The changing face of the heartland

Just five years ago, Charles and Kathryn Winwood, ages 64 and 66, greeted their south side community's first Hispanic family. The couple described them as lovely, upwardly mobile, with two beautiful young daughters and an immaculate lawn.

These days, Hispanic-owned businesses line SW 44 and SW 29 as well as Western and Walker avenues, diversifying this once homogenous community.

The couple's neighbors are now an even mix of white retirees and immigrant families — primarily Hispanic and Vietnamese.

"There has been a lot of Mexican restaurants opening up, and now there's this big Mexican grocery store in the old Homeland building,” said Kathryn Winwood. "I suppose some people feel a little upset by it, but we're just glad that something came in. I feel like if someone can put up with me, then they deserve to be talked to.”

According to Washington-based Pew Research Center, immigrants and their American-born descendants will account for 82 percent of the nation's population growth over the next 45 years if current trends continue. During that time, the percentage of white people will shrink. At present, white people make up about 67 percent. By 2050, white people will account for only 47 percent of the population, officially becoming a minority.

The total U.S. population will climb from 296 million in 2005 to 438 million in 2050, 117 million of which will be immigrants. The surge in Oklahoma, and others that have only recently become migration points for newly-arriving immigrants, will likely be more significant. From 2000 to 2006, in Oklahoma the Hispanic population grew by 30.8 percent; nationally that growth rate was 18.4 percent.

"One of the underlying tensions in all this is the fear of losing cultural identity,” said Charles Winwood. "Most people who were here, they were white, retired and middle class. When they think of what it means to be American, they think of pilgrims and England during the 1700s. Anything that casts a shadow on that is foreign; it is threatening.”

Many argue the nation's current obsession with immigration enforcement is less about national security or rule of law. Many feel that America, once the melting pot that absorbed its new residents is on the brink of being absorbed itself, losing its identity.

Jeff Passel, author of the U.S. Population Projections study, did not attempt to differentiate between illegal and legal immigrants in his study. Many estimated that illegal immigrants make up roughly half of the nation's immigrant populations. Population projections for the study also assume that current trends will continue. It does not factor changes in immigration enforcement and/or comprehensive immigration reform.

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