ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, August 18, 1996 TAG: 9608160022
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
NICK Kvakic, a Bosnian refugee, has quite a vegetable garden growing in the back yard of his Northwest Roanoke home.
Lush. That may be the best word to describe it - tightly packed with healthy plants loaded with tomatoes, corn, peppers and okra. Kvakic tends the garden when he's not at his job at the Home Shopping Network's center in Salem that fills customer orders for the television retailer.
The garden is more than a pastime; it is a testament to Kvakic's lack of fear of hard work. He broke the hard red-clay soil with a narrow spade. He carries water to each plant from a sun-warmed barrel, saying cold water from a garden hose would be bad for his plants.
The work Kvakic has put into his garden is impressive, even more so if it is considered symbolic of the labor that hundreds of refugees and immigrants are performing at businesses across the Roanoke Valley.
People from all over the world - Bosnia, Cuba, France, Haiti, India, Iraq, Ireland, Japan, Poland and Vietnam - have become a vital part of the local economy. They work at Roanoke Valley companies such as Maid Bess Corp., Rowe Furniture Corp. and General Electric Co.'s Motors and Industrial Systems division in Salem.
In an economy with too few workers for some jobs, the refugees and immigrants have been welcomed by many area employers. And they have added to the region's wealth as taxpayers and avid consumers.
Immigrants, representing about 17 nationalities, make up roughly a third of the 450-person work force at Maid Bess Corp.'s Salem plant, said company President Dick Robers. They fill skilled jobs in the sewing and cutting rooms of the plant, making uniforms for medical workers and crews of fast-food chains.
Compared with some Northern Virginia localities, where foreign-born people account for about 20 percent of the population, the Roanoke Valley is not exactly a hotbed of immigration. The 1990 U.S. Census counted 3,603 foreign-born people living in the Roanoke Valley, representing about 2 percent of the valley's total population.
The majority of the region's immigrants have a European background, with the second-largest group coming from Asia.
Immigrants come to the valley in different ways, but basically they come either to work for a specific business, are brought here by relatives living in the area or arrive as refugees fleeing war or political oppression.
Bob Chapman, an alien certification specialist with the Virginia Employment Commission's Roanoke office, helps process the paperwork on about 180 foreigners a year who take professional or skilled jobs at companies and educational institutions in Western Virginia.
A large portion of the immigrants are headed for Blacksburg and Charlottesville, where they will work as teachers or research associates at Virginia Tech or the University of Virginia, Chapman said. Fewer than 25 employer-sponsored immigrants come to the Roanoke Valley each year, he said.
Some of them are Chinese or Japanese cooks headed for local restaurants but others are people with technical specialities that have jobs waiting for them in businesses like GE's high-technology Salem plant.
``It's important to realize that 60 percent of our business is outside the United States,'' said GE spokesman Mike Allee. The company's Salem factory makes controls and operational systems for power plants, steel mills and other industries.
When GE hires a foreigner it is because that person offers expertise or knowledge that the company can't find through its standard employee recruiting, Allee said. Most foreign hires are engineers who work in areas such as product development and sales, he said.
The assets that foreign workers bring to GE can include specific knowledge of a market or product, fluency in a foreign language or knowledge of a foreign culture that can be useful on an overseas assignment, Allee said.
Immigrant workers make up about 2 percent of the plant's total work force of 2,100, Allee said. Their nations of origin include Canada, China, India, Ireland, Japan, South Korea and Poland, he said.
``They come to us with something that this business very much needs and make a significant contribution to our success,'' Allee said.
More often, immigrants resettling in the Roanoke Valley are refugees like Nick Kvakic, fleeing war or political oppression. They arrive here generally without English skills or a job waiting for them. Still, they are survivors who have taken the initiative to escape a bad situation for a better life.
The Catholic Church's Refugee and Immigration Services helps settle most of the immigrants who arrive in the Roanoke Valley as political refugees.
During the 15 years the Catholic refugee agency has operated in Roanoke, the immigrants have come in waves, said Matthew Duffy, a job specialist with the agency. Basically, their arrival provides a chronology of whatever upheaval is going on in the world, he said.
Barbara Smith, director of the agency's local office, said the employment rate for refugees is 99 percent. Very few immigrants are on the welfare rolls, confirmed Corrine Gott, director of the Roanoke Social Services Department.
Kvakic, 41, and his wife, Dragica, 36, and their daughters, Alma, 15, and Dajana, 6, arrived in Roanoke two years ago. They had fled the fighting around their farm near the Bosnian town of Derventa.
They lost everything they had worked for in life.
The elder Kvakics found jobs with the help of Refugee and Immigration Services within a month of their arrival.
Both now work at Home Shopping, but Nick, who was a baker and cook in Bosnia, hopes someday to open his own restaurant in Roanoke.
They still struggle with English, but their daughters now speak the language of their new country fluently.
Sarah Whitlock, who lives beside the Kvakics, describes them as ``nice people'' and ``good neighbors.'' They give her home-baked bread and grilled chicken. ``They're an asset to the neighborhood,'' Whitlock said.
Before the political and territorial breakup of Yugoslavia and the civil war that followed, Bosnia was a good place to live, Kvakic said. ``We didn't pay for schools, for hospitals, for dentists, like they do over here.''
He blames ``crazy politics'' for the problems in his former country: ``It's now for everybody no good.''
``When we get the restaurant,'' said Dragica Kvakic, ``we'll have more money and we'll probably help some people to come [to Roanoke] just as we did.'' Nick Kvakic's brother, Sefik, followed the family to Roanoke about half a year after they arrived here. He works at Rowe Furniture in Salem.
John Clark, the personnel manager at Rowe, said the company has had an ongoing relationship with the Refugee and Immigration Services office in Roanoke. ``It seems to have worked out pretty well for us,'' he said.
The Roanoke Valley, with a long-running, low unemployment rate, is a very competitive job market, he said. The availability of immigrant workers, Clark said, has helped Rowe maintain the work force it needs.
Bosnians, Cubans, Haitians, Vietnamese and other refugees work at Rowe's furniture plant in upholstery, sewing-machine operation and pretty much any other type of job, Clark said. The company's Salem plant employs 750 people and makes upholstered furniture.
Rowe has had to work around some communications problems with the refugees, but their turnover rate has been lower than American workers', Clark said.
The immigrants have a strong work ethic and employers like that, said Marjorie Skidmore, manager of the VEC's Roanoke office. ``For legal immigrants, any job is a good job,'' she said.
Because the Roanoke Valley is near full employment, employers may be more willing to work with immigrants because they need the workers, Skidmore said. The Roanoke Valley's unemployment rate in June of 2.8 percent of the work force was the lowest of any metropolitan area in the state.
``Jobs are very plentiful here," said Smith, of Refugee and Immigration Services. The agency has employers calling all the time looking for workers, she said.
Normally, refugees have found jobs within two to four weeks after they arrive and are self-sufficient within two months, Smith said. ``Our bottom line is self-sufficiency.''
Immigrants and refugees add enormous buying power to the local economy, she said. Because they arrive with few possessions, they begin acquiring all the things people need, she said.
Talk to immigrants who have been here for a period and you'll find they've ``worked their guts out'' to make their lives better, Smith said. ``And they've paid their taxes like anybody else.''
Indeed, one problem refugees encounter are rumors among their American co-workers. One that's heard repeatedly is that the refugees don't pay taxes, Duffy said. The truth is they never get a free ride for anything, he said.
Duffy works closely with some area temporary-job service agencies. Working temporary jobs gives immigrants time to learn English and gives employers a chance to see what the workers can do, he said.
The refugee agency stays in touch with immigrants for two years after they arrive. Duffy said that at any given time he has about 200 active cases, but that he rarely sees some of them because they've established themselves and no longer need help.
The immigrants bring more than their labor to the valley, Duffy said. They bring their language, their culture, their food. They add to the great American ``stew pot,'' he said. ``They retain their identity and increase the flavor.''
Immigrants add richness to life in the valley, said Robers at Maid Bess, a factor that the company tried to capture with an annual international day. That's when immigrants come to work wearing clothing of their native lands and bring mementos from their former homes.
The refugees believe in work, Duffy said. ``They're really willing and able to do whatever it takes to get on with their lives.''
Getting employers to agree to hire refugees is sometimes a hard sell, Duffy said. That's until they hire their first one. ``Then it's easy.''
LENGTH: Long : 170 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: PHILIP HOLMAN/Staff. Nick and Dragica Kvakic, refugeesby CNBfrom Bosnia, both work full time at the Home Shopping Network. The
couple bought a house in Salem, where they have a lush vegetable
garden in the back yard. color.