By Suzanne Gamboa and Nicole Acevedo -
NBC News
In New Hampshire, a Roman Catholic church where Canadian, Irish and French immigrants used to go now has the largest Latino congregation in the state.
In the Deep South, a Georgia county is one of the 10 most diverse in the entire country.
Hispanics accounted for more than half of the nation's population growth in the past decade
.
This is reflected not only in the larger cities, but also in mountain towns, southern neighborhoods, and the prairies of the Midwest.
"The Latino population has been dispersing across the United States for years,
a reflection of where the country's population is moving and where the opportunities lie,"
said Mark Hugo López, director of race and ethnicity research at the Center for Pew Research.
The five states with the highest growth in the proportion of the Latino population since 2010 are:
Louisiana
North Dakota
South Dakota
Tennessee
Vermont
López, whose Mexican-American family has lived in California for more than a century, has seen this dispersion in his own family circle, having relatives who moved to states like Washington, Nevada, North Carolina and New Jersey looking for job opportunities. educational and military, reflecting some of the data that he and his team have recorded over the years.
Although
the majority of Latinos - nearly 70% - are born in the United States
, López noted that "Hispanics seek opportunities across the country, immigrants are often leading the way" in terms of moving to places with new economic opportunities.
New possibilities in the western mountains
Lissy Samantha Suazo with her father in Bozeman, Montana, on Aug.25.Adrian Sanchez-Gonzalez / NBC News
For 18-year-old Lissy Samantha Suazo, the wide open spaces of Big Sky, Montana, a small town near Yellowstone National Park, has been the beginning of greater and wider possibilities.
When I came to Big Sky, I was the second Spanish-speaking person of color in the school and the first not to speak English, ”said Suazo, who was 12 when his family came from Honduras.
Waded Cruzado's journey through Montana began a few years before Suazo's.
She was hired in 2010 as president of Montana State University in Bozeman.
“I remember saying, 'I've never been to Montana… You know what I look like?
I don't look or sound like someone from Montana,
'”said Cruzado, 61, who was born and raised in Puerto Rico.
"But I was wrong".
Hispanics have been in Montana since the early 1800s as fur traders, ranchers, railroad workers and workers in beet fields, according to Bridget Kevane, professor of Latin American and Latino Studies at Montana State University.
Montana State University President Waded Cruzado welcomes freshmen to Bobcat Stadium on August 24 Courtesy of MSU Communications
But in the past two decades,
Montana has ranked among the states with the fastest growing Latino population in the country.
Although the 45,199 Latinos living in Montana are miniscule compared to the 15.6 million Hispanics living in California, the 58.2% increase in Latino residents in the state since 2010 outpaced all Western US states during the last decade.
In California and New Mexico, Latinos are half of the population under 18 years of age.
Idaho's population grew 17%, but its Latino population grew 36.1% in the last decade.
The lumber industry in the northern part of the state and oil jobs in the east have attracted Latino workers, as have the resorts in Bozeman and Big Sky, Kevane said.
"Scholars say this is a no-door state, which means there wasn't a settled community yet," Kevane said of North Dakota.
"But there could be in the next 20 years."
At the end of the day, it is the impact that I have that makes me feel successful. "
Lissy Samantha Suazo
Suazo and Cruzado became part of that last decade of Latino growth, in a land of majestic open air and freezing, energizing winters.
"I'm not going to lie, that's one of the things that I had a hard time adjusting to, but now I love the cold and snow,"
said Suazo, who regularly enjoys hiking and hiking.
Suazo's family was living in New York after emigrating from Honduras when his father received a call to work at Big Sky.
Since then, Suazo has taken advantage of the opportunities available to him.
Lissy Samantha Suazo in Bozeman, Montana, on Aug. 25. Adrián Sánchez González / NBC News
Now in her final year in high school, this outstanding student is spending a semester at a leadership academy in South Africa and has found meaning beyond academics, beginning when she helped a fellow Honduran learn English and get her bearings.
[This Latino conquers palates with his Colombian tamalería]
Suazo expanded this further by starting a Latino student union at his high school, created a non-profit group, GLAM, to help people in other countries, including Honduras, and with some friends started a Spanish-language newspaper, Noticias Montaña. , which, among other things,
keeps Montana Latinos informed about local issues
, including information related to COVID-19.
"At the end of the day, it is the impact that I have that makes me feel successful"
,
Suazo said.
Although the majority of Latinos in Montana are of Mexican descent, some 30,000 to about 2,000 are Puerto Rican, according to 2019 Census estimates.
Suazo has taken the initiative to inform the growing Hispanic community of southwestern Montana by creating a Spanish-language newspaper called Noticias MontañaAdrian Sanchez-Gonzalez / NBC News
Cruzado, born in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, left this US territory to be dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at New Mexico State University.
In 2009, after a national search, he was awarded the top position at MSU.
Utah was the fastest growing state in the West, its Latino population growing twice as fast as the state as a whole.
(Utah, 18.4%; Latinos in Utah, 37.5%)
Eleven years after taking command, Cruzado has put his stamp on the institution.
It has helped ensure that it lives up to its mission as a land grant university, originally intended to educate the children of America's working families.
['La casa de Mamá Icha', the story of an immigrant who fulfills the dream of returning to her country]
“At MSU, we don't go after privilege.
We are going to choose a promise, ”said Cruzado, a phrase that he regularly emphasizes.
"If we are able to get that message across to anyone: our Native American students or Latino students or African American students or Asian students, students from rural communities in Montana, what happens if we give them the opportunity?"
I don't focus on the differences.
I focus on what we can achieve together ”
WADED CRUZADO, President of Montana State University
Cruzado has launched a campaign to increase the average credit for courses taken by freshmen, as well as a program to enroll more young people who are undecided about whether to go to college.
Although she wishes she could see her granddaughters in Puerto Rico more often, Cruzado said she has found something familiar in the work ethic of residents of the state.
She shares her Puerto Rican cuisine with her fellow Montanans and loves camping and immersing herself in the state's stunning natural parks.
"I don't focus on the differences," he said.
"I focus on what we can achieve together."
Forging a community in a New England town
Rafael Almonte with a client at La Fama, his barbershop, in Nashua, New Hampshire, on September 11.Philip Keith
Rafael Almonte spent a lot of time at his grandfather's barbershop when he was a child in the Dominican Republic.
Decades later, he established his own barbershop in one of the least diverse states in the country, New Hampshire.
“A lot of construction workers come to the barbershop and say, 'I need five people, or I need three people.'
At La Fama Barbershop in Nashua, Fridays and Saturdays are busy days, especially in the evenings, when many clients come after work.
The business that Almonte, 50, opened in 2004 has become "something of a central station for the community," he said, where newcomers can find out which companies have job openings and which departments are available.
The Latino population in the Northeast has increased 29% since 2010
,
an increase of about 2.1 million new Hispanic residents in the 10-state region.
“A lot of construction workers come to the barbershop and say, 'I need five people, or I need three people,” he said.
The barbershop even served as a pop-up COVID-19 vaccination center last summer.
In collaboration with the state Department of Health,
the store helped vaccinate up to 30 people a day, many of them Spanish-speakers without access to vaccine information in their language
, Almonte said.
Rafael 'Lilo' Almonte, owner of La Fama barber shop, cuts his hair and talks to Raynel Bayne about the community.Philip Keith
Almonte was 14 when his family moved to southern New Hampshire in the mid-1980s, after his father was recruited to work for a company as a carver, someone who designs and carves wooden coffins.
Vermont had the highest Latino growth in the Northeast with nearly 6,300 new Latino residents in the last decade;
Latinos now make up 2.4% of the state, up from 1.4% in 2010.
Fairfield County in Connecticut is the most diverse of the state's eight counties;
it is also the most Hispanic in the state, with 205,301 Latino residents
.
Chelsea Stahl / NBC News
There has also been movement from nearby Massachusetts: Latinos from the more urban and predominantly Hispanic cities of Lawrence and Lowell also began moving to New Hampshire in search of job opportunities and more affordable housing.
This includes Dominicans and Puerto Ricans who settled primarily in Nashua and Manchester in Hillsborough County, where more than half of the state's Latinos live.
They are getting used to us "
Rafael Almonte, owner of La Fama barber shop
In Manchester, Santa Ana – San Augustin Catholic Parish is home to the largest Spanish-speaking congregation in the state, with about 2,000 Latinos.
Generations earlier, the church used to serve Irish and French-Canadian immigrants.
The first group of Hispanics to immigrate to New Hampshire were Uruguayans
, who came to the state about 40 years ago to work in textile factories, according to Eva Castillo, a Latina and immigrant rights advocate who has lived in the state for almost three decades.
They were followed by Colombians, who moved to New Hampshire after missionaries from the Catholic Church visited the South American nation.
Avery Williams (pictured) and her father Anthony have come to Fame since Avery was much younger.Philip Keith / NBC News
"Most of these families that settled here - they are already in their third and even fourth generation - have completely assimilated," said Castillo, who is originally from Venezuela.
When Almonte opened his barbershop, it was one of the few Latino-owned businesses in Nashua.
[This Salvadoran immigrant succeeded in the United States and is now returning to his country to clean the beaches]
"Right now we have many restaurants: Mexican, Honduran, Dominican," he said.
"They are getting used to us."
The salon even served as a pop-up COVID-19 vaccination center last summer.
Philip Keith / NBC News
Almonte's adult children, ages 19 to 27, have come to appreciate growing up in New England.
Despite having lived elsewhere - Almonte lived in New Jersey and Florida before returning to New Hampshire - they tell his father that they want to put down roots in the city he moved to as a teenager.
It is a place where they can get a good job and live an affordable life.
"That's what has continually brought people back to Nashua," he said.
In the Southwest, a growing Latino diversity
Omar Pereney, a Houston resident, began cooking in Venezuelan restaurants at age 13.
He had his own cooking show on the Argentine cable channel El Gourmet at 14, he became the youngest instructor at Le Cordon Bleu in Mexico at 18, and at 20 he was already the chef of former President George HW Bush.
Pereney, 27, born in Caracas, Venezuela, moved to Texas from Mexico in 2010. He certainly embraced the idea that everything in Texas is big.
Omar Pereney places fish fillets on a tray before putting them in the oven in his kitchen on Monday, Sept. 13, 2021, in Houston, Texas.Sergio Flores / NBC News
"I think I'm in the early days of an empire," Pereney said of his latest company, Culinary Matters, a consulting firm that opened in March.
The company works with restaurateurs to build their businesses, from concepts and menus to interior design to job and location advice.
Texas is the state with the highest absolute growth of Latinos in the last decade
, almost 2 million more than in 2010. That has boosted the number of Hispanics in the state - which was once part of Mexico along with nine other states in the west. , Southwest and Middle East — until it is almost on par with non-Hispanic whites.
The Latino population in Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas grew 19.6% over the past decade.
Phoenix displaced Philadelphia as the fifth largest city in the country, and Latinos make up 41% of the population.
Mexican Americans are the largest Latino group in the border state, including families who have been there longer than Texas has as a state.
But in 2000, 17% of Latinos in Texas were not of Mexican descent, according to the Pew Research Center.
Over the past two decades,
a growing number of Texas Hispanics have included Salvadorans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, people who link their origins to Spain, and many South Americans
, all drawn by the state's booming economy, tech hubs, and proximity to the Mexican border.
Pereney, originally from Venezuela, runs a culinary consulting company called Culinary Matters that helps restaurants move from ideas to reality.Sergio Flores / NBC News
Venezuelans who left their country due to political and economic turmoil were the fastest-growing Latino group in the United States
over the past decade, said Lopez of the Pew Research Center.
Many ended up in Texas, primarily in the Houston area, lured by the oil and gas industry.
In fact, so many Venezuelans can be found in the suburban town of Katy that it came to be called Katyzuela over the past decade.
[This Latino in Queens runs an organization that brings food to those in need and inspires others]
Texas has the second largest Venezuelan American population, behind Florida
, rising from 20,162 in 2010 to around 73,000, according to the 2010 census and 2019 population estimates.
Pereney said that many of his Venezuelan friends, with whom he meets regularly to play Truco, a popular card game in South America, are engineers or other employees in the oil and gas business.
Chef Pereney squeezes lemon over fish fillets in a skillet.Sergio Flores / NBC News
Pereney, who describes himself as “a Doogie Howser of Hispanic cuisine,” first traveled to the United States at age 17 to cook and learn from acclaimed Cuban-American chef and restaurateur Douglas Rodríguez in various cities.
After that he went on to a tapas restaurant in Cancun, Mexico, and later worked as a corporate chef in Mexico City.
His employers moved him to Houston to cook at Peska, a seafood restaurant.
"I have high hopes for the future, but I try not to lose sight of where I am today."
He
was
soon
recruited to be the chef to first President George HW Bush and his wife, Barbara
, who moved to Houston after leaving the White House.
“They lived down the street from Peska, so they would order food at my restaurant, which I didn't know,” Pereney said.
“I basically worked with them until they passed away.
It was a wonderful experience".
Pereney currently owns a home and two businesses in Texas, but recognizes that there is always the possibility of change.
"Life is a matter of moments and where you are at that moment," he
said.
"I have high hopes for the future, but I try not to lose sight of where I am today."
Behind the jobs, something is spreading in the South
When 26-year-old Alfredo Corona isn't working in his mother's commercial cleaning business, he's doing Chicano rap or attending
lowrider
car shows
in metro Atlanta, where he was born and raised.
Alfredo Corona in his car at Rhodes Jordan Park in Lawrenceville, Georgia, on Sept. 10. Piera Moore / NBC News
"When we drive our cars, we always put our music on," said Corona, 26.
"Everything is intertwined."
States from the Southwest to the Southeast
have accounted for almost half of the growth of the Latino population
nationwide since 2010.
In the Southeastern states, the Latino population has grown by 29%.
Young US-born Latinos like Corona have been the driving force behind this growth.
Today, only about 32% of all Latinos were born outside the United States ”,
Mark Hugo López, Pew Research center.
- West Virginia es uno de los tres estados que ha perdido población en la última década, pero la población de tres de sus condados tienen las ciudades donde más creció la población latina.
- En la última década, la sequía, el colapso financiero, los huracanes y los terremotos contribuyeron a una disminución de más de 400,000 en la población de Puerto Rico, y muchos se mudaron al territorio continental de EE.UU.
“Estábamos empezando a ser esa ola de gente morena que se mudó a Lawrenceville”, dijo Corona. Recuerda a compañeros del Caribe, América Latina e incluso Bosnia.
El condado de Gwinnett se encuentra ahora entre los 10 principales condados del país en cuanto a diversidad, según un índice que mide la probabilidad de que dos personas elegidas al azar pertenezcan a diferentes grupos raciales y étnicos, según el censo de 2020. También es el condado con la mayor cantidad de latinos en el estado, alrededor de 220,460.
Alfredo Corona con su automóvil en Rhodes Jordan Park en Lawrenceville, Georgia, el 10 de septiembre.Piera Moore / NBC News
En algún lugar entre el hogar y la escuela, Corona estuvo expuesto al rap chicano —un subgénero del hip-hop que se centra en las experiencias de personas de ascendencia mexicana nacidas en los EE.UU.— así como a la cultura lowrider, derivada de los vibrantes autos antiguos personalizados con suspensiones hidráulicas que casi los hacen llegar al suelo.
“Fue la música lo que me ayudó a abrir los ojos a una cultura que estaba por encima de mí y que quería conocer más”, dijo. Para Corona, el rap chicano es un vehículo para abordar temas que le importan, como la masculinidad tóxica o la identidad cultural.
[Joven latino es aceptado en 17 universidades de EE.UU.]
En Georgia, los latinos son el tercer grupo racial o étnico más grande, ahora 1.1 millones, según el censo de 2020. Casi la mitad vive en cinco condados del área de Atlanta: Fulton, Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb y Gwinnett.
- Dos de los cinco estados con el crecimiento más rápido en la proporción de población latina se encuentran en el Sur:
Un número creciente de comunidades latinas vino con el auge de la construcción en el estado durante la preparación para los Juegos Olímpicos de Verano de 1996, que es como se conocieron la madre salvadoreña de Corona y el padre mexicano.
Los latinos también se establecieron en el área después de que las empresas avícolas reclutaran trabajadores de Texas, California y el norte de México, mientras que el floreciente centro comercial del área metropolitana de Atlanta ha atraído a profesionales latinos.
Corona se relaja en su auto, bebiendo una botella de agua mineral Topo Chico de México.Piera Moore / NBC News
La madre de Corona comenzó su primer negocio de limpieza en 1999 después de trabajar en el Hotel Four Seasons en Atlanta. Mientras estaba allí, comenzó a prestar atención a pequeños detalles, como cómo se colocaban toallas limpias en las habitaciones con diseños prolijos. Aplicó lo que aprendió vendiendo ese primer negocio en 2012 y comenzando su propio negocio de limpieza comercial.
[En el Día Nacional del Café, los latinos cuentan por qué aprecian tanto esta bebida]
“Limpiamos para [el director de cine] Tyler Perry por un tiempo. Y ahora estamos limpiando para estudios también”, dijo Corona. Espera hacer crecer el negocio y construir algo que pueda dejar a sus hijos.
Corona aprendió sobre el movimiento chicano por los derechos civiles mientras estudiaba historia de Estados Unidos en Georgia Gwinnett College, lo que lo motivó a ser voluntario en grupos de registro de votantes latinos en las elecciones de 2020.
Ver que potencialmente podría ayudar y ser parte de esa misma historia es lo que me impulsó”, dijo Corona.
También se unió a una coalición que aboga por los derechos de los exinmigrantes detenidos en el Centro de Detención del Condado de Irwin, que cerrará pronto. El condado de Irwin es uno de los dos pequeños condados rurales del Sur que vieron a su población latina casi triplicarse, según el censo de 2020. Aproximadamente 660 latinos viven ahora allí.
El otro condado es el de Charlton, en la frontera con Florida, donde viven alrededor de 2,000 latinos en comparación con 310 hace una década. También alberga otro centro de detención de inmigrantes, el Centro de Procesamiento de ICE en Folkston.
“Fue la música lo que me ayudó a abrir los ojos a una cultura que estaba por encima de mí y que quería conocer más”
Para Corona, un hombre polifacético que se considera a sí mismo “un rapero chicano consciente”, vivir en Georgia a menudo significa que en un momento puedes estar viajando en un auto lowrider y al siguiente estar disfrutando de una caminata por la naturaleza en Mount Yonah.
“¡Eso es Georgia!”, dijo.
Mudarse al Medio Oeste
Atrapar y estudiar el gusano de la raíz del maíz ha sido la ruta de Verónica Calles Torrez para explorar Dakota del Norte.
Calles Torrez, de 36 años, originaria de La Paz, Bolivia, es entomóloga del Servicio de Extensión Agrícola de la Universidad Estatal de Dakota del Norte en Fargo, cuyo trabajo de postdoctorado gira en torno a mantener bajo control las plagas de insectos.
Verónica Calles Torrez en un laboratorio de entomología en la Universidad Estatal de Dakota del Norte en Fargo el 10 de septiembre.Ann Arbor Miller / NBC News
“En Dakota del Norte siempre es necesario realizar una investigación porque tienen una gran producción agrícola, por lo que siempre hay insectos comiendo la cosecha”, dijo. “Ellos quieren saber sobre eso”.
- La polka se celebra ampliamente en Wisconsin, donde la población hispana creció un 33%.
- Los mexicano-estadounidenses, el grupo latino más grande del estado, también bailan polka al ritmo de la música “conjunto” y “norteña” adaptada de los europeos que llevaron el acordeón a México.
Dakota del Norte tuvo la tasa más alta de crecimiento de la población hispana de todos los estados: se disparó 148% durante la última década.
Los trabajadores latinos de todo el país llegaron en medio del auge del petróleo y la construcción de la última década, aunque desde entonces ha disminuido. Los condados del oeste de Dakota del Norte, donde se encuentra el campo petrolífero de Bakken, vieron gran parte del crecimiento latino.
El condado de McKenzie lideró con un aumento de 1,002.2%, un aumento de 1,393 latinos desde 2010.
Pero también hubo un crecimiento latino en otros condados del estado. En el condado de Cass, donde se encuentra Fargo, aumentó un 105%, o 3,167 hispanos más.
La Dra. Verónica Calles Torrez muestra cómo instalar una trampa para recolectar barrenadores de maíz europeos cerca de Casselton, Dakota del Norte. Ann Arbor Miller / NBC News
Amazon está construyendo un centro logístico de un millón de pies cuadrados en una antigua tierra agrícola en West Fargo, y Microsoft tiene su segundo campus fuera de la sede más grande en Fargo, dijo Kevin Iverson, demógrafo estatal de Dakota del Norte.
La población latina de la región ha aumentado un 28% en 12 estados en la última década.
Desde plantas de carne en Iowa, Nebraska y Dakota del Sur hasta campos agrícolas y refinerías de petróleo, el crecimiento hispano en áreas urbanas, suburbanas y rurales ha sido una mezcla de nuevas llegadas de inmigrantes, nacimientos y migración doméstica.
- La población hispana de Dakota del Norte llegó a 33,412 en 2020, más del doble de lo que era en 2010.
- La población general de Illinois se redujo, pero su población latina creció un 15.3% en la última década, a alrededor de 2.3 millones.
Calles Torrez creció en una pequeña finca boliviana donde su familia cultivaba —a mano— café, mandarinas, limones y otros cítricos. Cultivaron maíz solo un año, cuando la tierra remanente nativa que habían convertido para uso agrícola era rica en nutrientes. El maíz requiere un suelo rico en nutrientes y la mayoría de las pequeñas granjas bolivianas no usan fertilizantes, dijo.
Conocedora de las plantas, vio la oportunidad de combinar eso con la entomología, el estudio de los insectos. En Bolivia, su familia se ocupó de las plagas de escarabajos y polillas que dañaban las plantas de café y cacao.
Verónica Calles Torrez sostiene una polilla, un barrenador de maíz europeo.Ann Arbor Miller / NBC News
Calles Torrez dijo que los habitantes de Dakota del Norte están aprendiendo a apreciar la creciente diversidad de su estado.
Ha encontrado puntos en común con los residentes no hispanos a través de su fe cristiana, que comenta y comparte en un grupo mayoritariamente blanco.
Creo en Dios, como ellos”, dijo. “Siento que todo lo que hago o donde estoy ahora es porque Dios me ayudó”.
Calles Torrez también se ha conectado con la zona a través de la música, aprendiendo a bailar música country y haciéndose fan de una rapera y guitarrista local, Diane Miller.
Ha llegado a conocer a los granjeros cuyas propiedades atraviesa mientras coloca trampas. Muchos se acercan a ella, curiosos por su trabajo, y ella aprovecha la oportunidad para mostrarles cómo son las plagas y cómo dañan su maíz.
[Se esfuma una vez más la esperanza de un camino a la ciudadanía para millones de inmigrantes]
“I remember a producer waiting for me to stop by his field and making sure to catch up with me for a chat every week.
I knew that Thursday was my day to visit his field, ”he said.
Calles Torrez and her husband, who is finishing his doctorate, have a 7-month-old baby.
Whether they will raise their son and put down roots in North Dakota will depend on the employment opportunities for both of them after their three-year research program ends.
"We will move to where we can find work," he said.
Design and development: Pedro Barquinha, Nigel Chiwaya, Joe Murphy and Jiachuan Wu
Suzanne Gamboa is a national reporter for NBC Latino and NBCNews.com.
Nicole Acevedo
is a reporter for NBC News Digital.
She reports, writes, and produces stories for NBC Latino and NBCNews.com.