Hispanic Residents Changing Makeup of St James

Increasingly, St. James and other southern Minnesota communities - with their labor-hungry packing plants and other industries - are feeling like home to Spanish-speaking people. Just under 600 Hispanics lived in St. James and the rest of Watonwan County in 1990, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. By 1999, that had grown to 925 people - or about 8 percent of the county's population. StarTribune