But despite many of the similarities between the Miami of the 1970s and '80s and the Orlando of today, where a visible, fast-growing minority could very well become the largest ethnic group in another decade, Hispanic civic leaders are wary of the comparisons. There's not the hostility that exists in Miami. Photo by J. Albert Diaz. In Jacksonville, Cora is an active member of the African American Chamber of Commerce. Newcomers from the U.S. northeast find that wages in Florida are lower than they expected and they must take on additional jobs to make ends meet.
New immigrants grapple with culture shock.
They often end up in jobs no one wants, and to a certain degree, they are exploited,'' says Clemencia Ortiz, executive director of the Latin American Immigrant and Refugee Organization in Palm Beach County. The problem is tough to tackle, educators say, because it stems partly from the transient nature of sectors of the Hispanic community. In other regions where Hispanics have yet to reach the numbers of the Orlando area, change is nevertheless becoming more visible, albeit at a slower pace. In Collier County, where Hispanics make up 19 percent of the population, their number has almost doubled in the last decade. Thanks to the widening of Alligator Alley and I-75 some years ago, Cubans began to head west and escape South Florida's urban chaos for some of the whitest sands this side of Varadero.