Tomas Ramirez hasn't set foot in his native Guatemala since he was 10 years old, when his parents put the family on a three-day Greyhound bus ride to America.
Ramirez is 40 now. He has a family and a machinery job in Clarksville. What he does not have is an ID -- he lost it a while back.
The nearest place he can get a new one is the Guatemalan Consulate in Houston, an all-day drive of more than 500 miles. Without identification, he can't open a bank account. He has had trouble paying his utility bills. The only reason he can cash his paycheck without an ID, he said, is because a nearby bank has a good relationship with his employer.
So over the weekend, Ramirez trekked to Little Rock along with hundreds of other Guatemalans. They lined up outside the Southwest Community Center and filled its gym, waiting for hours as staff from Guatemala's Houston consulate processed the documents necessary for their new passports and IDs.
The "mobile consulate" served about 750 people during its first Little Rock appearance last September, and it was on track to reach about the same number this weekend, said Jose Barillas Trennert, the Guatemalan consul general in Houston.
"This has a huge impact for the Guatemalan community here," said Deysi Santos, a branch manager at Arvest Bank who immigrated from Guatemala about 15 years ago and volunteered Sunday to help people sign up for bank accounts. "The Hispanic population is definitely growing, and these are the types of events that are needed."
The U.S. census estimates 214,000 people who identify as Hispanic lived in Arkansas in 2015 -- a 15 percent increase from 2010.
"I think our job is to make them more comfortable in our city," said at-large City Director Joan Adcock, who helped organize the mobile consulate.
She said the mobile consulate aligns with the Police Department's effort to hire more Spanish-speaking officers and the city's plan to create a municipal ID card, which Adcock hopes will roll out by the beginning of the year.
"It's something for them to trust us -- even the consulates, for them to trust us," she said. There are plans for Guatemala's mobile consulate to return in February, and Adcock said she's working to plan mobile consulates with Honduras and El Salvador. Little Rock already hosts a Mexican consulate.
Ricardo Gonzalez and his family left their Springdale home around 3 a.m. to drive down to the mobile consulate. Gonzalez, 18, came for a passport, but he said it was an added bonus to see the Guatemalan community come together in one place.
"It's cool to see my people, you know?" said Gonzalez, who came to America when he was 8.
Victor Orellana, 32, also came for a passport -- even though he's not sure when he'll get the chance to travel. Orellana, who works as a FedEx claims investigator in Berryville, came to the United States when he was 7. He was granted asylum after his father was killed in Guatemala's decadeslong civil war.
But Orellana still has family there, and he hopes to return soon -- maybe for his honeymoon.
Metro on 08/01/2016