By Edgar Sandoval
When Maria Salgado noticed a truck filled with supplies entering the mobile home park in North Carolina where she resides, she quickly took action. She signaled for the truck to stop and began translating for the group of Spanish speakers assembling behind her.
“¿Quién necesita agua?” Salgado shouted. “¿Pañales para bebés?” (“Who needs water? Diapers for the babies?”)
Inside the vehicle, a family from Georgia had hurried to North Carolina upon learning about the damage caused by Hurricane Helene. They followed Salgado’s lead, attempting to converse with residents in halting Spanish. “Agua, aquí,” one man said, as he distributed bottled water to eager families.
A tight-knit group of immigrants from Mexico and Central America resides in the mobile home community, referred to as Alan Campos. Many occupants of the park, situated on a side road between the severely affected towns of Black Mountain and Swannanoa, North Carolina, barely escaped with their lives when torrents of water surged into their trailers.
A large number of families, many with young children, remain without running water or dependable cell service on Thursday, and electricity is still inconsistent. Those whose homes are intact have taken in other families, with one three-bedroom trailer now sheltering around 12 people.
“We don’t have much at the moment,” Salgado said, “but we have one another.”
Aid has started to reach some of the most devastated parts of western North Carolina, nearly a week after the area was flooded by Helene. However, the difficulties of delivering assistance to non-English-speaking communities like Alan Campos remain significant.
Margarita Ramirez, executive director of Centro Unido, a Latino advocacy organization in Marion, North Carolina, stated that groups like hers are rapidly entering immigrant areas to help overcome language and other challenges.
Many Latino residents are not receiving information in Spanish regarding where to obtain aid from FEMA and other government entities. Additionally, those lacking legal documentation to live and work in the U.S. generally tend to shy away from authorities for fear of deportation.
Hundreds of Spanish speakers are arriving at Centro Unido’s offices to report missing family members or seek assistance completing FEMA applications, Ramirez noted.
“More than a thousand people have visited, and we’re still not finished,” she remarked on Wednesday. “We are producing flyers in Spanish, informing them where they can request help. The demand is significant.”
Advocates emphasized that outreach to the Latino community in the region has never been more crucial. The Latino population in North Carolina has surged; they are the state’s fastest-growing demographic group, totaling around 1.1 million, or 11.4% of the population, according to the census.
Ramirez believes the actual count is much higher. “Many in our community are still hesitant to fill out the census forms,” she expressed.
In the severely affected western region, the Hispanic population in Henderson County stands at slightly over 10%, according to census data; in Buncombe County, which includes Asheville and the Alan Campos community, the percentage is just above 7%.
Migrants from countries such as Mexico, El Salvador, and Honduras are drawn to western North Carolina for employment on apple and peach farms, in tomato fields, and at warehouse jobs. Advocates for migrants claim that living costs in the area are reasonable compared to popular migrant destinations like Florida, Texas, and California.
Salgado, 44, a Mexican immigrant, noted that she has witnessed the Latino community in the Alan Campos park expand over the last 20 years, evolving from a small group she could count on her fingers to more than 100 households.
Salgado, who relocated from Miami to join her husband in the early 2000s after he secured a job in tobacco fields, found employment as a cleaner.
They acquired a three-bedroom mobile home for $19,000. Since that time, she described waking up daily to stunning vistas of green mountains and flowing rivers.
“Life here was good and tranquil,” she mentioned. “There are plenty of job opportunities and affordable housing.”
Isabel Lobo, 47, and her long-time partner, Isaias Chicas, 50, relocated to the park from El Salvador seven years ago. Lobo found a position as a forklift operator at a local grocery warehouse, while Chicas was employed as a dishwasher at a nearby senior center. They recently completed payments on their $35,000 mountainside mobile home.
“We believed we had discovered our ideal home here,” Lobo stated. “Our home was paid for. Now, we were going to enjoy our lives.”
That dream was shattered last Friday when the violent storm triggered flooding that engulfed numerous vulnerable properties in its wake. Families like the Salgados and Lobos are now uncertain about how or when they can return to work, as their employers were also inundated by the floodwaters and sustained severe damage.
Like most trailer owners in the region, they lacked property insurance. They estimate that a new trailer would now cost around $80,000.
For the time being, Salgado is staying with a brother who resides in a trailer nearby, where they have to fetch water from a nearby river to flush toilets. The Lobos and Chicas are staying with friends in the same park.
Earlier this week, Salgado stood outside her trailer, assessing the destruction. She gestured to a new white couch she had bought for $1,000 and a $300 table.
“All gone,” she spoke in Spanish. “I can’t believe we must start everything anew.”
Ana Cordova, 30, a newer immigrant from El Salvador with two children, ages 13 and 3, expressed that she felt embraced by established residents like Salgado, who introduced her to the broader Spanish-speaking community.
On the day the volunteers from Georgia came, Cordova was amazed that “Americanos” would take the initiative to assist individuals like her, who often feel marginalized in the heated political discussions surrounding immigration.
“Thank you,” Cordova managed in English as she gathered water and canned goods.
She then turned to fellow immigrants nearby and said in Spanish, “Isn’t it wonderful for the Americanos to assist us? They don’t care that we are migrants.”
Cheryl Dupont, one of the volunteers, mentioned that police officers at a nearby service station directed them to the mobile home park when they inquired about locations needing assistance. “They advised us that if we came here, there was a significant need, because no one had been here yet,” she recounted amidst the shouts of “Agua! Agua!” from people surrounding the truck.
