AHA Session 187
Saturday, January 8, 2022: 10:30 AM-12:00 PM
Napoleon Ballroom C3 (Sheraton New Orleans, 3rd Floor)
Chair:
Michael D. Innis-Jimenez, University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa
Panel:
Cecilia Marquez, New York University
Juan Ignacio Mora, Indiana University-Bloomington
Carolina Ortega, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Yami Rodriguez, Emory University
Bryan Winston, Dartmouth College
Juan Ignacio Mora, Indiana University-Bloomington
Carolina Ortega, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Yami Rodriguez, Emory University
Bryan Winston, Dartmouth College
Session Abstract
This roundtable explores the history of Latinx migrants in two critical regions of the U.S. throughout the twentieth century: the Midwest and the South. Participants consider how “new” destinations for Latinx migrants emerged outside of the Southwest, West Coast, and East Coast. Cecilia Márquez will discuss the experience of Latinxs in the southeast in the second half of the twentieth century. While much has been made of the recent large-scale Latinx migrations to the southeast, her work shows the longer history of Latinx presence. Juan Ignacio Mora will focus on the experiences of Latinxs in the Midwest, specifically Michigan, from the beginning of the Great Depression through the aftermath of the Bracero Program. This portion of the roundtable will focus on the exchanges between Mexicans, Mexican Americans, and Puerto Ricans as they forged national and transnational networks through postwar migration, temporary guest worker programs, and agricultural labor. Carolina Ortega will discuss the experience of Mexican migrants in late twentieth century Wisconsin. She will draw on her research on Green Bay to show that while large urban areas in the Midwest experienced an “urban crisis,” small cities experienced an industrial boom, largely due to the recruitment of Mexican workers, first by the city’s meatpacking industry and then by familial networks.: As part of the roundtable, Iliana Yamileth Rodriguez will discuss her research on ethnic community development in a postwar, metropolitan context. Specifically, she will draw examples from her current project, “Mexican Atlanta,” to illustrate how migrants have developed diverse place-making practices to construct communities in a sprawling southern metropolis. Bryan Winston will discuss the Mexican migrant experience in the Lower Midwest (Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri) during the first half of the twentieth century. As ethnic Mexicans increasingly came to the Lower Midwest in the 1910s and 1920s, they created a regional community through mobility, cultural adaptation, and transnational organizing. The roundtable will be chaired and moderated by Michael Innis-Jiménez, whose past and current projects are at the intersections of Midwestern and Southern Latinx History from the early-20th century through the early 21st century. Thematically, this roundtable offers a unique opportunity to examine the dynamic processes of place-making, the negotiation of ethnic identity and racialization, and shifting migratory patterns. Furthermore, questions of region will be central to our discussion. Specifically, how does a focus on Latinxs in the Midwest and South shift our national understandings of Latinx History? What areas constitute the “Midwest” and the “South”? And finally, what are the parallels and divergences between the Latinx Midwest and the Nuevo South? Altogether, this roundtable promises to offer insightful commentary on the current state Latinx History, as well as an assessment of future directions in the field.
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