Unlike some states in the West, Utah hasn’t had a multicultural reputation. But fast growth is changing that. In 1990, only 10% of the population identified as a racial or ethnic minority. Thirty years later, data from the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute said that number stood at 23% — making for a “New Utah.”

An easily visible sign of that shift are new grocery stores and the foods they bring to town. Filipino-American Kathleya Gracida felt the difference, or the lack of, when she moved to Salt Lake City 24 years ago.

“I grew up in Anaheim,” she said. “So, like, everywhere you go in the corner, this is like in the early 80s, you know, there’s Asian stores. So I moved here in 2000 and I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, there’s no Chinese place other than two restaurants on State Street.’”

H Mart, the country’s largest Asian grocery chain, will soon open its first Utah location in West Jordan. It’s still under construction, but they are hiring staff for an opening later this year. It’ll join South Salt Lake’s Chinatown Supermarket, which bills itself as “Utah’s largest Asian Market.”

It’s not only the place for fresh produce and specialty Asian ingredients like lotus root or shrimp-flavored potato chips, there are also bustling restaurants that serve everything from hot pot to sushi.

“I love that it’s like a centralized location for Asian food,” said John Nguyen, who moved to Utah from Virginia about a year and a half ago for work and to be closer to the outdoors. He finds himself at the market “two to three times a week at the minimum.”

He said places like Chinatown Supermarket help him feel more in-tune with the greater Utah Asian community.

“Me being Vietnamese American, I do love coming out here to eat at places like One More Noodle House and the pho place and going to the grocery shop here to get things that you wouldn’t find at, like, Smith’s or Trader Joe’s.”

For Gracida, now the chair of the Utah Asian Chamber of Commerce, H-Mart’s arrival to Utah shows that the Asian community continues to thrive.

“We’re hard working people,” she said. “We know we want success. We want to improve our lives and not just our lives now, but we think about the future.”

You might not think of it, but there’s a good chance the grocery store is one of the places you spend the most time and money outside of your home and work.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. consumers spent an average of 11.3% of their disposable personal income on food in 2022. For a family of four, that can be somewhere between $900-$1,500 dollars per month.

Today’s grocery stores are also trying to be something else: a meeting place for Utah’s growing community. Stores can offer a space to connect and find nostalgic tastes and smells.

“Having a place like this, it’s fun,” said Ngyuen. “It’s just a nice, relaxing area for people to congregate at. It’s familiar. I think it’s the big part of it.”

While online ordering and grocery delivery took off during the COVID-19 pandemic, industry insiders say people are now coming back to brick and mortar supermarkets.

“Certainly, the community plays an important part of it where we’re obviously trying to do things inside the store. They give people a purpose,” said Associated Food Stores Vice President of Store Development Steve Miner.

Associated Food Stores run some of Utah’s smaller grocery chains like Maceys, Dan’s and Fresh Market.

“We call it ‘the rides.’ You know, we’re bringing things back into the store that we feel will bring a gathering place for people in the community,” Miner said.

That gathering place can come in the form of expanded sit-down areas, cafes or even restaurants like those found at Chinatown.

“When I think about going to the grocery store, I know what nights of the week or the weekend, what times of the weekend, I’m likely to see some of my friends and neighbors,” added Tina Murray, Corporate Affairs Manager for Smith’s. The chain is one of Utah’s largest employers and operates under the nationwide Kroger grocery store umbrella.

To her, the grocery store plays an important part in the fabric of each community it serves.

“People come together over food, whether that is in their homes or in restaurants. People come together for food in the grocery stores as well.”

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox criticized the Biden administration for failing Americans “at every turn” on the issue of immigration law enforcement during a PBS press conference on Thursday.

Confirming previous Deseret News reporting, Cox said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement chooses not to transfer all migrants who break state law after entering the country illegally to detention centers in Nevada and instead releases some of them back into the community.

The state could hold these “lawbreakers” beyond the time prescribed by the criminal justice system, giving ICE time to initiate deportation proceedings, “but the Biden administration has put these rules in place that make it impossible for our jails to do that,” Cox said. “It’s deeply frustrating and it’s frustrating to our sheriffs.”

Does Utah hold migrants who break the law?

Migrants in the country illegally who are arrested for criminal charges are held in Utah jails and processed through the Utah justice system like any other offender, the Deseret News has reported.

“We are detaining migrants who enter illegally and commit crimes,” Cox said.

Prior to the release of criminal offenders who are in the country illegally, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is notified. Following their release, the migrants are turned over to ICE officers who are supposed to take them to official detention centers.

But there are no ICE detention centers in Utah largely because of onerous Biden administration requirements regarding the holding of detainees, as the Deseret News previously reported. There are Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers in southern Nevada that serve ICE offices in Utah, Idaho and Montana, Cox said.

“The federal government is supposed to transport these illegal immigrants, these law breakers, back to those holding facilities where they can then be processed,” Cox said.

But that has not been happening in every case, leading the Salt Lake City Field Office to issue a quickly retracted memo that labeled Utah a sanctuary state last year — a claim that has been repeated by multiple political candidates, including Cox’ primary challenger, state Rep. Phil Lyman, R-Blanding.

Why isn’t there an ICE detention facility in Utah?

Utah officials have offered up multiple facilities for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to rent for the purpose of properly processing migrants here illegally who break state law, Cox said.

“We would love to have a holding facility here. And we have made several offers to to make that easier so there isn’t this backlog when it comes to transportation,” Cox said. “And they’ve turned down our offers. Unfortunately, I think they like the problem and like exacerbating the problem. And that’s deeply frustrating.”

After meeting with the Department of Public Safety, the sheriff’s association, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, and even reaching out directly to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Cox said, “We’re getting to a better place.”

Cox said that while the agency does need more resources to enforce U.S. immigration law, “they could do more with the resources they have.”

“The federal government, when it comes to border security, when it comes to processing illegal immigrants, when it comes to deporting those who have broken the law, they are failing this country at every turn,” Cox said. “And it’s not a Utah thing. It’s happening in every state.”