So today we in the newsroom received what we call a budget line, which basically is a preview of a story we haven't seen yet. It read like this:

"In a sign that the economic downturn is hitting hard among Latino immigrants, more than 3 million of them (sic) stopped sending money to families in their home countries during the last two years, the Inter-American Development Bank said Wednesday."

Without waiting for the rest of the story (it was going to take hours, time we didn't have if we were going to get local comments), we got on the phone and hit the sidewalks to try and find out to what degree this trend has affected Kern County.

The first thing we learned, halfway into our first dozen calls, is that a lot of people who work at businesses that wire money to other countries don't care to speak to newspaper reporters. The next thing we learned is that, among those who do care to speak to reporters, there has been no noticeable change in the amount of money being sent home to Mexico.

“No, we still do plenty of Western Unions every day,” said Frances Alba, the finance person at Fastrip Financial in Delano. “I haven’t noticed any difference. It’s still pretty much the same.”

Bottom line: Four money transfer businesses around the county, from downtown Bakersfield to Arvin, said their money transfer numbers have not changed significantly among Hispanic immigrant customers.

Perhaps the most interesting statements we heard were these:

“I think what they’re doing, they’re spending less money here and sending more or less the same to Mexico,” said Cecilia Garcia, manager of Jalisco Jewelers in downtown Bakersfield, which provides money transfers. She said the real test will come May 10, which is Mother’s Day in Mexico, one of the biggest days for Mexican immigrants to send money home.