Current:Home > InvestLanguage barriers and lack of money is a matter of life and death with Milton approaching Florida-InfoLens
Language barriers and lack of money is a matter of life and death with Milton approaching Florida
View Date:2024-12-23 14:54:45
Stay up to date: Follow AP’s live coverage of Hurricane Milton and the 2024 hurricane season.
MIAMI (AP) — Hurricane Milton is expected to unleash its greatest force over hundreds of thousands of immigrants who don’t speak English, most of them Latin Americans harvesting oranges and tomatoes in the fields along Florida’s I-4 corridor, washing dishes in restaurants, cleaning hotel rooms and working construction.
For the Spanish speakers and a smaller number of African refugees , new lives in the U.S. were already a daily struggle because of the language barrier and lack of resources.
Milton has turned those obstacles into a matter of life and death.
Florida is home to at least 4.8 million immigrants, according to the Pew Research Center. After Miami, Orlando and Tampa are the metropolitan areas with the highest number of immigrants, the majority coming from Latin American countries such as Mexico and Venezuela.
In Central Florida, most of migrants work in the hospitality industry, construction and in fields of strawberries, berries, tomatoes and oranges. Some new arrivals don’t have access to TV, others don’t have computers or internet access. There were people who do not know where to find information about Milton, a powerful storm that pushed state and local authorities to order evacuation in the areas where most of these immigrants live.
Immigration advocates and consulate officials have been reaching out to them in Tampa, Orlando and central Florida towns to help with evacuation plans and otherwise prepare. They are sharing information in Spanish, French and African languages and making calls, sending text messages and sharing social media posts with information about shelters, evacuations and places to pick up sandbags, food, water, shelters and gasoline.
“In situations like a hurricane that are emergencies, it is not easy to find information in Spanish,” said Jessica Ramirez, general coordinator at the Farmworker Association, which serves more than 10,000 immigrants.
Nongovernmental organizations such as the Farmworker Association of Florida, the Florida Immigrant Coalition and Hope CommUnity Center have been translating information from state and local authorities and sharing it in Spanish through WhatsApp groups, Facebook, and social-media channels.
Like other organizations that serve low-income Latino families in the area, they have received hundreds of calls from Spanish speaking immigrants who cannot find information in their language and don’t understand English, asking for details about the storm.
Here’s what to know:
- Evacuations: Fifteen Florida counties, home to more than 7.2 million people, were under mandatory evacuation orders as of Wednesday morning. Officials are warning residents not to bank on the storm weakening.
- Landfall: Milton is expected to make landfall on the west coast of Florida late Wednesday as a Category 3 storm.
- Path: The storm is forecast to cross central Florida and to dump as much as 18 inches of rain while heading toward the Atlantic Ocean.
Lupita Lara, a Mexican mother that lives close to Orlando with her family, has a 23-year-old son with special needs who needs a respirator to sleep every night. She tried to submit an online application to request space at a special-needs shelter, but she had technical difficulties and after three hours she decided to call the Farmworker Association.
“I needed their help,” said Lara, 47, who speaks mainly Spanish and needed someone who spoke English to call the shelter’s office. “They don’t have people who speak Spanish when we call,” she said, talking about some of the offices in Orange County.
An advocate from the Farmworker Association made a three-way call and helped translate the conversation. The shelter’s office confirmed that they had received her request but told her that she does not have any space guaranteed, said Lara. She now needs to go to one of the shelters and see if they have space.
“The problem is that people are afraid to call the authorities, so they call us,” said Felipe Souza-Lazaballet, executive director at Hope CommUnity Center. “That’s why we are essentially coordinating all of this information.”
Advocates told the AP that other challenges that they see are lack of economic resources to buy food, water or supplies and fear among the undocumented population.
Some said that many immigrants in the area fear deportation and think that if they go to a shelter or request sandbags, they might be asked to show an ID. They also fear that if they evacuate and move to another state, they will not be able to come back because a new Florida immigration law imposed penalties for those transporting immigrants without legal authorization.
“There is a lot of fear of deportation or worse that people live daily so these fears are highlighted in times of disasters when vulnerability is increased,” said Dominique O’Connor, a climate-justice organizer at the Farmworker Association of Florida.
O’Connor said that some shelters and sites that provide sandbags ask for a form of identification and the military personnel or police officers giving out water are “very intimidating” for immigrants who do not have legal authorization in Florida, which has one of the strictest immigration laws in the country.
—-
veryGood! (966)
Related
- Justice Department sues to block UnitedHealth Group’s $3.3 billion purchase of Amedisys
- Get free treats, discounts if you solve the 1,000th Wordle puzzle this week
- House passes TikTok bill. Are TikTok's days numbered? What you need to know.
- North Carolina voter ID lawsuit heading for trial after judge declines to end challenge
- These Michael Kors’ Designer Handbags Are All Under $150 With an Extra 22% off for Singles’ Day
- Arizona’s most populous county has confirmed 645 heat-associated deaths in metro Phoenix last year
- Transgender recognition would be blocked under Mississippi bill defining sex as ‘man’ or ‘woman’
- Queen Camilla honored with Barbie doll: 'You've taken about 50 years off my life'
- Stock market today: Asian shares meander, tracking Wall Street’s mixed finish as dollar surges
- The Masked Singer Unveils Chrisley Family Member During Week 2 Elimination
Ranking
- Top Federal Reserve official defends central bank’s independence in wake of Trump win
- Police say suspect in a Hawaii acid attack on a woman plotted with an inmate to carry out 2nd attack
- Nikki Reed Shares Postpartum Hair Shedding Problem After Welcoming Baby No. 2 With Ian Somerhalder
- Gwyneth Paltrow Reveals How She Felt After Kourtney Kardashian's Poosh Was Compared to Goop
- What happens to Donald Trump’s criminal conviction? Here are a few ways it could go
- Concorde supersonic jet will return to New York’s Intrepid Museum after seven-month facelift
- Michigan jury returning to decide fate of school shooter’s father in deaths of 4 students
- Olivia Munn reveals breast cancer diagnosis, says she underwent double mastectomy
Recommendation
-
Alexandra Daddario shares first postpartum photo of baby: 'Women's bodies are amazing'
-
Jury begins deliberating manslaughter case against Connecticut trooper who killed man in stolen car
-
Oklahoma outlawed cockfighting in 2002. A push to weaken penalties has some crowing fowl play
-
Massachusetts man gets prison for making bomb threat to Arizona election office
-
Tony Todd, star of 'Candyman,' 'Final Destination,' dies at 69
-
Eugene Levy talks 'The Reluctant Traveler' Season 2, discovering family history
-
Lionel Messi follows up Luis Suárez's tally with goal of his own for Inter Miami
-
Watch a tortoise in Florida cozy up for a selfie with a camera