Puerto Ricans who fled Hurricane Maria find a home in Pennsylvania's Amish country
Category: News & Politics
Via: perrie-halpern • 4 years ago • 51 commentsBy: Maria Pena, Noticias Telemundo
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Sept. 30, 2020
LANCASTER, Pennsylvania — Evelyn Colon kisses the forehead of her mother, whom she cares for in her small apartment in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where they arrived from Puerto Rico three years ago after fleeing the devastation of Hurricane Maria.
Like thousands of Puerto Ricans, Colon is grateful for the new beginning, but still misses her island.
"It made me very sad to have to leave Puerto Rico," she explains, "I knew that I was coming to a place where one can do many things that perhaps could not be done in Puerto Rico, apart also for the health of my parents, plus, here I had my children and grandchildren."
Colon, 69, was busy preparing a party for her mother's 91st birthday with a cake full of candles.
Puerto Rican Evelyn Colon moved to Lancaster, Pa., to take care of her elderly parents, after being damaged by Hurricane Maria in 2017. Her father died in 2019 without fulfilling his wish to return to the island.Maria Pena / Telemundo
Born in New York, Colon had moved to Carolina, Puerto Rico to take care of her parents, who were living in the island. She said she will never forget the arrival of Hurricane Maria — winds knocked down her fruit trees and destroyed two bohios, or huts, that her father built as a young man — as well as the floods, blackouts, no water, and shortages of medicines and food.
"We prepared," she explains about the hurricane, "but no one imagined that it would be as it was. I started to pray, I thought, 'My God, this house is going to flood and I will not be able to leave' and my mother was in bed."
"The most terrible thing came later, seeing all that destruction. We threw everything we could into a briefcase, leaving everything behind. It hurts because you don't know when you are going to come back; Papi (her father) didn't want to leave his island," she added, with tears in her eyes.
Now settled in Lancaster, her mother, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease, receives medical coverage. Her father died last year at 93. Colon no longer thinks of returning to the island.
Puerto Rico already suffered from high levels of unemployment, and the hurricane accelerated the exodus of many of its residents, mainly to Florida, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
The devastation drove out 125,000 Puerto Ricans in just one year, said Edwin Melendez, director of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, part of the City University of New York.
Melendez predicted that, although many returned to the island in 2019, there will be another exodus to the U.S. due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jose Diaz, a retired Puerto Rican horticulturist and community activist, said that many displaced people have been able to successfully rebuild their lives but that it has not been easy. "Citizenship helps a little," he said, referring to the fact that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, "but they go through the same things as the rest of Latinos."
"They have come to a country that is in crisis," Diaz said, "they are displaced by climate change, by bad policies, and many may wish to return to the island." Yet they cannot find the help they were looking for.
Fusing Puerto Rican culture in "Amish country"
Hispanics account for almost 1 million residents in Pennsylvania, mostly Puerto Ricans, Mexicans and Dominicans, according to CUNY, and thus make up 7.3 percent of the population, being the engine of more than 50 percent of the population growth in the last two decades.
Most have settled in the so-called Latin Corridor of Route 222, which includes rural Lancaster, home to the Amish, a Protestant group descended from Swiss and German immigrants who settled in the area in the 18th century. Many Hispanics either work with or for the Amish.
"The Amish have managed to preserve their culture, rejecting the influence of the outside world, and we Latinos dance our bachata even in the midst of the Pennsylvania Dutch," Norman Bristol Colon, founder and president of the Pennsylvania Latino Convention, said. "If there is any similarity, it is that we preserve who we are and where we come from."
The Amish "can like a good chicharron, (pork rind) a good pastry or a Colombian empanada, and the good thing is that our people can have an influence in some way, perhaps not completely influence a whole community, but one person at a time," he said with a smile.
La puertorriquena Evelyn Colon reflexiona sobre su vida en Lancaster, PA, despues del huracan "Maria ", en 2017. No fue facil dejar atras la isla, pero agradece las bendiciones de un nuevo comienzo, dijo. pic.twitter.com/EhhZSQ8Ijp
— Maria Pena (@mariauxpen) September 28, 2020
The state's Amish population has grown from 44,620 in 2000 to 81,500 this year, according to the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies in Elizabethtown College. Half live in Lancaster County, where they make up 6 percent of the population.
At the same time, Latino businesses, such as restaurants, bakeries, auto repair shops and financial services companies, are flourishing in the area.
"I have seen an immense change in the Latino community here, many businesses. I am proud to see that a Latino takes risks when opening a business or to study," Carlos Manuel Cruz, owner of a mechanic shop, said.
Cruz moved to Lancaster from New Jersey in 1990 to be closer to his family, and began selling used tires in 2011 in a building that the Amish originally used to make carriages.
"I've seen people go through hardship as they adapt, but many people who come from Puerto Rico are quickly working, studying; now you're seeing their economic, political strength," he said.
The Amish "are a strong and united culture, and we can learn that from them," Cruz said.
"To my surprise, when I opened the business I saw that most of the clients are Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Guatemalans; I feel like I'm in Puerto Rico. I quickly got used to the environment, the climate," Jose A. Rivera Aguirre, who runs the Torres Family Bakery, said.
Linked by work, businesses
Hundreds of Amish-controlled businesses abound in the area, including farms and ranches, furniture manufacturing, quilt and craft stores and tourist services, employing family and neighbors.
The construction industry is an area in which younger Amish may work with Puerto Ricans, but it does not extend to social activities. Though the Amish are a large community, "a person can live and work in parts of Lancaster County and not have much interaction with them," Steven Nolt, the acting director of the Young Center at Elizabethtown College, said.
The Amish do not live in the city, Nolt said, but in their own communities.
El puertorriqueno Carlos Cruz es dueno de un taller de mecanica en Lancaster, PA. Cruz dice que tiene buenas relaciones de negocio con los Amish, y les refiere clientes. pic.twitter.com/QACRaB2xb4
— Maria Pena (@mariauxpen) September 28, 2020
Jack Meyer, an Amish of Chilean descent on his grandfather's side, explained that the relationship centers around business and labor primarily due to the cultural differences. The young Amish members' social life centers around events organized by their churches, as well as sports and hunting.
Meyer owns Aaron & Jessica Buggies, which offers rides in those iconic horse-drawn carriages that are part of a culture centered on faith and family and that rejects automobiles and other modern luxuries.
The Amish people are made up of descendants of Anabaptists and Mennonites who fled persecution in Europe in the 18th century. In Lancaster County, each group observes different rules regarding the use of clothing, technology and family life.
The Amish of the "old order" do not use electronic devices or appliances, or electric lights in their homes, and they hire drivers, many of them Latino, only in cases of emergency.
"They see us as people who like to work, who do not complain about work — their treatment is very cordial, they are very aware of the work and if you are a good worker, that's how they reward you," Monica Luna Urban, a Colombian store owner, said.
"They work hard"
Half an hour from Lancaster, in the town of Bird in Hand, on the Old Pennsylvania Pike, Meyer's company was serving dozens of tourists last Saturday who, despite the leaden sky and a drizzle, asked for a carriage ride along narrow roads, to appreciate the bucolic landscape.
Sporting a typical beard, straw hat and simple clothing, John King offers a tour to an Amish farm, to explain his family history and the Amish vision of Latinos.
"My son was a bricklayer and he worked with Hispanics, as drivers or workers, and he told me that they work hard," King, whose Swiss ancestors settled in Pennsylvania in the mid-1700s, said. "I don't see why there can't be a good relationship. I think they live more like us than other non-Amish neighbors, because some grew up in the countryside."
Latinos "see that we lead a simple life, although some think that we sacrifice something with that," King said. "But we do not feel that way — we feel that it is a privilege."
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I read about this earlier and was very impressed that those from PR that have made their new home in the Amish community have done very well. I am glad that they have been accepted and are making good contributions with the Amish. The Amish may seem to be simple minded people, but, they would not have survived this long if they were not able to advance themselves, and that takes some very good thinking.
The Amish are great people and very hard workers. I had the pleasure of knowing a few of them when I lived in PA.
What part of PA did you live in? I lived in 3 very distinct areas. LOL! I think some people think that one part of any state is like all the other parts, but PA definitely has distinct areas
I lived in the Southwestern area. Grew up in South Park, Allegheny Co.
Not far from Pittsburgh, then. Do you still say yinz?
Yep, I’m a yinzer. Also jagger bush, gum band, nebby, jagoff, chipped ham, hoagie etc... Lol
Just can’t shake some things. No matter where you go people know your from the Burgh.
And pop. Don't forget pop.
I switch between y'all and yinz nowadays but I will never stop using gumband. People don't know what the hell I'm talking about
Yes, pop. Can’t believe I missed that one. I say nebby a lot and people look at me like WTF does that mean.
I can't remember what nebby means or if I ever used it. I do remember jagger bushes, tho
It means nosy. Example would be Gladys Kravitz from bewitched. My nebby neighbor doesn’t miss anything.
'gumband'...never heard it.
I think it's starting to come back. We had a nebby neighbor
It's a rubber band. But why use 3 syllables and 2 words when 2 syllables and one word suffices
I lived in central Pennsylvania for a few years. It gets cold!
Bravo to the newbies.
It doesn't get as cold in Lancaster County as it does in Indiana County....
I spent four years at Gettysburg College, Adams County. I don't know much besides that one town.
Lancaster is more SE PA than Central PA. Altoona and State College would be more central.
Indiana County is considered to be SW PA but it's at the northern tip of that region. It's about 70 miles NE of Pittsburgh
Hélène and I have toured Pittsburgh a couple times. Very nice city.
It is a nice city now that the air is a lot cleaner
I grew up in Amish/Mennonite country in extreme northern Indiana (just slightly east of Shipshewana) and we lived in the country when I was young. Went to school with several Amish kids and there was a family just up the road from us. My brother and I were friends with their kids and occasionally we would trek up the road on our bikes and milk cows with/for them. At the time it was fun to do. And they are a hard working and proud people. Perhaps their joy in life was the simplicity. A lot of the fathers, later on, became a big part of the RV industry workforce in the Elkhart/Goshen area and were taken to work in extended 10 person capacity vans (kind of like a precursor to Uber/Lyft etc.) for a few bucks a day. My sister and my two daughters still live in the same general area.
It was funny as a teen, after we moved to "town", to see the Saturday/Sunday horse and buggies parked behind the courthouse and the kids would use the public restroom to change into "normal" clothes and head over to the local movie theater.
I worked at the Meadows racetrack and the Amish would come twice a week to look at horses for sale.
We had them put a roof on our house about a year before we moved. Never have seen such quick, good work. Took them less than a day and a half. Amazing
They are delicious. The little general store by my house sold some of their baked goods. We also would occasionally go to Rogers flea market in Ohio on Friday’s where they would sell their produce, fudge etc... Loved it!
There was ( probably still is ) a section of old rental garages where Amish kids hid their cars and cruised on the weekends.
Most eventually sold the car to some other Amish kid and returned to the family permanently.
I've worked in the area you're talking about. We designed and installed a pond, creek, waterfall and waterwheel for an Amish restaurant in the area. One of my friends was a driver for a rich Amish family, he was on call and paid very well to drive them everywhere in the owners Lincoln.
One guy I worked with was brought up Mennonite and is the best carpenter I have ever seen. The guy can use hand tools or power tools and he taught me how to mix milk paint with natural historic tints. He would walk across beams 24" apart and 20' up like he was walking on flat ground. He did the home inspection on my house before I moved in as a favor. He owns an antiques shop in Shipshewana now, sweet guy.
Das Dutchman Essenhaus?
Hell it was 15 years ago, I can't remember. I do remember they had awesome dumplings.