Latin American Migrations to the U.S. Heartland: Changing Social Landscapes in Middle America

by Linda Allegro, Andrew Grant Wood, Linda Allegro (Contribution by), Tisa M. Anders (Contribution by), Scott Carter (Contribution by)

Overview

This collection examines Latina/o immigrants and the movement of the Latin American labor force to the central states of Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Arkansas, Missouri, and Iowa. Contributors look at outside factors affecting migration, including corporate agriculture, technology, globalization, and government. They also reveal how cultural affinities like religion, strong family ties, farming, and cowboy culture attract these newcomers to the Heartland. Throughout, essayists point to how hostile neoliberal policy reforms have made it difficult for Latin American immigrants to find social and economic stability.

Filled with varied and eye-opening perspectives, Latin American Migrations to the U.S. Heartland reveals how identities, economies, and geographies are changing as Latin Americans adjust to their new homes, jobs, and communities.

Contributors: Linda Allegro, Tisa M. Anders, Scott Carter, Caitlin Didier, Miranda Cady Hallett, Edmund Hamann, Albert Iaroi, Errol D. Jones, Jane Juffer, László J. Kulcsár, Janelle Reeves, Jennifer F. Reynolds, Sandi Smith-Nonini, and Andrew Grant Wood.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780252084355
Publisher:	University of Illinois Press
Publication date:	02/16/2019
Series:	Working Class in American History
Edition description:	1st Edition
Pages:	344
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Linda Allegro is an independent scholar engaged in immigrant and worker advocacy in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Andrew Grant Wood is the Stanley Rutland Professor of American History at the University of Tulsa. He is the author of Agustín Lara: A Cultural Biography and Revolution in the Street: Women, Workers and Urban Protest in Veracruz, 1870-1927.

Table of Contents

Preface xi

Acknowledgments xv

Introduction: Heartland North, Heartland South Linda Allegro Andrew Grant Wood 1

Part I Geographies in Historical Perspective

Chapter 1 Mexicans in the United States: A Longer View Andrew Grant Wood 25

Chapter 2 Betabeleros and the Western Nebraska Sugar Industry: An Early-Twentieth-Century History Tisa M. Anders 42

Chapter 3 Latinos and the Churches in Idaho, 1950-2000 Errol D. Jones 67

Part II Contesting Policy and Legal Boundaries

Chapter 4 Seeing No Evil: The H2A Guest-Worker Program and State-Mediated Labor Exploitation in Rural North Carolina Sandy Smith-Nonini 101

Chapter 5 On Removing Migrant Labor in a Right-co-Work State: The Failure of Employer Sanctions in Oklahoma Linda Allegro 125

Part III Transnational Identities and New Landscapes of Home

Chapter 6 Rooted/Uprooted: Place, Policy, and Salvadoran Transnational Identities in Rural Arkansas Miranda Cady Hallett 147

Chapter 7 Contesting Diversity and Community within Postville, Iowa: "Hometown to the World" Jennifer F. Reynolds Caitlin Didier 169

Part IV Media and Reimagined Sites of Accommodation and Contestation

Chapter 8 Humanizing Latino Newcomers in the "No Coast" Region Edmund T. Hamann Jenelle Reeves 201

Chapter 9 Immigrant Integration and the Changing Public Discourse: The Case of Emporia, Kansas László J. Kulcsár Albert Iaroi 222

Part V Religion and Migrant Communities

Chapter 10 "They Cling to Guns or Religion": Pennsylvania Towns Put Faith in Anti-immigrant Ordinances Jane Juffer 249

Part VI Demographics

Chapter 11 Latin American Migrations to the U.S. Heartland: Demographic and Economic Activity in Six Heartland States, 2000-2007 Scott Carter 271

Conclusion: Latin American Migrations to the U.S. Heartland: Reshaping Communities, Redrawing Boundaries Linda Allegro Andrew Grant Wood 307

Contributors 311

Index 317

Editorial Reviews

"Allegro and Wood have organized a volume that provides a more humane depiction of Latin American immigrants by carefully documenting the challenges and possibilities they present in the region. . . . They also do an excellent job of positioning the Midwest as a dynamic region where complex and often contradictory politics coexist."—The Annals of Iowa

"Allegro and Wood have assembled an interesting and informative set of essays useful to any scholar interested in the history of immigration to the United States and its regional, local, and national implications for the present and the future. A welcome assessment of what can happen when globalization disrupts rural communities on both sides of the border."—The Journal of Southern History

"An important contribution to our understanding of Latin American migration beyond the coast and borderlands. The contributors, ranging from historians to anthropologists to political scientists and sociologists, rethink and reconceptualize our traditional understanding of Latin American migration as well as the Heartland."—Kathleen Mapes, author of Sweet Tyranny: Migrant Labor, Industrial Agriculture, and Imperial Politics

"This collection of well-written essays stands out because it is a unique treatment of a geographical area—the American Heartland—which has been begging to tell its story. The essays break new ground in documenting the growing diversity of the migrant experience in the United States."—Norman Caulfield, author of NAFTA and Labor in North America

From the Publisher