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Winds of Change: By Robert Aponte, Ph.D. Associate Professor, IUPUI Faculty Associate, JSRI
Marcelo E. Siles, Ph.D. Research Associate, JSRI
February 1997
Suggested Citation Aponte, Robert and Marcelo E. Siles. Winds of Change: Latinos in the Heartland and the Nation. Statistical Brief No. 5, the Julian Samora Research Institute. Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI. February 1997. Table of Contents
A widely publicized Institute report, "Latinos in the Heartland: The Browning of the Midwest" (Aponte and Siles 1994), provided a Latino-focused preliminary assessment of the changing demographic and economic landscape of the Midwest between 1980 and 1990. This follow-up report provides a synopsis of those findings along with several additional findings based on census data not available at the time of the original report's release. These new findings both elaborate on some of the key issues in the earlier report, and provide a more comparative context. In addition, a newly developing pattern of Latino settlement in the rural Midwest is explored. As reported in "The Browning of the Midwest" (Aponte and Siles 1994), although Latinos accounted for over half of the total population growth in the Midwest over the 1980's, in absolute terms, the group's growth was modest. The relative impact of this growth, however, was greatly enhanced by the minimal or negative growth of the region's other groups. The bulk of Latino population growth was centered in Illinois, especially the Chicago metropolitan area, and was overwhelmingly Mexican in origin. In addition, the data strongly suggested that immigration to this area accounted for most of the increase, as against other sources of growth. Finally, "The Browning of the Midwest" (Aponte and Siles 1994), showed that Latinos sustained a significant decrease in real income and correspondingly significant increase in poverty, while the region's Whites experienced a more moderate economic decline and the region's Blacks sustained a devastating blow. Beyond reinforcing the findings of the earlier work, this report shows that the Midwest's severe economic setback was not matched at the national level. Indeed, median household income for the region began the 1980's higher than that for the nation, but ended lower. In addition, this report provides even stronger support to the idea that Mexican immigration accounts for the Chicago-centered pattern of Latino growth in the region. The data elaborated herein also suggest that while Latinos continue to trail Blacks and Whites in educational attainment, there is more catching up going on than is readily apparent. In fact, the educational data on Hispanics are almost certainly downwardly biased by the inclusion of large numbers of lesser educated, recently arrived, immigrants. Finally, this report provides information that since 1990, immigration and internal migration has brought large numbers of Latinos to rural areas; concurrently, the Chicago area may be losing some of its attraction to such migrants. While hard data on these changes are scarce, indications are strongly suggestive that winds of change are upon the region. It should be noted that this report follows the official Census Bureau designation for "the Midwest," which covers only the following 12 states: Illinois (IL), Indiana (IN), Iowa (IA), Kansas (KS), Michigan (MI), Minnesota (MN), Missouri (MO), Nebraska (NB), North Dakota (ND), Ohio (OH), South Dakota (SD), and Wisconsin (WI). In addition, because so few Latinos actually reside in the Dakotas, data on those states may be combined or omitted from illustrations where data are presented for individual states. It should also be noted that all the data presented here, unless otherwise indicated, derive from the U.S. Bureau of the Census's published reports on the 1980 and 1990 census counts. Finally, an important caveat concerning the figures on population change presented here is that in most instances, the actual sources of growth or decline are not specified (or easily determined). Thus, where growth is reported, it may be due to natural increase (excess of births over deaths) or to net migration (more inbound than outbound migrants), or both. In some cases, however, inferences can be made that a particular component (e.g., immigration) largely accounted for particular changes (e.g., growth) because there exists, in such instances, supporting information to substantiate the inferences. Beyond that, the interested reader can find detailed estimates of Latino migrant flows to and from the Midwest in a newly released JSRI report (Saenz and Cready 1997). However, those estimates only cover the latter half (1985/90) of the most recent intercensual interim. Introduction | Major Demographic Trends | Urban Concentration and Chicago Focus | Immigration and Latino Growth | Basic Educational Attainment | Income and Poverty | Emerging Rural Population Growth | Notes | References The population of the Midwest changed significantly over the 1980-1990 period, as did that of the nation at large. However, as often as not, the respective changes differed in pattern-ing. These similarities and differences are easily detected from a comparison of Figures 1A and 1B. First, as shown in Figure 1A, the population of the Midwest grew by only 800,000 persons over the decade, an increase of only about 1.3% (from slightly more than 59 million to slightly less than 60 million). By contrast, as Figure 1B shows, the nation's total population added more than 22 million people, a hike of better than 10% (from just over 226 million to just under 249 million). Nevertheless, in each instance, Latino growth exerted a considerable impact on the overall pattern. As Figure 1A shows, Latinos account for fully half of the total population
growth of 800,000 in the Midwest while the region's non-Hispanic Whites
actually drop by over 300,000! Non-Hispanic Blacks and Figures 2A and 2B, for the Midwest and the U.S. respectively, focus on
Latinos by individual national origin category. The data show that some
striking similarites obtain across the two settings. It is clear in each
case that the brisk Latino growth is mainly a reflection of that of the
largest group, Latinos of Mexican origin, advancing its lead over the others.
In the Midwest (Figure 2A), for example, while the Mexican origin population
Another interesting pattern, which may prove a harbinger of things to
come, concerns the patterning of the non-Mexican Latino growth. While Cubans
and Puerto Ricans - long the second and third largest Latino groups - show
relatively little absolute growth in the Midwest or the nation, Latinos
of "Other" origin (e.g., Central/South American, etc.) show little
growth in only one of these settings, the Midwest. In the nation as a whole,
the group shows substantial growth. There, they have increased by greater
than two million persons, over twice the growth for Puerto Ricans and Cubans
combined! These growth patterns reflect, in large measure, current trends
in immigration (e.g., Rumbaut 1995). Figures 3A and 3B show the proportional representation of the population within selected categories for the Midwest and the U.S. Many similarities are in evidence, but so are contrasts. In particular, non-Hispanic Whites account for fully 86% of the Midwest's population, but only three-quarters of the nation's, despite having declined in size in the former setting, while continuing growth in the latter. This reflects that fact that while the nation absorbed the addition of some 13 million Hispanics, Blacks, and "Other" non-Whites, only about one million of those resided in the Midwest. Hence, the impact of the shifting population was far greater outside the region. With respect to Latinos, the data in Figures 3A and 3B are consistent
with the earlier noted findings. Mexicans account for roughly two-thirds
of all Latinos in the nation or the region, and Puerto Ricans follow in
each case at around 10 to 15%. In addition, Cubans account for less than
5% of Latinos in each case, but "Other" Latinos account for over
15% of the Midwest's Hispanics and nearly one-quarter of the nation's. Figures 4A and 4B show the Latino growth in the Midwest, by state, for all Hispanics (4A) and for Hispanics by national origin groupings (4B). The story is unambiguous: the region's Latino population, and the group's growth, are centered in Illinois and are predominently of Mexican origin. As can be seen in Figure 4A, not only did Illinois begin the decade with the largest Latino population by a wide margin, but around 300,000 Latinos were added to the state's population over the intercensual interim - practically three-quarters of the full region's growth - and most of the added population (well over 200,000) was of Mexican origin (Figure 4B). The pattern of Latino settlement is further conveyed in Figure 5, where the group's proportional representation across the states of the region is contrasted with that of the region's total population. As can be seen, whereas Illinois accounts for some 19% of the Midwest's total population, the state accounts for fully 52% of the region's Latinos. In contrast to this, Michigan, the state with the second largest Hispanic contingent in the region, accounts for only 12% of the region's Latinos, but 16% of its total population. This pattern of relative concen-tration also characterizes the national scene. As noted in another JSRI publication (Rumbaut 1995) and expanded in a forthcoming work by the present authors, some 70% of the nation's Latinos can be found in just four states (California, Texas, New York, and Florida). As the next section of this report indicates, an urban bias characterizes the Midwest's settlement patterns of Latinos.
Introduction | Major Demographic Trends | Urban Concentration and Chicago Focus | Immigration and Latino Growth | Basic Educational Attainment | Income and Poverty | Emerging Rural Population Growth | Notes | References Urban Concentration and Chicago
Focus Two additional features of note regarding the Latino population's Midwestern presence are the overall urban bias in residence and, most spectacularly, the Chicago-focused concentration of Illinois' Hispanics. Figure 6A shows the relative concentration of Latinos in the key cities of the region's two states with the most Latinos. As can be seen at a glance, Latinos of all backgrounds are far more likely to be Chicago residents, if they live in Illinois, than they are to be residents of Detroit, if they live in Michigan. Moreover, as shown below, the Chicago area concentration of Latinos - especially Mexicans - is understated when only the city is considered. Figure 6B expands on Figure 6A by contrasting the concentration of Mexicans
- the key source of Latino growth - with that for the total population in
a comparison of Finally, Figure 6C shows the proportion of the region's Latinos and Whites and Blacks that reside in urban versus rural areas. The results are striking: all Latinos are highly urbanized in residence, despite the agricultural-labor backgrounds of many. Figure 6C also shows that Blacks are also highly urbanized, but Whites are not. Slightly less than two-thirds of Whites are urban residents, as compared with at least nine out of ten among all others. Introduction | Major Demographic Trends | Urban Concentration and Chicago Focus | Immigration and Latino Growth | Basic Educational Attainment | Income and Poverty | Emerging Rural Population Growth | Notes | References Figure 7 provides the key to understanding the phenomenal growth of the Latino population of the Midwest. There, figures on immigrants are presented for Latinos of Mexican origin, the group showing the most growth. The figures compare the respective immigrant proportions of the Mexican origin populations for the Midwest and for the nation. Interestingly, the proportions are practically identical, registering at just under one-third each. However, when the proportions are disaggregated by Illinois and the balance of the region, it becomes obvious that most of the region's Mexican immigrants are Illinois residents and, thus, immigration almost certainly accounts for the skewing of the region's Latino population to Illinois. This assertion draws further support from the fact that, as a recent
analysis shows, Illinois actually lost Latinos of Mexican origin to internal
migration (migration from/to other parts of the U.S.) exchanges with the
Southwest, at least from 1985 to 1990 (Saenz and Cready 1997). In turn,
there is little reason to expect a diametrically different pattern to have
obtained from 1980 to 1985. Since it is very unlikely that migrant traffic
from other regions amounted to more than a trickle at any time in the past
(see Saenz and Cready 1997), and natural increase, by itself, could not
have generated the amount of growth experienced by Illinois, it stands to
reason that the role of immigration was pivotal in the state's Mexican origin
population increase. As shown in Figure 7, immigrants account for almost half of all Illinois' Mexican origin Latinos, in contrast to the rest of the region, where the immigrant contribution is under 14%. Even Michigan, home to the second largest number of Latinos (and of Mexicans, if taken separately), holds a Mexican origin population that is only 10% immigrant. As will be shown presently, a large immigrant component can have a substantial impact on the statistical profile of the group as a whole. Of course, immigration is not likely to be the sole source of growth, even for Illinois. Two additional sources are "natural increase" (excess of births over deaths) among those already in residence, and "internal migration" (migration from other parts of the U.S.). These latter sources provide most of the growth outside Illinois, though their relative contributions are difficult to untangle. However, a recent JSRI report does provide solid and detailed data on internal migration flows to and from the Midwest, but only for the 1985-1990 period (Saenz and Cready 1997). An important component of the internal migration category, often referred to as "settling out," denotes newcomers that previously worked as migrant workers in areas near where they ultimately settled. This component is often a key factor in growth among rural Latinos in the region (e.g., Green 1994).
Introduction | Major Demographic Trends | Urban Concentration and Chicago Focus | Immigration and Latino Growth | Basic Educational Attainment | Income and Poverty | Emerging Rural Population Growth | Notes | References Data on a basic indicator of educational attainment, high school completion (including equivalency) for those 25 years of age or older, are shown in Figures 8A and 8B. The information is provided for both Latinos and non-Latinos and covers both the Midwest (8A) and the U.S. (8B). As clearly shown, all groups have uniformly registered gains in high school completion within the Midwest as well as within the nation at large. However, at both times, Hispanics trail the others by a substantial margin. Whereas in 1990, fully three-quarters of Whites and nearly two-thirds of Blacks completed high school, only about half of Latino adults did so within either setting. However, as we will see, it is likely that the influx of immigrants accounts for a substantial portion of the lag. An important twist in the data concerns the Hispanic comparison across
place. Whereas Latinos at the national level previously showed higher levels
of high school completion than did those of the Midwest, by 1990, the pattern
had reversed. Indeed, the modest 4.4 percentage point (from 45.4 to 49.8)
(Table 8B) gain registered by the nation's Hispanics is less than half the
size of any of the other increases. Showing how this apparent lack of progress
is related to immigration can be accomplished by considering educational
attainment figures disaggregated by both place and national origin, as shown
below. Figures 9A, 9B and 9C show high school completion rates for Latinos by national origin category for 1980 and/or 1990. The data show that all Latino groups have increased their high school completion rates between those years. However, not only did Mexicans remain solidly behind all others in high school completion, but in the Midwest (Figure 9A), they lost their earlier lead over Puerto Ricans. However, as Figure 9C clearly shows, the educational gap between Mexicans and the others in the Midwest is centered in Illinois, where the presence of immigrants is strongest. Whereas only 39% of adult Mexicans in Illinois completed 12 years of schooling (compared with 46% of adult Puerto Ricans), some 58% of adult Mexicans within the balance of the region (over 45% of the region's Mexicans) did so! Since the Mexican origin population across the entire nation is also about one-third immigrant, then the logic suggested above should apply to them, too. That is, the substantial immigrant component is likely to obscure educational attainment somewhat, since the immigrants are known to have received little formal education. Because statistics on Latinos as a whole are so highly influenced by the rates shown by Mexicans, their profiles should be similarly affected, if to a lesser extent. The Midwest's Mexicans outside of Illinois not only match the educational attainment of their Puerto Rican counterparts, but they fall just slightly short of matching that of their Black counterparts in the region (within seven percentage points) or the nation (five percentage points) at large (Figures 8A and 8B). It is notable, also, that Puerto Ricans also exhibit a sizable gap in attainment between Illinois and the other states. The reason for this will be explored in subsequent research.
Introduction | Major Demographic Trends | Urban Concentration and Chicago Focus | Immigration and Latino Growth | Basic Educational Attainment | Income and Poverty | Emerging Rural Population Growth | Notes | References The Midwest's people fared quite poorly over the decade, experiencing
both increased poverty and falling household incomes, while the nation at
large sustained only a modest increase in poverty and no decline in household
income. Indeed, by the decade's end, the median household income for the
total population of the nation stood nearly $1,000 higher than that for
the Midwest, a sharp reversal from 1980 when the region was favored by over
$2,000! Although the Figures 10A and 10B show regional and national poverty rates for Latinos
and others for both 1979 and 1989 (reference years for data collected during
decennial censuses). The most glaring finding is that poverty rose for all
groups in the Midwest. The same pattern held for the nation, but at a slightly
lower level. Indeed, the national poverty rate for Blacks is shown to actually
have declined very slightly, in contrast to a rise at the regional level.
In any case, both Blacks and Hispanics in the region, as well as the nation,
registered alarming rates of poverty in 1989. Nearly a third of all the
Figures 11A and 11B convey national and regional poverty figures for
Latinos by national origin. With few exceptions, the patterning is generally
consistent across these places. Poverty at the national level began and
ended higher than that at the regional level for all except Cubans. For
them, the pattern reversed from 1980 to 1990. In addition, Puerto Rican
poverty dropped sharply at the national level, while it rose at the regional
level. Poverty for all the others rose at both levels. In the end, the relative
rankings in poverty among the Latino groups went unchanged. For example,
Puerto Ricans were poorer than the others at both times and within both
levels of place. Figures 11A and 11B show that Puerto Rican poverty practically matched that of Blacks (Figures 10A and 10B) - traditionally the poorest group - in both 1980 and 1990. In each instance, roughly 3 out of 10 members of both groups were impoverished. At both times, also, Mexicans show poverty rates of roughly 1 in 5 for the region and 1 in 4 for the nation. Not surprisingly, these closely match those of Latinos in the aggregate. Cubans, who experienced the sharpest gain in poverty at the regional level, continued to show lower poverty rates than the others as of 1990, but only by a small amount in the Midwest. An interpretation of their especially sharp region-specific economic setback is not readily apparent, but their regional estimates could be marred by their especially small numbers.1 The worsening poverty in the Midwest is more than matched by trends in
median household income: stan-dards of living fell across the board in the
region. As shown in Figures 12A and 12B, declines in median household income
in inflation-adjusted dollars exceeded $2,000 for In contrast to the their woeful showing in the Midwest, Blacks, Whites,
and Hispanics at the national level registered modest gains in median household
income of about $1,000, as shown in Figures 13A and 13B. An important consequence
of these changes is a significant reversal in relative well-being between
Blacks and Whites in the region vis-a-vis those of the nation. Whereas median
household income for Whites and Blacks in the Midwest exceeded their corresponding
figures at the national level in 1979 by $1,000 to $2,000, the reverse is
the case in 1989. The same pattern holds, of course, for the total population,
since Whites dominate national trends. Among Latinos, the similar gap in
1979 (the widest of all such gaps at nearly $5,000) was considerably narrowed
(to about $2,500), but not closed, over the interim. In summary then, the economic devastation sustained by the Midwest's people not only left them less well off than others around the nation, but it considerably worsened the region's preexisting inequalities. Although a definitive accounting for the patterning remains to be produced, clearly, the nation's economic restructuring, which had its strongest impact on the Midwest through the early 1980's, is a key factor in the overall downturn (e.g., Markusen and Carlson 1989). A final, but paradoxical, finding is revealed in Figure 14A. It shows
that on at least one of the most fundamental measures of economic well-being,
per capita income, the region's Blacks actually fare better ($8,800) than
Hispanics ($8,500), albeit minutely. How this is possible, given that on
all other economic indicators, Hispanics fare substantially better than
Blacks, is partly revealed in Figure 14B. The explanation lies in two separate
factors. First, as detailed in "The Browning of the Midwest" (Aponte and Siles 1994), Hispanics exhibit higher rates of labor force participation than Blacks, though they tend to earn somewhat lower wages. Second, as shown in Figure 14B, Hispanic households, on average, have substantially more members than do Black households (3.8 as against 3.0). The larger households of Hispanics, in combination with their higher rates of labor force participation, translate into more workers per household and, hence, higher median earnings per household. However, more persons per household also means that the larger number of dollars must be shared by a larger number of persons. On balance, this results in the two minority groups faring equally well on income per person. As Figures 15A and 15B show, the same basic pattern appears to hold for the nation at large.
Introduction | Major Demographic Trends | Urban Concentration and Chicago Focus | Immigration and Latino Growth | Basic Educational Attainment | Income and Poverty | Emerging Rural Population Growth | Notes | References Emerging Rural Population Growth An emerging trend of Latino growth in the Midwest defies the traditional patterns of Latino residence detailed in this report. Recent years have witnessed a burgeoning Latino population in the rural areas of some of the region's states, particularly Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas. The subject of much recent scholarly and media attention (e.g, Amato 1996, Burke 1996, Hedges and Hawkins 1996, Martin et al 1996, Stull et al 1995),2 the growing population consists of both Latino migrants from other parts of the U.S. and Latino immigrants from Mexico. The major "pull" for these newcomers is a string of meat processing plants that have recently shifted to, or expanded in, these midwestern areas. How-ever, since much of this transformation has taken place after 1990, little evidence of it can be found in the decennial count data utilized throughout this report. Thus, while the effects of the influx have been sharp in the small - virtually all with populations under 25,000 - rural communities that have hosted them, reliable information on the newcomers, in terms of numbers or characteristics, are hard to come by. Still, varying strands of direct and indirect evidence attest to the idea that theirs is a formidable presence and that, therefore, winds of change are upon the region. For example, Garden City, Kansas, the first community to host a new meatpacking facility in the area, already had a long standing Hispanic community in 1980 when the plant opened. Nevertheless, dramatic Latino growth followed the plant opening. For example, even though the city's overall population grew substantially over the decade (by some 33%) the proportion accounted for by Latinos increased from about 16% to about 25% (Gouveia and Stull 1995). Indeed, a carefully focused re-inspection of Figure 4B (reviewed earlier) shows that Kansas added more Mexican origin population between 1980 and 1990 than all the other midwestern states except for the two with the largest Latino populations, Illinois (the largest gainer) and Michigan (which only barely edged it out). In addition, Lexington, Nebraska, a town of some 10,000, also hosted a plant-opening in 1990. Within a scant three years, the town's Latino component rose from about 5% of the total to about 24%, a fact that became certifiable only because a special census was held in early 1993 (Gouveia and Stull 1995). In a similarly rapid fashion, the Hispanic population of Storm Lake, Iowa, rose from 102 persons in 1990 to an estimated 1,250 in 1996 (Burke 1996), in response to the new plant there. Thus, the town's entering kindergarten class of fall 1996 was estimated to be 47% "minority" (translation: mainly Hispanic), according to an informative story in U.S. News and World Report (Hedges and Hawkins 1996). In nearby Marshaltown, Iowa, where meatpacking has also expanded, the number of Hispanic students in the school district rose from 40 in 1990 to some 400 in 1996 (Burke 1996). Similar accounts abound in Minnesota (Amato 1996). For example, in Worthington, Minn., the Swift plant reportedly increased its Latino workforce from 119 persons in 1991 (12.8% of the total) to 525 in 1996 (32.8%). As a result, nearby school districts report growing proportions of Hispanic students and many have had to implement bilingual programs (cf. Green 1994). Finally, substantial evidence suggests that many of the workers may lack legal status. For example, since 1992, the INS has reportedly raided 15 plants in the Iowa and Nebraska area, arresting over 1,000 employees. Some 500 more, who failed to turn out for work after the raids, also presumedly lacked legal status. Indeed, the INS director for the two state area estimates that of the 220 plants in his beat, perhaps 25% (12,000) of the workers are undocumented (Hedges and Hawkins 1996). Thus, the newcomers are a thorough mixture of both immigrants and internal migrants, though their total numbers and relative breakdowns by migrant status (immigrant vs. internal migrant) are unknown. If these movements are truly indicative of things to come, they may soon
provide more balance to the region's Latino settlement patterns than might
seem possible in light of the earlier discussion in this report. Although
the Chicago-centered growth and concentration seems impregnable, in fact,
there are some changes in that pattern that may well signal less growth
there in the future. In fact, the Mexican population growth in Illinois
(and thus, Chicago) during the 1980's, a decade of record Mexican immigration
to the U.S., was actually declining, relative to its extent in the previous
decade! Figure 16 shows the Mexican origin population of all the region's states from 1970 to 1990. A careful visual inspection of the data for Illinois shows that the state's Mexican origin population actually grew more, in absolute numbers, between 1970 and 1980, than between 1980 and 1990! More specifically, growth during the first decade produced nearly 250,000 additional persons, while only slightly over 200,000 were added during the second decade. Furthermore, the population should have grown much more, in absolute numbers, during the latter period than the earlier one, even if the net number of "inmigrants" (balance of incoming vs. outgoing, whether from/to abroad or other parts of the U.S.) were exactly the same during both decades, because there were so many more people in place in the state at 1980 than at 1970.3 The fact that fewer people were added suggests that inmigration waned, or outmigration rose,4 since the only other possible explanation, a drastic decline in the rate of reproduction, is unlikely in the extreme. Indeed, as Saenz and Cready (1997) have shown, Illinois was one of only two Midwestern states that lost Mexican origin population to internal migration with the Southwest in the 1985-90 period! In essence, then, the restructuring of the meat processing industry has clearly rekindled Latino movement to the region's hinterland, at the same time that the region's historic "magnet" to Latino growth - Chicago - is either drawing less or losing some of its holding power. However, until the census of the year 2000 provides the necessary details, the extent and character of these opposing dynamics will remain well beyond our immediate grasp. Introduction | Major Demographic Trends | Urban Concentration and Chicago Focus | Immigration and Latino Growth | Basic Educational Attainment | Income and Poverty | Emerging Rural Population Growth | Notes | References 1 The Cuban population in the region is relatively small and barely grew over the decade, declining even in Illinois, the group's stronghold in the region. While this hardly compromises the purely demographic findings because they are drawn from the full census, it could compromise the social and economic data because those estimates are drawn from a sample. Thus, figures on Cubans (beyond population counts) should be taken as only suggestive, particularly with respect to such seeming "outliers" as the 1990 regional poverty figures. 2 Numerous conferences and related research projects have been launched to explore these dynamics in recent years, including several in 1996 alone. For example, Martin et al (1996) is a summary of findings in one of these (Iowa State University, July), while Burke (1996) summarizes related findings from a session at the Rural Sociological Society annual conference (Des Moines, Iowa, August). Amato's (1996) manuscript was released at a conference in Minnesota, bearing the same title (To Call It Home), which explored the situation in that state (Southwest State University, October). 3 Put another way, if "natural increase" (excess of births over deaths) added one person for every hundred already in place over a 10-year span, then the second decade should have added 2,500 more people than the first, just because they had 250,000 more people in place. While the rate of natural increase could have changed over a decade, it is unlikely to have changed drastically. 4 Of course, it could be that immigrants are increasingly replacements for "leavers," or the immigrants themselves do not stay. But it is clear that net migration (balance of inbound over outbound migrants), though positive, has declined. Introduction | Major Demographic Trends | Urban Concentration and Chicago Focus | Immigration and Latino Growth | Basic Educational Attainment | Income and Poverty | Emerging Rural Population Growth | Notes | References Amato, Joseph A. (1996) To Call It Home: The New Immigrants of Southwestern Minnesota (Marshall, Minn.: Crossings Press) Aponte, Robert and Marcelo Siles. (1994) Latinos in the Heartland: The Browning of the Midwest. Research Report No 5. Julian Samora Research Institute, Michigan State University. Burke, Sandra C. (1996) Personal Communication (Dec. 16). Summary of proceedings at Session on Latinos in Iowa, Rural Sociological Society Conference (August). Gouveia, Lourdes and Donald D. Stull. (1995) "Dances with Cows: Beefpacking's Impact on Garden City, Kansas, and Lexington, Nebraska" in D.D. Stull et al (eds) Anyway You Cut It: Meatpacking and Small-Town America (Lawrence, Kan.: University Press of Kansas). Green, Susan. (1994) "Del Valle a Willmar: Settling Out of the Migrant Stream in a Rural Minnesota Community" Working Paper No. 19. Julian Samora Research Institute, Michigan State University. Hedges, Stephen J. and Dana Hawkins. (1996) "The New Jungle" (Cover Story, Cover title: Illegal in Iowa) U.S. News and World Report (September 23):38-45. Markusen, Ann R. and Virginia Carlson. (1989) "Deindustrialization in the American Midwest: Causes and Responses" in L. Rodwin and H. Sazanami (eds) Deindustrialization and Regional Economic Transformation: The Experience of the United States (Boston: Unwin Hyman) Martin, Philip L. and J. E. Taylor and Michael Fix. (1996) "Immigration and the Changing Face of Rural America: Focus on the Midwestern States" Occasional Paper No. 21. Julian Samora Research Institute, Michigan State University. Rumbaut, Ruben G. (1995) "Immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean: A Socioeconomic Profile" CIFRAS No. 6. Julian Samora Research Institute, Michigan State University. Saenz, Rogelio and Cynthia Cready. The Southwest-Midwest Mexican American Migration Flows, 1985-1990, Research Report #20, The Julian Samora Research Institute, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Mich., 1997. Stull, Donald D. and Michael J. Broadway and David Griffith (eds). (1995) Anyway You Cut It: Meatpacking and Small-Town America (Lawrence, Kan.: University Press of Kansas). (Nearly all contributions to this edited collection address the developing situation in the Midwest.) Introduction | Major Demographic Trends | Urban Concentration and Chicago Focus | Immigration and Latino Growth | Basic Educational Attainment | Income and Poverty | Emerging Rural Population Growth | Notes | References
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"Others"
(e.g., Native American, Asian American, etc.) in the region also show growth,
but less than that experienced by Latinos. Likewise, the national level
data in Figure 1B show that Latinos increased by some 7.8 million over the
decade, thereby accounting for over a third of the entire national increase.
Indeed, Latinos added over twice as many people to their ranks as did Blacks,
and fully twice as many as did "Others." Moreover, Hispanic growth
nearly matched that of non-Hispanic Whites, who added only 7.9 million persons
to their ranks (just 1 million more than Latinos did), despite their vastly
larger population base. Indeed, non-Hispanic Whites began the decade some
12 times the size of the Latino population, but ended only eight times as
large. Thus, the relative impact of Latino growth has been substantial.
grew by about one-third of a million (due
to rounding, this appears as 400,000 in the chart), the remainder of the
region's Latino growth amounted to only about 117,000 persons (due to rounding,
this appears as 200,000 in the chart). Thus, Mexicans accounted for nearly
three-quarters of the region's growth. Likewise, nearly 62% (4.8 million
of the 7.8 million) of the national Latino growth (Figure 2B) is accounted
for by Mexican-origin Latinos.
the counties that contain the
cities of Chicago (Cook Co.) and Detroit (Wayne Co.). Fully three-quarters
of the Mexicans in Illinois were Cook County residents in 1990, while only
23.3% of Michigan's Mexicans lived in Wayne County. Indeed, fully 93% (data
not shown) of Mexican origin Latinos in Illinois were residents of the state's
portion of the Chicago CMSA (Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area),
as compared with a corresponding figure of only about 40% for the Detroit
CMSA.
region's Blacks, Whites,
and Hispanics all lost ground, Latinos fell further behind Whites than they
had previously been, and Blacks - who already trailed the others by a good
margin - experienced the sharpest setback of all. Thus, the intergroup inequalities
that already existed were substantially widened by the downturn.
region's Blacks were poor at the time, while
"only" about 1 in 5 Latinos were impoverished. By comparison,
less than 1 in 10 Whites were poor. What is more, Blacks experienced the
highest gain in poverty and Whites the lowest. Hence, the poverty gaps separating
the groups actually widened over the intercensual interim.
Blacks,
topped $1,000 for Latinos, and reached some $800 among Whites. Not only
have all three groups lost significant ground, but the changes have widened
the income gaps separating them. Unfortunately, median household income
data by Hispanic national-origin is not available for the region, but the
relative rankings in well-being suggested by the poverty figures are likely
to hold firm.
