Center's services to aid immigrant learning, living

SPRINGDALE -- Florencia Perez attended a meeting last week about college opportunities. Her 12-year-old daughter, Melissa Alvarado, translated for her.

Perez, who said she's learning English from her children, said it's important to have information for immigrants and non-English speakers. The Cisneros Center for New Americans, which recently opened in Springdale, is working to help immigrants with that need.

The center's goal is to increase immigrant access to information and organizations in the community, said Jacob Perry, a fellow with the center. The center was created in Texas a little over a year ago and established its first regional office at The Jones Center.

The people working in Springdale are creating a system to provide immigrants with the information they need, Perry said. They don't know yet what form the system will take, but it could be a referral system, or an online database of organizations.

Melissa said the information her school provides in Spanish is helpful to her mother. The possible online database could be in multiple languages to help people such as Perez who don't speak English or aren't fluent, Perry said.

The college readiness event Perez attended was hosted by the U.S. Hispanic Leadership Institute. The center also has a goal of helping organizations like the institute by connecting them with others that provide services, said Carrie Wolk, program coordinator.

Integration can happen faster in communities where immigrants have access to information they need, Wolk said. She said immigrants can contribute as much to society as people from families that have been in the U.S. for many generations and can bring new perspectives to communities and new methods for solving problems.

"They have a lot to offer," she said.

Integration also has an economic effect, Perry said. For every dollar the state spends for public services, such as education, on an immigrant, that individual contributes $7 to the state's economy.

People tend to contribute more to the economy if they are educated, said Elizabeth Young, director of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Arkansas School of Law in Fayetteville. Some Northwest Arkansas organizations have services to teach immigrants about career and educational opportunities.

The number of immigrants in the country is growing, Wolk said. Officials expect 80 percent of the population growth in the U.S. from now until 2050 to be immigrants and their children.

Center officials were looking for specific attributes for a pilot region when they chose Northwest Arkansas, Wolk said. They wanted an area with an immigrant community that emerged and grew over the past 20 years, that has the need for more support and that can create change.

"Twenty years is very fast," she said.

Northwest Arkansas is a good area for the center because there are already services in place to help immigrants, Young said. What's missing is a way for the organizations to be cohesive and communicate with each other effectively.

"I'm excited for this to be the glue," she said.

Young said she is also on the board for the Ozark Literacy Council, which helps adult immigrants learn to read and write in English and gain financial knowledge. Immigrants have many needs other than learning English, and better communication between organizations could help officials more easily address those needs.

The fellows will work with the center until June 2015, when a new group of fellows will start work, Wolk said. The fellowships last one year, and the regional office will be in the area for three to five years. The office, however, isn't open to the public.

Jessica Boyd, also a fellow with the center, said she hasn't been in the office much lately.

"We've been meeting with a lot of people," she said.

The fellows met with leaders in the Latino and Marshallese communities as well as officials from OneCommunity, Credit Counseling of Arkansas, Northwest Arkansas Community College and the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, Perry said.

State Desk on 09/02/2014

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