Perhaps it is no surprise, then, that many traditionally white counties that experienced rapid increases in Latino newcomers flocked to Trump in 2016. The immigrant influx was gauged by something called the diversity index, a measure of the chance that any two people in an area will belong to a different race or ethnicity. Trump won two-thirds of voters in counties where the diversity index rose by 150 percent or more, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.137

When I asked Chris Crandall why this might be, why a handful of immigrants are fine, but a sudden inpouring is scary, he explained it this way: One person speaking Spanish in Wisconsin is a deviant. Some people might see her as inferior, but it’s ultimately about her, not the group.

A lot of Spanish speakers suddenly appearing in Wisconsin, meanwhile, is a threat to the way things have always been. And threats have the potential to unnerve us.

Trempealeau County, in western Wisconsin, voted for Barack Obama in 2008. It voted for Obama in 2012. But between 2012 and 2016, something happened that changed the county’s politics.

Like many other places in the Midwest, throughout the 2000s the overwhelmingly white county began attracting large numbers of Latino immigrants. Most of the new arrivals to the county found work in agriculture or at Ashley Furniture in the town of Arcadia. By 2016, the city was one-third Latino.138

Latinos I spoke with who live there described somewhat of an integration Catch-22. At first, when there were relatively few of them, they were mostly accepted, but sometimes discriminated against because they were so new and different. But later, when more and more immigrants began trickling in, some people lumped them all together, writing them off as criminals who take advantage of the system. There always seemed to be either too few or too many Latino immigrants to make all the white people perfectly comfortable.

A woman I’ll call Gloria moved to Arcadia with her young daughter and husband in 2010, when the city was only about 6 percent Latino.139 Originally from Mexico, Gloria and her husband were living in Arizona when they were driven out by the recession, which had gutted the state’s job market. Gloria was pleased that her husband found a job within weeks of moving to Arcadia.

Despite having lots of experience working at a bank, Gloria had trouble finding similar work in Wisconsin. She got the sense that she would have to know someone in order to find a position.

Gloria speaks highly of the town, where she was eventually able to find good work and make a home. Since the move, she’s had another child. Over time, more Hispanic grocery stores and restaurants opened up, providing the town’s immigrants with familiar cuisine.