Workers at the health department for Illinois' Bureau and Putnam counties don't need to look at a schedule to see whether the bilingual dentist is on duty. "We tease around here that it's Spanish day because that's all we hear in the hallway," says Diana Rawlings, public health administrator for the two counties. Since the agency's dental clinic in a rural part of north-central Illinois hired a Spanish-speaking dentist about three years ago, the number of patients has grown from 3,000 to 8,000.
"The Hispanic community is getting more and more comfortable coming here, and that's the goal of public health," Rawlings says. "We do see a lot of children in our dental clinic."
The arrival of Hispanics in remote and rural areas far from traditional gateways has been going on for years. What's new is a pronounced demographic shift unfolding because these young immigrants are having children. Births outnumber deaths, and the population increases.
Though it's happening everywhere immigrants are settling, the impact is more striking in smaller, rural communities that have not grown or have been shrinking because young people have been leaving and those who stay are older and dying.
The contrasting trend will reshape the social and cultural fabric of rural America for decades, according to new research.
"Substantial natural increase among new Hispanic immigrants has dampened or even offset recent … population declines in rural communities," says Kenneth Johnson, co-author of research published in a demographic journal this month. "Hispanic population growth has taken on a demographic momentum of its own. Restricting immigration will not end the browning of America."
Bureau County has had a net population loss since 1980, but the Hispanic population is growing, attracted by food processing plants there and in neighboring counties.
Now, more than half of the growth in Hispanics comes from births.
"In our community, of the people who have lived here since the 1950s, the majority are elderly citizens," says Don Bosnich, president of Depue Village. "Of the Hispanic population, I would guess that 75% of them are new."
Grady County, Ga., rich with fields that grow peanuts, soybeans and corn on the Florida state line, grew about 4% to 24,719 from 2000 to 2006. The number of Hispanics almost doubled to 2,382, according to Census estimates.
"It's put a strain on our emergency services," says Rusty Moye, county administrator, who says the number of Hispanics is underestimated. "They're actually using our emergency rooms as their health clinics because when they get sick, they have no doctor. They're all indigents."
Despite newcomers' boost to dwindling populations, communities are not always convinced that supporting them is worth the cost.
"It can create real challenges in the long term," says Steve Camarota, research director for the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that favors limiting immigration.
For a nation bracing to support 79 million Baby Boomers in their old age, the growing and younger population of Hispanics should be viewed as economic salvation, says Dowell Myers, demographer at the University of Southern California and author of Immigrants and Boomers: Forging a New Social Contract for the Future of America.
"Children are always a fiscal burden, yet children are also the lifeblood of every community," he says. "What's killing Japan and threatening the economic future of Europe is that they don't have enough kids, and that's what's depriving these rural areas in America."
The upward mobility of immigrants is not visible until they have been here awhile, Myers says. His research shows substantial progress the longer they're in the USA. As Baby Boomers age, "immigration may be the best way to get needed workers, taxpayers and home buyers," he says.