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Chapter 19. Population Change in the Texas Panhandle and Resultant Latino Occupational Structures: 1980–2004
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C Ch ha ap pt te er r 1 19 9 Population Change in the Texas Panhandle and Resultant Latino Occupational Structures: 1980–2004 LAWRENCE E. ESTAVILLE, EDRIS J. MONTALVO, AND BROCK J. BROWN INTRODUCTION The Great Plains of North America was the topic of the cover article in the May 2004 issue of the National Geographic Magazine. It devoted 52 pages to portraying journalistically the environmental consequences of human settlement and the subsequent depopulation of the huge region once called “the Great American Dessert ” and later “the Breadbasket of the Continent.” The National Geographic Magazine report builds on these conflicting perceptions to highlight the environmental and economic challenges facing an increasingly concerned region. These anxieties about the environmental stresses and depopulation of the Great Plains are well documented in a considerable scholarly literature (e.g., Blouet and Luebke, 1979; Lawson and Baker, 1979; Luebke, 1980; Caldwell, Schultz, and Stout, 1983; Nickles and Day, 1997). We wish to add to this body of research in a different way, by underscoring the in-migration that is counterbalancing the depopulation of one part of the Great Plains. As Latinos replace some departing Anglos in the Texas Panhandle Plains, significant restructuring of the labor market is occurring. Differential perceptions of place utility of this region by Anglos and Latinos have led to changes in the labor force tied to ethnicity. A distinctive Latino occupational structure has resulted. THE TEXAS PANHANDLE PLAINS The vastness of the Great Plains reaches deep into Texas and terminates at the Rio Grande (Figure 19.1). As defined by the Center for Great Plains Studies at the University of Nebraska, most of West Texas and much of Central Texas, including the Edwards Plateau, are parts of the Great Plains. Although broken by such picturesque landscapes as the Texas Hill Country and Palo Duro Canyon, so flat is this immense Texas territory that the Spanish termed much of it as the “llano estacado” (staked plains) because during their explorations they had to plant stakes every so often to ensure they could find their return routes. Figure 19.2 illustrates the region ’s flat topography and the existence of oil. The Great Plains in the “Panhandle” of Texas are called the Texas Panhandle Plains. The Texas Panhandle Plains region covers some 52,200 square miles, about the size of the state of Arkansas, and is a droughtprone land that receives less than 20 inches of annual precipitation. It lies over a large portion of the Ogallala Aquifer, a principal source of water for agriculture and communities that has been seriously depleted by years of “water mining.” First attracted by the opportunities of cattle ranching and the farming of such crops as wheat, cotton, and sorghum, and later by oil and natural gas discoveries, much of the region now suffers from economic decline, having been devastated in the 1980s by the “oil bust” and serious droughts in recent years (Kraenzel, 252 Lawrence E. Estaville, Edris J. Montalvo, and Brock J. Brown 1955; Blouet and Luebke, 1979; White, 1994; Nickles and Day, 1997). Nevertheless, perceptions of economic opportunities vary in the Texas Panhandle. Through most of the 20th century, the Texas Panhandle was the home of Anglos who were the predominant ethnic group and who became prosperous in ranching, farming, and working in the oil and gas fields. Significant numbers of Latinos, mainly of Mexican heritage, did not arrive in the region until the beginning of the federal Bracero Program in 1942. In 1970, the first census after the 1964 close of the Bracero Program, the Latino resident population in the Texas Panhandle had grown to 113,200 people (Blouet and Luebke, 1979; Frugitt, Brown, and Beale, 1989; The Farmworkers Website, 2004; U.S. Census, 1970). Today, most of the region’s people are either Anglos or Latinos, who differ somewhat in their perceptions of the region’s economic opportunities. Figure 19.1. The 54 Study Counties and 12 Focus Counties in the Texas Panhandle Plains. [3.235.199.19] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 13:34 GMT) Population Change in the Texas Panhandle: 1980– 2004 253 Figure 19.2. The Flat Topography and Oil in the Texas Panhandle Plains. PLACE UTILITY THEORY Place utility theory provides insight into how voluntary migration occurs when individuals or families perceive that other places may offer superior benefits or utilities — economic, social, political, or environmental — in comparison to their current home. Potential migrants assess the utilities of their present location with other potential destinations to determine...