If you have lived in these parts during the last 30 years, you have seen a great deal of cultural change.
The influx of the Hispanic culture into the region was hardly noticeable at first: A special section of movies at the video store, a broader selection of ethnic foods at the supermarket, a bit more diversity on the playground.
This was not a phase, but a trend-and one with staying power.
Today, in Texarkana, for example, New Boston Road is visibly ripe with Hispanic-owned and -operated businesses. They are represented in schools and colleges-as students and teachers. They are employed in ever-increasing numbers as skilled and nonskilled workers and professionals.
The initial trickle was largely representative of farm labor, in many cases the lure of the chicken industry. But deeper roots presented opportunities to branch out, to stretch stereotypical boundaries, to advance, to change.
Many towns in Northeast Texas and Southwest Arkansas have been witness to this phenomenon, which is not without growing pains. But no place is more emblematic of this cultural shift than De Queen, Ark., a small town on U.S. Highway 71 some 40 minutes north of Texarkana.
This is a place where Hispanic families felt relatively comfortable calling home. As one of the interviewees in this series said, it was too cold in Chicago. This felt right.
And as more came to this place, more businesses sprang up to support the demographic shift. De Queen now has a mix of white and Hispanic business, the kinds you would typically see in small towns. At a time when small towns and rural counties are losing population, this place is growing.
The transition has not been without incident, but the mayor says it has gone pretty smoothly.
If anything, forces and policies from outside the region, rather than those within, seem more inclined to disrupt the cooperative inclinations of the community.
For more than 15 years, the Gazette has been tracking the social experiment taking shape in De Queen. This three-day series is our third installment of this ongoing reporting effort.
Different this time around is a political shift that is causing consternation within the Hispanic community here and elsewhere. While former President Barack Obama had a rather laissez-faire approach toward immigration, President Donald Trump, responding to the constituency that elected him, has taken a more hard-line position.
The potential of an illegal immigrant being sent back to his or her home country seems more real than ever and is supported by statistics. The potential of a family being broken up and what strategies to pursue if it happens are now the stuff of regular dinner conversations. Caught between the illegal immigrants and the children of illegal immigrants born in this country are those who were brought here as children and effectively have no country to call home. Their status may be the most precarious and upsetting.
The resulting anxiety and uncertainty within the Hispanic population is palpable. And while outwardly, life goes on in little De Queen, undertones suggest an uneasy peace.
To some, De Queen is a success story of cultural cooperation. To others, it may represent a failure of immigration policies to control borders and protect a way of life. But to those who live there, it represents both opportunity for success and the knowledge that all efforts may be for naught.
The nine stories in this series represent a slice of life at this point in time from the folks who are living it.