Small Town Struggles With Racial Tensions -- Shelton Tavern Sued After Refusing To Serve Latinos

SHELTON, Mason County - There is pure humiliation on both sides, to hear them tell about it.

On one side, there is Jesus Echeverria, a proud local ranch owner and millworker, who says a tavern here wouldn't serve him a 7-Up because he is Mexican-American.

On the other side, there is Elmer P. "Buddy" Smith, the third-generation owner of the Fir Cone, who says his bartender began turning away all Latinos because his tavern had been taken over by a rowdy bunch of migrants who used it as a shelter.

Now, Smith is being sued by Echeverria and other would-be patrons for causing them "mental anguish, humiliation, loss of reputation and deprivation of civil rights." And the city's prosecutor has charged Smith with breaking state anti-discrimination law.

The little town of Shelton, where pickup trucks, logging boots and the smell of sawdust evoke the increasingly faint memory of prosperity, is being pushed and pulled into the age of diversity. If recent events are any indication, it'll be a bumpy trip.

The incident in the tavern is only one of Shelton's race-related problems. Others include two killings, both involving Mexicans or Mexican Americans on one side and Anglos on the other.

Still another is the growing anger of local landowners and leaseholders, who claim that migrants and undocumented workers steal valuable forest products from their land.

When immigration authorities recently staged a surprise raid, sweeping up 100 illegal workers, the whole simmering mess boiled over.

Nowhere do the troubles of this town stand out in greater relief, however, than at the Fir Cone Tavern, an aging but lively spot where Friday night "steak shoots" draw burly, beer-drinking shuffleboard players who play for rib steaks.

The way Echeverria remembers that day, he was intercepted by the bartender.

"She said, `I'm sorry, we don't serve Mexicans,' " recalls Echeverria, a tall, lean man with a bristly black moustache and a big black hat.

"I said, `Why?' and she said, `Well, they spit on the floor and they make a mess and stuff.' "

"And I said, `Well, look, I'm not that kind of person. I just want to have a 7-Up.' "

But the bartender was resolute, and Echeverria left.

Smith, for his side, doesn't dispute that his bartender turned away patrons of Mexican descent. But he says she misunderstood his order to "get tough" with unruly young workers.

Talking about his legal problems, Smith's thin face grows even paler and his voice begins to quiver. "I'm not prejudiced," he said.

Smith says a "rat pack" of 30 or 40 congregated in his tavern. Loud and obnoxious, they harassed "white girls," peeked under restroom doors and drove away customers.

"I was on the verge of bankruptcy," Smith said. "For two years, I lived in hell - they were calling the place `Little Tijuana.'

"I feel sorry for them; they're cold. They're human just like we are. But they used my place like a shelter, and there were too many of them."

PROBLEM WORSENED RECENTLY

Most of Shelton's diversity problems have developed in the last couple of years, locals say.

In the past, Mexican workers hired to cut Christmas trees stayed in the woods. When the season was over, they left.

Now, many stay year round, lured by the fast money to be made picking brush - including floral greenery, medicinal plants, mushrooms and landscape material - stuff loggers once tromped without a second thought. Soon, the workers' friends and family follow.

Part of what's going on is plain old change, says Shelton Police Chief Johnny Johnston.

"We're getting a very diverse population. Our economic base is changing. We're growing at a much faster rate than we've ever grown before. . . . For a small community that hasn't experienced change, when all of a sudden things are changing, that's difficult," he said.

According to U.S. Census figures, the number of Hispanics in Mason County has increased almost 150 percent in the past 12 years, to an estimate of 1,075 in 1992 - a number unlikely to include all Hispanics, especially undocumented workers. In the same period, the county population overall has grown about 32 percent, to a total of about 41,200, according to figures developed by the state Office of Financial Management's forecasting division.

Even longtime residents such as Echeverria aren't sure how to deal with the changes.

Fifteen years ago, he was the only Mexican in town, says Echeverria, who came here as an undocumented worker in the mid-'70s and is now a legal resident.

Echeverria now lives with his wife and five daughters on his 20-acre "Rancho Durango" outside town. He works at the Simpson Timber Co., a coveted job.

In the old days, he drew little attention on Shelton's streets.

Now, townspeople see "more people coming in, coming in." When they see a van packed full of Mexicans stop at a bank to cash a check, "they get scared," he said.

In November, the community was shocked when a young couple - a Mexican man and an Anglo woman - were shot and stabbed to death, allegedly by a 17-year-old Mexican man in this country on a visa. It was the city's first slaying in a decade.

On Thanksgiving, another Mexican man - Javier Ortiz, a 20-year-old in the country illegally - was killed in a fight with an Anglo.

On the economic front, the situation is clearly volatile.

One side says that undocumented Mexican workers are taking away jobs and income from locals, duping local businesses with forged documents and illegally picking brush.

Others, however, claim companies and contractors exploit the willingness of Mexicans, both documented and undocumented, to do hard, low-wage work that others shun.

TOUGH JOBS: CUTTING TREES, BRUSH

In the tree-cutting business, Latino workers are a large part of the permanent and seasonal work force.

Tree-cutting, which begins in the late fall, is a dirty, cold job with low wages and long hours. Most Anglos, locals say, aren't very interested.

The Douglas Fir Co., which says it's the largest Christmas-tree shipper on the West Coast, asks cutters to work seven days a week, up to 15 hours a day, but most work willingly, said spokeswoman Jean Moore.

Like other farm industries, her company must use a migrant labor force to survive, she said. "We cannot get enough people to come out and work locally."

The issues may be even more complex in the brush-picking industry, another Mason County staple. Dubbed "special forest products," these floral and landscape materials, mushrooms and medicinal plants together are Washington's 12th-largest commodity, ahead of pork, hops and raspberries, said Jim Freed, a Washington State University extension agent in Shelton.

The industry employs more than 15,000 people who make from $2,200 to $28,000 in a three-month period. A worker picking salal or other bushes can easily net $100 a day.

The problem, say some of the landowners and leaseholders, is illegal pickers who deprive them of income and often destroy plants.

While encounters between leaseholders and illegal pickers in the Mason County woods have so far produced no violence, Sheriff Bob Shepherd said he fears for the future.

"What we're experiencing here is a year-round conflict between illegal aliens and people who make their living harvesting forest products in the very rural areas of the county," he said. "I see it as a public-safety problem, a crime problem, and an economic problem."

In early November, 23 local law-enforcement officials joined 13 U.S. Border Patrol officers in a raid that swept up more than 100 undocumented workers.

Barbara Roman, whose family has been brush picking for almost 60 years, says she's run many Latinos off the property she leases.

"It reminds me of the old days when people rustled cattle. It's getting to be like that - just as lawless."

The illegal brush pickers threaten her economically, said Roman, 68, whose picking supplements her Social Security income.

"I've seen my income drop by 50 percent in the last four years," she said. "I can lose $1,000 worth of brush a day. They are hard workers, that's just about all I can say for them - because they're stealing to do it.

"You can throw them out, and they just keep bouncing back."

`THEY'RE USED TO BEING AFRAID'

Not surprisingly, townspeople are divided as to whether November's raid by the Immigration and Naturalization Service is a solution to any of this. Sheriff Shepherd says he believes most of those picking illegally are undocumented workers, although he concedes he has no direct proof.

Already, rumor has it, some of those deported are back. That just goes to show that all the raids really do is to create fear, says Shelton attorney Rob Wilson-Hoss, representing the people suing the Fir Cone Tavern.

Even legal workers at Douglas Fir fled in the raid, says Moore.

"These Hispanics, they're used to being afraid, I guess. I don't know how else to say it. . . . They're used to running," she said.

Now, the tavern incident has become the lightning rod for feelings on both sides.

At the Fir Cone on a recent Friday night, many patrons supported Smith. They've seen the young Mexicans he's trying to keep out, they say.

"He has the right to protect his property," said Pat Van Cleave, in the midst of a shuffleboard game. "I've got black friends that come in here, I've got Mexican friends who come in here. He's not prejudiced. Behave yourself and you're welcome here."

A few blocks away, however, the sentiment is much different. Attending the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Echeverria joins a crowd of 100 or so to eat mole and posole and watch youngsters dance the cumbia.

Soledad Holguin, a Mexican-American who works as a secretary and is a volunteer firefighter, said the bartender turned her away, too.

"I explained to her I was a U.S. citizen. But she said, `If I let you in, more will come.' "

MANY RESIDENTS ARE OPTIMISTIC

Despite their differences and difficulties, many Shelton residents are optimistic, if guardedly so, about the future.

This is a good community, says Echeverria. "This is the only problem I've ever had with the town for 20 years."

Sure, Shelton has cultural difficulties, says attorney Wilson-Hoss: "But you also have the ingredients for a small community to work though those things and make some progress." He points to the town's acceptance of a resident group of developmentally disabled adults, the literacy project and diversity work by local churches.

Police Chief Johnston, who spent 15 years in law enforcement in Eastern Washington, has seen problems in other changing communities.

"I see some of that occurring here, but you hate to see yourself as a prophet," said Johnston. Anytime a community grows, it brings an increase in trouble, he said.

"I don't see it as doom and gloom. I don't see it as our community eroding - I see it as our community growing, and we need to adjust to the changes."