In a series of public meetings that started last month, the community has been weighing how to stop the decline, and this mostly White, mostly Republican stronghold has concluded that the only way to grow is to recruit Latino residents.
At the meetings, Argüello said he could not have imagined this happening in west-central Iowa years ago when he was one of few Latinos here, but he believed that things had changed. He emphasized that White and Latino Iowans both prioritize family, faith, work and education.
“I’m glad that it’s getting done,” said Marilyn Schwartzkopf, 73, a Democrat who has been practicing her Spanish to help newcomers, as she volunteered at the county’s historical museum in Jefferson. “We need some diversity here. We’re all too old and White.” Chuck Offenburger, the chair of the diversity project’s steering committee, said the state considered attracting more immigrant families two decades ago, but the plan was shelved. Now Greene County has its own chance, he said.
But on his first week on the job at a Walmart in another county, he said a customer angrily took issue with his name tag, thinking he had taken the Lord’s name in vain. The name is common in Latin America.He soon found a job at the Greene County Medical Center, which has hired seven Latinos so far, said human resources director Mary Nieto, also a Latina — proof, she says, that change is possible. One new employee fled hours-long traffic jams in Los Angeles.