Increasing Numbers of Mexican Immigrants Can’t Speak Spanish

The past decade has been one of increasingly heated debates over the massive influx of immigrants from south of the border who are living in America without being able to speak English. Since the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994 opened the doors to Mexico for U.S. crops to be sold there, Mexico’s farmers have not been able to make a living. As a result, Mexicans began moving northward in droves, crossing the border both legally and illegally, to find work.

Federal and state governments have enacted hundreds of different programs and converted bushels of paperwork to Spanish to make it easier for immigrants to live and work in the U.S. without having to learn English. But the problem of accommodating Spanish-speaking immigrants is now even more complex than before. Many of the immigrants don’t even speak Spanish.

With conditions at home worsening each year, and the promise offered by working in the U.S., many indigenous Mexican immigrants who primarily speak a local indigenous language of Mexico are crossing the border. Mexico is the equivalent of Latin America’s Tower of Babel, with 162 living languages being officially recognized by the government, in addition to roughly 300 dialects. Immigrants who do not speak either English or Spanish have a difficult time finding housing, jobs, and fair interest rates, not to mention navigating the complex legal system in the United States.

No one has any explanation for how indigenous people have crossed the border, and there is no estimate for how many are here; many are here illegally and would rather not be counted. Immigrant population tends to focus more on nationality, not language. But many Mexican immigrants in the U.S. today speak Triqui, or Mixtec, Zapotec or other languages indigenous to the poorest regions of Mexico. Many migrant workers can barely get by in English or Spanish. About 60% of the Mexican workers on Oregon’s farms are from indigenous populations.

Officials estimate that there are at least 100,000 Mixtec speakers in the United States from Oaxaca alone, most of them in Oregon and California’s Central Valley. One telling indicator of their growing numbers can be seen in Oregon’s courtrooms. Just five years ago, the court system handled an indigenous-language case only a few times a year. Now there are two or three a week. Interpreters are difficult to find, so some interpretation has to be done by telephone relay through Mexico.

Ramon Ramirez, who heads a farm worker union called Northwest Treeplanters and Farmworkers United, works with hometown groups to help indigenous workers. A low-wattage union radio station is scheduled to launch on November 20, Mexican Revolution Day, with indigenous-language broadcasts explaining to farm workers their labor rights. A nonprofit law center is also working to distribute tapes and other materials outlining workers’ rights, all in indigenous languages.

Indigenous families often form their own networks to help them in migrating to the U.S. and living here beneath the radar. Guillermo Alonso Meneses, a researcher at the Colegio Frontera del Norte in Tijuana who tracks migration, said that some families even have their own immigrant smugglers. "Ten or 20 years ago, you didn’t see that," he said.