Latinos – Believe it or Not – Are Thriving in Tuscaloosa

Toosca-donde?

Talk about a Latino population boom! (more like a bang, but we won’t go there, for obvious reasons).

The number of Latinos in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, has almost tripled in the last ten years. In 2000, according to the Tuscaloosanews.com,  there were 2,130 Latinos and the latest count puts Latinos at 5,949 – or about 3 percent of the total population. It’s a little bit, but it’s a start. It’s also surprising, in the there-it-is-again kind of surprising way that the Census has been showing us growing Latino communities in the unlikiest of places.  Tuscaloosa is the home of the University of Alabama, but there’s no word as to how many Latinos are enrolled there. The University did host a conference last January that explored Latinos an Latinas in the US South. Topics included: “Day Laboring in the Nuevo New South,” “El Nuevo Kentucky: Horse Industry Workers and New Latina/o Communities” and “The Emerging Second Generation in a New Destination in the U.S. South.” So give them props for trying to figure us out?

The truth is that Latinos (or Hispanos in this case) didn’t have a very good start in that part of the country. Almost 500 years ago, in 1540, Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto had a run-in with the native Choctaw’s, led by Chief Tushka Lusa (where the town’s name comes from) just a few miles form the city proper. It didn’t end well for the Spaniards. Of course, those guys 500 years ago didn’t fit well into the local labor force.

Apparently this is a story being re-told in cities and towns across the state of Alabama:

Statewide Census figures show the state’s Hispanic population grew from 75,830 to 185,602, a 145 percent growth rate.

Isabel Rubio, executive director of the Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama, said her Birmingham-based group believes the increase comes from births, not immigration.

Demographers and Hispanic advocacy groups contend it’s likely the Census did not accurately count all the Hispanics living in the state or county.

Conventional wisdom in Alabama is that Latinos were under counted across the state.

Major Hispanic and Latino organizations tried to get the word out last year about the Census to ease what can be a common distrust of government among Hispanics, according to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.

Rubio said Alabama’s numbers are still not accurate, but come closer than they have in the past.

That’s very likely. Latino’s have been under counted in the Census on a regular basis. But in a place like Tuscaloosa 500 is 10 percent! This brings two things to mind.

• We have to figure out a way to keep the small communities of the Latino diaspora in the loop. so that we know what’s going on with them and they in turn know what’s up with US Latino’s at large. Information is key to helping these communities thrive.
• What is the raza there calling the town – toos-kah-loos-ah? la tooska?