Many things have changed since Nora Amador moved to the North Georgia area a decade ago, especially the number of other Hispanic immigrants.
"When I first arrived in Chatsworth, there were only two Hispanic students in the whole class, including myself," said the 20-year-old social work student at Dalton State College.
By the time she graduated in 2008 there were at least 40 other Hispanics in her class, she said.
The entire North Georgia area experienced a tremendous and rapid growth of Hispanic immigrants as early as the 1980s, but especially during the 1990s, according to U.S. census data.
In Murray County, the number of Hispanics increased from 136 in 1990 to 4,659 in 2007, according to state and county profiles released by the Pew Hispanic Center.
In Whitfield County, where the largest number of Hispanics in the area live, the Hispanic population increased from more than 2,000 to almost 18,500 from 1990 to 2000, figures show. By 2007, Hispanics were about 30 percent of the county's population of 93,379, the Pew profile shows.
But those figures may be dropping, city officials and residents say, because the recent economic downturn has led to some Hispanics moving out of North Georgia to find work elsewhere.
How it started
In the early 1980s most of the immigrants were males from Mexico coming to work in the carpet industry, said Dr. Donald Davis, professor of sociology at Dalton State and co-author of the book "Voices From the Nueva Frontera."
"So you had a single-male population (that) wasn't necessarily devoted to the community, in the sense that they didn't have plans to stay," he said.
One of the factors changing that, he said, was the amnesty of 1986, under President Ronald Reagan, under which about 1.5 million people legalized their status.
"That made it easier for people to start making plans, putting down roots, because they had legal status," he said.
Since then, not only has immigration diversified in terms of having more families, but also in terms of nationalities. There are more than 12 nationalities just from Latin America, in addition to India and Pakistan, now represented in Dalton, he said.
In Dalton Public Schools, Hispanics make up 67 percent of all students, up from 45 percent in 1999-2000, according to school officials.
With the arrival of the new immigrants came many opportunities for the city, including meeting work force demand, starting new businesses and the sale of real estate, Dalton Mayor David Pennington said.
"The Latinos helped us continue to be the center for carpet manufacture (and) they helped us become more of a global community, the key to success in today's world," he said.
"The Latinos that have been here for a long time, those who were born here or were raised here, are very educated, too," he said. "Some of our best students here are Latinos."
CHALLENGES OF GROWTH
But any rapid growth also brings challenges.
Claude Nix, a native of Whitfield County, said the growth of the Hispanic community has led to an influx of illegal immigrants, which has been bad for the community and the nation.
"It has impacted our schools; it has impacted our law enforcement; it impacts our social services and, again, I just don't see any benefits from it. And I'm not talking about legal immigration, I'm talking about illegals," said Mr. Nix, who ran for the sheriff's office in 2008.
"We have been building schools for an increased population, many of the schools are now more than 50 percent Hispanics and undoubtedly a large portion of that is from children of illegals, and of course the taxpayer has to pay for that," he said.
Mr. Pennington agreed that immigration "totally changes the whole environment."
"I'm not saying positively or negatively, but obviously when suddenly you have a large immigrant influx, I don't care if it's Latino or German for that matter, it changes the whole makeup of the city itself," he said.
Besides the lack of infrastructure and money to take care of the rapidly growing population, Dr. Davis said, early on there were some problems with prejudice.
"Some of our Anglo population (felt) threatened by the immigration, like their jobs were threatened, and there are still those people out there," he said. "But in terms of it being a daily issue of problems, it hasn't been the case since early 2000."
Before Miss Amador moved to Chatsworth, she didn't know racism existed, she said.
"It had never crossed my mind that there were people who rejected foreigners. You would get near (the other students), and they wouldn't let you sit by them," said Miss Amador, a naturalized citizen of the United States.
But things are different now, she said.
"Ten years ago, there weren't any bilingual people to help you fill out a form at school," she said. "Now most forms are translated into Spanish or there are people who speak Spanish who can help you."
Although most young people like herself are fluent in English and Spanish, and some members of younger generations don't even speak Spanish, people such as her parents have learned only basic English and benefit from having bilingual assistance, Miss Amador said.
"I feel that the communities have integrated much better," she said.
An example of that, she said, is an Hispanic literature course that is going to be offered at Dalton State for the first time next semester.