TLH 200: The changing face of Latino heritage in Tallahassee and North Florida
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following article is published with permission from William Hatfield, Editor, Tallahassee Democrat. It was originally published in their November 29, 2024 edition.
‘They like it here because it reminds them of home, the farms, the trees.’
By Ana Goñi-Lessan – State Watchdog Reporter, USA TODAY Florida
In 1984, Daniel Maldonado escaped El Salvador and eventually found his way to Gadsden County, his new home.
“Leaving the country was the hardest decision I had to make, and I think one of the best at the same time,” said Maldonado, now a Tallahassee resident.
Throughout the 80s, approximately 75,000 people were killed in a civil war between the Salvadoran government and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, a leftist movement that aimed to restructure the government to benefit the poor majority.
The Salvadoran armed forces were responsible for over 80% of those deaths, most of which were civilians, according to the United Nations.
Moving to the United States wasn’t easy, he said. He learned English. He went to night school and got his GED. Forty years later, he’s a project analyst with the state of Florida, and his three daughters all graduated from Florida State University.
Maldonado lives in Tallahassee now, and he said the area’s Latino community is totally different than what it was when he first arrived.
In 1985, there were no Latino grocery stores or shops. There were no services in Spanish, either. Most of the Latinos were migrant workers who worked on the tomato farms and came and went with the season. Very few stayed in Quincy.
Those who did included Maldonado and his brother, who worked for Quincy Farms, a mushroom farm that closed in 2009.
Today, the local community of working class Latino immigrants is growing. From 1990 to 2022, the number of Hispanic and Latino persons in Leon County has almost tripled, from 2.5% to 7.3%.
In Gadsden County, the Hispanic and Latino community grew the most between 1990 and 2022, increasing 9.3 percentage points to 11.7%.
“I think the United States has been awesome for me. Whatever I look for, I have worked for and I have achieved,” Maldonado said.
TO READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE, USE THIS LINK: HERE: https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/local/bicentennial/2024/11/29/latino-heritage-evolves-in-tallahassee-north-florida-tlh-200/76480440007/
