Dr. Ronaldo Funes

Born: Ronaldo, San Pedro Sula, Honduras; Carmenza, Manizales, Columbia

Here: 37 years in Baton Rouge

Occupations: Ronaldo, pediatrician; Carmenza, social worker, Montessori pre-school teacher

Why they came: Ronaldo, to pursue his post-graduate medical education; Carmenza, with her parents, who fled to Miami to escape Columbian guerillas

Laying on his back and looking up at the veteran pediatrician regarding him, 5-month-old Carlito looks amused.

He smiles as Dr. Ronaldo Funes presses a stethoscope to his abdomen and chats quietly in Spanish with his mother. Other than a runny nose, Carlito is pronounced healthy today at his wellness exam. When Funes shares this good news with Carlito’s mother, she smiles and thanks him.

This is now a routine scene at Southeast Pediatrics, where a growing number of Spanish-speaking residents seek care for their children from one of the few doctors in town who accepts Medicaid insurance, and even fewer who speak Spanish.

Funes, born in Honduras, has been practicing medicine in Baton Rouge since 1970. He moved here with his wife, Carmenza, after post-graduate training at Tulane Medical School. “When I came here, there were only two Spanish-speaking doctors,” Funes says.

Even now there are only a few other doctors in town who speak Spanish, which is why he’s been the go-to pediatrician for Hispanics for so long. Funes practices with his son, Dr. Christopher Funes, who was born and schooled in Baton Rouge.

Caring for recent immigrants seems second nature to Ronaldo Funes, perhaps because he has such empathy for their plight.

He recalls vividly the sight of well-respected Cuban doctors cleaning toilets just to survive after arriving in 1960s Miami. Exiled when Fidel Castro took over, those proud, formerly wealthy Cuban physicians found themselves penniless and unable to speak the language of their new country.

“Some of these men were prominent doctors,” Funes recalls somberly.

So they scrounged for menial jobs until they could learn English and petition the State Department to apply for medical licenses here.

Today, a steady stream of often painfully shy Hispanic mothers bring their coughing, feverish, ailing children to Funes’ Goodwood Boulevard-area offices.

With minimal formal education, most women will clean houses, and the men will join mostly Hispanic roofing and painting crews where speaking English is not required. “These are industrious people,” Funes says.

The first substantial Hispanic wave was Cubans following Castro’s takeover, although most who came to Baton Rouge eventually moved to Miami to join their fellow countrymen.

The next wave began in about 1990, Funes says. Families primarily from Mexico but also a host of other Central and South American countries began flocking to the Baton Rouge area in search of work. Many chose Gonzales, possibly for its familiar-sounding Hispanic name, but largely because of all the industrial jobs in the area.

And following Hurricane Katrina a new wave of Hispanics descended on Louisiana looking for work. Their arrival heightened the profile of local Hispanics, but as Funes points out, many were already here.

The next generation of Hispanics has begun to deepen its local roots.

Like little Carlito, born at Earl K. Long and now guaranteed all the benefits of U.S. citizenship. His El Salvadoran parents came here four years ago to join relatives. His father speaks fluent English, while his mother hopes to improve hers so she can seek jobs other than menial fabrication work.

Asked through a translator what her American dream is, she answered simply, “Baton Rouge.”