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First they used up all the available bodies in Whitfield County, and then from bordering Alabama to the west and Tennessee to the north. Still, they were short. So the town fathers and the carpet moguls did something about it.
They got on a plane and went to Mexico.
If they could recruit Mexican teachers, they reasoned, they could make Dalton more attractive for families to come across the border. The new teachers could help the Mexican kids learn English and the American kids learn Spanish.
"It's not far-fetched to think that every child in Dalton could grow up not just bilingual but familiar with both cultures," says Erwin Mitchell, a local attorney who helped recruit 17 teachers from the University of Monterrey in Mexico, where carpet mogul Bob Shaw had a contact. Dalton used public funds, of which there is a big supply, to fly the teachers here, put them up in apartments and buy them all memberships in a health club.
"I'll tell you something," says Mitchell, a dapper, white-haired Southern gentleman of 74. "Hispanic and Anglo children alike are excited about what's happening, and a lot of the rest of us are too. But I'm being selfish about it. I know these children are here to stay--as butchers, Realtors, car salesman, physicians--and Dalton is a richer place because of it."
You can get cynical if you want and point out that there were some ENGLISH ONLY T shirts at first, or that economic good times help conceal the bonehead hatred that exists everywhere. But it's not worth it. California's got economic good times too, and its anti-immigration conniptions make that state look like a backwater compared to what's going on here in Dalton of the rural South.
This country never stops surprising you.
Marcelo Salaises, 30, misses Mexico but says the living is good in Dalton. On $10.60 an hour with benefits and profit sharing at Durkan Patterned Carpet, where he's in quality control, he and his wife bought a nice three-bedroom house for $49,000. And Thomas Durkan III, he says, orchestrated the donation of private land and helped raise $1 million for the construction of a soccer complex used primarily by Mexican families.
Dalia Martinez, 29, and all but one of her fellow teachers recruited from Mexico intend to return next school year. "When we arrived, they had banners welcoming us. At the apartments, they had food in the refrigerators for us. It's been very warm, and we've been able to make a difference for the children."
So many Hispanics have moved to Whitfield County in the past several years, it's standing room only at St. Joseph's. Carl Bouckaert, a parishioner and the owner of Beaulieu of America carpets, could not help noticing. Thirty percent of his work force of 7,500 (soon to be expanded to 10,000) is Hispanic.
"It was clear they were going to have to build a new church, and to do that for a lot of people costs a lot of money. My wife and I came to the conclusion we should do something major. It was a chance to give back to a community that's been good to us."
So they wrote a check for $1 million.
What more can we say?
FINGER-LICKIN' GOOD
'Tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers. SHAKESPEARE