U.S. Border Town, 1,200 Miles From The Border

Norberto Reyes arrived here in 1981 with visions of opening an authentic Mexican restaurant for an Anglo clientele, and he remembers finding only a handful of Latino families. "I wanted to hire Mexicans to work in my restaurant, and it was hard to find them," Reyes recalled from the stucco hacienda that houses Los Reyes, now a Dalton institution.

The shift began soon after the 1986 immigration law granted amnesty to millions of illegal U.S. immigrants. At about the same time, carpet factories began hiring after a deep recession. Frank Shaheen, a cousin of Shaheen Shaheen and owner of a small carpet mill in nearby Calhoun, said he first noticed the transition at a sweltering factory where his company's yarn was dyed.

"It was like there were two completely separate workforces there," he said. "One was these older [white] guys who'd been there since the business opened in 1951. And the other was all young Hispanics. There was nobody in between."

According to Ruben Hernández-León, a sociologist at the University of California at Los Angeles, almost 2,000 Mexicans had moved to Whitfield County by 1990 -- still less than 3 percent of the population but the foundation for what followed.

Word of Mouth

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The national housing boom of the 1990s sent demand for carpet soaring, prompting alarm about a labor shortage in Dalton. First-generation workers were retiring and many young people had left for New South metropolises like Atlanta. The county's non-Hispanic workforce dropped by more than 4,000 in the 1990s, according to the U.S. Census. And many who remained turned away from factory work. Industry executives talked of moving some major facilities from the area, possibly to Mexico. Meanwhile, word of the jobs bounty -- advertised on billboards and banners -- spread to Mexican enclaves around the country.

Carmen Campos, who became a citizen after the 1986 amnesty, was working in a foul-smelling meat-packing plant in Dodge City, Kan., for less than $10 an hour when his sister-in-law called with news of better work and better schools in Dalton. (He now makes $14.64 an hour as an operator for Shaw Industries Inc.) A woman named Elizabeth, who would not give her last name because she is here illegally, said she and her husband were working on cleaning crews in Los Angeles when an old friend called to say they could make more money in carpet factories and pay half as much in rent. Mario Figueroa, 18, said his father was working on a dairy farm in California when a relative called with a message that beckoned many a farmworker: " Allá se trabaja adentro ." (There you work indoors.)

The Pew Hispanic Center has found that Mexicans who have been in the United States for a year on average have relatives in a dozen U.S. cities. "The labor market knowledge of your typical Mexican worker is astounding," said Roberto Suro, the center's director.

The buzz didn't stop at the border. Kitty Kelley, an anthropologist who researched immigration here in the 1990s, said she interviewed carpet workers who would go home to Mexico to help their families during planting seasons, then return with eight cousins. A men's soccer team here is named Jalisco because all the players came from that Mexican state; most now work at Mohawk, which sponsors the team. By 2000, the Census counted 18,419 Hispanics in Whitfield County, a ninefold increase in a decade and still a severe undercounting, according to researchers.

Asked what they knew about Dalton before arriving, seventh-grade Latino children at a Dalton State College summer program had many versions of the same answer. "There was work here and there were no jobs at home," said a girl named Candelaria from Guatemala. "There was a good future," said a boy named Jesús from Ecuador. "My father said of all the states in the U.S., this was the best place to live and make money," said a girl named Julia from Brazil.

Carpet factory wages start at $8.50 to $10 an hour for unskilled workers, compared with a state minimum wage of $5.15. But the grapevine also touted Dalton's safe schools and neighborhoods, far from the gangs and crime of border towns and big cities.

Campos, the former meat packer from Dodge City, and his wife, Armida, who both work for Shaw Industries, said they came with hopes that their sons would get good educations. On the living room wall in their immaculate trailer home are two framed certificates from the President's Education Awards Program, each for their oldest son, Jorge -- one signed by Bill Clinton; one by George W. Bush. Jorge, 18, graduated in May as valedictorian of Southeast Whitfield County High School, the first Mexican-born student to do so, and plans to attend Dalton State College in the fall.

"He is like our hero, we are all so proud," said Nancy Fraire, a classmate and also a child of Mexican carpet workers.