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As Mexican migrants spread throughout the US, filling jobs in farm-related industries, construction and services, they form networks linking rural America to rural Mexico. One such network links Columbus, Ohio and El Paxtle, Guanajuato, a farming community of 1,500. Many stories note that migrants who intended to return often change their minds after having US-born children, since they realize that they may not have good public schools and health care for their children at home.

Most of the unauthorized Mexicans have no trouble getting jobs, since false documents are easy to obtain.

Northwest Arkansas, home to Wal-Mart and Tyson Foods, is booming economically, with most of the benefits of growth going to professionals and immigrants. Many of the traditionally poor remain poor, and workers who lose higher-paying blue collar jobs complain that the new jobs available offer only $8 to $10 an hour because of immigration. About seven percent of Northwest Arkansas residents were foreign-born in 2000, up from 1.5 percent in 1990.

Springdale, Arkansas has the largest number of Marshall Islanders outside the chain of Pacific islands that has 58,000 residents, but few jobs. The Compact of Free Association in 1986 give the islands independence and allowed Marshall Islanders to move to the US without visas, and up to 6,000 have followed networks to chicken plants, factories and fast-food restaurants in the Springdale area (there are four times more Hispanics in the area).

College student John Moody began the migration when he dropped out of college and went to work at Tyson Foods. Moody urged his relatives to move to Springdale during the 1990s, talking up the schools and jobs. It wasn't a hard sell, since the unemployment rate on the Marshall Islands grew from 12 percent in 1988 to 31 percent in 1999. The Marshall Islanders are often on the lower economic rungs of Springdale's work force, working the night shift in local plants.

In Lebanon, Tennessee, a city 20 miles east of Nashville, a judge hearing child abuse and neglect cases ordered Mexican immigrant mothers to learn English or risk losing their children, saying that if the parents made a greater effort to assimilate into American society, it would open more opportunities to their children.

In 1999, USDA agreed to pay $50,000 or more to each Black farmer who experienced discrimination and filed for compensation within six months of the settlement, and 13,500 farmers qualified for more than $830 million between 1999 and 2004. However, up to 66,000 Black farmers did not file claims because they were not notified or filed their claims too late.

Kelly Lecker, "Pipeline from Mexico," Columbus Dispatch, March 27, 2005. Ellen Barry, "Learn English, Judge Tells Moms," Los Angeles Times, February 14, 2005. Kemba J. Dunham and Kortney Stringer, "Wal-Mart Fosters a Region's Rise, But Not All Benefit," Wall Street Journal, February 10, 2005. Christopher Leonard, "In the remote Marshall Islands, residents dream and save for years for a new life in Arkansas," Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, January 16, 2005.