Una historia de comunidades latinas en Siouxland
A History of Latinx Communities in Siouxland

“Siouxland” is an imagined region that crosses political borders and is based on its residents’ feeling of collective identity through a shared history or shared interests. This term refers to the Big Sioux River drainage basin area that spans across Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, and South Dakota. At the confluence of the Big Sioux and Missouri Rivers, we have Sioux City in Iowa, North Sioux City in South Dakota, and South Sioux City in Nebraska. Sioux Falls lies about 90 miles to the north in South Dakota. The area is named after a large Native American tribal band of First Nations People, some whom were executed at the Minnesota Uprising of 1863 while others were forced onto reservations after the US government broke various promises such as the Fort Laramie Treaty (Sioux City Public Museum, “Native American Collections”).

Latinx Stories of Siouxland works to counter the archival erasure of Latinx communities in our region by collecting and sharing oral histories with the public. It builds on a growing body of academic work about the Latinx Midwest that traces a long history of migration, employer recruitment, as well as tension in this region. The presence, growth, and contributions of Latinx communities in the Midwest over the past hundred years have been left out of many official histories. In the case of Kansas City, for example, Steven Driever writes that the archival Latinx invisibility in the area before the 1950s is the result of discrimination connected to housing segregation and the general assumption that Latinx individuals are not really Americans (209).

In How Race Takes Place Geroge Lipsitz outlines how race is produced by space, and space is racialized though public policy, such as housing as outlined here by Driever, as well as school segregation, mortgage and insurance, redlining, taxation, and transportation. Lipsitz analyzes how these polices are made to seem natural and give, “whites privileged access to opportunities for social inclusion and upward mobility” (6). He explains that life chances in the US are increasingly skewed along racial lines because assets accumulated via discrimination, such as property and inheritance, increase in value over time. While the term “Latinx” is not a racial category but an ethnic one, race intersects with other factors such as gender, class, language, and immigration status to shape Latinx experiences. In the face of discriminatory policies and practices, Latinx Midwest communities have survived and thrived by creating businesses, parallel social institutions, and support systems (Valerio-Jimenez, Vaquera Vásquez & Fox 2017, Diaz McConnell 2004).

According to 2014 demographic estimates (Pew 2017), the Midwest is home to 9.3% of the total US Hispanic population. The Latinx population in the Midwest is generally smaller than that of the overall US Latina/ox population, ranging from 2% of the total population in South Dakota to 17% in Illinois, with an average of 6.4% across 12 states compared to 17% of the total US population. Maintaining Latinx traditions in the Midwest, therefore, can be challenging in areas that are more socially isolated from other Latinx communities and geographically separated from their families’ origins in other regions of the United States or other countries of origin. For example, in her oral history interview, Leonor Limón Perez, owner of Mi Racherita restaurant, explains that many people drive up to two hours to shop in South Sioux City because they live in parts of the region with little Hispanic presence.

By 1990, 2,624 Sioux City residents self-identified as Hispanic, making this the largest minoritized group in the city as 3.3% of the total population and the third largest Hispanic population in Iowa (Sioux City Public Museum, “Program”). 2019 US Census Bureau estimates show that Hispanic or Latino residents constitute 19.1% of Sioux City’s population, while South Sioux City’s population is estimated to be 47.9% Hispanic or Latino (US Census Bureau).

While the Latinx population in Siouxland has grown substantially over the last few decades, not all Latinx community members are newcomers.  There is a long history of Latinx migration and community building in the Midwest and Siouxland in particular, especially in larger cities with roots in meatpacking and other industries. Many fled the violence of the Mexican Revolution from 1910 to 1917 while others met an increasing demand for labor as European immigrants experienced upward mobility and new European immigration was limited by the Immigration Act of 1917. Mexican laborers were actively recruited for agricultural work, manufacturing jobs, and the construction of railroads that in 1914 connected Mexico and its natural resources with Kansas City, St. Louis, and Chicago. Labor shortages and industrialization during World War I and World War II as well as the Bracero Program brought more Mexicans and Mexican Americans to the Midwest. Beyond Mexican American groups, many other Latinx groups migrated to and expanded in the Midwest due to employment opportunities, a low cost of living, and established social networks. Even with increasing deportations, tough working conditions, and anti-Latinx sentiment in areas where non-Latinx residents have little personal experience with Latinx individuals, a variety of state and federal policies have made the Midwest, by comparison with other regions, seem less hostile to Latinx communities (Diaz McConnell).

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Theresa Delgadillo recounts in her book, Latina Lives in Milwaukee, how she was moved to conduct interviews after discovering the limited number of documents related to Mexican Americans at the Milwaukee County Historical Society. She wondered, “What could we know about ourselves, and what could others know about us, if so little was in the archive? What other parts of city life were absent from the historical record?” (11). By collecting oral histories from Latinx community members across generations, national heritages, and professional backgrounds, our project, too, invites the public to expand their understanding of diverse Latinx identities and roles in the Siouxland area.

Sioux City native Victoria Bata provides one of the only Latinx Siouxland histories to be formally archived before this project. She was born in 1924 to central Mexican parents who moved to the South Bottoms Sioux City neighborhood in 1923 after living previously in Texas and the Quad Cities. In her interview for the Iowa Women’s Archives’ Mujeres Latinas Project, Bata describes starting work at 14 for Tri-State Produce Co, experiencing racial discrimination after moving to the Morningside neighborhood, and becoming the only Mexican member of YWCA Board of directors (Babikian). We found that Bata’s experiences were echoed across our own oral history interviews. Several interviewees reported having faced racial prejudice but also finding opportunities in Siouxland through employment and community leadership positions. She shared, “‘Sioux City has been good to us…We’re lucky’” (Babikian). Victoria Bata also donated a program for a Mexican Independence Day celebration held in Sioux City in 1930, documenting early Mexican immigration to the area (Sioux City Public Museum, “Program”).

Journalist Juan Gonzalez traces in Harvest of Empire how Latin American immigrants were received much differently than European immigrants due to racialization and US imperialist foreign policies that fueled constant migration from Latin America. While the earliest immigrants in Sioux City were primarily from the British Isles and Germany, the first two decades of the 20th century brought immigrants from Russia, Poland, Lithuania, Italy, Greece, and Syria. While we know there was some Mexican migration during this time, “The foreign-born population stayed relatively stagnant until the 1970s, when large numbers of Latinos and Southeast Asians came into the region” (Sioux City Public Museum “Population Patchwork”). Roger P. Davis explains that, during the 1970s and 1980s, state-sponsored Midwestern Hispanic advocacy groups were catalyzed by national rather than regional demographic growth and a change in attitude driven by veterans of both World War II and Vietnam who returned home to demand social, economic, and political equality. A new attitude in federal government with the Johnston/Kennedy war on poverty also contributed to this movement with the civic philosophy of community empowerment. In addition to assessing needs of their Hispanic communities and making recommendations in key areas such as health and education, these agencies were also “charged with securing appropriate recognition of the accomplishments and contributions of their communities and leaders” (Davis 4-15). Iowa’s Office of Latino Affairs, for example, was originally established as the governor’s Spanish-speaking task force and underwent various changes in name and reorganization (Iowa Department of Human Rights).

We hope that the various oral history interviews featured here demonstrate the multiple ways that Latinx communities in Siouxland crucially shape our social, political, and economic landscape. In their diverse roles as leaders, workers, students, and parents, they each have unique experiences that offer us much needed perspective to how we can grow together as a more civically responsible community and face contemporary issues together.

Works Cited

Babikian, Catherine. “Bata, Victoria.” Migration is Beautiful. The University of Iowa, Iowa Women’s Archives, 2016. https://migration.lib.uiowa.edu/exhibits/show/people/victoriabata

Delgadillo, Theresa. Latina Lives in Milwaukee. U of Illinois P, 2015.

Diaz McConnell, Eileen. “Latinos in the Rural Midwest: The Twentieth-Century Historical Context Leading to Contemporary Challenges.” Apple Pie and Enchiladas: Latino Newcomers in the Rural Midwest. Eds. Ann V. Millard, Jorge Chapa. U of Texas P, 2004, pp. 26-40.

Driever, Steven L. “Latinos in Polynucleated Kansas City.” Hispanic Spaces, Latino Places: Community and Cultural Diversity in Contemporary America. Ed. Daniel D. Arreola. U of Texas P, 2004, pp. 207-224.

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González, Juan. Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America. Penguin Books, 2011.

Iowa Department of Human Rights. “Welcome to the Office of Latino Affairs: History.” Community Advocacy and Services, n.d. https://humanrights.iowa.gov/cas/la?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery.

Lipsitz, George. How Racism Takes Place. Temple UP, 2011.

Pew Research Center. “Demographic and Economic Profiles of Hispanics by State and County, 2014: Latinos as Percent of Population, by State, 2014.” Hispanic Trends. 2020, http://www.pewhispanic.org/states/.

Sioux City Public Museum. “Native American Collections.” Virtual Collections: Who We Are. 2015, https://www.virtualcollections.siouxcitymuseum.org/native-american-collections.

Sioux City Public Museum. “Population Patchwork.” Virtual Collections: Who We Are, 2015, https://www.virtualcollections.siouxcitymuseum.org/mexican-prog.

Sioux City Public Museum. “Program for Mexican Independence Day Celebration”

Virtual Collections: Population Patchwork, 2015, https://www.virtualcollections.siouxcitymuseum.org/mexican-prog.

The University of Iowa Libraries. “Migration is Beautiful.” Iowa Women’s Archives. The University of Iowa, 2016.

U.S. Census Bureau. “South Sioux City City, Nebraska; South Carolina; Sioux City City, Iowa.” Quick Facts. 1 July 2019, https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/southsiouxcitycitynebraska,SC,siouxcitycityiowa/PST045219?.

Valerio-Jimenez, S. Vaquera-Vasquez & Claire Fox. “Introduction: History, Placemaking, and Cultural Contributions.” Latina/o Midwest Reader. U of Illinois P, 2017, pp. 1-20.