User:Kzturner/Sandbox

The History of Latino and Hispanic Immigration to Atlanta
While looking for research on the subject of the history of Latino immigration to Atlanta, I was struck by the lack of information out there that specifically pertains to immigration to Atlanta. While there is a small amount of information to be found, you have to dig very deep to find any meaningful statistics. There seems to be a large difference between the reasoning behind male immigrants moving to certain cities and why female immigrants go to different cities, such as Atlanta. One of my classmates and I went a Mexican restaurant off of Buford Highway in Atlanta, Georgia to interview Latino immigrants and find out why many of them came to Atlanta. Along with the interviews of around ten immigrants, I also used statistics and readings from my class. The server at the restaurant seemed terrified when we approached her with our questions, and because of that, I did not press her very hard for specific information. She did, however, share some of her story with me. She came to the U.S. six or seven years ago from Mexico because her sister was already here and she needed to be able to make more money to support herself and her children. She wants to return home in the next 3 years or so, but does not know if she will have the money to. She is also worried about getting her two daughters safely across the border. When asked if there many people living in Atlanta that were also from her village in Mexico she said that, yes, there were. I found it interesting though, that when asked where she thought most Latino  immigrants are from originally, Mexico was her third answer, not her first, while data shows that, in Atlanta, that 63.3 percent of Latinos in Atlanta are in fact Mexican (The University of Georgia Business Outreach Services/ Small Business Development Center, 2003). After speaking with the server, we wandered out if the restaurant to find more immigrants to speak with. We were in luck: there was a group of about fifteen men standing around outside, waiting for someone to come pick them up to work. Most said they came to the U.S. because of the poor economic situation in Mexico, and the better one here in the U.S.; they could find work here that could not be found in their home countries (Rioja, Valev, and Wilske, 2006). This shows a marked difference between the men and the one woman, the server, that I was able to interview. While the women seem to immigrate to places where they have family, the men will go where there is work to be had, regardless of whether or not they have family in those places. A lot of the migrants we spoke to came to Atlanta for the 1996 Olympics. There was a lot of work to be had cleaning up the streets, and doing other jobs pertaining to the Olympics. One source showed that the number of immigrants in Atlanta grew 233.4 percent from 1990 to 2000 (Migration Policy Institute,2006), and another showed that the population grew 299.6 percent in that ten year span between 1990 and 2000, while the total population of Georgia only grew 26.4 percent according to the National Council of La Raza (2005). This is in contrast to the significantly smaller percent of 16.8 the Latino population grew in the six years from 2000 to 2006 (U.S. Census Bureau 2007). "Atlanta is like our base," one Mexican immigrant said, trying to explain why many Latino immigrants will leave Atlanta looking for work elsewhere, only to return after a short or log period of time, depending on whether work can be found in Atlanta versus other places. When asked how long they planned stay in the U.S. and more specifically Atlanta the almost unanimous answer was that they really do not have any plans to stay or to leave, they will just take what ever comes their way, which according to research, is what most Latino immigrants across the U.S. have to say about staying in the U.S. (Suro,2005).