Iowa

History 

Although there has been a significant increase in the Latino population in Iowa since 1990, many Latino families have lived in Iowa for over a century. According to historical documents, Latinos began arriving in Iowa in 1880.

Betweeen 1900 and 1920, Latinos came to Iowa to work on the railroad - for example, to Fort Madison, the oldest Mexican community in Iowa, and to Davenport.

According to the Iowa Women's Archives, the next increase of Latino immigrants came in the 1930s as migrant agricultural workers; many of the migrants settled in and around Muscatine and Mason City.  More recently - in the 1970s and 1990s - Latinos have filled positions in a variety of occupations across Iowa.  One notable industry in which Latinos have played a significant role is in meat-packing in Iowa -- for example in Marshalltown, where the Swift meat-packing plant workforce is comprised of more than fifty percent Latinos.

In response to the growth of the Latino community in Iowa, the Iowa legislature founded the “Spanish-speaking Task Force” in July of 1974. After two years the legislature changed the name to “Spanish-speaking People's Commission” which was renamed the Iowa Division of Latino Affairs in 2000.

Sources:
Iowa Women's Archives, Mujeres Latinas Project 2006;
Iowa Folk Life, http://fp.uni.edu, 2006
Iowa Public Television, http://www.iptv.org, Show 1625, 2006;
Iowa Division of Latino Affairs, http://www.state.ia.us/government/dhr/la/Index.html

Latino Population's Language Profile

By 2000, the number of Iowa residents aged 5 and older who speak Spanish at home was about 79,491. Among those who speak Spanish at home, more than two-thirds report that they speak English “very well.”

Source: http://www.state.ia.us/dhr/la/Data/

Latino Education Background

By 2000, the number of Latino Iowans who had finished high school was 37,284, indicating that 52.3 percent of Iowa Latinos aged 25 and over had at least a high school education.

The number of Latinos who had finished college was 4,092, which represented 9 percent of Iowa Latinos aged 25 and over.