Latino families coming to North Carolina to build a better life may find bequeathing the American dream to their children more difficult than native Tar Heels.

A report released last week by non-profit Action for Children North Carolina details the inequitable conditions immigrant Latino children face when coming to North Carolina, and the ways their needs are marginalized by state institutions.

It finds that too many Latino children in North Carolina “are denied access to health care, high quality education, safety and family economic security.”

Action for Children North Carolina President and CEO Barb Bradley explained pinning down firm statistics about specific populations is hindered because racial and ethnic county-by-county breakdowns aren’t readily available.

“What we do know is that there is a Latino population in every county,” she said.

Valeria Lunceford, who heads up the Women and Infant Children program at the county health department, said there are several barriers government officials have to overcome when helping Latino families.

“First of all, when our translators aren’t here we can’t talk to them,” Lunceford said. “The other problem is that they don’t tell you things because, in many cases, they’re scared of being deported, so they don’t volunteer information.”

She said the Latino families Richmond County serves, by and large, have stay-at-home mothers and the fathers who are here illegally often have difficulty securing steady employment.

“We know that there is food insecurity, but we just don’t know where it is because they’re too scared to tell us,” Lunceford said.

Over the past three years, Latino children comprise the fastest growing segment of the child population in the state, growing by one-third during this period. The Latino community contributed more than $9 billion to the state’s economy through purchases and taxes, driving growth in the state, the report said.

The agency contends their conditions haven’t caught up with their economic contributions.

“Every child has the potential to be an asset for North Carolina,” Bradley said. “It is the decisions we make today about what we are willing to invest in our children that will determine whether they all have the opportunity to fulfill that potential.”

In a release accompanying the report, Bradley said the well being of children is largely determined by their families’ financial security, and despite the fact most Latino children in the state have a working head-of-household, a larger percentage of them still go without health coverage, a primary physician and a regular dental visit. In addition, the report contends fewer Latina mothers receive adequate prenatal care than the general population, leading to lower birth weights and a higher rate of infant mortality.

Richmond County Partnership for Children Executive Director Martha Vance Brown said no child care providers have come to them to address cultural or language differences between Latino children and other ethnicities, but the Partnership provides resources such as books written in Spanish and dolls representing people of different races.

“One program we’ve been working to revamp that addresses some of these issues is HealthChoice, which allows the parents of children between the ages of zero and five to take their children in for a check-up,” Brown said. “The earlier a problem is identified and treated the more effective it is.”

They are also more likely to feel unsafe at school, flunk end-of-grade and end-of-course testing and drop out.

In Richmond County Schools, Latino children accounted for 514 out of about 7,600 students at the end of last school year. The largest populations are at Mineral Springs Elementary, Ellerbe Middle and Richmond Senior High.

Last year, about a third, 34 percent, of Latino students grades three through eight passed both reading and math end-of-grade testing. In the state, it was about 48 percent.

English as a Second Language teachers are used to try to bridge this gap, and the state allows for Latino students to take exams orally if they can’t read them.

Yet, the disparities exist.

“The systems we have in place marginalize many Latino children and families,” Bradley said. “Seventy-seven percent of Latino children in North Carolina live in immigrant families, but nearly 90 percent of these children are U.S. citizens. These are our children, and they are being denied access to the building blocks of a better future.”

She lays out a choice the state is facing.

“We can invest now and ensure that all of our children are equipped with the tools they need to build a better North Carolina going forward, or we can divest the children and pay a much higher price down the road,” Bradley said.

Staff Writer Philip D. Brown can be reached at (910) 997-3111 ext. 32, or by e-mail at pbrown@yourdailyjournal.com.