Special Report: Who is Huntsville?
Meet the people who live, work, and play here in Huntsville.
We see the rapid growth in Madison County as more homes and buildings go up by the day. Huntsville is now the largest city in the state and is attracting some of the best and brightest from STEM to manufacturing.
However, who works at these jobs? Who fills these new homes?
Caribbean Culture Rhythm And Music
Meet Arnold Corbin, also known as, Bert. His band is named ‘Kush’.
“It’s a Caribbean-centered band, and some people seem to love the music, the genre. So we sing a lot of Reggae and Soca music,” said Corbin.
Corbin retired four years ago after serving as a librarian for Alabama A&M University for thirty years.
“I was born in Trinidad & Tobago,” said Corbin. He’s the only band member with Caribbean roots, but his music reaches all.
“Here we are landlocked. There’s not a beach and 300 miles maybe, but yet this music makes it here. It’s a reflection of the community. Both the community coming in, and the existing community accepting this music and making it their own,” said Corbin.
First Baptist Church on Governors Drive is where people from multiple countries are enrolled in the ESL, or English as a Second Language) class.
“I’m from Japan,” said Yuko Fujimaki.
Mazda Toyota Manufacturing brought Yuko and her husband to Huntsville. “My husband works for a car company in Japan, and the company made a new plant here and he is working there now,” she said.
Shifting Demographics Japanese, Koreans move to HSV
ESL Teacher, Tara Dubose-Schmitt, has seen the changes. “I’ve been working here for a long time, and I’ve noticed that the ethnic makeup here changes. When I first came here 20 years ago, we had a large population of Iranians. Not so many now.”
“Sometimes we’ll have lots of Hispanics. Not necessarily just Mexican Hispanics, but from other countries. Currently, we have lots of Japanese students and Korean students brought here with Toyota and LG,” she said.
"When the program was started in 1968, it was Germans who were here with the Arsenal. That had been brought over, and we’ve just continued that with Research Park and our industry and what kind of things we have going on in Huntsville,” said Dubose-Schmitt.
“You just have to drive down Jordan Lane and see every kind of ethnic restaurant you can imagine,” she added.
'The People Are Here' Many Faces of Huntsville
“I am from Ecuador,” said Carolina Moncayo. Carolina and her husband both moved from Ecuador to Huntsville three years ago.
“Huntsville is a beautiful place and the people are very friendly,” said Moncayo.
Marriage also brought newcomer Shima Nejad.
“I am from Iran,” she said. “I came to Huntsville eight months ago with marriage.”
“The people are here. The culture is following, and I think that it’s going to continue to thrive, and that’s what I hope to see,” said Corbin.