South Omaha’s Big Change (Part III): Nebraska Transformation through Migration and Meatpacking

South Omaha stands as a vivid testament to Nebraska’s transformation, its demographic makeup shifting dramatically over decades. In the mid-20th century, it was nearly all White, a bustling enclave of European immigrants—Poles, Czechs, Irish—working at meatpacking plants like Swift and Armour. That began to change as those plants faded and new opportunities arose, pulling Hispanics into the area with jobs in food processing and construction. By 2000, Whites had slipped to about half of South Omaha’s residents, a sharp fall from their near-total majority just decades earlier. Over the next ten years, they dropped to a third, and by 2015, they were down to a quarter, a rapid shift driven by economic forces.

Today, South Omaha is overwhelmingly Hispanic—70% or more in its core areas—while Whites hover at 15-20% as of 2025. This wasn’t a forced exodus; affordable housing at $1,200 a month and jobs paying $15 an hour drew Hispanics in, while Whites moved to suburbs like West Omaha seeking better prospects. Nebraska’s broader Hispanic population, now 265,800, reflects this spread, moving beyond meatpacking into framing and service roles across the state. South Omaha’s change mirrors shifts in cities nationwide—Chicago, Miami—where economic needs have rewritten neighborhood identities over time.

The speed of this transformation stands out—Whites fell from near 100% in 1950 to half by 2000, then to a minority in just 15 more years. Food processing plants like Greater Omaha Packing and construction work, especially framing, cemented this shift, offering steady employment that locals increasingly bypassed. State leadership’s focus on economic benefits over demographic control fueled this change, a pattern seen across America where similar job magnets pulled Hispanic communities into once-White areas, leaving a lasting mark on places like South Omaha.

Read the full article at the Nebraska Journal Herald

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