Finding a home in Ottumwa

By MARK NEWMAN Courier staff writer

November 16, 2007 10:29 pm

— OTTUMWA — It’s hard to tell which noises are most often heard in the Montoya household. There’s usually music or TV shows or the laughter of the family. Even when the people are quiet, the bird or sometimes the dog can be heard.
“She doesn’t like the monkey,” laughs Arnoldo Montoya, 43, as his dog growls and barks and sniffs at the four-foot tall stuffed animal. “Dog? Why don’t you like el chango?”
Arnoldo and his wife, Maria Olga, 43, both laugh at the little dog’s antics as it detects some unseen movement or unheard sound — and runs away from the giant monkey.
They are in the living room of their neatly kept Ottumwa home. Both are studying English. They’ve taken classes, have purchased DVDs and ask friends at work to help them learn words.
But around the house, the language of choice is their native Spanish. Consequently, that’s the only language the dog understands.
“Beso! Beso!” shouts Maria, and the dog responds, jumping on the couch to give Mama a beso, a kiss.
Beto, the little parrot, seems to have a mischievous streak that the family enjoys. When he’s being good, he leaves his cage to stand on Maria’s shoulder or to sit with the dog on the living room floor. Sometimes, just for fun, he and the little dog chase each other. The animals rarely seem bored: They get more attention than the TV does.
“He likes your ears,” Maria says to a guest.
The visitor has had his ears nibbled at twice by the little parrot — el perico — and chomped on once.
When Beto gets it in his head to bite Mama, she shrieks with mock pain.
“Ahhhhhh!” she cries out.
“Ahhhhhh!” mimics the little parrot perfectly, to the delight of everyone in the room.
Unfortunately, this can prompt a five-minute mini-parrot attack, as Beto seems to realize how funny it is to nip at people; with enough laughter in the room, he’ll even start echoing that sound.
First, he repeats the scream: “Ahhhhh! Ha ha ha ha ha!”

Six years ago, Maria and Arnoldo Montoya were in their native Mexico when an Ottumwa company offered them an opportunity: Come make a better wage by working in the United States.
Maria said that though Cargill Meat Solutions was hiring, she had just gotten her work permit. That meant she did not have the required six months of work experience.
So the family moved to Marshalltown; Mom and Dad found jobs in the packing plant there while the three children went to school.
Maria Olga is a very social person; she likes to visit with old friends, talk about her children with new friends and find opportunities to meet people. Though she knew other Spanish-speaking people in Ottumwa, that wasn’t the case in Marshalltown.
“It’s hard to be somewhere when you don’t know anybody,” she said with the help of a translator, adding there were times in that city where, “I would cry.”
At the end of six months, she applied at Cargill in Ottumwa to be closer to the old friends they had traveled with from Mexico.
“When they said I was hired at Excel, I was so happy I jumped!” she recalled.
There was one problem that could affect someone from any culture: the children.
“The kids weren’t very happy to move because they had already made friends,” she said. “My 16-year-old daughter locked herself in her [room] and cried. She was so mad.”
But the girl, Erika, now 21, likes Ottumwa these days. She graduated Ottumwa High School and attends Iowa State University in Ames.
Maria is proud of her and the girl’s work ethic: Erika worked part-time jobs at Dish Network and a restaurant, saved her money and bought herself a car to take up to college.
Her son, Arnoldo Jr., 16, an OHS football player, has mentioned different job goals.
“When he was little, we owned a bakery [in Mexico]. A fire started, and he watched the firemen,” she said.
That’s why she thinks he’ll want to be a firefighter.

On a recent Sunday, Maria was picking up around the house. The kids were off doing their own thing, and Arnoldo, as usual, was helping someone with their car.
On the shelf, a stereo was broadcasting La Onda Latina — The Latin Wave — an Ottumwa radio show playing in Spanish every Sunday afternoon.
One particular piece of music caught Maria’s attention.
“Arnoldo sings that song,” she says, turning up the stereo. “He sang in Mexico, and now he performs with a band here in Ottumwa.”
She digs around and finds some cassette tapes with Arnoldo’s band. In the corner, near the sofa, Arnoldo’s guitar leans against the wall. And it does get played, Maria said.
“Come here, I want to show you something,” she said.
That “something” is a stack of trophies and medals belonging to her daughter, Natyely, 17. The girl plays soccer, and recently, her team finished first in an area club tournament.
“Isn’t it beautiful,” said Maria, holding out a medal on a red, white and blue ribbon
In the living room, near the trophies, hangs a certificate from Cargill Meat Solutions, where she and her husband work. The certificate congratulates Arnoldo Sr. for passing his tests and becoming an American citizen.
Arnoldo is more confident in his English than Maria. She says she is still learning, but it takes time. People getting angry at her because she still doesn’t have a complete command of the language? That doesn’t help a new learner’s confidence.
“I want to learn more English. No, I need to learn more English. It’s very important,” she said.
Maria remembers two occasions where someone has become angry with a Hispanic immigrant for coming to the United States without first learning to speak English.
We are learning English, she said. It’s not easy, you know. It takes time, she said.
Maria has come across people making racist statements — even once in a Mexican restaurant in Ottumwa.
Her friend, Silvia Agúilar, said she listened to a man talk about how everyone from Mexico was in the United States so they could get welfare and food stamps.
“I’m not on welfare. She’s not on welfare. We have jobs; we work for our money,” she said.
Maria just shakes her head as she remembers the incidents. But there aren’t many she can recall here in Ottumwa. Most American people are either busy doing their own thing or are friendly.
“More people say, ‘Hello’ than racist things,” she said. “Most people are nice.”
Maria said her workplace is an especially non-hostile environment. For one thing, many people speak Spanish at Cargill. But even English-speakers are polite as they work together.
“My [American lady] friends walk past me and put their hand on my shoulder and say, ‘Hello,’ and ‘How are you?’ and when they come in, ‘Nice to see you.’”
Things like that actually help her learn English, because she likes to say “hello” back to her friends. Arnoldo said the opposite is also true: His American-born friends ask him how to say things in Spanish, while they tell him how to say the word in English. He’s proud of his friends and brags about all the words they know in Spanish.
When Maria heads out for some shopping with an English-speaking friend, the topic turns to language. She asks about the words for facial features.
“I know this is eyes. This is nose. How do I say this one, is it moat? Mouse?” because the -th sound gives her a little trouble. “Ah, mouth. Mouth.”
She says she believes it’s important for people to be able to communicate. Besides, she says, “I like to talk.”
She rarely has a bad word to say about anyone and seems to know lots of people. In the first five minutes at Wal-Mart, she was greeted by four friends either shopping or working there.
At the store, she finds “pretty” shirts and shorts on clearance for only $1. She thinks her sister’s children in Mexico would like the clothes. She buys 35 articles of clothing, loading six full bags into a cart.
“I’ll send them with Arnoldo when he takes the vacation in Mexico,” she said.

Perrucah is a Chihuahua, a small but sturdy dog, with lots of muscle and a little extra padding. And while the typical Chihuahua is said to be suspicious of strangers, Perrucha welcomes everyone once Mama seems to like them. After a few weeks in the house, even the big monkey doesn’t worry her any more. Not much, at least. On a recent Sunday, Beto the bird was tired of the dog, flew up off the floor and landed on El Chango’s head. This delighted Maria, who agreed she had a smart little bird.
She loved the bird enough that she has made a recent decision to get a few song birds. She bought them from a friend.
“Look, that’s the man bird, and that’s the lady. They are going to have babies. There’s already some eggs. Maybe the little ones will have orange on their faces, like the mother and the father do!”
Outside, Arnoldo was working on a car, trying to get a part out. It was heavy, and he could be heard struggling. Hearing Arnoldo reminded Maria that when he plays the small organ in the basement, the songbirds, now silent, respond by singing.
“Arnoldo! Come play the piano for the birds!”
“I am busy fixing this car!” he called back.
“Please, I want the birds to sing. Come play some music for the birds,” she asks.
Arnoldo takes a break, wiping his hands off.
“That part is heavy,” he says, deciding he’ll probably need the assistance of a friend.
In the meantime, he turns on the electric keyboard, and begins to play a little tune. Maria isn’t watching him; she’s watching the birds with a big, expectant smile on her face. The birds are still just sitting quietly.
“Sing, birds. Sing,” she says.
Though they don’t sing, the two crested birds, plus the smaller finches, begin moving toward the piano until they are lined up along the wicker cage, looking as though they are enjoying Arnoldo’s music — but not pitching in with a song.
One Sunday, Maria was out shopping while Arnoldo worked on a car.
His daughter, he said, drives a nice car at college because she saved and saved. But while she does go to school, he’s paying her insurance — and it isn’t cheap.
But as long as she’s getting a good education, he’s fine with paying for insurance. After all, he and his wife take $100 out of each of their paychecks to send to ISU for tuition.
There’s no translator around, but his English is good enough to make his thoughts known.
“I ask her, do you want to go to school and get good education, or come down and work at Excel. She says, I don’t want to work at Excel. So I say, then you are going to school. She will get a good job and earn more money.”
That makes the expense worth it, he said.
In the meantime, his learning has been practicing his English. He has a degree from an auto mechanic school in Mexico. If he can improve his English, he, too, could improve his financial situation.
“I get confused on some words. Is this ‘the house yellow,’ or is it ‘the yellow house?’ I think maybe it is my yellow house.”
In Spanish, he said, it would be la casa amarillo, the house yellow. It’s hard to remember to turn that around, he said.
From Arnoldo’s yellow house, the screaming parrot can be heard, even out in the yard.
When Maria arrives home, any guests in the area are rounded up. She seems to think anyone who is visiting needs a meal. There’s usually something homemade ready to heat up quickly, put inside a tortilla and serve to guests with a cup of coffee. And on the table, there is almost always a bowl of homemade, spicy sauce.
The following weekend, the secret to the green sauce, salsa verde, was revealed. Arnoldo was outside working on another car, this time replacing the car’s timing belt.
Maria and her friend, Silvia, are picking tomatillos, little green tomatoes used for green salsa.
The two ladies chat in Spanish as they work, pulling the fruit off the branches Maria grows in her back yard. She also grows jalapeños and other peppers; tomatoes of some sort and then peppers are the two main ingredients for her salsa.
“The ingredients,” said Agúilar, “tomatoes, chiles, salt, onions, cilantro and garlic.”
After picking the green tomatoes, the ladies leave Arnoldo to his timing belt, which is giving him a little trouble. Someone has screwed a bolt on too tight. He stays calm, though, even when Maria lets the dog out; the little dog sees Arnoldo laying on the ground under the Honda and must investigate. She charges over, crawls under the car and begins kissing Arnoldo’s face.
Maria heads into the house, the dog at her heels. After a month or two, she said, the brave little Chihuahua is finally used to the giant stuffed monkey in the living room.
In the kitchen, Maria and Silvia clean and separate the peppers by size. They have another pet encounter, too.
At one point, the parrot, Beto, flies onto the bowl of tomatillos. When the ladies try to shoo him away, he flies onto Agúilar’s head. She grabs her cell phone and takes a picture of herself with her new hat.
The peppers go into a pot of boiling water first, as Beto perches on a window to watch. Then the green tomatoes go in. After a few minutes, the water is drained, and the mixture, still hot, is poured into a blender. A little salt goes in, then the blender is turned on.
Once the mixture cools, cilantro, onion and garlic goes in. The salsa will last only a little while. But for the Montoya family and their friends, life will continue right here in Ottumwa for years to come.
Mark Newman can be reached at 683-5358 or by e-mail at mgnewman@mchsi.com.

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