Idaho Immigration: Genesis of a Suburban Barrio

By Nathaniel Hoffman, 8-14-07

	Caption: Children bust their piñatas on the last day of Reed Elementary School's summer migrant education program.

Last week the Census Bureau released its 2006 estimates for county populations. The numbers showed Hispanic growth almost everywhere, including in Idaho. Particularly in the larger urban areas.

Oh, and it has a totally authentic taco buffet where a woman presses hand made tortillas onto your plate at the end of the line.

KUNA, Idaho – Of all the words developers or realtors have used to hawk this busting-at-the-seams farm community, “tranquilo” may be the most appropriate.

Among the Californians, refugees from “big city” Idaho and young families that have moved to Kuna in droves in the last decade, a growing community of Mexicans is forming.

And it’s cool. As in, everything is tranquilo.

“Aqui en Kuna, la vida es más tranquila,” said Juan Ramon Olaiz, a dairy worker who recently relocated to Kuna from eastern California when the dairy that he worked for moved here. “It is more healthy for raising my children, and that is my main criteria,” he continued in Spanish.

Olaiz was at Kuna’s brand new Reed Elementary School recently, talking to the brand new bilingual kindergarten teacher. The school is starting a bilingual immersion program this fall to cater not only to its growing number of Latino families, but to their neighbors who want their kids to learn Spanish.

“That’s the reason why we’re starting a dual language program, because we have seen that growth,” said Maria Leíja-Lara, who moved to Kuna from nearby Caldwell, Idaho to teach at Reed.

Chuck Silzly, principal at Reed who is affectionately called “El Gringo” by his growing bilingual staff, started an English learner program in the Kuna School district five years ago. He is now overseeing the district’s new bilingual education program.

Five years ago there were about 30 students learning English in the district. Now there are more than 90.

“I think they’re discovering Kuna,” Silzly said.

Just like everyone else.

Kuna has grown from 5,382 residents at the turn of the century to an estimated 14,261 today, according to the Community Planning Association of Southwest Idaho, which uses new building permits to estimate city populations.

The town has also nearly doubled its acreage since last year, according to a recent Idaho Statesman account, and has several large developers knocking on its door.

Most of the discussions about growth in Kuna revolve around how to keep its small town charm. But to some long-time residents, the shot of diversity is a great boon to the city.

“They’re everywhere, it’s awesome, we’re becoming a diverse community and I think it’s very, very healthy,” said Zella Johnson, a former city councilwoman and volunteer with a community dialogue group.

Johnson has Hispanic neighbors now. But while other southwest Idaho towns have long standing Mexican communities, Kuna remained a nearly all-white farm town for years.

“Growing up in high school there was probably zero Mexicans,” said Jim Grigg, who graduated from Kuna High in 1987. Grigg now runs a counseling center in town and since he is bilingual, has seen an increase in the number of Hispanic clients.

Kuna postmaster Ginny Greger agrees that more and more Hispanic families have Kuna addresses these days.

“I’ve noticed a difference in the population and I think it’s well accepted,” said Greger, who also sits on the school board.

Greger and many Kuna-ites credit Enrique Contreras for building tons of goodwill between Anglo and Hispanic residents in Kuna.

Walk into his Main Street restaurant, El Gallo Giro, the spinning rooster, on any weekday (especially Thursday and Friday for the taco buffet) and you will find a refreshing cross-section of Kuna society: farm workers, local politicians, teachers, seniors and real estate agents trying to convince Hispanic home shoppers that Kuna is indeed tranquilo.

Contreras loves that. And he agrees that Kuna is still a small town and a great place for Latino families.

“Right here I feel like I’m in Mexico where everybody says hi to you, everybody talks to you,” Contreras says.

When Contreras, his wife Ana Paz and their two kids moved from Boise to Kuna five years ago, it was rare to see a Latino face around town.

“I remember people would just be like, hmmm, they’d be surprised to see Hispanics, or us…” Ana Paz recalls. “I guess we’re used to being looked at.”

But not anymore.

The restaurant processed $1 million in money transfers to Mexico a few years ago. The majority of its 52 employees are Hispanic. Many live in Kuna.

“In the middle school, almost every night I see like 20 guys playing soccer…so that’s something that we never saw before,” Enrique Contreras adds.

There are no mid-decade Census estimates that show ethnicity for a place the size of Kuna, and the actual demographic increase is difficult to measure. Kuna counted 261 Hispanic people in the 2000 Census, 4.8 percent of the population. But Hispanics were undercounted across the nation, and by all accounts, the boom in Kuna’s Latino population is only three or four years old.

When I first asked them about Kuna’s new Latinos, Ana Paz and Enrique Contreras said there were not that many.

But after a few moments, Ana said, oh, he can talk to my father. And to Dolores. And…

Though it is at its very initial stages, the tight networks of Mexican families that extend across the United States are finally reaching Kuna.

Ana brought her father to town from LA less than a year ago. He brought his two kids and wife. Dolores Panales moved to Kuna six months ago from San Jose and lives above the restaurant with his family.

Panales’ brother also lives in Kuna.

Maria Baeza moved to a brand new subdivision, Chapparosa, so that her husband had less of a commute to the ranch where he works. And to be with all of her aunts, grandparents and in-laws that moved to Kuna two years ago.

She said Kuna is much more tranquilo than Caldwell.

Several Latinos I interviewed for this story cited the negative stereotypes of more established Hispanic communities as another reason to move to Kuna. They fled crime, gangs and ghettoization to come to a growing, increasingly suburban bedroom community.

But not everyone in Kuna has noticed this demographic.

I bumped into Kuna’s new Mayor Scott Dowdy at City Hall last week. I told him that I was seeing a growing number of Latino families in his town and asked if he had noticed. He said no, and shouted over the counter to some city clerks, who also had not noticed except to say that the Hispanics they see all pay their bills on time.

I thanked the mayor. But as I left City Hall I glanced at the bulletin board that Dowdy had just been blocking.

Among the usual city announcements, three posters caught my eye. They were in Spanish.