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WILLMAR, Minn. After a fourth summer of following the cropsnorth to the beet fields of Minnesota, migrant workers Eduardo andYolanda Ibarra decided they would not return home to Mexico.
Overstaying their work visas, he found a job slaughteringturkeys for Jennie-O, and she went to work in a nursing home. Theyenrolled their children in public schools.
During the next six years they became legal residents, bought aminivan and moved into a ranch house. They even learned to enjoy thesting of winter.
"Oh, yes. It's better here," said Eduardo Ibarra, a welder bytrade. "In Chihuahua we work hard, but we don't go so far."
The Ibarras are part of a surge in Hispanic immigration to theMidwest this decade. It soon may push the Hispanic population to 2.5million, more than double the count in the 1980 census.
Refugio Rochin, a Michigan State University researcher, calls itthe "browning" of the Midwest. Discouraged by difficult job marketsand hardening racial attitudes in the desert Southwest andCalifornia, Hispanic immigrants are instead choosing Midwest stateswhere they're finding greater opportunities.
From 1980 to 1992 the number of Hispanics in 10 Midwest states -Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa,Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska - climbed from 1.2 million to 1.8million. Over the same period, the white population in those statesdeclined by 400,000.
Illinois - with a Hispanic population approaching 1 million -ranks fifth in the nation behind California, Texas, Florida and NewYork. Those four are home to 75 percent of the nation's 24 millionHispanics.
Immigrants have been coming to Chicago for generations. The reason Hispanic immigrants arechoosing it is the same reason Eastern European immigrants chose thecity.
"It's the city of big shoulders and the city of big jobs," saidMaria Amezcua, who immigrated with her husband, Adolfo, and theirfour children.
They came from Mexico nearly 20 years ago. Last year she becamea naturalized citizen. All four children are college graduates.
"You are coming here to forge a new destiny for you and yourfamily," she said.
Census figures from 1992, the most recent available, show thatMinnesota's Hispanic population has increased 94 percent since 1980,to 62,316. That percentage increase was the highest in the country.
"There have always been (Hispanic) migrants in the Midwest,"said Dennis Valdez, a University of Minnesota historian who hasstudied the flow of Mexicans into northern states. "The distinctionin the 1980s is that they began settling."
But along with the growth have come growing pains. And Willmaris an example of both.
It is a town of Scandinavian heritage 95 miles west ofMinneapolis. The addition of 3,000 immigrants has pushed the city of17,500 to its limits. Housing is scarce, crime is escalating andracial tension is high.
Last week police were alerted to the distribution of leafletsdenouncing immigration, as well as claiming white superiority overblacks.
Residents may have been upset by the fliers, but they weren'treally surprised.
"This is your basic white, Anglo-Saxon community and we're notused to any minorities at all," said Butch Mellom, 44, a truck driverwho has lived here 40 years.
In the school system, there are now 850 Hispanic students, up from 15 just 10 years ago.
"That was a shock to the community," said superintendent OrloAlmlie, who has hired 12 teachers trained to teach English as asecond language.
"We've taken care of our responsibilities; at least we've triedto. We haven't solved all our problems, because there are stillcultural conflicts."
The quality of the schools, especially theEnglish-as-a-second-language program, led the Ibarras to chooseWillmar as their home.
"When our oldest daughter finished (grade) school, we decided itwas time to move," said Yolanda Ibarra.
Maria Ibarra, now 22, entered Central High School unable tospeak English. She is now a pre-med student with a scholarship tothe University of Minnesota.
"I didn't want to leave (Mexico)," she said. "I totallycried."
The sons - Silverio, 19, who graduated from high school lastyear, and Eduardo Jr., 17, who is a senior - have enlisted in themilitary. The youngest child, Alba, 12, is in ninth grade.
Work and learning a new language have been tough. But thehardest part may be winning acceptance among the fifth- andsixth-generation Scandinavians here.
One turning point may have been a fight over a ramshackletrailer park on the edge of town where many Hispanics first livedwhen they arrived. After a shooting and a newspaper account thatdescribed the site as a barrio, the city ordered the owner to makerepairs. Instead, he razed it.
That forced many Hispanics to move into neighborhoods that wereall white. The city used federal and state money to put together aloan program so 30 families could buy homes.
"Without question the community has been forced to make somemajor adjustments," city administrator Michael Schmit said. "We'vegone from a quaint, quiet, rural Scandinavian town to one that ismuch more diverse. That's good, in the long run."
Perhaps the easiest transition point in Willmar has been in theworkplace. Jobs for unskilled laborers are abundant here.
"New immigrants . . . will do the hard work," said the Rev.David Echavarria, an activist who moved to Willmar in 1990 toestablish a church.
The $8-an-hour starting pay at Jennie-O, the largest employer inthe region, is more than the daily rate many immigrants earned inMexico. It is easy for a family to raise its standard of living,especially because homes in the area cost as little as $30,000.
The Ibarras' home is a tidy rambler, filled with family picturesand decorated for Christmas. A pan of frijoles warms on the stove.A framed poster is captioned in Spanish. But the family considersitself as American as any other in the Midwest.
The family has returned only once to Chihuahua.
For Maria Ibarra, who didn't want to leave her homeland, thetrip back two years ago was not the homecoming she thought it mightbe.
"Even though I grew up there, I spent my teens here," she said."When I went back I felt out of place."
