The land of plenty: a look at how new immigration has revived old fears about race, resources and diversity in North Carolina.

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Red banners with the slogan "Preserving our heritage, promoting our future" line the streets leading to the Alamance County courthouse. Graham's downtown resembles that of other North Carolina county seats, with a court-house at the center of a traffic circle, an old movie theater and a 1950s-style diner where one can imagine cops from the county jail a block away drinking coffee. A number of furniture stores, largely absent of customers, sell dressers and tables that have now become antiques, revealing a bygone heyday when North Carolina companies dominated the national furniture industry. Nearby, textile mills a city block in length are vacant and in stages of disrepair, their owners having closed down or moved operations to Asia and Mexico.

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A part of the city that in many ways had been abandoned became ground zero for controversy over immigration in North Carolina. In May 2009, "Lady Liberty" was sentenced to five days in jail and two years of probation for disorderly conduct. Under the long robe, gold crown and torch of the Ellis Island icon was Audrey Schwankl, a woman who had dressed in the guise of the Statue of Liberty to protest the treatment of Latino migrants in Alamance County. On April 8, she had been arrested along with six others for her part in a peaceful demonstration in front of the Alamance County Federal Detention Center that ended after protesters attempted to enter the jail. They were angered about a law-enforcement initiative known as the 287(g) program that resulted in the deportation of immigrants in the county. In front of the jail that day were also counter protesters who held up signs in support of the sheriff's "tough on illegal immigration" stance. The clash drew national media coverage.

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The root of the controversy that landed Lady Liberty in jail comes to light about a mile west of downtown the street linking Graham and downtown Burlington. On Webb Avenue, amid the ruins of factories, the bright flags of Mexico and E1 Salvador preserve a different heritage: that of Latinos who have migrated here over the past 30 years. On Webb Avenue, the Latino presence is especially apparent: More than 20 businesses are owned by Spanish speakers, while most other businesses--used-car dealers, thrift stores and money-lending services--advertise in Spanish. One mile to the north on Church Street and Graham-Hope-dale Road, there are more than 21 Spanish-speaking businesses, including restaurants with names like El Taquito de Oro (The Little Golden Taco) and La Cocina (The Kitchen). Latino families have bought or rented old mill houses in the residential neighborhoods that connect to the main road with the factories. On a two-mile stretch of Webb Avenue, one can buy chorizo sausage, fresh-baked bolillos (white rolls), jicama fruit or de-spined prickly pear cactus, a favorite vegetable in Mexico. A restaurant sells authentic Salvadorian pupusas, a cornmeal and cheese staple. Stores advertise bands that perform mariachi music at weddings or deejays to play music at quinceanera fiestas. Other stores offer to send an immigrant's wages back to Latin America through wiring services like GiroMex and Western Union. What was once a declining neighborhood has been revitalized by Latino migrants over the past decade.

In the space of 30 years, Alamance County has become the location of a rapidly expanding Latino population. Migrants arrived first as seasonal agricultural laborers and later as workers in local factories or construction workers in the nearby Triad cities of Winston-Salem, Greensboro and High Point and the Triangle cities of Chapel Hill, Durham, and Raleigh. The bulk of migration to Alamance occurred between 1990 and 2005. In 1990, less than 1% (736 people) of the population was Latino. Today, more than 10% (14,000 people) is Latino. The vast majority of Latinos in Alamance (86%) are from Mexico or of Mexican descent, coming from central states such as Michoacan, Guanajuato and Vera Cruz. Salvadorians make up the second-largest Latino group at 7% of the foreign-born, followed by Hondurans. In addition to Latin Americans moving from Mexico and Central America, a number of new residents have relocated from other states with larger Latino populations such as Texas and California. The presence of Latinos is strongest in Burlington, the county's largest city with 50,000 people, and Graham, where many have settled. In Green Level, a small community near Graham, Latino residents made up 13.5 % of the population in 2000.

The arrival of people of a very different heritage than that of white and black residents has generated mixed reactions among the general public, service providers, law-enforcement officials, educators and local officials. For those who rely on their labor, Latinos have been indispensable. Businesses such as Wal-Mart have acknowledged a new market and aggressively courted cash-carrying Latino customers. Farmers have embraced the H-2A guest-worker program that provides a reliable and cheap source of labor, season after season. Scholars have taken note of how a growing population has boosted the economy as Latinos have bought homes and started businesses in an economically depressed part of town. At the same time, migrants have faced negative sentiment from residents who...