Currently, about one in eight Americans is Latino. The growth rate of the Latino population is enormous, projected to increase from 9% of the total population in 1990 to 16% in 2020, and the Latino population in North Carolina is growing at an even faster rate. From 1990 to 2000, North Carolina 's Latino population grew by almost 400%, the largest increase of any state in the country.
The Latino population has become an integral part of the North Carolina economy. They provide labor for agriculture, construction, and manufacturing industries across the state. However, the poverty rate among Latino families is high, and the needs of many in the Latino population are complicated by their status as recent immigrants (many of whom are not documented) and by their lack of fluency in the English language.
As people of faith, we know that Scripture calls us to welcome the stranger in an alien land. God declares to Moses: "When an alien settles with you in your land, you shall not oppress that one, who shall be treated as a native born among you, and loved. because you yourselves were aliens in Egypt (Leviticus 19:33-34). In our time and in this place, only the Native Americans among us do not come from an immigrant heritage.
The Council is committed to comprehensive immigration reform as well as legislation that improves access to education, drivers licenses, health care and legal services for Latinos, and the Council continues to advocate for workers compensation coverage for farmworkers.
The Farmworker Institute Speakers Bureau, a publication of the N.C. Council of Churches Farmworker Ministry Committee, is designed as a statewide directory of professionals and advocates available for trainings and presentations for churches, schools, civic groups and others wishing to learn about the Latino population in North Carolina and farmworker conditions and issues. Farmworker Institute Speakers Bureau, 34 pages, FREE
Units in Acts of Faith: Resources for Prophetic Worship (worship aids, scripture commentary, prayers, litanies, hymn suggestions, and issue-based statistics and facts).
"Your People Shall Be My People: Immigration"
"Those Who Sow in Tears Reap With Shouts of Joy: Justice For Farm Workers"
