Growing Number of Immigrants
Using Videoconferencing to Unite
with Far-Away Relatives

By NAHAL TOOSI, Associated Press Writer, Newsday

3/18/06

BAY SHORE, N.Y. - For a moment, Marta Jaramillo-Ospina didn't recognize the faces on the sleek, flat-screen TV. But the smiling, waving figures quickly brought a look of recognition, then surprise, then joy, to her face.

"Que lindo! Que lindo!" said a dazed Marta (meaning "How beautiful!") as her husband, Mario Melan, sat nearby in tears.

It was Marta's daughter and son, whom she had last seen in Colombia four years ago. Also on the screen was Mario's 5-year-old granddaughter, whom he had never seen.

The cross-continental family reunion—in Medellin, Colombia, and this Long Island town—was made possible through videoconferencing. Such technological meetings are a slowly growing, niche business in immigrant neighborhoods across the country thanks to savvy immigrant entreprenuers who see economic opportunity in family bonds.

Fernando Rojas, a Colombia native who has lived in the United States for 25 years, opened the videoconferencing service in Bay Shore eight months ago after more than a year of planning and several years of dreaming. He has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars to arrange facilities in the United States and several Spanish-speaking countries.

The cost of the sessions depends on the country the immigrants are trying to contact and the day of the week. Rojas charges about $80 an hour for Colombia on the weekends, $90 an hour for El Salvador on weekends, and $120 an hour for Ecuador any day.

So far, with some 15 to 20 clients a week, he is not making any profit. But Rojas is ever-optimistic, counting on Spanish-language print and local television ads to boost his business while the word-of-mouth slowly spreads. He calls his video-conferencing service "Reach Out" or in Spanish "A Tu Alcance."

Trade analysts said there are no hard statistics on immigrant use of videoconferencing, but anecdotal reports are more common. The increasing affordability of the equipment has helped take the technology beyond big-company boardrooms, though for the most high-end services, the cost remains steep.

Harold German, marketing director for video conferencing company IVCi, said the company is getting an increasing number of inquiries from people such as Rojas. German estimated that in 2004 the company had 15 inquiries, in 2005 had about twice that many, and so far in 2006, more than 10 people had asked what it takes to set up a videoconference center.

"The hot areas are New York and California," German said. "Really, it's entreprenuerial immigrants who are contacting us from urban areas."

The 43-year-old Rojas shares office space, equipment and clients with a network of similar entreprenuers in other countries and the United States. While there's certainly competition, the service providers are finding that at this nascent stage, cooperation makes sense.

Austro Financial Services in Queens and Atlantic Travel and Multiservice Inc. in Queens and Brooklyn, also offer videoconferencing, catering primarily to the New York area's large Latino population.

One of the best known videoconference providers is AmigoLatino, which offers its U.S. services in cities including San Franciso, Chicago and Los Angeles.

Immigrant use of videoconferencing is helped by tougher U.S. entrance and exit restrictions on foreigners. Increased border enforcement and tighter immigration laws have made it harder to travel between countries, and not just for immigrants who are undocumented. Legal immigrants to the United States often wait years to earn permanent residency and citizenship, unable or unwilling to go beyond U.S. borders for legal and financial reasons.

"It's all part of the process of immigration," said Douglas Massey, a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University. "It's a wave of technology that's enabled immigrants to continue to play a more direct role in the lives of their families at home."

The family sessions that result are often as creative as they are emotional.

Birthdays, complete with cakes and drinks, are celebrated across the visual planes.

Rojas once had a just-married bride and groom arrive to show off the wedding dress and meet new family members via teleconference. The three-way call allowed family members from Colombia and Ecuador to meet one another, Rojas said.

"Most of the people who come here, they cry —I cry, too," said Rojas, who videotapes the sessions for clients. "We say we have happy customers because they all come out crying."

The bill goes to only one side participating, Rojas said. In many cases, the biggest hassle for a family is gathering everyone together and going to the cities where a videoconference center is located.

Rojas won't rule out expanding to other parts of the world, but he expects Latinos to continue making up the greatest demand. Besides Ecuador, Colombia, and El Salvador, Reach Out, through ownership and partnership, can connect to offices in Venezuela, Peru, Argentina, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Spain. Soon it will be able to reach Costa Rica.

Mario Melan heard about Reach Out through print ads and surprised his wife with the digital reunion.

After he wiped away his initial tears, Mario teased his son Richard, whom he hadn't seen since leaving Colombia six years ago, by calling him "gordo" (fat). And he took off his coat, stood up, and flexed his muscles to make his relatives laugh.

The couple asked Marta's daughter, Monica, how many boyfriends she had. Round-faced Monica, who sat next to her brother David, held up four fingers, then four more, to howls on the U.S. side of the screen.

At one point, Mario asked little Valentina what his name was—"Como me llamo, yo?"

"Mario," she said, sending the cute-meter soaring.

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