Immigration:

Local Communities

Local Impact

Brian Capouch

29 February 2016

http://tinyurl.com/core8lecture

Lecture Plan

• Look at the big changes to area small towns
• Hispanics in local communities are the main focus
• First some facts, then some first-person ideas

My thesis:

The influences of globalization, urbanization, age demographics, and immigration have radically changed

rural small towns in the space of just a few years.  

Some feel small towns are doomed

The Core 8 angle:

Depending on who you talk to, the influx of Hispanics over the past 20 years has either been either 

• the cause of the decline of these small towns, or
• a major factor that has kept them from falling further into decline.

1. Facts

For each, consider:

  Can we do anything about it?  Do we want to?

People are moving to cities and suburbs

"Middle class" jobs are disappearing

"Baby Boomers" retiring creates a demographic gap

Rural areas have become more diverse

Hispanic Demographics

Selected Indiana Counties

1990-2011

2. First-person accounts

Who am I to talk?

• Lifetime area resident
• I live on the banks of the Big Monon Creek
• I have history and interests in several counties
• Soy Mexicano*

three counties,

three stories

Jasper County's land

• Leading agricultural county
• Interesting geography and geology
• Recently a "big dairy" production area

Racing the clock in Medaryville

(Pulaski County)

Monon, Indiana

(White County)

Home sweet home, built 1892

Quick facts about Monon

• Railroad town, founded 1853
• Erstwhile truck trailer manufacturing giant
• Most highly Hispanic town in the area
• The factory went spectacularly bankrupt 1997

Debbie Vandervort

Millie Eckert

Lexi Taylor

Trinidad Arias