S. Lynne Walker, Copley News Service
Posted 3/1/2004 12:00:00 AM

Beardstown/ Reflection of a changing America

Tension in the air

Conquering the great divide

Living with a lie / Some immigrantssacrifice their identitiesto stay in America

Dealing with change

Beardstown/ Reflection of a changing America: Tension in the air

Nov. 9, 2003

By S. Lynne Walker
Copley News Service

For more than 200 years, the peoples of the world have been welcomed in America,a country built upon the backs of immigrants. In cities and in small towns,new waves of immigrants look to improve their lives and those of their familiesin the same land of hope, opportunity and prosperity sought by their forefathers.

Here in central Illinois, the Illinois River community of Beardstown is nolonger an enclave of mostly white residents. It has become a reflection ofAmerica's continually changing face, an international community with a significantpopulation of Hispanics - and a growing number of Africans - who have cometo work for Excel Corp., the pork processing plant. A demographic change thatis taking place across the country can be seen in microcosm in Beardstown.

Off and on for the past seven months, reporter S. Lynne Walker of the MexicoCity bureau of Copley News Service lived in Beardstown. Walker's fluency inSpanish allowed her to understand a side of the immigrants' story not widelyheard in central Illinois. The work of Walker and photographer Kristen SchmidSchurter offers an intimate look at the clash and commingling of distinctlydifferent cultures.

Beginning today, we are pleased to present the first part of their four-dayreport examining one community's 15-year adventure in social change.

Barry Locher
Editor

BEARDSTOWN - On winter afternoons, in the sliver of twilight dividing dayfrom night, Mayor Bob Walters drove along his town's quiet streets troubledby the changes he feared were coming.

Beardstown was an all-white community of 5,200 people built by German immigrants.No one remembered an African-American ever setting down roots in this IllinoisRiver town. When Mexican immigrants began flowing into the state, they, too,had bypassed Beardstown.

An intimacy had grown from that cultural isolation.

Bike-riding children waved to octogenarians resting in porch swings. Peopleturned out for fish fries, baseball games and Fourth of July fireworks. Everybodyknew everybody's name.

But in that winter of 1986, Walters could feel the comfortable rhythm of small-townlife slipping away.

In just two years, three Beardstown employers had closed their doors, eliminating500 jobs. Now, the town's biggest employer - the Oscar Mayer pork slaughterhouse- was shutting down, idling another 820 people. With no hope of finding work,families were beginning to leave.

Walters, who worked for 18 years as a ham boner at Oscar Mayer, had reservationsabout what many saw as the salvation of his dying town.

Excel Corp., the second-largest meatpacker in America, wanted to reopen theOscar Mayer plant, and most of the town's residents were enthusiastic aboutthe offer. They thought life would be the way it used to be, with an influxof money, thriving businesses and jobs for their children and grandchildren.

But during his travels as a representative for the United Food and CommercialWorkers Union (UFCW), Walters had seen what happened when meatpackers, operatingon profit margins of just 2 or 3 percent, opened plants in the rural Midwest.

Yes, they hired local folks. But they also recruited a stream of immigrants,most of them Mexican, to feed their insatiable demand for strong, young workers.

What Walters had seen on his trips across the Midwest was already startingto attract the attention of the nation's top demographers. By the late 1980s,they were recording the transformation that occurred when the meatpacking industrymoved into small American towns.

People from different cultures who spoke different languages were crowdinginto communities where white, English-speaking Americans had lived for generations.

The new arrivals brought new music, new foods and new holidays. They also broughtnew social problems.

They weren't creatingtowns, as earlier waves of Europeans had done, but moving into tight-knitcommunities.Sometimes, the towns lost their identities andpeople from neighboring communities poked fun at them, calling them "LittleMexico."

Walters didn't know these new immigrants as people, but he knew their presencewas changing a way of life in America's heartland.

He knew his own town, too. In 1858, the people of Beardstown had gathered inthe town square to hear Abraham Lincoln deliver a stump speech opposing slavery.But a century later, they had hung a noose in that same park, warning blacksto stay away.

"It had been an all-white, redneck community for 160 years," Walters said, "Fora community like that to have a different ethnic group come in, well, it'shard to adjust."

On a sweltering June afternoon in 1987, Excel quietly opened the company'sfirst pork-processing plant in Beardstown. With no fanfare, the town took itsplace in the dramatic demographic change sweeping America.

By the year 2000, Beardstown's Hispanic population would grow 3,229 percent.

Illinois welcomed Excel because economically depressed Cass County, home toBeardstown, was one of the poorest in the state.

Gov. Jim Thompson signed special legislation waiving the requirement that Excel'sparent company, privately held grain giant Cargill Inc., open its financialrecords before being allowed to locate in a free-enterprise zone at the outskirtsof town. Excel received all the economic benefits Illinois had to offer, includingstate funds for job training.

But Beardstown already had a labor force trained in the meatpacking business.With downstate Illinois facing rising unemployment, Excel dropped the startingwage from $8.75 to $6.50 an hour.

At one of his first meetings with Excel officials, Walters pushed the companyto hire former Oscar Mayer workers.

"I wanted Americans to hold the jobs," he said. "Therewere a lot of local people looking for work. I wanted to give them the opportunityfirst."

Excel finally agreed to hire 250 Oscar Mayer workers. Another 100 employeescame from nearby towns.

Every day, more than 5,000 hogs were chopped into pieces and boxed for shipment.The plant's work force put bacon on America's breakfast table, sent pig tailsto canners for pork 'n' beans and shipped snouts to Alabama for pickling.

The money that Excel's workers earned flowed back into Beardstown's economy.Hardee's and McDonald's opened hamburger franchises to compete with the town'sold-fashioned coffee shops serving biscuits and gravy. In 1989, Sam WaltonJr. phoned Walters from his private plane to say he'd be landing at Beardstown'stiny airport to look at a site for the town's first Wal-Mart.

The visit was so sudden, "we didn't even have time to get out the marchingband," Walters said. Still, "they said they liked what they'd seen,that they liked our town."

Walters took great pride in pointing out that in Excel's early years, no Hispanicsmoved to Beardstown.

Although the 1990 censusrecorded 31 Hispanics, Walters insisted, "Therewere no Hispanics here. I'd like to think I had a lot to do with that."

He wasn't motivated by racism, Walters said, but his years of experience inthe meatpacking industry.

"They take Hispanics, blacks and the downtrodden to work in their plants - thosewho don't have the computer skills or the basics for today's work environment," hesaid. "They seem to prey on that type of people. They take advantage ofthe disadvantaged."

As he left office in 1990, Walters gave his successor some advice.

"I told him, 'Ifyou don't stay after Excel, you are going to have a lot of Hispanics anda lot of Asianscome in here and take those jobs.'

"That's exactly what happened," hesaid.

***

The first Hispanics who showed up at Excel didn't last long.

When Excel hired BradHunter, a former Oscar Mayer worker, in 1989, "therewas very few coloreds and very few Mexicans," he recalled. "Everytime we'd try to tell them to do something, they'd look at us stupid. So we'dstart harassing them and they'd quit."

But two things changed the equation: Excel stepped up its production, increasingthe need for workers. And worker compensation costs began to soar, with injuryclaims reaching $7.8 million a year by 1994, according to UFCW representativeDuke Walters, who is the mayor's brother.

In the dangerous meatpacking industry, accidents were inevitable. Workers carvedup a 265-pound hog every 4.5 seconds, and in the process cut themselves withknives, hurt their backs and suffered from repetitive stress injury, Walterssaid.

Excel's most serious accidentcame in 1990, when workers inhaled ammonia gas that leaked from a coolerwhereslaughtered hogs were kept, according to OccupationalSafety & Health Administration records. Seventeen workers inhaled the toxicfumes; seven had to be hospitalized.

When Walters sat downat the bargaining table with Excel in 1994, the company made it clear that "ifthey continued to have those costs ... we were probably looking at closure."

Employee turnover was also a problem, reportedly hitting 100 percent a yearby the mid-1990s. The company's slaughterhouse was strategically located nearfarms in Illinois' sparsely populated countryside that produced the hogs Excelslaughtered. But there weren't enough workers living nearby, so when Excelincreased production, the company had to import its labor.

Every week, Excel officialsinterviewed job candidates, but "they weren'table to get enough people in the job pool here," said Walters. "Inorder to build the factory and get the people they needed, they had to go outsidethe area."

So Excel began to look for workers from south of the border who acknowledgedthey didn't gripe about every ache and pain.

"After starving to death, after sneaking across the border, people are preparedto do anything. There is no pain," said a Hispanic man working in Beardstown. "IfI came into the United States under a pile of avocados, what right do I haveto complain?''

Excel confirmed in a writtenstatement that "we have done mobile recruitingin areas of high unemployment where people were looking for work opportunities.This included northern states as well as southern and western."

The company, which refused repeated requests over the past seven months fora face-to-face interview with a representative, sent recruiters to California,Arizona and the Texas border towns of Laredo, Eagle Pass, Brownsville and ElPaso, drawing job candidates with spots on Spanish-language radio.

Excel sent nurse Lisa Mincy to the Texas-Mexico border at least 10 times duringthe eight years she worked at the plant. Sometimes, Mincy administered drugtests and gave physicals to 35 job seekers a day during the two- to four-daytrips.

"One guy rode his bike 12 miles to get to me," said Mincy, who left Excellast year. "It was hot. It was like 110 degrees that day."

Those who passed Excel's physical exam got a $400 advance and a one-way busticket to Beardstown.

***

Nobody can remember when the first Mexican families moved into Beardstown.Suddenly, they were just there.

The Rev. Eugene Weitzel recalls looking out at his congregation at St. AlexiusCatholic Church in 1995 and seeing a handful of Mexicans in the pews. Soon,they were knocking at his door, asking for a Spanish-speaking priest.

Buffy Tillitt-Pratt, a longtime real estate agent and a member of the famousBeardstown Ladies Investment Club, can still recall the first time a Mexicanfamily stopped by to ask if she might have a place for rent.

"It is against the law to discriminate. Some of the people in Beardstown probablydid not realize that at first," said Tillitt-Pratt, who rented them athree-bedroom house she owned.

Principal Pam DeSollar remembers a Mexican mother and father walking into herkindergarten office and using hand signals to enroll their 6-year-old son.

"How were we going to talk to this family? How were we going to fill out theforms?" DeSollar said she wondered at the time. "We couldn't communicate."

DeSollar's concern was echoed throughout the town. For the first time in theirlives, Beardstown residents weren't able to talk with their neighbors.

They didn't understand anything the Mexicans said or did. And the Mexican familiesdidn't understand the stuffy, small-town rules that now dictated their lives.

Police officers showed up at Mexican homes because American neighbors complainedthe mariachi music was too loud. City officials arrived to caution Mexicansthat their lawn had grown taller than Beardstown's 8-inch limit. Police wereconstantly ticketing Hispanics for driving without insurance and driver's licenses.

"We didn't know the laws," said Antonio Carrillo, 36, a father of threewho works at Excel. "That was part of the problem."

The police department was unprepared for the arrival of Spanish-speaking residents.None of the officers was bilingual. During routine traffic stops, police officerJacob Swan pulled out his own license to show the new residents which ID hewanted to see.

The town's schools were also caught off guard. In 1993, the district had justone Spanish-speaking student. By 1996, it had several dozen.

Immigration agents showed up at the Excel plant in 1995 and pulled 60 workersoff the production line for questioning.

"Everybody who wasn't Caucasian, they called into the office," said SergioRuiz, 36, who is now a chief steward for the UFCW, Local 431. "They askedyou questions and they said, 'Leave. Stay. Leave. Stay.'"

Despite the scare, Excel's Hispanic work force continued to grow.

Ruiz brought 26 Hispanics to work with him at Excel in July 1993. At the time,there were only about 15 Hispanics working at the plant, he said. Excel alsopaid its employees to help with the recruiting, handing out $150 for each newworker.

When the number of Hispanics reached nearly 500, businesses began to caterto the new residents' tastes.

Su Casa, a Mexican-owned grocery store, opened near Beardstown's historic townsquare and offered tortillas, chilies and nopal cactus. A bar, El Flamingo,was opened by an American woman and her Mexican husband.

But as the Hispanics' presence became more obvious, ambivalence by some longtimeBeardstown residents turned to resentment.

Martha Martinez, 29, wasdenied her right to register to vote at the same time she applied for a driver'slicense, which she was entitled to under Illinois' "motor-voter" law.She asked why and was told, "it was because I was a naturalized citizen,not a citizen citizen."

Martinez's family was also the target of hate crimes.

"They threw flaming rags at the house," said her husband, 35-year-old Alejandro. "Theypunctured our tires. They said we came to take their jobs."

***

On Aug. 10, 1996, Beardstown was rocked by its first murder in seven years.

Jorge Arambula, a 28-year-old Mexican who worked at Excel, was accused of fatallyshooting Beardstown resident Travis Brewer, 22, at El Flamingo. Brewer wasa friend of another Beardstown man, whose ex-wife was living with Arambula.

The next night, a 6-foot-high makeshift cross was doused with diesel fuel andset ablaze in front of the bar.

Arambula was detained five days later at his home in Monterrey, Mexico. ButMexican law enforcement authorities refused to extradite him to Illinois. Hehas never been tried for the murder in Mexico, and the case remains open atthe Beardstown Police Department.

The decision infuriated Beardstown residents. On Aug. 16, 1996, El Flamingowas gutted by fire, and anonymous callers warned the owner of Su Casa his businesswould be next. He stripped his shelves and closed the store.

Police soon arrested a 28-year-old resident of nearby Rushville, but Illinoisstate police patrolled the town for weeks.

When rumors circulated that the Ku Klux Klan was headed to Beardstown, theMexican community braced for the arrival with its own whispered threat.

"For every one of us they kill," one Mexican resident remembers peoplesaying, "we're going to kill five of them."

Beardstown / Reflection of a changing America: Conqueringthe great divide

Nov. 10, 2003

By S. Lynne Walker
Copley News Service

BEARDSTOWN - Shaken residentsof Beardstown flocked to church services on Aug. 18, 1996, as bells pealedfor unity and ministers exhorted their congregationsto overcome "the darkness of hate."

But when people heard those words, they knew the sheltered lives they onceenjoyed had slipped from their grasp.

Eight days earlier, a Mexican immigrant had murdered a Beardstown man. Theincident had been followed by a cross-burning and arson. In the aftermath ofthe violence, lifelong residents were torn between fear and uncertainty.

Beardstown's residents had been shaped by where they lived, where they wentto school, the things they had in common. Now, like the residents of many smalltowns across the United States, they were seeing their community reshaped byimmigrants who'd made their way north from Mexico.

By 1996, the meatpacking industry had opened plants in almost 150 Midwesterntowns. Other industries were also beginning to draw Hispanics to communitiesthroughout small-town America. In Dalton, Ga., Hispanics manufactured carpet.In Kennett Square, Pa., they harvested year-round mushroom crops. In Rogers,Ark., they cut and boxed poultry.

With each passing month, more Hispanics were recruited to Beardstown for jobsat Excel Corp.'s pork slaughterhouse. The new arrivals brought lifestyles andattitudes that made Americans feel uneasy.

They saw Mexican flagspopping up all over town and heard Spanish spoken in the aisles of the Wal-Martstore. Hispanic children rode their bikes past thetown square where a plaque cited Abraham Lincoln's famous anti-segregationspeech, "A house divided cannot stand."

Hispanics also worried about the town's future. They had moved here after dangeroustrips across the border or from jobs in big cities where they'd lived in poor,crime-ridden neighborhoods. Many felt that in Beardstown, they'd found notjust a job, but a place in the United States they could call home.

They weren't herded intoghettos, as they had been in other meatpacking towns. Some bought houseson the town'stree-lined streets and were looking forwardto raising their children. They appreciated the low crime rate and the cityservices that were provided without the "gratuities" they were usedto paying in Mexico.

The good things about Beardstown reminded Marisela Chavez of her hometown inthe Pacific Coast state of Michoacan.

Her Beardstown neighbors sent greeting cards to Chavez's two daughters on theirbirthdays, at Easter and Christmas. Chavez smiled as she remembered the momenther daughters opened the Christmas cards and found $20 bills tucked inside.

"I think the people in Beardstown are like we are in our pueblo. They all knoweach other. They know where everybody works, who their children are," saidChavez, 38, who moved to Beardstown in 1995 and works with the school system'sbilingual program.

Like other Hispanics, Chavez believed a mix of Anglos and Hispanics made Beardstowna stronger community.

When the town's 11 churches called a meeting after the arson, 60 people showedup to discuss their concerns about the growing tension.

By the end of the meeting, Anglos and Hispanics had formed an alliance calledBeardstown United. Plans were made to enter a float in the town's Fall FunFestival, and a block party was planned for October.

Beardstown United noted that the racial divide touched every facet of the residents'lives.

Although the town hadbeen built by immigrants in the early 1880s and had been home to peopleof foreignancestry ever since, "this new wave was different," saidLoraine Brasel, who was a member of Beardstown United.

"They came right from Mexico with no established support group here. They didn'tspeak English. So they formed their own cohesive group," she said. "Itwas like having a little country dropped right in the middle of Beardstown."

There were concerns about whether the schools were teaching Hispanic childrento assimilate into American life. People were also beginning to complain aboutthe new Spanish-language Masses being offered at St. Alexius Catholic Church.

In 1996, Beardstown wasn't a community, but two separate groups of people:Anglos and Hispanics.

***

At St. Alexius Catholic Church, the Rev. Eugene Weitzel heard the hushed complaints.

People were uncomfortable with his staunch defense of Beardstown's Hispanicresidents and his decision to offer separate Spanish-language Masses.

It had been almost a year since four Hispanics knocked at his door and askedhim to offer a Mass in Spanish. Weitzel, a 76-year-old Springfield native whodidn't speak Spanish, readily accepted their proposal.

At first, most of his Spanish-speaking parishioners were men who'd left theirfamilies in Mexico when they came to Beardstown for work. But as Beardstown'sHispanic population grew with the arrival of women and children, so did attendanceat Spanish-language Masses.

From the beginning, therewas "tension between the two groups," Weitzelsaid. "This is a redneck town. They are slow to accept outsiders. Wheneverwe have people who are different, we seem to have a fear of them."

Weitzel said opposition was so strong that four or five families eventuallyleft the parish.

"There are people here in my own parish who would be happy as a lark if they'djust leave town," Weitzel said. "One of the men came up to me andsaid, 'If they can't speak the language, then get the hell out.' Well, comeon. His folks came over from Germany and they didn't speak the language."

Weitzel's outspoken remarks became a lightning rod for criticism about Hispanicresidents.

"Father Weitzel has been the worst thing for Mexicans, because he tried to pushthe Mexicans on Americans instead of letting people try to live together," saidEugene Gyure, a 64-year-old retiree who attends St. Alexius.

Many in Beardstown insisted they didn't feel animosity toward Hispanic churchgoers.

"People at the church don't like the separatism. They want to be one parish," saidJackie Tanner, 47, who moved to Beardstown in 1998. "They don't like twoservices. They don't like two youth groups. Resentment. That's what you havewhen you separate a lot."

Edmundo Bernal, a 35-year-oldExcel worker who had attended bilingual Masses in Chicago, was dismayed bytheseparation. "We share the same religion.The only difference is that we have a different language," he said.

***

The racial divide was also clear in the schools. In a town where friendshipswere formed in kindergarten, it was hard for youngsters who didn't speakEnglish to squeeze into the closed circle.

Victor Sanchez remembers feeling alone and alienated in 1998 as he walked downhalls filled with Anglo students.

"I was, like, shocked because I hadn't seen so many white people in one place," hesaid. "I felt strange. It's hard to get along with people when you don'ttalk the same language."

Victor and his family came to Beardstown from the central Mexico state of Hidalgo.The 13-year-old Victor was placed in seventh-grade English as a second language,or ESL, classes, where most of Beardstown's 153 Hispanic children - about 12percent of the district's student body - were enrolled.

Victor picked up English quickly. In three months, he learned enough to helphis mother, who worked at Excel, adjust to life in Beardstown.

"If you don't learn English fast, you get stuck," hesaid.

But as his language skills improved, he began to understand the comments Anglostudents were making about their Hispanic classmates.

"Beaners. Wetbacks. Go back to Mexico," Victorremembered some kids saying.

"They think they are better than us," he said. "Theythink when the Latinos are coming here, they are going to steal their work.But the companiesprefer Latinos, you know? Because we can work more. Because we need more."

Georgeanne Osmer, who teaches family and consumer science at Beardstown HighSchool and helps coach the girls' softball team, watched her students segregatethemselves.

"If I have four tables in my food class - four kitchens - I can guarantee thatall the Hispanics will be at one table," she said. "There's not animosity,but there's not a cohesiveness, a togetherness."

Tomas Alvarez was thrust into this divided world when he arrived in July 1998at the age of 12. His father had been called from Guadalajara to a lead growingSpanish-speaking congregation at the Church of the Nazarene.

Tomas didn't speak English, so he was sent to ESL classes with Victor.

But after his first year,Tomas said, "It was obvious I wasn't learningmuch. I learned more from my friends than from the ESL teacher."

Tomas' teachers recommended that he be moved to English-speaking classes, andin eighth grade he became an A student. Tomas, who plays football and has helpedthe school district update its Web site, will be going to college after hegraduates in May.

He's certain that if he'dstayed in ESL classes, he would have faced the same future as several ofhis classmates. "I know some real smart people whostayed in ESL," said Tomas. "They're out at Excel now."

***

For Hispanic parents who worked Excel's grueling jobs in extreme heat and cold,amid blood and fetid smells, Beardstown's schools offered their childrena way out of a life of manual labor.

Like the immigrants who came to America before them, Hispanic mothers and fatherswanted their children to become professionals. For them, having children whoended up cutting meat at Excel represented their own failure.

But the school system wasn't prepared for students like Elvia Montoya, thefirst Hispanic student to graduate from Beardstown High's ESL program.

When Montoya arrived in Beardstown, she didn't speak English, so an interpreteraccompanied her to most of her classes.

Her goal was to get her master's degree and become a Spanish teacher. But aftershe graduated in 1998, her English skills were so poor that she couldn't evenget into the local community college.

"Sometimes, I blame myself for not learning more, or I don't know if it wastheir fault because the program was just beginning," said Montoya, 24,who works as an interpreter at a Hispanic community outreach center in Beardstown. "Ididn't come out of high school with good English; I came out with enough Englishto survive."

Kathy Haut, one of Montoya'sESL teachers and now coordinator of the bilingual program, said the arrivalofHispanic students "put a huge burden on theschool system."

One 15-year-old Mexican boy who had been selling flowers on the streets ofTijuana arrived with a second-grade education. Another teenager came from theMexican countryside, where he had been working his family's fields with oxenand a plow. When teachers asked him to use a computer to do his schoolwork,Haut said, he couldn't figure out how to switch it on.

"How are you going to have quality teachers for all those children? You're not," Hautsaid. "You're just doing the best you can. Parents don't understand thatwe can't just go out and pick up bilingual teachers. They can do it Chicago.They can do it in San Francisco. But who wants to come here?"

She's frustrated because she hasn't been able to solve the problems of bilingualeducation.

"As glad as I am that these people are here, they have to understand how hardit is to go from a school system that's 150 years old and all Anglo to suddenlyhaving a bilingual program," Haut said. "If they think this schoolis going to be a Mexican school, no, it's not. It's going to be an Anglo institution."

Hispanic parents said Haut's staff pressured them to keep their children separatefrom Anglo students. They were warned that moving their children from ESL toregular classes would be tantamount to robbing them of their culture.

Haut blamed Hispanic parents for not getting involved in their children's educationand suggested they might not understand educators' reasons for keeping theirchildren in ESL classes.

For Hispanic parents, "it's a status symbol to be able to speak English," shesaid. "It's the language of power. It's like distancing themselves fromtheir past."

Dora Sanchez ran into the ESL problem when a bilingual teacher said her daughter,Arely Madrid, should go into regular fifth-grade classes.

Sanchez persisted even after a different staffer from the bilingual programvisited her at home and said Arely would be more immersed in her culture andher Spanish would be better if she stayed in ESL.

On the first day of school, however, Sanchez was shocked to discover that Arelywas back in ESL. Weeks passed before the dispute was settled and Arely wasmoved to English-speaking classes.

Although Arely started later than the other students, her grades were exemplary.This year, she'll be on the honor roll.

"Give me a whole room of Arelys," said her sixth-grade teacher, Susan DeWitt. "She'san outstanding student."

Sanchez was convinced she had made the right decision.

"Of course it is important that they learn their culture and their Spanish.What parent doesn't want their child to be prepared? That is why we are here," Sanchezsaid. "But if the bilingual program doesn't have the same quality as theEnglish classes, we don't want them to go."

***

Anglo and Hispanic children in Beardstown's two kindergartens offered hopethe town would be united in the future.

From the moment the first Hispanic child was enrolled in 1993, principal PamDeSollar threw herself into the task of educating Beardstown's youngest residents.

At that age, the children were color-blind about their fellow classmates andeager to soak up a new language.

"We had to change the way we worked. We had to fight right to the state levelto get the resources we think we're entitled to," said DeSollar, principalof Grand and Washington kindergartens. "We've been challenged. But amI sorry about that? No."

DeSollar, 60, who grew up in California's San Fernando Valley, moved to Beardstownafter she married her husband, who is from an established local family. Whenshe arrived in 1965, she found a backwater town that seemed disconnected fromthe rest of the world. The local grocery store didn't stock the ingredientsshe needed to fix her favorite meals, so she ordered her refried beans andcanned chilies by the case.

DeSollar saw the arrivalof Hispanic families in small-town America as a natural progression of thewave of immigrationthat had started in California and otherborder states. "If Excel stays here, we will continue to see this growth," DeSollarsaid. "What I hope is that we don't become two communities. Our countryis bilingual. And it's only going to become more bilingual in the future."

By the late 1990s, everybody in town seemed to understand the Hispanics werehere to stay. The challenge facing Beardstown was to find a way for Anglosand Hispanics to grow together instead of growing apart.

Beardstown / Reflection of a changing America: Living witha lie / Some immigrants sacrifice their identitiesto stay in America

Nov. 11, 2003

By S. Lynne Walker
Copley News Service

BEARDSTOWN - As Beardstown residents struggled to find common ground withtheir new neighbors, one issue kept them apart: Many of the Hispanics workingat Excel Corp.'s slaughterhouse were living illegally in the United States.

By 1998, Excel's work force had grown to nearly 2,000 employees, about 30 percentof them Hispanic. Although the company denied it knowingly hired undocumentedworkers, it was an open secret that most of the Hispanics - perhaps as manyas 80 percent - had purchased false IDs to get their jobs.

To protect themselves, the undocumented residents avoided the rest of the townspeople.They were wary of settling into small-town life, of going to ball games orbeing active in the PTA.

The Rev. Tomas Alvarez had been in town only a couple of months when he realizedhe would be ministering to people who had to lie about everything - even theirown names - in order to be hired at Excel.

"It was very difficult for me to accept in the beginning," said Alvarez,who arrived in 1998 to lead the Spanish-speaking congregation at the Churchof the Nazarene. "I cried a lot because I knew I was lying along withthem. I began to talk with God. I said, 'God, they left their country to workas undocumented people. It is not my responsibility to judge. You must judgethem. Let me help them.'"

The dual identities filled school records, health records, police records andvoter registration lists with inaccuracies.

Excel employees working with false identities didn't want to use their realnames - or their children's real names - on official documents. School officialsrepeatedly assured parents their records wouldn't be turned over to the Immigrationand Naturalization Service, or INS (now called the Bureau of Immigration andCustoms Enforcement).

"We are not the INS. We do not plan to be the INS," said School SuperintendentJim Lewis. "Our mission is not to turn people in, but to help the families."

Pregnant mothers were urged to give their real names when they arrived at hospitalsto deliver their babies. Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to prove they werethe children's real mothers.

At the Cass County clerk'soffice, irregularities cropped up on voter registration lists. A single SocialSecuritynumber was sometimes used by as many as fourregistered "voters."

Few voted, however. In Beardstown's April 2001 mayoral election, fewer than20 of the town's 120 registered Hispanics cast ballots. Instead, they saw thevoter registration card as another form of identification.

"They figure if they get the voter ID, it gives them some credibility in beinghere," said Cass County Clerk Michael Kirchner.

Beardstown's police also ran into dual-name problems. When they stopped Hispanicsfor traffic violations, some had several IDs with different names in theirwallets. A few were mistakenly arrested because charges were filed againstthe people whose documents they had bought.

Like most of Beardstown's legal residents, Alvarez worked out his own way ofdealing with the shadow world inhabited by many of the town's Hispanic residents.

"I went to the (former)chief of police and told him people have different names. He said, 'If Iwere intheir shoes, I would probably do the same thing.'

"I went to Exceland they told me, 'Pastor, we don't want to know anything. We are contractingAmericancitizens.'"

Based on those conversations, Alvarez decided he would minister to the undocumentedimmigrants the same way he ministered to any other Beardstown resident. Hewouldn't help them do anything illegal. But if their only crime was workingwithout documents, he wouldn't report them to authorities.

***

Beardstown had become a town built partly on lies. There were lies that religiousleaders had been forced to accept, lies that schoolteachers had to overlookand that police officials chose to ignore.

For Hispanic workers and their families, the lies created personal conflicts.

"We've made liars out of them. We've made cheats out of them," said theRev. Eugene Weitzel, who presides over the St. Alexius Catholic Parish. "They'vegot to have two names. That's a lie. They carry papers that have another nameon them. That's a lie.

"One of the reasonsthey don't come together more with the community is that they're embarrassed.They havea sense of insecurity."

Life in this small, quiet town had brought prosperity to Beardstown's immigrants.But their prosperity was built on lies as well. Their spending could continueonly if immigration agents didn't show up in the town.

The new arrivals bought cars, big-screen TVs and satellite dishes that broughtMexican news programs, soap operas and soccer games into their living rooms.They bought homes with huge down payments and paid them off with five-yearloans.

They delighted in knowing that when they went shopping, they had money in theirpockets to buy almost anything they wanted. And they still had money left overto send to their families in Mexico.

"Economically, you live like a king here," said Alejandro Martinez, 35,who moved to Beardstown in 1994. "I have an account at the bank. I boughta car. We eat shrimp twice a week. We go to the store and if we spend $200or $500, so what?"

Martinez and his wife used their Excel paychecks to buy a home and six rentalproperties.

"In Mexico, for people at our level, we would live like donkeys," Martinezsaid. "Here, everything that I have wanted, I have bought."

But Martinez is a legal resident of the United States and his wife is a naturalizedAmerican citizen.

Other Hispanics, working at Excel without legitimate documents, could neverlet their guard down. Fearful of being deported, they spent most of their off-workhours at home.

"I feel trapped," sigheda 49-year-old woman who left Acapulco in 1999 and crossed the border illegally.

"Every day I'm here, here, here," she said, sweeping her arm in the directionof the two-story home she and her husband bought. "We almost never goout. I feel very lonely."

As she remembered her home in Mexico's famous beach resort, she sighed again.

"Right now, our mango tree would be full of fruit. I miss the coconuts, thebreeze from the sea," she said. "I tell my husband, 'Let's go back.'But he doesn't want to go back. My husband is happy here."

Her 49-year-old husband is now an American citizen. He's one of the lucky ones.

"Many of the people at Excel work with bought papers," she said. "It'seasy to see who has papers and who doesn't. Those who don't have (legal) papersare afraid to speak."

Longtime resident Patricia Gyure sensed the Hispanic residents' reluctanceto draw attention to themselves.

"They come here, they do their jobs, they're low-key. They don't bother anyone.They don't cause any problems," said Gyure, 60, who works at a nursinghome. "They just blend in."

But her husband ticked off a litany of complaints.

The Hispanics didn't speak English. They celebrated their own IndependenceDay. And he believed they didn't pay their fair share of taxes.

"We're saying if you're going to be living in America, you're going to celebrateAmerican Independence Day," said 64-year-old Eugene Gyure, who wore aT-shirt emblazoned with the American flag and the words, "These colorsnever run."

Gyure also didn't like being called Anglo.

"We are not Anglos," he said. "Weare Americans."

Few Beardstown residents believed racism was at the heart of their feelings.

"I don't think there's any prejudice around here. I think it's resentment. Alot, lot of resentment. A lot of people feel that the immigrants are protectedby our own laws more than we are," said a 53-year-old Beardstown nativewho asked not to be named.

"My husband wantsto move. I say, 'But this is our home.' If I really left, I'd feel like they'ddrivenme out. And I want to go on my own.

"It's so unfair. The schools protect them. Public aid has holes in it. Excelprotects them. I have a lot of resentment," she said. "I'm dealingwith it, because it's wearing me out. It tires you when you're upset."

***

Excel has been silent about many of the issues surrounding its Beardstownoperation. Repeated requests made over a seven-month period for a face-to-faceinterview with company officials were denied.

However, Excel said ina written response that "We make every effort tovalidate employment eligibility while protecting against discrimination. Despitewhat some might speculate (based on no facts), we are very good at verifyingemployment eligibility."

Alvarez agreed that Excel has gotten tougher in recent years

"Before, people without documents got into the plant easier," he said. "Now,the plant is verifying all kinds of documents, including the work history ofthe job candidate."

Alvarez's 24-year-old daughter, Elizabeth Burnside, was an interpreter in Excel'shuman relations department. It was her job to contact the Social Security Administration'sSpringfield office every week to check the numbers new employees had given.

"I'm the mean one," she said with an apologetic smile before she left thecompany. "I'm the one who has to tell them that their Social Securitynumber doesn't match."

But many of the numbers are valid, because some Hispanic workers buy legitimatebirth certificates and Social Security numbers from Americans - prisoners,U.S. soldiers stationed abroad or wanted criminals - who sell their identitiesthrough middlemen for as much as $1,500.

One Hispanic woman told police she bought her documents from a man going door-to-doorin Beardstown. Her husband told police he also bought identity documents, firstto get an Illinois driver's license, then to apply for a job at Excel or atthe company that contracts workers to clean blood and bones from the slaughterhousemachinery.

Excel's responsibility is to fill out a government-required I-9 form statingthat job candidates have presented at least two documents - such as a driver'slicense and Social Security card - that prove they are eligible for work.

Employers are not required to verify Social Security numbers, nor are theyresponsible for investigating whether the person presenting documents boughtthem on the black market, said Cynthia O'Connell, interim chief of the Immigrationand Custom Enforcement's identity and benefits fraud unit.

"We cannot expect them to be immigration officers," shesaid.

A Mexican woman said after she bought documents in 1999, she traced the originalowner's signature over and over again, until she could produce an exact matchof the six-letter name.

Now she signs easily. When someone calls her by the other woman's name, sheinstinctively turns and responds.

But it troubles her to deny who she is.

"I would like to have my papers," she said, "andpresent myself as I am."

***

The Hispanics who adapted most easily to life in Beardstown were people likeEdmundo Bernal, who took advantage of a 1986 immigration law granting farmworkers legal status in the United States.

Bernal tells his story like an adventure tale.

He struck out for the border in 1987, and 10 times he was detained by immigrationagents in San Diego. Ten times, he crossed again. That year, he said, nearly1,000 men from his town of Villa Guerrero headed for the United States.

When Bernal finally got across the border, he rode the trolley to downtownSan Diego, caught a train to Anaheim and slept in a park for two weeks. Hepicked asparagus in Stockton, then harvested beets in Idaho. There, he raninto a Mexican man from a town near his, who offered him a ride to Chicago.

Bernal's timing changed his life, because like 1.2 million Hispanic farm workers,he was savvy enough to take advantage of the legalization program before itexpired in 1988.

"A lot of people missed the opportunity. Now, they're sorry," said the35-year-old Bernal. "After I got my documents, I began to live well."

He married his wife, Alicia, in their pueblo in 1990 and sneaked his brideacross the border at Tijuana the next day.

Because he was documented, Alicia also became eligible for legal work papers,which she received in 1996. Their two sons, Jaime and Edmundo Jr. - also knownas Jimmy and Eddie Jr. - were born in the United States, so they are Americancitizens.

In 1998, Bernal also became a citizen and moved his family from Chicago toBeardstown in search of affordable housing, a low crime rate and good wages.

Bernal immediately went to work for Excel. Alicia soon followed, getting ajob cutting off pig's feet.

They bought a $53,000house and just two years later, they only owed $18,000. They refinanced andused themoney to open a tavern called Salon Azul. Theyalso bought sound equipment that Bernal rented out under the name "SiSe Puede," a Spanish phrase meaning, "Yes, it can be done."

Like many Hispanics in Beardstown, Bernal had a dual identity. But in his case,it came from being bilingual and bicultural, not from living in the shadows.

"On that side of the river," he said, pointing to Mexico, "theycall me Edmundo. On this side of the river, everybody just calls me Eddie."

As owner of Salon Azul, Eddie Bernal became one of the most visible Hispanicsin town. He smiled and waved at everybody. He shouted greetings in English.

He had found the formula for getting along.

"You don't have to have a big conversation. But you can say, 'Hello,' and shaketheir hand," he said. "When you have good intentions, you don't haveto talk too much."

Bernal's sons have already put down roots beside the Illinois River.

Nine-year-old Eddie Jr., a charismatic boy with bristly black hair, wants tobecome a police officer.

Twelve-year-old Jimmy, a robust kid with a penchant for Matchbox cars, hasa more immediate goal.

"I'm going to be as tall as Abe Lincoln," hesaid.

Beardstown / Reflection of a changing America: Dealing withchange

Nov. 12, 2003

By S. Lynne Walker
Copley News Service

BEARDSTOWN - By autumn of 2003, Beardstown had once again settled into a comfortablerhythm. But the rhythm was different than before.

Beardstown was no longer a community of white faces, where people spoke onlyEnglish and bragged about banning minorities. Instead, it was part of the newAmerican Midwest, where brown faces and Spanish are woven into daily life.

In almost every U.S. county, the 2000 census showed the rise in Hispanics outstrippingoverall population growth. From Nantucket Island, Mass., to the rural MississippiDelta, small communities were being changed by Hispanics settling in theirtowns. In Garden City, Kan., Hispanics now make up 44 percent of the population.In Conesville City, Iowa, they're the majority.

In the 16 years since Excel Corp. opened a pork slaughterhouse at the outskirtsof Beardstown, the Hispanic population has reached 30 percent. With Excel hintingat increasing production and some longtime residents of this town of 7,000moving out, many people believe Hispanics will become the majority here, too.

That bothers some of the town's Anglo residents, although their resentmenthas softened over the years. There is still racial prejudice. But it is mutedby an acceptance, even an appreciation by many people, of the new ideas thatcultural diversity has brought.

Bob Walters sensed the difference in the fall of 2000 when he knocked on thedoors of each of the town's 1,799 residences during his campaign for anotherterm as mayor. Walters had left Beardstown for a better job in 1991 after servingas mayor for five years. But the call of home - parents, brothers, a sisterand kids - brought him back to Beardstown.

In his door-to-door campaign, he heard citizens complain about things thatbother people everywhere - problems in the police department, unsightly garbageand the city's mismanaged budget.

Only a few griped about the growing number of Hispanics, but Walters stoppedthem short.

"The biggest problem with Beardstown people is that they think this is onlyhappening in Beardstown," said Walters, who won the election with 60 percentof the vote. "They haven't got out and checked the real world yet. Thesepeople are all over the U.S. The facts are that it's the fastest-growing populationin the United States."

One thing people didn't complain about was how the economy had rebounded sincethe Hispanics' arrival.

Per capita income in Cass County, home to Beardstown, shot up 70.5 percentbetween 1988 - the year after Excel opened its plant - and 1997. Two-incomecouples employed at Excel now earn about $50,000 a year, a handsome sum ina town where monthly mortgage payments are as low as $400.

Beardstown's sales tax revenues are growing about 3 percent a year, with Excela major contributor to the town's economic well-being.

The crime rate remains low. Beardstown's last murder was in 1996, when a Mexicanimmigrant was accused of shooting an Anglo resident at a local bar. Drug casesincreased 93 percent between 2001 and 2002, but even then the number of arrestswas only 56.

Beardstown has become the town of the future, demographers say, an economicmodel for hundreds of small American towns that are slowly dying.

Hispanics have given thetown what real estate agent Buffy Tillitt-Pratt calls a "youth boost." The80-year-old high school is so crowded that it's being replaced with a $20million junior high and high school. At the beginningof this school year, one-third of the district's 1,400 students were Hispanic.

School SuperintendentJim Lewis foresees the day when his job will be held by a bilingual superintendent. "Youneed to hear those voices without relying on an interpreter to tell you whatthose voices are saying."

Clearly, the town haschanged. And so has Walters, a Purple Heart veteran of the Vietnam War whoadmitshe grew up a redneck in a sheltered world made upof people just like him. In Vietnam, his fellow soldiers hooted with laughterwhen he finally worked up the nerve to ask, "What the hell is a soul brother?"

"That shows you how naive you are when you come from a small, all-white area," the58-year-old mayor said as he held a dying cigarette between his fingers.

The town, like Walters, has experienced an awakening.

People don't stare atHispanics, like they did when the Excel workers first got here. Most Angloschoose theirwords carefully. Many preface any negativecomments with, "I'm not a racist."

People don't like to bring up the subject of race because talking about itdivides them again. But some of the racial barriers remain.

"You still hear people say, 'wetbacks,'" said the Rev. Tomas Alvarez, 46,who leads the Spanish-speaking congregation at the Church of the Nazarene. "Inthe Hispanic community, I still hear 'gabacho,'" a derogatory term forAnglos.

At his church, which hecalls "Libertad," or freedom, Alvarez workedto reduce the barriers. Although he built the separate church with his ownhands for Hispanic worshippers, Alvarez said they often join the Anglo congregation. "Manytimes we pray together."

But as more Hispanics moved into Beardstown, some longtime residents have movedout. Between 1990 and 2000, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that 776 peopleof German heritage moved away or died, along with 489 of Irish heritage.

Mike Haberman, who has lived in Beardstown all his life, put his $140,000 houseon the market in July and is moving his family to a place in the country.

"Beardstown's gotten too crowded with Mexicans," said Haberman, 34, ashe and his wife worked in their front yard. "Before long, they'll be changingthe street signs and putting them in Spanish."

Haberman cringes whenhe hears people from other towns laugh and call Beardstown a "littleMexico."

"I think more and more people are getting the same attitude I have. It's timeto sell," he said. "If we're going to get our money out, we needto do it now."

At St. Alexius Catholic Church, the demographic changes can be seen in veryhuman terms. The Rev. Eugene Weitzel baptized 12 Hispanic babies over the pasttwo months and just one Anglo infant.

The Rev. Jim Edmiston, a Franciscan priest who offered Spanish-language Massesat St. Alexius in 1999 and 2000, said it's not hate but confusion that is makingAnglos flee.

"We don't have in this country an education system or a social service systemthat helps people deal with that confusion," he said. "The pastorsdon't know what to do about it, either."

Even after all these years, there's a distance between Beardstown's Anglosand Hispanics.

"It's still like 'us' and 'them,'" Walters said. "Oncewe get past that and become 'us,' we're all going to be better off."

***

The mayor believes lack of community involvement is holding Hispanics back.When Walters was elected, roughly 2,000 people voted, but fewer than 20 wereHispanics.

"If they've failed in any one area, it's a lack of showing leadership in thecommunity," he said. "I've tried to work with them, but they don'task for a lot. They don't call you at home. They don't go to city council meetings.I'm sure they feel like outsiders, which they are in a way.

"It would help theircause if they'd get involved in the community to show people that they'renot justa bunch of people who swam across the river last nightlooking for jobs."

Hispanics who've migrated to the United States have a single focus: earningenough money to support themselves and their families in Mexico. The moneychase leaves them little time for community activities. Their lives are oftenrestricted to work, home, sleep, work and dreams of one day returning to Mexico.

"A lot of people become citizens, but they don't feel like they're a part ofhere," said Edmundo Bernal, who works at Excel and owns Salon Azul, abar. "Once they are citizens, they think that's the end of the process."

Bernal, 35, speaks English and has an easy laugh that helps him bridge thetwo cultures. He is an American citizen and a Beardstown citizen, a Hispanicwho has decided to make Beardstown his home.

For him, the process of being a citizen has only begun.

Bernal reached out to Walters, even though he was irritated that the mayoropposed his application for a liquor license for Salon Azul.

Walters, in turn, worried that the bar, which had a bad reputation under theprevious owner, would continue to be a magnet for drug peddlers and other unsavoryelements.

So Walters watched Bernal run the bar for several months, even stopping byfor a beer every now and then. He caught himself laughing when he drank Coronasand saw the Mexican customers drinking Bud Light.

"I wish I had 6,000 people like him in Beardstown, with his attitude, the wayhe approaches things," Walters said. "He wants to be part of thecommunity."

Bernal sees the mayor as an example, too.

"Little by little, I think he had realized that I am not the person he thoughtI was," Bernal said. "And I have realized that he is not the personI thought he was."

Sometimes, Bernal daydreams about running for elected office. It is somethinghe could never have achieved in Mexico, where political candidates are oftenchosen through a patronage system.

Bernal isn't sure he'll ever make it to city government. But with the Hispanicpopulation continuing to grow, there's not much doubt in anybody's mind thatBeardstown will one day have a Hispanic mayor.

***

"Mexican town" isthe way some people in nearby communities now describe Beardstown.

At a Beardstown High School basketball game last season, about 20 fans of BrownCounty High School in Mount Sterling showed up wearing sombreros.

As Beardstown playersran down court, the Brown County fans yelled, "Wewant tacos," said Tomas Alvarez, a high school senior who was at the game.

"People were mad.They really care about the image of Beardstown. That wasn't just againstan ethnic group.It was against the whole town."

Tomas shook off the incident.

"A lot of people say this is becoming a Mexican town. They don't really knowwhat's going on," he said. "I think it may become an internationaltown."

That international flavor already permeates every block in Beardstown.

Hispanics live next door to Anglos. And both are adjusting to new neighborslike Tidiane Soumare from the country of Senegal.

When Soumare arrived in Beardstown a year ago, he was one of only 20 Africanworkers at Excel. Now dozens of his countrymen have moved to Beardstown.

As he looks up and down the production line at Excel, where he earns $11.95an hour cutting pork, Soumare sees whites, Hispanics, Africans and a Vietnamesenamed Than.

In this new melting pot on the Illinois River, Soumare has found a quiet lifeand decent people.

He practices his Muslim religion here, praying five times a day. On weekends,he shoots pool with his Mexican friends.

Soumare was offended whena woman in the nearby city of Jacksonville said, "You'reliving in that Mexican town."

"She said the Mexican people, they are bad," said Soumare, a tall, lanky28-year-old who speaks English, French and three African languages. "Itold her, 'I don't have no problem with them. I work with them. They are nice.'"

Mamadou Dhioubou, a 30-year-old from Senegal, was the first Excel worker ofAfrican heritage to arrive in Beardstown. When he found that jobs were plentiful,he passed the word to his friends.

"I see Africans like Mexican people," said Dhioubou. "We didn't cometo mess up America. We're working here. I've been a citizen for 15 years. Iwant the best for America. God bless America," he said.

***

Many longtime residents of Beardstown welcome the diversity.

"We would never have heard Mexican music 10 years ago. Now it is commonplaceto hear different ethnic music," said Wyatt Sager, 48, a lifelong Beardstownresident who is the Cass County death examiner. "Beardstown has a muchgreater world scope now than it did 10 years ago."

Sager and his wife, Trish, own the town's largest funeral home, so their mostpersonal encounters with Hispanic families have been during moments of profoundsadness.

They still remember thefirst Hispanic parents who asked them to ship their child's body home. Their17-year-oldboy had died of cancer. "He had comeup here hoping our medicine could save him, but it couldn't," Sager said.

He and his wife drove the body to Chicago themselves, and they got transitpermits in English and Spanish stamped by the Mexican consulate. They saw firsthandthe anguish a Mexican family experiences and the arduous process they facein sending a body home.

Now, they understand "thathorrible hurt and how separated they must feel from their cultural background."

It bothers the Sagerswhen their friends in Jacksonville and Rushville tell them "you've justbecome a little Mexico down there."

"I've heard it so much. The quiet criticism of them as people," said Sager. "Noone has the right to criticize someone for who they are. It should almost betaken as a compliment that people chose our community as the bright spot intheir lives. That's what I tell people when they say that."

***

Even people in Beardstown who've come to care about their Hispanic neighborsare bothered by the fact that they're violating U.S. immigration laws. Americanresidents are uncomfortable with the laws that force people into a shadow worldand they are uncomfortable with the people who live there.

The problem came into sharp focus in June, when dozens of federal agents sweptinto Beardstown and arrested 12 Hispanics for selling birth certificates andSocial Security numbers to Excel workers. Charges were dropped against fourof the people, but five others have pleaded guilty. Three more are awaitingtrial on the charges, which carry a maximum penalty of five years to 15 yearsin prison.

Walters said his "hopeis that the arrests will not only send a message to illegals who come herebutto Excel about its hiring practices. They playin the gray area. They don't violate the law, but they sure don't play by thebook, either."

Excel refused repeatedrequests over the past seven months for a face-to-face interview with a companyofficial.But the company said in a written statementthat, "like other businesses, we follow the government's I-9 requirementsfor verifying employment eligibility."

The mayor said he has repeatedly asked immigration officials to check the plantfor undocumented workers. Longtime Excel employees said agents haven't questionedworkers at the plant for immigration violations since 1995.

"We've invited them to come down here several times. They told us they don'thave the resources. Beardstown doesn't seem to warrant a lot of attention," Walterssaid. "The truth of the matter is that they could come down here on anygiven day and put up a roadblock and Excel would have trouble operating theplant."

Six immigration agentsare responsible for a vast area that stretches the length of Illinois, fromRockford at northernborder to the tiny town of Cairo atthe state's southern tip, Beardstown Police Chief Tom Schlueter said. "Thatspreads them kind of thin."

Greg Archambealt, resident agent in charge of the Springfield office of Immigrationand Customs Enforcement, or ICE, declined to comment on the number of agentsin the area, but he denied that limited resources are forcing the agency tooverlook some employers.

"We're interestedin any case that comes across our desk. We do have the resources that weneed and wedo investigate any violation of the Immigration and NationalityAct.

"Of course," he said, "ourmain focus is anti-terrorism and apprehending the most dangerous criminalsthat might be in the country."

From where Walters sits, the United States has an immigration policy that isdisconnected from reality. The laws on the books no longer seem to apply toa nation that depends on immigrant laborers to do its toughest and most dangerousjobs.

Immigration officials estimate that 7 million undocumented workers lived inthe United States in the year 2000. The states with the largest increases wereCalifornia, Arizona, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina and Illinois.

"Personally, I have no problem with Hispanics being here as long as they'relegal," Walters said. "The Hispanics are trying to make a betterliving for themselves and their families. You can't fault them for that. AndI don't. But let's do it the right way."

As long as the current immigration laws are on the books, the fear of beingsent back home will always be present.

After the June raid, some undocumented workers moved away. The ones who stayedare worried that patrols by immigration agents will become a regular occurrencein Beardstown, like they are in other meatpacking towns.

For a decade, Beardstown "hasbeen a small corner of refuge.

"People felt secure here," saidthe Rev. Alvarez.

Now, he's concerned that too much attention has been drawn to this isolatedtown.

"At any moment the INS could show up," he said. "Iexpect them to come again."

***

There is stability in Beardstown now, but it is a fragile stability proppedup by one large employer, a partially undocumented work force and uneasyresidents.

Excel is likely to increase its production over the next five years, bringinghundreds of new Hispanic workers to town. But Beardstown residents also worryExcel could close after 20 years of operation - just like Oscar Mayer did -destroying the gains this community has made.

Not too long ago, the mayor of a town in downstate Illinois asked Walters foradvice. Hispanics were beginning to move into her town and she didn't knowhow to confront the challenges that lay ahead.

But Walters said most mayors of all-white towns are avoiding the issue. Thematter wasn't even on the agenda at a recent Illinois Municipal League conferencein Chicago.

"They always believe it'll happen every place but in their hometown," Walterssaid. "It's probably the same mentality that we had at one time."

Walters believes America's heartland will have to find ways to deal with thenew cultures, lifestyles and beliefs because the change is irreversible.

"If a genie would jump out of a bottle and ask me if I'd like to have it thesame way as 15 years ago, damn right I would," Walters said. "Butthat's not reality."

Stories copyright 2003 Copley News Service. Reprinted with permission.