Rural Laws: January, 2002 - Number #2

Governing Magazine's January 2002 issue includes an article that describes attracting immigrants to Iowa meatpacking plants as an economic development strategy for cities in both Iowa and Mexico. Marshalltown (population 29,000) and Villachuato (15,000) are "unofficial sister cities," since half of the 1,900 employees at the largest employer in Marshalltown, a Swift & Co. meatpacking plant that processes 15,000 hogs a day, are from Villachuato. Marshalltown had 3,200 Hispanics in 2000, up from 248 in 1990; there were 1,250 Hispanics among Marshalltown's 5,000 K-12 students.

The local Chamber of Commerce says "economic development is about attracting people."

About 94 percent of Iowa residents are white. Iowa Governor Thomas Vilsack granted $50,000 each to Marshalltown, Mason City and Fort Dodge as "model communities" to attract immigrants to Iowa- of these three cities, only Marshalltown has a meatpacking plant. Some 60 percent of Iowa's college students leave the state after they graduate, and Iowa employers report receiving two applicants for each job vacancy; most recruiters prefer a 4-1 ratio.

The meatpacking industry used to be a high-wage industry whose employees were mostly white and middle class. In the 1980s, the industry was restructured, wages were reduced, and immigrants, first Southeast Asians and later Mexicans, became the core of the work force. Turnover is very high, which some Mexican migrants add to by, for instance, returning to Mexico for winter holidays and then getting rehired when they return to Iowa.

On Christmas Day 2000, fire destroyed the ConAgra meatpacking plant in Garden City, eliminating the jobs of 2,300 people. ConAgra workers were the parents of 1,100 school children, and school officials expected a sharp drop in enrollment as workers who lost jobs left the area. Instead, school enrollment rose, suggesting that the workers did not leave the area.

Sioux Falls, South Dakota and Minnehahba county is the Ellis Island of the state, due in part to the resettlement of refugees from the Horn of Africa and the ex-USSR. Sioux Falls's population rose by 24 percent to 124,000 in the 1990s, in part because of very low unemployment rates that enabled most newcomers to obtain jobs.

The Center for Rural Policy and Development at Minnesota State University at Mankato studied seven rural communities with growing Latino populations: Albert Lea, Long Prairie, Owatonna, Pelican Rapids, St. James, Willmar and Worthington.

Christopher Conte, "Strangers On The Prairie," Governing Magazine, January 2002. www.governing.com/ Roxana Hegeman, "One year later, displaced ConAgra workers mostly stayed in town," AP, December 28, 2001.