Immigration Is Changing America's Heartland

"Morganton's [North Carolina] struggles are playing out not just across many other parts of North Carolina but also through swaths of the American heartland. One of the most fascinating social trends of recent years is the demographic revolution taking place in such traditionally rural states as Arkansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Nebraska. The booming economy of the 1990s did wonders for these states but also brought in its wake an unforeseen influx of immigrants eager to stake their claim, as well as upheaval in the manufacturing sectors that long buttressed Middle America."