community. It didn't work out for school district. It didn't work out for us. Culture was too different.
TOM ROBERTSON: Blackduck community leaders say there was indeed a culture clash. The arrival of Hmong workers was sudden. No one in Blackduck spoke their language, and only a few of the Hmong spoke English. With relatively little warning, the school district had to create an English as a second language program for about two dozen new Hmong children. Ward Merrill is director of community education in Blackduck. Merrill says only a few in the group were interested in learning English or integrating with the community. But he says the community probably failed to reach out to help them.
WARD MERRILL: Truthfully, we kind of missed the boat with the Hmong population. There probably was, I think, a sense of prejudice and preconceived ideas about what would be the impact of Hmong people in the community. There did not seem to be a positive feeling from the get go with the Hmong.
TOM ROBERTSON: The Hmong workers at Anderson Fabrics lasted less than a year in Blackduck. Tu Ying Lee worked for the St. Paul agency that recruited them. Lee says the Hmong felt isolated. He says they're more accustomed to living in larger Hmong communities.
TU YING LEE: I think the problem is the people who our organization sent to work there, they don't speak English very well. If they stay there, and they need somebody to help them. In the Hmong people, they tend to live close to their relatives. In that way, they get more support from the relatives.
TOM ROBERTSON: Blackduck community leaders say things are different with the new Latino workers. They say it's probably because Hispanic culture is more familiar to local people. Many have taken Spanish classes in high school. They cook Hispanic foods in their homes, some vacation in Mexico. Many of the new Latino workers are trying hard to learn the culture of Northern Minnesota.
Participation in community education programs has quadrupled since they arrived. Along with English classes, they're taking courses in hunting and fishing regulations and job skill development. They're getting help navigating the process of becoming naturalized citizens. In the coming weeks, they'll get a hands on course in ice fishing.
So far, only a few children are part of the Latino group, but that's expected to change. Bob Doetsch is superintendent of Blackduck schools where enrollment has been declining for years. Doetsch hopes the Latino migration could help reverse that trend.
BOB DOETSCH: I think it can be a wonderful opportunity for us here in the school as well as in the community. For us, it could mean opening a new classroom, which would be wonderful, adding another teacher, opening another ESL program, maybe adding more Spanish. The Latinos coming up could mean all sorts of benefits for the school.
TOM ROBERTSON: Ron Anderson feels confident his custom fabrics plant may have solved its labor shortage problem. But he says now, there's an even bigger problem looming.
RON ANDERSON: All of it is going to depend on housing. That is the critical thing. If we don't get the housing, we are going to be stymied in the growth for this company that we're taking on is going to be done in some other state by themselves. We won't be doing it.
TOM ROBERTSON: Anderson has donated land to develop 18 rental townhomes and possibly a subdivision of 20 to 40 homes. But it's not likely to happen without help from the state. Arlen Kangas heads the nonprofit Midwest Minnesota community Development Corporation in Detroit Lakes. Kangas says the number one problem facing rural communities is how to provide affordable housing. He says that problem will intensify as new immigrants to the state filter out beyond the Twin Cities.
ARLEN KANGAS: Certainly, the wave is coming. I think the state's responsibility certainly is to assist communities like Blackduck. The question is, are they going to have enough money to take care of all of the priorities that they see?
TOM ROBERTSON: The number of Latinos in Minnesota more than doubled from 1990 to 2000, most live in the Twin Cities. Doris Ruiz manages the Twin Cities employment agency that brought Latino workers to Blackduck. Ruiz predicts Latinos will find their way to more small towns in rural Minnesota.
DORIS RUIZ: We are, without meaning to, causing a ripple effect, causing a change, causing the regular white inhabitants of rural Minnesota to maybe a couple of years from now or a few years from now, go into the Mexican store to buy cilantro and chili peppers. Is it going to stop? No.
TOM ROBERTSON: A few years ago, Ruiz brought Latino workers to the town of Willmar where there was a worker shortage at a turkey processing plant. She says there are plenty more Latinos who will move if it means steady employment.
DORIS RUIZ: Finding people now won't be a problem because Latinos, if there's work, we'll go. That's where we'll follow. We're like Moths attracted to that light out in the dark.
TOM ROBERTSON: Earlier this month, leaders in Blackduck pulled together business owners, educators, clergy, and social service workers to discuss more ways to help Latinos integrate into the community. Officials with Anderson Fabrics say they expect to hire more Latino workers in February. I'm Tom Robertson, Minnesota Public radio, Blackduck.