Community members brainstorm on immigration issues

Published 12:00 am Thursday, June 26, 2003

Representatives from various organizations in Austin met Wednesday morning to discuss ways to improve the public's perception of immigrants in the community.

The meeting was organized by Mayor Bonnie Rietz in hopes of changing a negative perception she said became evident through opinions expressed in letters to the Austin Daily Herald over the last few months.

Rietz had asked leaders in local churches, schools, businesses and other areas to meet with people in their field before coming to the meeting so as many ideas as possible could be discussed

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Sandy Forstner, the Austin Area Chamber of Commerce's executive director, said the business community has been receptive to Austin's immigrants, and businesses owned by immigrants have been doing well.

Immigrants who are successful and visible parts of the city can have a big impact, he said.

"They're business leaders, and they're very well respected," he said.

Julie Ladwig, the director of special education and ESL in Austin, said the school district has a number of things in place for immigrants such as bilingual tutors and letters sent home in both English and Spanish.

"We want teachers to see that every child doesn't have to be fitting into the same mold," Ladwig said.

Mary Anne Wolesky, the director of hospital nursing services at the Austin Medical Center, said they have a strategy in place where all 850 employees attend mutual respect classes. She recommended all organizations do the same. The medical center's program has helped ease the frustration of dealing with language and cultural differences with patients and employees.

City Administrator Jim Hurm agreed. He also said educating the immigrant community about processes involved with things like planning and zoning and the organization of city government would help eliminate some confusion.

Welcome Center Director Liliana Silvestry-Neilon said one of the biggest ways to improve the public's perception is to make people aware of the success stories in the community by doing things like alerting local media to positive stories.

However, she said they need to be sure that the community has appropriate expectations, that the process of changing attitudes could take some time.

Matt Merritt can be reached at 434-2214 or by email at matt.merritt@austindailyherald.com