NEIGHBORS NUEVOS: 



BY ANN GREEN 



l— as 



ast fall, Juan Munoz would toil from sunup to sundown on 

 golf courses in Brunswick County. 



When he finished mowing the grass or blowing off debris on the 

 Crow Creek golf course in Calabash, he would drive to a second job at a 

 nearby golf course. 



"From March to November, I worked 70 to 75 hours a week," he 

 says, describing a long week that is typical for the Hispanic workforce in 

 Brunswick County. 



"We can't pay overtime," says Joe Jamison, manager of Crow 

 Creek Golf Club. 



"So our workers go to other companies after working here to get 

 in an extra 20 hours or so. Mexicans are here to work and go back home 

 with the money. They are good workers and appreciate having a job." 

 About 80 percent of the golf course maintenance crews along the 

 North Carolina coast are Hispanic, Jamison estimates. 



The immigrants on the golf course and in other industries 

 represent a new workforce for North Carolina's coastal 

 counties. They also are central to land- and water-use patterns 

 and utilization of health and educational faculties, social 

 scientists explain. 



To help communities adapt to working with 

 immigrants, North Carolina Sea Grant researchers 

 David Griffith and Jeff Johnson have conducted a 

 study comparing the immigrants' use of resources 



with citizens and retirees who migrate from other states, as well as native 

 North Carolinians. Most of the immigrants are of Hispanic origin. A few 

 are Vietnamese who work in the fishing industry. 



"We found that retirees use coastal resources, including fishing," says 

 Griffith, an East Carolina University anthropologist. 



Traditionally, foreign-bom immigrants had not used many community 

 resources. "During the 1980s, most of the immigrants were single males 

 who worked a lot and didn't have much extra time. By the mid-1990s, more 

 families began moving into North Carolina," Griffith explains. 



Expanding Hispanic Population 



Hispanics are the fastest-growing segment of the immigrant 

 population in North Carolina. 



North Carolina's Hispanic population totaled more than 600,000, or 

 7 percent of the state's total population in 2004, according to a 2006 study 

 by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers at the Frank 

 Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise. They found that Hispanic 

 immigrants contributed more than $9 billion to the state's economy in 

 2004 and cost the state budget a net $102 per Hispanic resident. 



"Immigrants from Latin America, authorized and unauthorized, 

 are dramatically changing North Carolina's demographic and economic 

 landscape," the report says. "Hispanics live in every one of the state's 100 

 counties and contribute to all sectors of the economy." 



Continued 



Coastwatch I Holiday 2006 I www.ncseagrant.org 13 



