NWA has the most Mexican restaurants in the state
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Washington County has the most Mexican restaurants per capita in Arkansas, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of data from SafeGraph.
By the numbers: Washington County has a whopping 96 Mexican restaurants, or 3.9 per 10,000 residents. Benton County is close behind with 92 Mexican eateries, or 3.2 per capita.
Zoom out: About 99% of Americans live in a county with at least one Mexican restaurant, Axios' Russell Contreras writes.
The intrigue: The proliferation of Mexican restaurants — once staples only of the Southwest and parts of the Midwest — highlights the growing influence of Mexican Americans on U.S. culture and the effects of increased migration from Mexico over the last 30 years, Contreras writes.
The big picture: About 37.2 million people in the U.S. trace their ancestry to Mexico, making Mexican Americans by far the largest Hispanic origin group in the nation, per the Pew Research Center.
- They represent 11% of the total U.S. population and could surpass Black Americans, who represent 12.5% of the nation's population, in the next decade.
Alex's thought bubble: I cannot get enough Mexican food and I don't want to live anywhere that doesn't have plenty of places to get it.