Hispanic surge transforms town's identity

GUYMON -- Guymon is all-American, but it's redefining itself after thousands of Hispanics came to town 12 years ago for jobs at a hog-processing plant.

Stores advertise in Spanish. Authentic Mexican restaurants pepper street corners. The manager of Homeland is brushing up on his Spanish so he can talk to customers.

Guymon's population is guessed to be between 40 percent to 50 percent Hispanic -- mostly Mexican. Some are in the country legally. Many are not. Many are U.S. citizens.

The demographic shift in Guymon greatly magnifies the immigrant issue faced by other Oklahoma communities.

"It's all about the hogs," said Chris Hitch, who owns Bob's Bar off Main Street and is vice president at his family's large farming company, Hitch Enterprises Inc.

"We got hogs and the town just boomed. Everyone just moved here."

Guymon divides its history by "the hogs" -- before and after 1995, the year Seaboard, a hog processing company that employs about 4,300 people in the area, arrived.

Since Seaboard, the population of Guymon has doubled from about 7,000 to 14,000, said City Manager Mike Shannon.

About 2,300 of Seaboard's employees in the area work at the Guymon processing plant, where every day 16,000 hogs are killed and processed, according to Pam Yates, human resource manager at Seaboard's Guymon plant.

The other 2,000 work on hog farms that Seaboard has around the area, she said.

It's difficult, smelly labor. The company declined to discuss its employee demographics or wages.

A number of calls made last week to the company's human resource director at Seaboard Foods' main office in Shawnee Mission, Kan., were not returned.

Guymon was 12 percent Hispanic in the 1990 U.S. Census, practically six times the state average at the time. Many of the Hispanics worked on Panhandle farms and ranches.

Ten years later in 2000 -- five years after Seaboard -- Guymon's Hispanic population was 38.4 percent, compared with 5.2 percent in all of Oklahoma, according to the Census.

Guymon has grappled with the Hispanic surge for 12 years, and the community seems to have found a balance.

When Seaboard proposed coming to Guymon, locals overwhelmingly passed a 1-cent sales tax increase to give the company an $8 million incentive, said former mayor Jess Nelson.

The town was dying and Seaboard jobs would resuscitate it, he said.

The jobs were a magnet for immigrants.

"The Hispanics come and do a lot of jobs we're not going to do because I'm not going to work on the kill floor of Seaboard," said Bob Fajen, owner of The Kitchen Mart appliance store on Main Street.

"If it wasn't for the Seaboard population, this store would have shut down, and it's been here since 1955."

The skeleton downtown revived with help from Hispanic-owned businesses selling tortillas, fruits and quincenera dresses. The housing industry is booming. Restaurants opened.

Hotels are popping up, and they're full 95 percent of the time, mostly with people working construction in the area.

The growth has strained the school system with hundreds of children who don't speak English or don't speak it well.

The crime rate increased at first but has since leveled off, even though the police department struggles to find bilingual officers to handle numerous calls from people who don't speak English.

Guymon still searches for its new identity, and so do the Hispanics who changed it. Integration of the newcomers has been less than complete.

"I would like to tell you there's not a divide," said Mayor Larry Stump. "I think it's getting better, but I think it's still an us-and-them thing. It's on both sides."

The older people in town have the most distaste toward Hispanics in Guymon, said John Taylor, who employs about 20 Hispanics in his company that does support work for Seaboard.

"But the people who do business in Guymon enjoy the Hispanic population because we'd be a ghost town without them," Taylor said.

He was sharing afternoon coffee with a group of men at Maria's, a restaurant recently bought and now being renovated by a Mexican family.

One man walked out when asked what he thought about the Hispanics.

He doesn't want his opinion printed, the others said.

It's hard to find anyone in Guymon to speak negatively about the Hispanic influx -- even if they feel that way.

"When you're in rural Oklahoma, it's if you can accept how you grow, or else you don't grow," said Melyn Johnson, director of community development for the city of Guymon.

"Would I want an IBM here? Yes. Would I prefer an IBM over a beef-processing plant? Yes. Is IBM going to come to Guymon? Heavens no.

"When your town is dying, you don't have a choice. It's not good or bad. It's if you're going to survive."

Leigh Bell 581-8465
leigh.bell@tulsaworld.com

Guymon

Total population (2000): 10,472

Median age: 30 years

Hispanic: 4,018 (38.4 percent)

Current estimated Hispanic population: 40 percent to 50 percent.

Guymon Public Schools Hispanic population: Almost 60 percent, 100 percent at some elementary schools.

Guymon Hispanic-owned businesses: About 25 percent

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, Guymon Public Schools, Panhandle Regional Economic Development Coalition Inc.