Springfield, OH is among many towns the workforce of which is heavily immigrant-based, far more than the national workforce percentage of 18% immigrant. Storm Lake, IA, has prospered due to immigration. It is now the most diverse community in Iowa. It is a model of rural communities which have grown, not declined, due to immigration.
In the late 20th century, the meat processing industry evolved into large-scale, highly mechanized operations, with locations in small rural towns. Small plants merged into massive facilities. Storm Lake was one of these towns. Since the late 19th C, meat processing plants have depended on immigrant labor, at first from Europe, and in the past 30 years from emerging countries.
The city has become a major meat processing production center. Meat processing began there in the 1930s and took off with large plants in the 1990s. Tyson Foods employs around 3,200 people with wages ranging from $17 to $22 per hour. Many farms in the region rely heavily on Latino workers. Immigrants are increasingly becoming entrepreneurs, opening retail businesses. I visited the town in 2022 and came across a good number of Latino, Asian and even Pacific Islander restaurants.
With a population of about 11,000, it grew 25% since 1990 while the great majority of rural towns in the state lost population. Today, Storm Lake residents include 40% white, 39% Hispanic, 15% Asian, and 4% Black (go here). The most common source countries are Mexico, India and Vietnam. 31% of the population is foreign-born.
(Springfield’s recent history includes losing 20,000 largely manufacturing jobs in the 1990s, and bringing in roughly 10,000 foreign-born workers in the past few years. The city’s population today is about 10,000 below that of 1990.)
The Pulitzer winning Storm Lake Times has written, “Immigration has been the story of Iowa since the mid-19th century. The Danes came to Newell, the Swedes to Albert City, the Germans to Hanover, the Irish to Sulphur Springs. Now Latinos, Asians and Africans are writing a new chapter of growth by launching their own enterprises and improving their own lot through education.”
The picture below is of the high school’s homecoming court in the Fall of 2022. The black woman on the upper right, the child of Sudanese parents, was elected homecoming queen.
