Posted 11/15/2006

USC study dispels myths about South Carolina's Latino immigrant population

South Carolina’s Latino immigrants are law-abiding, gainfully employed people who are trying to learn English. A majority of them say they plan to return to their homeland instead of staying in the United States

These are among the finding of a two-year University of South Carolina study which provides the first profile of the state’s Mexican immigrant population.

Results of the study by Dr. Elaine Lacy, research director for the Consortium for Latino Immigration Studies, were released Wednesday.

Lacy and a team of graduate students interviewed 181 Mexican immigrants, ages 17 and older in 15 counties: Aiken, Anderson, Beaufort, Charleston, Dorchester, Greenville, Horry, Jasper, Kershaw, Lexington, Newberry, Pickens, Richland, Saluda and Spartanburg. 

"We had many surprising findings,” Lacy said. “The immigrants were older than we expected and more educated. Mexican males had an average of nine years of education. Unlike Georgia, where most Mexicans have migrated from other parts of the country, the state’s Mexican immigrants are coming to South Carolina directly from Mexico.  This is particularly relevant because the state has the nation’s fastest growing Latino population.”

Lacy said Mexicans make up about 65 percent of South Carolina’s Latino population which the Census Bureau pegs at about 140,000.  That number is considered to very low because most undocumented immigrants don’t participate in the count.

The interviews were conducted in Spanish and featured 68 open-ended questions that addressed their background, place of origin, reasons for migrating, economic activities, language and future plans.
The findings dispelled four common myths about Latinos. 

Myth No. 1: Latino immigrants want to move to the United States permanently and will remain here unless they are forced to leave.

Lacy said 60 percent of Mexicans plan to return to Mexico, where they prefer to live.  They were in the United States to earn money. Only 28 percent of Mexican immigrants indicated they want to remain in the United States and would do so only if family members were with them.
“The history of Mexican immigration to the United States has been like a ‘revolving door’ and has waxed and waned depending on conditions in Mexico,” Lacy said. “Clearly, their desire to return to Mexico is great, which counters what many people believe.” 

Myth No. 2: Latino immigrants overuse public benefits and make little economic contribution. Of the 181 immigrants interviewed, only four were unemployed. “They came here to work,” Lacy said. “They want to help with living expenses for family members in Mexico and to save money for housing, businesses and retirement in Mexico.”

Other than public education, the only other public service utilized was WIC, a Medicaid program available to qualifying families when their children are born in the United States. Only 15 percent of the families interviewed had children born in the U.S., but not all of those qualified for the WIC program.

Lacy said that undocumented immigrants are ineligible for any public assistance, and approximately 70 percent of the Mexican immigrants interviewed were undocumented. 

“Overuse of public funds is simply not an issue among the state’s Mexican immigrant population,” she said. 

Myth No. 3: Latino immigrants refuse to learn English and do not want to “assimilate” into U.S. culture.  Nearly half the respondents said they were making efforts to learn English. One-quarter said they were taking formal English classes, while nearly an additional 25 percent said they were learning from purchased tapes, watching English television and reading English publications.  Lacy said 30 percent cited learning the language as the biggest need of the Mexican community.

One 29-year-old man from Veracruz, one of four states in Mexico from which immigrants originated (the others are Oaxaca, Hidalgo and Puebla), offered this representative comment:

“I was obligated to speak your language. I am here. ... I am the one who has to speak your language. How did I learn it? I learned it by studying the dictionary, time passed and I learned little by little.”
Lacy said Mexican immigrants live in enclaves and work and spend leisure time together, much like the first-generation immigrants did in the major immigrant waves of 1850 and 1900. 

Myth No. 4: Many immigrants are criminals who have no respect for the law.

Only two of the 181 interviewed reported any problems with law enforcement. Both cases were related to driving without a license. Lacy said many immigrants said they admired Americans for their belief in, and respect, for the law.

Lacy said the average Mexican immigrant worker in her study earns about $20,000 a year, lacks health insurance and lives in overcrowded, sub-standard housing. One-third has children in South Carolina, and one-quarter of those have children in school.

Many immigrants reported episodes of discrimination in which they were refused medical treatment or were mistreated by police, employers, non-Hispanic employees and landlords.

Depression is high among some Mexican immigrants because of loneliness and separation from loved ones, Lacy said. Half of the immigrant men reported having left wives and children behind in Mexico, and one-third of families reported leaving at least one child living with relatives in Mexico.