SALUDA, S.C. — Tiffany Pearson carries the grisly photo in a little pink bag with her other essential stuff, like her favorite Rod Stewart CD.
The photo shows a calf carcass rotting on the roof of a trailer home. Pearson, 42, a clerk in a gift shop, said Latino immigrants put the calf up there.
She said she planned to vote for a Republican candidate who would do something about illegal immigration. Among other things, she said, the newcomers are bringing down the quality of life in her country town.
"It's going to play a big part in who I vote for," she said.
Just down Main Street, Wesley Smith carries a couple of numbers around in his head -- numbers that have buoyed his used-car and mechanic shop since the closure of three nearby textile mills in the last three years.
Today, Smith sells 25% of his used cars to the Latino immigrants who have flocked to Saluda County to work on its peach farms and in its poultry plants. A third of his repair work is for Latino customers.
"Immigration is a concern of mine, but it's not as big for me as it is for some people around here," said Smith, who added that if he voted Republican, it would probably be for Sen. John McCain of Arizona. "They've helped my livelihood."
South Carolina has one of the fastest-growing Latino populations in the nation, and illegal immigration is one of the hottest topics -- along with concerns about the economy and the Iraq war -- among likely voters in the state's Republican primary Saturday.
In Saluda County, a collection of farming and bedroom communities an hour's drive west of the state capital, Columbia, recent history has been defined in equal measure by economic stagnation and the influx of immigrants.
More than 1,400 people lost their jobs in the textile plant closures, said Kim Westbury, the county's former planning and economic development director. At the same time, the county has absorbed the largest ratio of Latinos in the state.
Some conservative businesspeople are worried about immigration in theory, but that concern is often attenuated by the immigrants' cheap labor or retail spending. Other likely Republican voters, such as Pearson, see immigrants as nothing more than a burden.
On a recent afternoon, Pearson and a co-worker, Kayla Goldman, described the shantytown trailers that have sprung up to house illegal workers, and the farm animals some immigrants keep in small makeshift pens. They said the Latinos sometimes slaughtered the animals in plain sight, under conditions that seemed unhygienic.
