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Welcome to Storm Lake, Iowa. This is a cozy little town of 10,076 people. The town itself is only four square miles. But there is something very extraordinary about this seemingly average town. It has a Latino population that is 21.1% of the entire population. What is it that attracts Latinos to this isolated town? The main reason that Latinos moved to Storm Lake, was because there was a meat packing plant that provided a lot of jobs to people who would have otherwise not had jobs. There are two main meat packing plants in Storm Lake, Tyson Foods and Sara Lee's Bil-Mar turkey plant. Both of these plants employ the Latino population. Half of the Latinos that residethere are undocumented immigrants. They have come to the United States in search of a better life for them, and most importantly, their children. Here, their children can go to school and get an education. This is more than their former countries could offer. Today, about 51% of the high school is Latino. A good portion of these students do not speak English. This makes the classroom experience interesting for all students. The English speaking students grow up with friends whose families may only speak Spanish. They grow up being exposed to many different cultures and many different languages. The many diverse cultures that the Latinos bring to the Storm Lake community are evidenced in many different ways. There are many Latino resturants, Latino dances, Spanish can be seen on signs throughout the city, and there is also a lot of local Latino music played.

The high Latino population poses an interesting sitiuation for the community. What kind of education system do they implement? Does the community need to start a campaign to have all signs written in English and in Spanish? How has the white community respoded to the influx of Latinos? What are the working conditions for Latinos? How have the Latinos adapted to life in Iowa? How have the Latinos influenced the different aspects of this small town? What are some of the statistics on the Latinos in Storm Lake? These questions and more, are answered on this site.

Ian MacDonald is a first year at Cornell College this year. He was born and raised in Storm Lake and went through the public school system until he graduated in 2003. He was actually the inspiration for the use of Storm Lake in this project, and his insight and personal experience was more than helpful. He is also responsible for most of the pictures from Storm Lake, and is featured in most of them.We have cited him many times on this webpage, and we just wanted you to get aquainted with one another.

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As you can see, the population of immigrants has risen dramatically over the past 40 years.

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