By Leila Holley, University at Albany
Albany is a very diverse city, as is much of the state of New York. The diversity can be seen from the University at Albany where students from countries across the globe come to study, to the locals who have now made a permanent life here. In particular, Central Avenue in Downtown Albany, represents a variety of cultures from Jamaican to Ecuadorian.
However, Nicolas Morales, a State Farm Insurance Agent with a Central Avenue office never expected 22 years ago that Albany would become his home. He came to Albany from San José, Costa Rica in 1993 to visit his sister, who lived in Latham, N.Y. He was 25 years old. His original plan was to take English classes. In his English classes he met Jolanta, a Polish immigrant. She changed his plans. He fell in love and decided he would stay in Albany.
“I miss the weather,” Morales said. “It’ll be like 75 degrees, never too hot, never too cold. The beach is an hour and a half away.” The weather isn’t all he misses of San José. Most of his family still lives there with the exception of his sister.
In addition to the weather and language, another culture shock to him was the treatment of pets in the United States.
“Some people treat pets better than kids,” he said.
His experience in Albany did not come without difficulties.
“It was challenging,” he noted reminiscing on his first year in Albany. He came in August and winter 1993 was brutal. According to the Albany National Weather Service Forecast Office, March 1993 had the second highest amount of snow in Albany history. Along with adjusting to weather changes, Morales also had health problems he was dealing with and he was still adapting to living in an English-speaking country.
He was still an illegal immigrant for several years. He drove an ice cream truck, he worked in construction (which helped later when he would design his current office) and several other jobs. One day Morales was working at the soda machine at a stadium and became nervous when he noticed police officers around. His English was limited but he knew he shouldn’t be working. One police officer came to him and started shouting something. He didn’t understand what the officer was saying but made out the words, “Green card.”
“Am I going to be deported?” He remembers thinking. He didn’t know that an officer couldn’t just ask him for his documents.
A female employee next to him shouted out, “Chris, you have to move your car!”
“Green card. Green car. Both sounded similar,” Morales said.
With him having to learn English and work jobs that many Americans looked down on, Morales believes he had the experience of a true immigrant.
“You’re really treated as a second class citizen.” He married Jolanta but was illegal for six years. Jolanta was also an immigrant, so even after they married, he was not granted citizenship.
After working for several years, he went back to school and enrolled at Hudson Valley Community College. “I refused to continue working this hard. This wasn’t why I left home,” Morales said.
After graduating college, he began working for Centro Civico, located in Amsterdam, N.Y., which provides housing services, economic development and more to Latino communities. Morales said that Central Civico wanted to help Latinos grow in the business world.
“The potential was there, opportunities weren’t given,” Morales said of many immigrants. He compared it to trying to grow a good seed in bad soil.
By 2009, Morales was a prospect to become executive director of Centro Civico. Instead, to the surprise of co-workers, he left.
“What are you doing to do now?” Morales said they would ask him,
“I don’t know,” he would tell them.
Morales was sure that he could get another job. But he wanted more. “Fifteen years from now, I’d be in the same place.” Morales had more than himself and Jolanta to think of now, he had a family, a daughter, Sophia and a son, Eric. He thought to open his own business. He loved the idea of being able to make his own hours, being able to spend more time with family and being in control of his own space.
One of the businesses that stood out to him was State Farm. He had been finding Latino agents for them during his time working with Centro Civico. He decided to give State Farm a chance. State Farm is an insurance agency that offers life, car and home insurance, as well as various other services. The State Farm agent process was very difficult and it was a very selective group. Morales opened his own business in 2011 but came to Central Avenue last spring.
“Terrible,” he responded when asked how his first day went. “If something could go wrong, it went wrong.” It was raining that day and water was leaking in from the roof.
He said the first few months were all tough. He said if someone asked him about running a business back then, he would have told them to run. But now, he said that he’s happy. There is a sense of freedom and while it didn’t come cheaply, he was very happy he did what he did.
“The walls are mine, the floors are mine.” He said. When his phone rings, it’s like a force he created, as he has more than 1,000 clients.
When opening up his business, Morales worked heavily with Molly Belmont, of the Central Avenue Business Improvement District. The Central Avenue BID helps organize the ribbon cutting of the small businesses that they work with, as well as assist in community outreach and other services.
“He [Morales] is extremely personable but a constant professional,” Belmont said. “He is incredibly proactive, I see him all the time. Some business owners you see at the beginning but they get too busy. He’s always present.”
His ambition is also what he attributes to his success. He has brought a building and aspires to buy more apartments to expand. He still hopes he will be able to work fewer hours in the future in order to spend more time with his family, which is his ultimate goal. If he has any free time now, it is spent with his family. A typical day for him starts with putting his kids on the bus. He gets to his office around 9:30 in the morning, but often does work before even stepping into the office. He sees clients until two or three in the afternoon. Then he picks up his children at school.
Morales believes he is fully integrated into American life. He lives in an upper middle class neighborhood and speaks English fluently. Many of his friends and colleagues said he doesn’t have a typical Hispanic accent and that his wife doesn’t have a typical European accent.
Morales and his wife had some differences in their experiences as immigrants, but he attributes it more to their personalities than the countries they immigrated from. Morales pushes himself to be in the front in social situations. His wife, however, is quieter and is an integral part of a lot of the behind-the-scenes things that helped his business flourish.
Together, Morales and Jolanta try to incorporate their native Costa Rican and Polish cultures into their children’s lives. Their children are trilingual, speaking English, Spanish and Polish.
Morales doesn’t like the idea of a “melting pot” because he feels it suggests that you have to lose your culture in order to fully assimilate. He said he wasn’t going to stop speaking Spanish, he wasn’t going to change his name and identity in order to fit in.
He cited two reasons he wouldn’t want to get rid of his accent. “One, it represents struggle. Two, that isn’t me.”
Instead, he prefers the term of a “salad bowl,” the mixing of many different cultures into a society. He visited Poland and it was culturally shocking for him because it wasn’t what many people depict. It wasn’t gray and gloomy; it was a modern place where family is the foundation of society.
“Many Americans believe this [America] is it, there’s nothing else in the world,” he said.
Many people would ask him if the houses are “better” in Costa Rica than in the United States. “They’re different,” he would respond.
Morales is still very involved with the Latino community and is involved with other small business owners on Central Avenue. The other small business owners support each other. If he needs a haircut, he can get one on Central Avenue. In return, if they needed insurance, they look for him.
Morales was at the ribbon cutting for Jacqueline’s Dominican Style Beauty Salon in December, according to Belmont.
“Everyone wants to help,” Belmont said of the community atmosphere among small business owners on Central Avenue. “He [Morales] wants to outreach with other businesses.”
Morales began to reach out to Maria Crespo, owner of Jacqueline’s, and formed a mentoring-like relationship.
“How do you think you’ve changed since being here?” Morales was asked.
“I don’t think people change,” Morales said quickly. “I know people don’t change. People learn.” He said he has become more disciplined, but attributes that to age than him changing as a person.
While Morales disagrees with some aspects of American society, he says he loves this country. He celebrates Thanksgiving although he says like other holidays, is being tarnished by commercialism, like Black Friday.
To people who question his patriotism, Morales offers this, “You are a citizen because you were born in America. I chose to be an American.”
Leila Holley is in her junior year at University at Albany. This assignment was prepared for her Global Perspectives in the News course, taught by Professor Rosemary Armao. For the course, students were asked to interview immigrants and write about their experiences. This spring the Central Avenue BID was invited to the UAlbany to talk about Central Avenue's large immigrant population and what an asset this is for the larger Albany community. Afterwards, students were invited to connect with Central Avenue business owners who were willing to talk about their experiences as immigrants. This article is based on Leila Holley's interview with Nicolas Morales.
