Catawba County is home to a diverse but often understated set of communities. About 6.7 percent of residents—slightly more than ten thousand people—were born outside the United States¹. Within this population, many have obtained U.S. citizenship through naturalization, while others remain lawful permanent residents or are here on legal visas such as work or student permits. The precise naturalization rate varies year to year and by source, but the data shows it is significant, not universal, and well below full saturation. This discussion is about citizens and lawful residents. It does not extend to those in temporary or politically manipulated categories such as asylum or TPS, which have been abused under extreme federal policies.
This reality matters for more than legal classification. Citizenship may open doors on paper, but language access often decides whether a resident can walk through them. Approximately 13 percent of Catawba County households speak a language other than English at home². Spanish accounts for about 8.5 percent of households, while Hmong represents roughly 2.4 percent.
These numbers have tangible, daily consequences. Elderly Hmong residents in Hickory and surrounding towns often rely on younger family members to navigate SNAP applications, Medicaid forms, and other services—children who themselves may still be learning English and remain unfamiliar with government processes. In Spanish-speaking households, parents may encounter school enrollment documents with limited translation or medical facilities without bilingual staff. Without adequate language access, public systems risk reinforcing distance rather than bridging it.
Geography compounds the problem. Non-English-speaking households are concentrated in Southeast Hickory, East Newton, and Ridgeview not by chance, but because these neighborhoods offer lower-cost housing, established immigrant networks, and proximity to service-sector and industrial jobs. Yet these same areas already face higher rates of food insecurity, economic strain, and limited transit service³. In these neighborhoods, language barriers do not simply slow access to resources—they intensify existing vulnerabilities.
The question must also be asked: how did these communities arrive here in the first place? This was not accidental migration. It was a combination of federal resettlement programs and local industry recruitment. Poultry plants, furniture factories, and textile mills actively sought out low-wage labor in the 1980s and 1990s, turning to immigrant and refugee populations as a stopgap solution when domestic labor markets tightened. Federal refugee resettlement programs steered impoverished populations — including Hmong families from Southeast Asia — into western North Carolina, with little thought given to long-term integration, economic self-sufficiency, or the strain on public systems.
The most consequential demographic shift in Catawba County has been the rapid growth of the Hispanic population, which has more than doubled over the last twenty-five years. This growth did not occur during a time of expanding prosperity — it occurred as our manufacturing base was shrinking. Poultry processors, furniture subcontractors, and construction firms turned to Hispanic immigrant labor as a way to keep wages suppressed while avoiding the harder work of rebuilding a middle-class workforce. Instead of revitalizing industry or investing in skilled trades, leaders chose the short-term fix of importing impoverished labor. The result was that Catawba County lost its industrial backbone while simultaneously importing a new underclass. That was not a plan for renewal; it was a retreat from responsibility. The people who made those decisions — in Washington and in corporate offices here in the Foothills — shifted the burden onto communities, schools, and taxpayers who are still paying the price today.
Catawba County’s foreign-born residents now come from a range of backgrounds. Nearly two-fifths trace their origins to Mexico, while others hail from Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, and Colombia⁴. Some have become successful business owners and property holders, while many others work in low-wage or unstable jobs that keep families on the edge of poverty. Even when paying taxes or contributing to the economy, they may still face barriers to accessing schools, services, and healthcare because of language. Contribution does not erase vulnerability.
The path forward is clear and evidence-based. Other communities have shown that targeted, multilingual outreach—paired with culturally competent service delivery—can measurably improve health outcomes, educational engagement, and civic participation⁵. For Catawba County, this would mean mapping language data against socioeconomic indicators to identify priority zones, translating vital documents, and ensuring public notices and meetings are accessible in foreign languages.
That said, language access should not mean raising Spanish, Hmong, or any other language to the level of English in civic life. Practical solutions—such as electronic translation systems for vital documents—can ensure comprehension without requiring costly human interpreters or catering to every possible ethnos.
Such actions do not dilute services for English-speaking residents. Instead, they strengthen the county’s social and economic cohesion. A workforce communicates more effectively when all members understand critical information. A public health system functions best when everyone can navigate it. A democracy fulfills its promise when all eligible citizens and lawful residents, regardless of language, can participate fully.
Belonging is not an automatic result of arrival or naturalization. It is built through repeated, everyday interactions in which residents see themselves reflected in the public sphere. Catawba County has the demographic knowledge, the institutional infrastructure, and the civic framework to make belonging real. What remains is the commitment to ensure that language never determines whether a lawful resident or citizen can take part in the life of the community.
But accountability matters. The demographic shifts Catawba County now lives with were not the product of chance. They were the result of conscious decisions — by federal policymakers who expanded immigration pipelines without preparing communities, and by local corporate leaders in poultry, textiles, and furniture who prioritized cheap labor over stability. The costs of those decisions — in education, healthcare, housing, and social cohesion — have been borne not by those who made them, but by taxpayers, neighborhoods, and civic institutions left to absorb the strain.
And let us be honest: there has never been “political will” at the start of such crises. I am getting old, and I have lived through tobacco, opioids, concussions in football, asbestos, lead toxicity, the Ford Pinto gas tank scandal, and more. In every case, the people in charge knew the risks. They suppressed the data, ignored the warnings, and pressed forward for short-term gain. And in every case, political will only came later — after lawsuits, public campaigns, and relentless pressure forced the truth into the open.
So why should this be different? Industries and policymakers that recruited vulnerable populations, suppressed wages, and shifted the burden of their choices onto local communities should face the same principle of responsibility that Big Tobacco, Purdue Pharma, the NFL, and others were forced to accept. Accountability is meaningless if it does not carry consequence.
The people of North Carolina and Catawba County deserve more than recognition — they deserve restitution for the costs imposed upon them. That requires building a model to ensure restitution is actually made, and that we never again allow a “Wild West” form of integration in this country where laws exist but are willfully ignored. After all, what is the point of having immigration statutes if they can be disregarded whenever it suits the political class or corporate bottom line?
