Want to Preserve American Small Towns? Embrace Immigrants.
From New York to Iowa, Foreign-Born Residents and Their Families Are Helping to Reinvigorate Rural Communities
Once upon a time the pulse of America beat in its small towns. They were where you took your crops to market, met the trains that brought visits from Aunt Tilly, and danced with your sweetheart on Saturday nights. They served surrounding rural areas with schools and doctors and blacksmiths. Blending individualism and solidarity, their leaders took pride in hard work and valued religious faith.
But that was when the U.S. was still largely an agrarian society, and by the early 20th century urban opportunity was sucking the …
