By Anabelle Garay
The Associated Press

LOUISVILLE - Felipe Companioni scratched his head while rushing to fill his health insurance forms the night before the paperwork was due to his employer.

The one Cuban doctor Companioni knows of in Louisville doesn't participate in his company's insurance plan, so he started scanning the list of providers again.

"I still don't have a doctor. I haven't found one that's Hispanic or speaks Spanish," said Companioni.

Until last year, Companioni didn't have to fill out forms for medical care. In his native Cuba, every neighborhood has a doctor provided free of charge. Companioni never had to wonder whether he could afford the insurance premiums to cover his wife, Yuri Cepeda, and their 10-year-old daughter, Leidys.

"It hits you. It's very difficult," he said in Spanish.

Like Companioni, 36, and Cepeda, 30, many recent Cuban immigrants to Louisville are navigating a complicated system of bureaucracy while acclimating to life in a new country with a different language.

About 2,325 Cubans make their home in metro Louisville, according to the 2000 census.

While they account for only a third of a percent of Louisville's population, some of the Kentucky Cubans expect their community to grow. Kentucky Refugee Ministries expects the arrival of 72 Cuban refugees who are undergoing review by the Bureau for Citizenship and Immigration Services. They include families, couples and children waiting to join their parents, said Chris Shull, a refugee case manager. In addition, the organization processes about six Cuban arrivals every month who immigrate through a visa lottery program, she said.

Most of Louisville's Cuban residents began arriving to this resettlement city in the mid-1990s under the lottery program or as political or religious refugees.

They passed up living in big-city Cuban enclaves like Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and San Francisco, said Maria Christina Garcia, author of Havana USA: Cuban Exiles and Cuban Americans in South Florida, 1959-1994.

In metro Louisville, Hispanics ranked as the third-largest ethnic group, following whites and blacks. Nearly half the city's Latino population of 12,370 in the 2000 census is Mexican.

Readily available work in metro Louisville's factories and the service industry along with a lower cost of living attracted many Cubans.

An informal network established by other Cuban immigrants continues to help recent arrivals. Newer immigrants rely on Cubans who have lived in Louisville longer to show them everything from where to find Latin American groceries to understanding the banking system to getting a job or learning to drive.

"Everytime we hear of someone coming from Camaguey we try to give them something, if we can," said Rigoberto Prado Hernandez, referring to Cubans from his native province. "We try to help them little by little until they can get around."

Prado Hernandez, 50, his wife Glevis Gonzalez and their family have lived in Louisville since August 2001.

When Gonzalez was injured at work while slicing and peeling onions at a produce distributor, she was relieved to find the local hospital had a Spanish-speaking employee.

"I wish I could read all that I receive," Gonzalez, 44, said, pointing to large stack of mail and documents on her kitchen counter.

Racial discrimination also factors into a newcomer's experience, often felt for the very first time, experts say. Many recent arrivals from Cuba are black or mixed race, but citizens of the island nation generally share a cohesive view of being "just Cubans," said Garcia, an associate history professor at Cornell University.

Despite difficulties, many Cuban immigrants are putting down roots, and making Louisville their permanent home.

"It's not unusual for them to buy a home within three to five years," Shull said.

For families like the Hernandezes or the Companionis, the first year seems crucial. It will determine if Louisville's Cuban community will thrive, Garcia said.