Thread: Latinos flocking to South

www.charlotte.com

Posted on Wed, Jul. 27, 2005



Latinos flocking to South
Carolinas' and others' strong economies drawing immigrants
TIM FUNK
Observer Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - The Carolinas and four other Southern states have become the "new settlement areas" for still-surging waves of Latinos -- most of them young (median age 27), male (63 percent), foreign-born (57 percent) and drawn, like many native-born whites and blacks, by the region's robust economy.

Those are among the brush strokes in an 84-page portrait of "The New Latino South" released Tuesday by the Washington-based Pew Hispanic Center.

Besides North Carolina and South Carolina -- states where Latino populations grew by 394 percent and 211 percent, respectively, in the 1990s -- the report also identifies Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama as places newly and rapidly settled by Latinos. The report distinguishes these Southern states from Texas and Florida, the home of large and long-established Hispanic communities.

Relying mostly on U.S. Census numbers, the center's report pays special attention to North Carolina -- the state with the country's fastest-growing Latino population in the 1990s -- and to the Charlotte area. Mecklenburg and surrounding counties, the report's authors say, offer examples of economies that are magnets for the young men, most Mexican, looking for better-paying jobs:

• Counties, such as Catawba, that retained their manufacturing base and added factory jobs in the 1990s. In these Southern counties, 57 percent of Hispanics were working in manufacturing by 2000, including food processing and furniture-making.

• Urban fringe counties, such as Gaston, with transitional economies that lost manufacturing jobs (in textiles, for example) but managed to keep some. In these Southern counties, nearly 43 percent of Hispanics were working in factories in 2000.

• Larger metropolitan counties, such as Mecklenburg, with more diverse economies. In these Southern counties, 30 percent of Hispanics found construction work.

The median annual income of Latino workers in the six Southern states, the report says, was about $16,000 in 2000. That's about 60 percent of what white workers earned in the manufacturing counties, but only about 47 percent of what white workers made in the larger, more economically diverse counties.

The report also notes the stresses of this influx, and predicts the burden will increase.

"It will be dramatic, particularly on the schools," the report says.

"As the new immigrants grow older and utilize more health services, and as more wives join their husbands, evening out the gender imbalance and leading to more children, the demands they make on public services will increase."

But the report also calls for perspective. Latinos are far from being the only reason the South has gained population since the 1990s. The number of blacks in the region grew during that decade by 21 percent; the number of whites by 11 percent. Economic growth in the South created an additional 410,000 jobs for Hispanic workers, but 1.9 million for non-Hispanic workers.

Latino growth in the South has been intense, the report says, but it started from practically zero -- Mecklenburg was home to only 7,000 Latinos in 1990. And the total of Latinos in the South still pales in comparison to the number in states such as Texas and California.

.Among the other findings:

• More than half of the Latino immigrants living in the South entered the country between 1995 and 2000. Most entered illegally -- 300,000 in North Carolina and between 20,000 and 35,000 in South Carolina.

• About 62 percent of Hispanic immigrants in the South lack a high school diploma; 57 percent do not speak English well or at all. In states with a more established Hispanic population, more Latinos are better educated and more fluent in English.

William Gheen, president of the Raleigh-based Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, saw in the findings fuel for what he called a backlash in North Carolina against the influx of undocumented immigrants.

"There's a political revolt growing in this state ... against illegal aliens," he said. "Our schools are bursting at the seams ... Our community health and safety is deteriorating rapidly ... (In state polls), 75 percent to 80 percent of North Carolinians want all immigration levels reduced."

But immigration attorney David Stewart, interim executive director of Charlotte's International House, cautioned against reading too much into the report's numbers.

"These kinds of reports are helpful in explaining to people what's going on around them," he said. "But you need to be careful to not parlay the numbers into stereotypes ... These are individuals and families who have responsibilities and lives who are going about trying to make a living."

bttt for sunday homepage

They aren't far enough south.

Originally Posted by dataman

They aren't far enough south.

Actually they are moving north, and should be deported south.

added to the alipac homepage

http://www.alipac.us/article-578-thread-1-0.html