Companies Take Lead in Assimilation Efforts

Some companies that employ immigrants have been reluctant to associate themselves with the effort, however, citing fears of public criticism and government scrutiny amid increasingly aggressive federal efforts to track down illegal immigrants and punish their employers.

"Businesses feel cowed by the rhetoric," said Christopher Sabatini, a policy director at the Americas Society and Council of the Americas. "There is a fear of being labeled as aiding and abetting undocumented immigrants." He said some companies have curtailed programs aimed at helping immigrant workers because of community disapproval.

One company that has taken a strong public stance in favor of helping immigrant workers is Miller & Long. Myles Gladstone, the firm's personnel director, said that it once hired mostly African Americans but that since the early 1990s, fewer U.S.-born workers have applied, and they have been largely replaced by immigrants. Today, the firm employs more than 2,000 Hispanics, mostly foreign-born.

Gladstone said the firm started offering safety instruction in Spanish but gradually expanded into "broader life skills" for workers and their families. Today, it offers 65 free classes, including English, Spanish literacy, job safety, lifesaving, financial skills and health promotion. He said there are plans to expand the program to help immigrants keep their children out of trouble, with seminars on gangs and substance abuse.

He noted that not all immigrants are able to learn English and that of about 500 who have taken the company's language classes, "not a lot" have become truly bilingual. He said that if construction workers are trained well and understand safety, "they don't really need to have fluency in English," although without it they cannot become foremen or crane operators.

Antonia Diaz, 42, has advanced steadily at Miller & Long since she emigrated from Honduras six years ago. She began as a laborer, earning $10 per hour and speaking almost no English. Now, after taking corporate English classes for several years, she is a construction site safety worker and earns $18.50 an hour.

"If I had known I would be talking like this, I wouldn't believe it," Diaz said yesterday in passable English as she built wooden safety barricades around a construction site in Silver Spring. Although she converses with her mostly Hispanic crew in Spanish, she said learning English had other merits. "It helps me in my personal life," she said. She said she loves her job and plans to stay with Miller & Long but added: "If I know English and I get laid off, I can find other work. I am prepared for anything."

At Marriott, where some hotels have employees from as many as 25 countries, Chairman Bill Marriott calls immigrants the backbone of his business and frequently talks about the virtues of diversity and assimilation in his personal blog.

"We would hire a native-born person any day, but in most cases they don't want to do the lower-level labor we need in our business," he said in a telephone interview this week. "Probably the most important thing we can do is offer our employees the opportunity to learn English and grow and become part of our society."

At the Tysons Corner Marriott, much behind-the-scenes work is conducted in Spanish among immigrant employees. Most who have taken the "Thirst for Knowledge" class do not speak perfect English; Trivelli still confuses "chopping" with "shopping" and tends to drop his consonants. But he and the others said they have gained something else: a stronger sense of confidence and belonging in their adopted environment.

"Until now, I was always working too hard to study," said Trivelli, who was practicing vocabulary on his laptop in a workroom filled with tools and wires. "Now my kids are so happy I am learning. They help me with my pronunciation, and they tell me if I learn enough English, I can replace my boss one day."