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New Patterns of Hispanic Settlement in Rural America
William Kandel and John Cromartie
Rural Development Research Report No. (RDRR99), May 2004
Hispanics, although just 5.5 percent of the nonmetropolitan
(nonmetro) U.S. population in 2000, accounted for over 25 percent
of population growth in nonmetro areas during the 1990s. In
the past two decades, the Hispanic population in rural and small-town
America has doubled from 1.5 to 3.2 million and is now the most
rapidly growing segment of nonmetro county residents.
What Is the Issue?
Although Hispanics continue to be concentrated in the Southwest,
the nonmetro Hispanic population more than doubled in 20 mostly
Southern and Midwestern States, with growth rates as high as
416 percent. A significant proportion of Hispanics in nonmetro
areas outside the Southwest have relatively low education levels
and poor English skills, and are employed in lowwage jobs with
limited economic mobility. Consequently, they are more likely
to reside in isolated low-income areas.
This accelerated influx of Hispanics into nonmetro America
will affect hundreds of small towns and rural areas. Of particular
interest are trends in residential separation between Hispanics
and non-Hispanic Whites, which measures how evenly distributed
the groups are in a given area. Where these recent arrivals
choose to reside and how well Hispanics integrate with non-Hispanic
Whites can influence their access to public services and economic,
social, and cultural resources.
What Did the Project Find?
Hispanics are among the most urbanized ethnic groups in the
U.S. Over 90 percent live in metro areas, and 8 of the 10 largest
U.S. cities have populations that are over 25 percent Hispanic.
Moreover, Hispanics continue to be concentrated in the Southwest.
But, by 2000, for the first time, half of all nonmetro Hispanics
lived outside the Southwest, increasingly in areas of the Midwest
and Southeast. While almost all 2,289 nonmetro counties experienced
Hispanic population growth, 30 percent of this growth occurred
in 149 “high-growth Hispanic” counties. Since 1990,
Hispanic population growth has prevented overall population
decline in over 100 nonmetro counties, many of which lost population
during the 1980s.
Hispanic newcomers have forged communities in nonmetro areas
unaccustomed to seeing large numbers of foreign-born, particularly
in the Southeast and Midwest. Hispanics in these counties include
disproportionate numbers of undocumented young men from rural
communities in economically depressed regions of Mexico. Such
recent migrants typically have relatively less formal education
and often speak little English. Despite these disadvantages,
employment rates among Hispanics in nonmetro, high-growth Hispanic
counties exceed those of all other nonmetro Hispanics and non-Hispanic
Whites.
Across all nonmetro counties nationally, residential separation
between Hispanics and non- Hispanic Whites decreased. Hispanic
communities grew in many nontraditional destinations throughout
the country, particularly in counties in the Southeast and Midwest
previously unaccustomed to large numbers of foreign-born residents.
In small cities and towns within nonmetro counties, residential
separation between Hispanics and non-Hispanic Whites increased
slightly. On average, Hispanic population growth was concentrated
within incorporated places, while non-Hispanic White population
growth was higher outside of them. The only significant increase
in separation occurred in nonmetro, high-growth Hispanic counties,
where Hispanics were more concentrated in places than either
non-Hispanic Whites or Blacks.
At the neighborhood level within nonmetro small cities and
towns, residential separation between Hispanics and non-Hispanic
Whites increased noticeably. Residential separation increased
the most in high-growth Hispanic counties, despite the rapid
growth of Hispanics and non-Hispanic Whites. While neighborhood
separation was greater in metro areas than nonmetro areas in
2000, nonmetro separation levels increased at a higher rate
during the 1990s.
How Was the Project Conducted?
This report uses 1990 and 2000 Census data and a typology of
county types-- based upon their Hispanic population growth and
composition--to examine recent Hispanic settlement patterns,
compare socioeconomic characteristics of Hispanics with non-Hispanic
Whites, and analyze residential separation between those two
groups at the county, place, and neighborhood levels.
Residential separation is a multi-dimensional characteristic
comprised of evenness of population patterns, exposure to majority
members, concentration within certain areas, centralization
around core areas, and clustering toward enclaves. This report
computes the relative evenness of the distribution of two population
groups within a given area by comparing their distributions
across subareas.
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