A New Opportunity

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Why a young couple left life on a tropical island to start fresh in rural Iowa

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It was two years ago when Hurricane Maria ransacked the island of Puerto Rico.

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The storm took the lives of over three thousand people, knocking out power for weeks in many places and devastating the peaceful little U.S. territory with flooding.

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Aid to the island has been slow, and the island’s recovery is still a long way off even two years later. A struggling economy on the island was exacerbated once the storm abated and its citizens emerged from the rubble.

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“When we were in Puerto Rico it was not easy to find a good job, even if we are professionals,” Ramon de Oleo Perez said. “The economy wasn’t good, and it got worse after the hurricane.”

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Many of those with the opportunity to leave have done so, including de Oleo Perez.

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De Oleo Perez now lives in St. Ansgar with his wife, Lizbeth.

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The couple rents the furnished basement of a quasi-duplex until they can find a house of their own to buy. De Oleo Perez said that often times people don’t even think about buying their own home in Puerto Rico, saying that it’s hard to justify such a purchase when the job market is so uncertain — even for college-educated people like themselves.

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“We are professionals, but we couldn’t find those opportunities there,” Lizbeth said. 

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But jobs and opportunities are two things Iowa has an abundance of, and is exactly what Ramon and Lizbeth were looking for when they left their life on a tropical island 2,000 miles in the rear view mirror.

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“We were a little bit scared,” Ramon said. “[St. Ansgar] is a small town, and there is not a lot of information [online].”

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In fact, the only thing they really had to go by was a few photos on Google Maps.

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“We arrived at night, so we couldn’t see anything,” Ramon said. “But we said, ’Now we are here’. So we have to go ahead and see what is going to happen.”

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Ramon and Lizbeth are only two of the more recent transplants to Mitchell County, who came looking for a fresh start in life, for a sense of safety and security in their futures.

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The house they rent is shared with Emmanuel, another Puerto Rican who migrated to Iowa for the same reasons.

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Former Mitchell County Economic Development Director Jennifer Andrade has helped facilitate these newcomers, consulting with local companies to find them workers. And on the other hand, she has made trips to Puerto Rico to bring these opportunities to those desperate job-seekers.

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Many of the large businesses in our area have publicly voiced their support for Andrade’s efforts, often mimicking similar phrases — such as “we’ve got to do something to fill these jobs”.

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Even Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds  echoed a similar sentiment during a campaign stop in Mitchell county last fall, saying that if Iowa doesn’t want to get left behind, its population  “will have to be diverse.”

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The storm took the lives of over three thousand people, knocking out power for weeks in many places and devastating the peaceful little U.S. territory with flooding.

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