BILOXI - Since opening in October, Michelle Almaguer's Latin market has become much more than a place for South Mississippi's growing Hispanic community to buy food, magazines and other items from their native countries.
El Farito has become a sort of employment service/money wiring office/Spanish-speaking crossroads that, until the last year or two, would have had a difficult time staying in business.
Not so these days.
Hispanics are among Mississippi's fastest-growing population groups, and soon-to-be-released Census figures are expected to reflect that increase.
"This is not just a business. It's like a house," Almaguer said. "We have people come here looking for work and they can't speak English, so we try to help them."
According to the most recent Census Bureau estimate, Hispanics in 1999 accounted for about 24,000 Mississippi residents, or about 1 percent of the total population, but people familiar with the numbers say they're much higher than that.
The 1990 Census showed 15,931 people of Hispanic origin living in Mississippi.
Nationwide in 1999, Hispanics accounted for 31.7 million residents, or 11.7 percent of the general population, the Census Bureau said.
Mississippi observers say they're anxious to see if the state's 2000 Census figures reflect the steady increase of Hispanics when the new count is released this month. The latest Mississippi tally could be made public in a week or two.
"I would really be surprised if we don't have a sizable number more than 24,000," said Max Williams, director of the Center for Population Studies at the University of Mississippi in Oxford.
Jobs in the casino resort, shipping and poultry industries are the primary reason for the influx of families from Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Puerto Rico and other Spanish-speaking countries.
Harrison, Hancock and Jackson counties on the Gulf Coast and Rankin and Hinds counties in the Jackson area, regions with the heaviest populations in a state of 2.7 million, have the largest Hispanic populations.
DeSoto County on the Mississippi/Tennessee line near Memphis also has a growing number of Spanish-speaking residents, many of whom work in nearby Tunica casinos.
Almaguer and her husband, Amaury, estimate that the Hispanic population on the Coast is at least 10,000 - about 2,300 more than the Census Bureau's 1999 estimate for the three coastal counties.
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