A better life: Latino family in the US

By Matthew Price
BBC News, Arkansas

When you enter the quaint suburban home in the US state of Arkansas it feels like an all-American household.

The Soto family left Mexico for Arkansas in search of opportunities

The family dog, Coco, yaps at your heels. Family photographs adorn the walls.

Then you notice that the television is tuned to a satellite signal coming from south of the border.

To be fair the daughters - there are five of them - wear hipster jeans, and all speak English with developing American accents.

However, in the kitchen they are preparing to celebrate a Mexican religious holiday.

In Mexico it was more difficult to make our dreams come true Roberto Soto

For years, Roberto Soto, the girls' father, worked in the US, spending only a few short weeks once in a while back home in Mexico with his family.

So they worked and saved, and six years ago got permission to move together to their new life in the US.

"We're stronger having come here," Mr Soto says.

"In Mexico you had to work so hard. Here it's easier to find opportunities. And in Mexico it was more difficult to make our dreams come true."

'Hard process'

The Sotos are part of one of the biggest population changes in America's recent history.

If current trends continue, within 40 years one in every four people living in the US will be of Latin American origin.

Yasmin Soto, 22 and the eldest daughter, has just got her American passport.

"I became a citizen two months ago. My dad is waiting to take the test in Spanish, and my mother and my sister will apply in a few months."

"So you're becoming an American family?" I ask.

"Yes," she smiles, and then she and the others laugh.

They work hard for it. Every day - after school and college - the daughters help their parents in the family business, a Mexican restaurant. They opened two months ago, after spending their life savings on it.

"It's a really hard process psychologically, because it's a whole different culture [here]," 21-year-old daughter Elizabeth says.

When you first arrive, she adds, "you can't understand anything, you have to get used to them".

Town's new face

The Sotos are not the only ones going through this. Arkansas has the fastest-growing Latin American population of any US state. It is changing the nature of this traditional area.

Latin American migrants have set up new businesses in Arkansas

The first sign that really stands out as you drive into Springdale, Arkansas, the Sotos' new home town, is for "Mom's Manufactured Homes".

There's also - of course - Colonel Sanders rotating high above the road, the Golden Arches - and then suddenly, there's "Mi Casa" real estate agents.

Then a Mexican restaurant, and another, and another.

"Since about 1990 we've probably gone from around 4-5%, to about 35%," Springdale's Mayor Jerre Van Hoose says, referring to the growth in his town's Latin American population.

The mayor sees positives and negatives in his town's changes

"This here used to be a Dairy Queen, or something like that," he says, pointing towards a red-and-blue painted building now selling tacos and burritos.

Outside, there is a Latin American family eating lunch in the autumn sunshine.

"It's had a very positive impact in one way," Mayor Van Hoose says.

"It's a workforce we would not have had otherwise. They've been a real positive part of the growth in our economy.

"By the same token, the issues dealing around non-English speaking families being in the city has created cultural stresses that we didn't have."

Changing suburbs

Has the influx of Latin American immigrants changed family values?

The Sotos are glad to be together in one country as a family

"I don't really think it has," the mayor replies. "They're great family members.

"You can go into any of the stores and see an entire family shopping together, which the rest of us don't really do very much."

Back at the Sotos' house, the TV is still tuned in to the latest on the floods in Mexico.

This is a family which has invested everything in its new life. The Sotos say it is paying off.

"I think it is the best thing," Elizabeth says. "If I had two choices, to stay here or live over there [in Mexico], I would rather live here. It's just easier to be with my two parents and my whole family."

America, of course, has always been a country of immigrants.

Now, however, the suburbs are changing, and with it the traditional middle-class American family.