THE NEW YORK TIMES, September 15, 1998
Hispanic Mothers Lagging as Others Escape Welfare
By RACHEL L. SWARNS
For years, Ramona Rosario could savor the English-speaking world only through
the
soap operas flickering on her battered television set. Her husband refused
to let her
work, study English or venture beyond their Hispanic neighborhood in the
Bronx.
And when she finally left him, more than a decade after she emigrated from
the Dominican
Republic, she had no job skills, no English language skills and no way
to survive without a
welfare check.
These days, Ms. Rosario studies English with 14 other Hispanic welfare
mothers struggling
to break into the work force. But as the unskilled women painstakingly
fill their notebooks at
Bronx Community College, many say they fear they may never put the shame
of government
charity behind them.
"I feel stuck," Ms. Rosario, 42, said in Spanish as she wearily listed
the supermarkets,
hospitals and clothing stores that have refused to hire her. "Sometimes,
I think we're all
stuck."
While white and black single mothers have left the welfare rolls in droves
over the last three
years, the number of Hispanic single mothers on public assistance has held
almost stubbornly
steady. And the disparity highlights a widening ethnic divide among New
York City's poorest
families.
Since 1995, the number of white single mothers on welfare has fallen 57
percent; the number
of blacks has declined 30 percent and the number of Hispanic single mothers
has dipped just 7
percent, city officials say. Monday, the welfare rolls are 5 percent white,
33 percent black and
59 percent Hispanic, with more Hispanic parents receiving public assistance
in New York
City than in Miami or Los Angeles or the entire state of Texas.
The stark statistics reflect the struggles of thousands of welfare mothers
like Ms. Rosario and
her classmates, who arrived in America with gilded dreams only to find
themselves trapped in
poverty and crumbling tenements. Speaking little English and lacking the
education, work
experience and support systems of their black and white counterparts, most
have failed to find
work or other means of support, census data and city and state statistics
show.
Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani often describes the overall 36 percent drop in
the city's welfare
rolls as one of his most important accomplishment, proof that the poor
can successfully move
from dependency to self-reliance. But the troubles of the Hispanic welfare
mothers underscore
the challenges that remain as Giuliani works toward his goal of moving
all 200,000 welfare
mothers into jobs, or at least workfare positions, by the year 2000.
In recent years, the number of Hispanic women on public assistance has
surged, fueled
largely by the doubling of the number of Dominican immigrants receiving
government
assistance from 1990 to 1996, census data indicate.
Puerto Ricans still make up the majority of Hispanic people on public assistance,
according to
a census analysis conducted by demographers at Queens College. But their
numbers have held
relatively steady, compared with the rapid rise of Dominicans, the city's
fastest-growing
group of immigrants, who typically speak less English and experience higher
levels of
poverty and unemployment than other Hispanic people.
And so far, city officials have been unprepared to meet their needs. This
year, the city turned
away hundreds of Spanish-speaking welfare mothers from English classes
because they had
more students than seats.
Hundreds more were denied access to résumé-writing courses
and vocational training --
services available to English-speaking welfare mothers -- because most
programs cannot
accommodate students with limited English skills, city officials said.
Recognizing the need for additional programs, city officials say they have
budgeted for a
significant expansion of services to this population over the next 10 months.
But Ms.
Rosario's story also demonstrates how some women stumble over cultural
roadblocks of their
own, clinging to traditional views of motherhood that sometimes discourage
them from
seeking jobs or taking advantage of city training programs.
On the sidewalks of upper Manhattan and the Bronx, where street vendors
sell sugar cane and
sweet perfume, some welfare mothers hold fast to ideals from their homelands,
seeing their
primary role as stay-at-home mothers, and viewing day care centers and
baby sitters with deep
distrust.
And that view, welfare specialists and sociologists say, is sometimes reinforced
by husbands
and boyfriends who prefer their wives and girlfriends to tend children
instead of working.
Maribel Baez, 29, who dreamed of learning English and data processing,
put those goals
aside when her husband, a truck driver, asked her to stay home with their
two children. It was
an easy decision, she said. She loved caring for her babies.
But now, eight years later, Ms. Baez says she is paying the price. Divorced
and on the dole,
she anguishes over letters in English from the welfare office, struggling
to sound out the
words she cannot understand.
And when she walks timidly into clothing stores looking for work, the onslaught
of rapid-fire
English often leaves her head spinning. Competition for jobs is so fierce
in the poor
neighborhoods where Hispanic welfare mothers live that some supermarket
managers want
even their employees who bag groceries to speak English.
"I feel awful, depressed, all of that," said Ms. Baez, who emigrated 11
years ago and now
combines English studies with a workfare job. "I cry at home alone."
But when asked whether she wanted to work full time, if she could find
a job that would get
her off welfare, Ms. Baez shook her head. "It's too many hours," she said.
"I need to be with
my children."
City officials say they have already begun to tackle the obstacles encountered
by some
Hispanic women. To make Hispanic welfare mothers more marketable, city
officials plan to
expand the number of work-study programs to accommodate 6,019 students
in English
classes this fiscal year, which began in July, a 25 percent increase over
the previous year.
And the city's vocational training programs, which could accept only 160
Spanish speakers,
will admit 1,225 this fiscal year, according to city officials.
But state statistics suggest that this expansion may leave thousands of
Hispanic welfare
mothers without language classes and training. Although New York City has
begun to
examine some of the barriers preventing welfare mothers from finding jobs,
state social
service officials conducted a comprehensive survey of those very issues
seven years ago.
The state study, which surveyed 815 welfare mothers in New York City, found
that 80
percent of the Hispanic women were born overseas. Thirty percent lacked
ninth grade
educations compared with nine percent of non-Hispanic women.
And at a time when manufacturing and garment industry jobs were vanishing,
the officials
reported that nearly half of all Hispanic women had most recently worked
in factories, but 60
percent of non-Hispanic women had more marketable skills, having worked
as clerical
workers, store clerks or cooks.
"Hispanics are considerably less likely than other recipients to have acquired
from their jobs
the kinds of skills that are in demand in New York City's service-based
economy," the state
researchers wrote in their report, adding that limited educations left
Hispanic welfare mothers
at "severe disadvantage."
The study also reported that more subtle, cultural obstacles sometimes
blocked Hispanic
women from leaving the welfare rolls, including distrust of day care and
low self-confidence.
Seventy-five percent of Hispanic mothers feared their that children would
be mistreated in day
care, compared with 45 percent of non-Hispanic mothers. And about 45 percent
of Hispanic
women feared they could not perform as well as others at work, compared
with 26 percent of
non-Hispanic women.
Concentrated in neighborhoods where they can buy groceries, rent apartments
and enjoy
television and radio without speaking English, many Hispanic welfare mothers,
the study also
noted, can get by without learning the language, until they have to find
work.
Consequently, nearly half of all Hispanic welfare mothers could not speak
English well, even
though many had lived in New York City for years. And nearly 76 percent
of Dominicans,
who are more recent immigrants, struggled with the new language, the state
statistics showed.
"The administration is trying to move aggressively on this, because if
you don't speak
English, how can I move you toward employment?" said Georgia Salley, who
runs the city's
work-study programs for welfare recipients.
"The challenge is to put more classes and vocational training geared toward
people with
limited language skills so they have a better chance of finding jobs,"
Ms. Salley said, "but it
doesn't happen in a blink of an eye."
But advocates for the poor say city officials have known about the shortage
of services for
years. In 1991, state officials called for an expansion of education and
training programs for
Hispanic welfare mothers. And in 1994, lawyers for the Puerto Rican Legal
Defense and
Education Fund filed a Federal lawsuit charging state and city officials
with
failing to provide
such services.
That lawsuit, which was based on existing Federal laws, was withdrawn as
city officials
expanded their programs and the new welfare law was enacted in 1996. But
the issue has
acquired only greater urgency since then. Under the new rules, welfare
mothers can receive
cash benefits for only five years. And as the clock ticks, some advocates
and sociologists
worry: Will Hispanic welfare mothers be ready for a post-welfare world?
"As a sociologist, it worries me; as an individual, it worries me," said
Ramona Hernandez, a
sociologist at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, who recently
published a study
about the struggles of Dominican immigrants in New York City. "It's the
future of a people
we are dealing with here."
And in the classrooms at Bronx Community College, where single mothers
studying English
know their time on welfare is running out, the anxiety is palpable.
Some women try to focus on the success stories, on welfare mothers like
Carmen Yangas,
37, who was hired as a secretary at the college after taking classes there.
Others, like Ms.
Rosario, dab their faces with holy water and pray to their saints for work.
Another woman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said she simply
tries to wipe her
memory clean of all the job rejections and all the hours waiting for the
one phone call that
never comes.
"Hope is the last thing you lose," said the woman, a 40-year-old mother
of four, her brown
eyes flashing fiercely. "I'm going to find work. I have no choice."