Editor's note: Part 2 of a 3-part series: This three-part series will present stories of immigrants from Asia, Europe and Latin America, which are the areas from which most Bay County immigrants arrive.
SANTA ROSA BEACH — Anthony Garcia was captured and then held by gang members for two days. Their motive? Try to convince the now 10-year-old to join the organization, although an initiation still was looming.
And in Honduras, that initiation often means committing a murder.
Honduras holds the ignominious title of murder capital of the world; about 20 people are killed every day. In eight months last year, the U.S. Border Patrol detained 47,000 unoccupied minors from Honduras and Guatemala. Many of the Hondurans are like Garcia, fleeing from gang violence.
--- PART 1: VIETNAMESE FLED IN WAR'S WAKE»»
When he was 8, 11- and 12-year-old gang members tried to get him to smoke pot; he refused — and was beaten. He only left his home country when his mother, Ana, contributed $5,000 to pay so-called “coyotes” to ferry him through Mexico and across the border. In one stroke of luck, the U.S. relaxed immigrations laws when Garcia was picked up in 2013 at the age of 9.
“Anthony is very different. He was very hungry for love,” friend Mary Gullo said. “You can tell how sad his life was.”
Ana and Anthony Garcia are both living in the country illegally, right now in Santa Rosa Beach. Anthony Garcia is scheduled for a hearing March 19 for his case. If his lawyer, Richard Alvoid, can’t prove he is in imminent danger of gangs, he will be going back to Honduras.
There is family history here. Anthony’s brother Kevin joined a gang when he was 11. His mother brought him to the United States a few years earlier. Kevin spurned her and abandoned the family, eventually keying her car. He refused to extricate himself from illegal activity, stealing a purse from a woman in a parking lot, and he subsequently was deported. Ana does not know Kevin’s whereabouts.
“Kevin got so deep,” Gullo said, performing the duty of translator and storyteller.
About seven years prior, Ana Garcia left her three children to come to the U.S. Raising three children on her own on the meager salary of a tortilla vendor, Ana distinctly remembers it was raining the day she left. Her daughter Margery screamed after her, crying, and fell in the mud. Margery, 18, has turned out fine in Honduras, marrying at 15 and going back to school. Anthony cried for six months when Ana left.
“It was a crazy decision,” Gullo said.
It’s an understandable decision when economics are a factor. Working illegally as a maid and painter, Ana said she makes enough in the U.S. to live like rich people in Honduras, she said. Still, Gullo, who is a lawyer from Costa Rica, moving to the U.S. after meeting her American born husband, has a hard time understanding the environment in Honduras. Although the two Central American countries are separated by one country, Nicaragua, they are worlds apart in the amount of crime.
--- PART 1: VIETNAMESE FLED IN WAR'S WAKE»»
“It’s a culture of abandoned kids — the dads are in prison; all the women leave,” Gullo said. “These kids are being raised by grandmothers.”
In Anthony’s case, it was 80-year-old Mami Melda, revered by the family, but incapable of protecting Anthony.
Anthony has done well in school, although his English still needs work. “Public schools here are like the most expensive private schools there,” Gullo said.
Thus far, he has not learned the same resentment Kevin showed Anna.
“It was like having him again,” Ana said of seeing Anthony again for the first time since she left Honduras.
Chulas by Rita: Rita Taylor has worked in Mexican restaurants in Panama City since 1981, starting at Los Antojitos, then working for Bob Robbins, a Panama City restaurateur, before opening the restaurant that bears her name, Chulas by Rita, on 15th Street.
“In my opinion, I’m a pioneer in Mexican food in Panama City. A lot of people know me because of that,” she said. “I love to cook. I love to see people love my food. It comes from the heart.”
Taylor actually hails from Costa Rica, and she has added the traditional dishes of her home country to her menus over time — two examples being Arroz Con Pollo and Gallo Pinto, the rice and beans preparation considered the national dish of Costa Rica. She also just kind of fell into the restaurant business.
In Costa Rica, she was a nurse. By 1979, with five years of experience in the field, she was the head of the emergency room at a Cota Ricanhospital where she met her future husband, an American receiving treatment. A few days after his discharge, he asked for a date with Rita; they were married in Costa Rica sometime later. Applying through the U.S. embassy, she was granted legal status.
--- PART 1: VIETNAMESE FLED IN WAR'S WAKE»»
“It was easier than it is now,” she said.
Her husband, now ex-husband, owned hotels and condominiums, including resorts in Destin. Taylor lived in a variety of locations throughout the South early in her time in the U.S. She encountered some discrimination, including an instance in Panama City where a realtor would not show her a house.
“Everybody has value; we should not look at people by the color of their skin,” Taylor said.
Taylor thinks the overall cultural perception of Hispanics has improved as the number of Hispanics in the U.S. has increased. She is proud of her decision to move to the U.S., in part because her children, Summer and Nathanial, have received a college education at the University of West Florida and Florida State, respectively.
“I love this country,” she said. “I love the people. I love the opportunity that it gives.”
An illegal crossing: They walked for miles, mostly at night. The border crossing in Texas is dangerous, a watchful eye needed to avoid capture by border authorities.
This was Rufino Galarza’s second attempt to enter the U.S. The first was back in 1977 when he was 16. He lived in Los Angeles for four years. Then, in 1985, the degree of difficulty was ratcheted up with his young wife in tow.
“You have to protect your wife,” he said.
--- PART 1: VIETNAMESE FLED IN WAR'S WAKE»»
The motivation for the move was economic, common among Mexican immigrants, immigration attorney Richard Alvoid said. The Galarzas had bought a house in Mexico but with the declining value of the peso decided to sell it. Galarza’s wife had a sister in Tampa who encouraged them to cross the border.
The Galarzas settled in Tampa, then moved to Valdosta, Ga., and then back to Tampa before settling in Panama City for the past 16 years. They felt Panama City was a better school environment for their young children, who were born in the U.S. Throughout that time, Rufino Galarza worked in restaurants and Latino markets, eventually owning the restaurant El Paisa on 15th Street and the market across the street. Even though he still works at El Paisa, he recently sold the restaurant. He said he was teaching the new owners both about cooking and the business.
The three Galarza children, Jovany, Josephine and Maria Poloma, have all attended college. Maria Poloma is in the last stages of medical school at Florida State University. Jovany is a lawyer.
Detention: Hispanic immigrants had another concern in Bay County besides finding employment — getting detained after routine traffic stops.
“Average Mexicans who are undocumented are hauled off to jail in particular counties,” Alvoid said.
The Bay County Sheriff’s Office was one of the few county agencies in Florida that had two “287 G” officers, intended to help enforce federal immigration laws from 2008 through 2012. In 2012, the Sheriff’s Office received notification the federal government was eliminating the program.
“We addressed the issue because it was illegal, because we were receiving complaints of illegal aliens taking jobs from citizens,” Sheriff Frank McKeithen said.
Since 2004, Bay County has had 2,817 non-citizen detainees. A vast majority of the names on the list are Hispanic, with a few eastern European, Vietnamese and Middle Eastern names mixed in.
While Bay County has stopped searching specifically for illegal immigrants, there were 150 detainees in 2014. In 2007, the Sheriff’s Office had 723 such cases. Even though the department did not yet have the 287 G program, 2007 was the end of the building boom and the Sheriff’s Office was catching contractors using illegal immigrants, Maj. Tommy Ford said.
--- PART 1: VIETNAMESE FLED IN WAR'S WAKE»»
“A lot of issues we were finding were fraudulent IDs — Social Security numbers and driver’s licenses,” Ford said.
As a legal immigrant since 1987, Rufino Galarza talked about being pulled over for the color of his skin. When the officers asked for his papers, he responded to a local police officer: “You don’t have the rights; you are not INS.”
Although he added that he laughed off the misunderstanding and showed the officer all his identification, there was definite relief that he no longer had to worry.