News, Growing Hispanic population fuels debate in East Tennessee. (Martin: live, legal)

[JD59]

This is a two-part series looking at some of the issues that have come with East Tennessee's growing Hispanic population.

PART ONE: Is racism against Hispanics growing in East Tennessee?

by Yvette Martinez

The census estimates half of Tennessee's population growth this decade will be Hispanic. Some Hispanics believe racial tension is also growing.

Five years ago, American citizen Tom Mares moved his wife and three kids to East Tennessee.

"My kids had been in Texas their whole lives. I was ready to go out and do something different and experience a little more, give my kids a little more rounded idea of what's out there."

Tom's son, Tomas says moving to Tennessee was definitely an eye-opening experience.

"I thought it was a little different because in Texas, it was mostly Hispanic, but once we came to Tennessee, it was different cultures."

http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=51231&provider=gnews (broken link)

[TXboomerang]

I imagine they feel a little out of place coming from Texas where they may have been a minority, but not by very much. East TN is just starting to grow in hispanic population, and until that population grows a lot, they can expect to feel uncomfortable. Kind of like I would feel uncomfortable moving into the city of Detroit where white people are the minority.

I'm all for LEGAL hispanics moving to TN, so long as they make an effort to speak english. When I lived in TX, my first 2 jobs were as a welder and I was the only white person at one of them. I didn't feel uncomfortable, other than there were only a handful of the Mexican's that spoke english fluently. Made working together quiet a challenge if I had to help out on a project where the others working on it didn't speak english.