Being Brown in Dixie: Race, Ethnicity, and Latino Immigration in the New South 9781935049715

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BEING BROWN IN DIXIE

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LATINOS: EXPLORING DIVERSITY AND CHANGE SERIES EDITORS

Edna Acosta-Belén, University at Albany, SUNY Christine E. Bose, University at Albany, SUNY EDITORIAL BOARD

José E. Cruz, University at Albany, SUNY Ramona Hernández, City College, CUNY Cecilia Menjívar, Arizona State University Manuel Pastor, University of California at Santa Cruz Francisco Rivera-Batiz, Teachers College, Columbia University Clara Rodríguez, Fordham University at Lincoln Center Vicki Ruiz, University of California at Irvine

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BEING BROWN IN DIXIE Race, Ethnicity, and Latino Immigration in the New South edited by

Cameron D. Lippard Charles A. Gallagher

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Chapter 3 is taken from New Destination Dreaming: Immigration, Race, and Legal Status in the Rural American South, by Helen B. Marrow. Copyright © 2011 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. University. All rights reserved. Used with permission of Stanford University Press, www.sup.org.

Published in the United States of America in 2011 by FirstForumPress A division of Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Boulder, Colorado 80301 www.firstforumpress.com and in the United Kingdom by FirstForumPress A division of Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8LU © 2011 by FirstForumPress. All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Being brown in Dixie: race, ethnicity, and Latino immigration in the new South / Cameron D. Lippard and Charles A. Gallagher, editors. (Latinos: exploring diversity and change) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-935049-28-9 (hardcover: alk. paper) 1. Hispanic Americans—Southern States—Social conditions. 2. Immigrants—Southern States—Social conditions. 3. Racism—Southern States. 4. Ethnicity—Southern States. 5. Southern States—Ethnic relations. 6. Southern States—Race relations. 7. Southern States—Social conditions—1945– 8. Southern States—Emigration and immigration. 9. Latin America—Emigration and immigration. I. Lippard, Cameron D. II. Gallagher, Charles A. F220.S75B45 2011 305.868'075—dc22 2010031706 British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. This book was produced from digital files prepared by the author using the FirstForumComposer. Printed and bound in the United States of America The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992. 5 4 3 2 1

To our families, who carry us forward

Contents

List of Tables and Figures 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

ix

Introduction: Immigration, the New South, and the Color of Backlash Cameron D. Lippard and Charles A. Gallagher

1

The Shifting Nature of Racism Regine O. Jackson

25

Intergroup Relations: Reconceptualizing Discrimination and Hierarchy Helen B. Marrow

53

Racialized Histories and Contemporary Population Dynamics in the New South Eileen Diaz McConnell

77

The Myth of Millions: Socially Constructing “Illegal Immigration” Stephanie Bohon and Heather Macpherson Parrott

99

Integrating into New Communities: The Latino Perspective Elaine C. Lacy

115

Unfair Housing Practices in Black and Brown Stephen J. Sills and Elizabeth Blake

133

The Public Schools’ Response to the Immigration Boom Andrew Wainer

157

vii

viii

Being Brown in Dixie

9

Southern Crime and Juvenile Justice Orlando Rodriguez

183

10 Racializing Hiring Practices for “Dirty” Jobs Cameron D. Lippard

201

11 Organizing Labor in a Right-to-Work State Francesca Coin

237

12 Anti-Immigrant Mobilization in a Southern State Paul Luebke

261

13 The Rise of Latino/a Political Influence Lisa M. Martinez

279

14 Success Stories: Proactive Community Responses to Immigration William E. Baker and Paul A. Harris

297

15 Conclusion: Southern Location, National Implications Cameron D. Lippard and Charles A. Gallagher

313

References Contributors Index

337 379 383

Tables and Figures

Tables

1.1 Latino Population Totals and Percentage Changes for Selected Southern States, 1990-2006/08

2

1.2 Latino Population Totals and Percentage Changes for Selected Southern Towns, 1990-2006/08

3

1.3 Latino Population Totals and Percentage Changes for Selected Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs), 1990-2006/08

4

7.1 Trends in Segregation and Isolation

140

7.2 The Percentage of Respondents Who Perceived Discrimination by Race/Ethnicity

146

7.3 Logistic Regression Models Examining Loan Approval Rates

151

7.4 Respondents Who Logged Complaints by Selected Characteristics, 1999

152

9.1 Percentage Foreign-Born Populations for Southern States, U.S. Regions and Divisions, 1960 to 2000

185

9.2 U.S. and Southern State Foreign-Born Population, 1980-2000

188

9.3 Average Yearly Change in Juvenile Custody Rates per 100,000 by Race/Ethnicity and Regions and Divisions, 1997-2003

191

9.4 Juvenile Violent Crime Index Arrest Rates, 2004, and Juvenile Custody Rates, 2003, by States, Region, and Division

192

9.5 Concepts, Variables, and Rationales for Their Use

196

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9.6 Immigration Indicators, Custody Policy, Average Hispanic Juvenile Custody Rates, and Average Yearly Change in Custody Rates, 1997 to 2003

198

13.1 Percentage of Total Populations in California, Florida and Texas by Race/Ethnicity, and Year

280

13.2 Registration Rates by State, Race/Ethnicity, and Year

281

13.3 Percentages Voting in Presidential Elections by State, Race/Ethnicity, and Year

281

13.4 Descriptive Statistics for Non-Latinos and Latinos by Ethnic Origin (all NSLA states)

285

Figures

2.1 Political Cartoon

37

4.1 An Advertisement for Siloam Springs, Arkansas, 1919

82

7.1 African American Population Density for Greensboro

141

7.2 White Population Density in Greensboro

142

7.3 Latino Population Density for Greensboro

142

9.1 Juveniles in Residential Custody by Race/Ethnicity, 1979-2003

190

13.1 Participation in Non-Electoral, Latino-Oriented Activities by Generation

287

13.2 Participation in Non-Electoral, Latino-Oriented Activities by Ethnicity

288

13.3 Distribution of Latinos in California

292

13.4 Distribution of Latinos in Florida

293

13.5 Distribution of Latinos in Texas

293

1 Introduction: Immigration, the New South, and the Color of Backlash Cameron D. Lippard and Charles A. Gallagher

Social protests have the unique ability to provide visual, often jarring, snapshots of those core antagonisms which motivate groups to demonstrate. Such was the case in Atlanta on April 10, 2006 when some 60,000 Latino women, men, children, and sympathizers participated in a mass demonstration in the streets of Atlanta and around Georgia's state capitol building, demanding that the state provide greater civil rights protections for Latinos. One image at this demonstration captures both the tensions and competing narratives around the current debate concerning Latino immigration. As angry White and Black protesters yelled, “Mexicans go home,” Orlando, a Mexican immigrant and resident of Atlanta accompanied by his wife and brother responded, “We have a dream too. I want to live the American dream.” All this happened behind the backdrop of thousands of individuals chanting, “¡Si se puede!” (Yes we can!) (Lippard, field notes, 2006). In ways reminiscent of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, cities like Atlanta, Columbia, Nashville, and Charlotte saw Latinos taking to the streets for equal rights. Even remote, small towns such as rural Albertville, Alabama saw 5,000 Latinos demonstrate (Jubera 2006), while in secondary cities like Tifton, Georgia and WinstonSalem, North Carolina an estimated 1,500 Latinos engaged in nonviolent civil right demonstrations. As Adelina Nicholls, the President of the Coordinating Council of Latino Community Leaders, said to news reporters at the Atlanta rally, “We want to stop being invisible… we are here to stay. Brown is in town!” (Lippard, field notes, 2006). The demonstrations and remarks in Atlanta not only generally represented the growing frustrations and tensions surrounding the issue of immigration in the U.S. but also demonstrated the clash between

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immigration and race relations in the South. Well before the demonstrations occurred, many southerners were already keenly aware of the large influx of Latinos, specifically Mexican immigrants, to their communities. As of 2006, the Latino population, both native- and foreign-born, had reached 44 million members in the U.S., becoming the largest minority group in the country. In the South, the Latino population growth was especially rapid. As can be seen in Table 1.1, all of the southern states, except for Louisiana, saw significant increases in the resident Latino population. This is especially true in states like North Carolina, Arkansas, and Georgia, which saw at least a 300% increase in their Latino populations while in Tennessee, South Carolina, and Alabama, Latinos increased by more than 200%. And, even though the Asian, Black, and White populations have also significantly increased in the South (see Frey 2006), these groups' growths are no match for the rapid and concentrated pace of Latino migration to the South. Table 1.1: Latino Population Totals and Percent Changes for Selected Southern States, 1990-2006/08 States

1990

2000

2006/08

% 902000

% 0006/08

75,830 122,924 24,629 (1.7%) (2.7%) 207% 62% (.6%) 19,876 86,866 148,755 Arkansas (.8%) (3.2%) (5.3%) 337% 71% 157,413 2,682,715 3,725,173 Florida (12.2%) (16.8%) (20.5%) 1604% 39% 108,922 435,227 729,604 Georgia (1.7%) (5.3%) (7.7%) 300% 68% 21,984 59,939 94,176 Kentucky (.6%) (1.5%) (2.2%) 173% 57% 93,0454 107,738 140,640 Louisiana (2.2%) (2.4%) (3.2%) 16% 31% 15,931 39,569 56,577 Mississippi (.6%) (1.4%) (1.9%) 148% 43% 76,726 378,963 636,786 North Carolina (1.2%) (4.7%) (7%) 394% 68% 30,551 95,076 169,239 South Carolina (.9%) (2.4%) (3.8%) 211% 78% 32,741 123,838 215,760 Tennessee (.7%) (2.2%) (3.5%) 278% 74% 160,288 329,540 506,843 Virginia (2.6%) (4.7%) (6.6%) 106% 54% Source: U.S. Census American FactFinder for 1990 and 2000 decennial census results and 2006-2008 American Community Surveypopulation estimates . (http://factfinder.census.gov/). Notes: Percent of the total population that is Hispanic is in parentheses. Alabama

Immigration, the New South, and the Color of Backlash

3

Even more surprising as the unusually high concentrations of Latinos in some rural areas of the South, where there were virtually no racial or ethnic minorities to be found. Wainer (2004) reports that in some eastern counties of North Carolina one in five people are Latino. As reported in Table 1.2, places like Dalton and Gainesville, Georgia, and Siler City, North Carolina have Latino populations that represent close to 40% of the total population, with the majority being White, and Blacks representing only about 8 to 9%. Within these communities, Latinos, not Blacks, are becoming the racial reference point for Whites. Still, as seen in the previous table, southern urban centers have seen the most growth of populations, especially for Latinos. Table 1.2: Latino Population Totals and Percent Changes for Selected Southern Towns, 1990-2006/08 Towns

1990

2000

20062008

% 90-2000

% 00-06/08

1,422 11,219 14,469 (6.5%) (40.2%) (48%) 689% 29% 184 2,740 a Siler City, NC (.8%) (39.3%) …. 1389% …. 77 2,773 Albertville, AL (.5%) (16.1%) …. 3501% …. Source: U.S. Census American FactFinder for 1990 and 2000 decennial census results and 2006-2008 American Community Surveypopulation estimates . (http://factfinder.census.gov/). Notes: Percent of the total population that is Hispanic is in parentheses. a. …. denotes missing data for the 2006/08 for the selected towns not estimated by the American Community Survey. Dalton, GA

Table 1.3 shows how the Latino population swelled in several major southern city, except New Orleans, saw at least a 100% increase in the percentage of Latinos from 1990 to 2000 (Frey 2006; Mohl 2003; Suro and Singer 2002). Suro and Singer (2002) identified many southern cities like Atlanta, Charlotte, Columbia, Nashville, and Raleigh as “Hispanic Hypergrowth” metropolitan areas where the quantity and speed in which Latino populations grew outpaced most other cities in the U.S. Until recently, however, immigration and migration in the U.S. overwhelmingly occurred in a small set of booming metropolises and states in which pull factors included: physical accessibility (i.e., proximity to borders and transportation hubs), dynamic labor markets, and well-established immigrant communities to support migration (Frey 2006; Portes and Rumbaut 2006; Hirschman and Massey 2008). However, in the 1980s, an overabundance of low wage laborers,

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tightening labor markets, and restrictive immigration laws in California, Texas, and other traditional immigrant gateways (Light 2006) persuaded new immigrants and foreign-born citizens to find work and homes elsewhere (Massey and Capoferro 2008). Table 1.3: Latino Population Totals and Percent Changes for Selected Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs), 1990-2006/08 MSAs

1990

2000

2006-2008

% 90-2000

% 00-06/08

Atlanta, GA

57,169 268,851 1,487,984 (2%) (6.5%) (9.3%) 370% 82% Birmingham, 3,989 16,598 34,144 AL (.4%) (1.8%) (3.1%) 316% 106% Charlotte, NC 10,671 77,092 137,936 (.9%) (5.1%) (8.4%) 622% 79% Columbia, SC 5,949 12,859 26,026 (1.3%) (2.4%) (3.6%) 112% 102% Knoxville, TN 3,232 8,628 14,968 (.5%) (1.3%) (2.2%) 167% 73% Lexington, KY 3,117 11,880 19,894 (.9%) (2.5%) (4.5%) 281% 67% Nashville, TN 7,665 40,139 80,018 (.8%) (3.3%) (5.3%) 424% 99% Raleigh, NC 9,019 72,580 90,290 (1.2%) (6.1%) (8.7%) 705% 24% Richmond, VA 9,327 23,283 45,950 (1/1%) (2.3%) (3.8%) 150% 97% Atlanta, GA 57,169 268,851 1,487,984 (2%) (6.5%) (9.3%) 370% 82% Birmingham, 3,989 16,598 34,144 AL (.4%) (1.8%) (3.1%) 316% 106% Source: U.S. Census American FactFinder for 1990 and 2000 decennial census results and 2006-2008 American Community Surveypopulation estimates . (http://factfinder.census.gov/). Notes: Percent of the total population that is Hispanic is in parentheses.

The most prominent pull factor bringing Latinos to the South has been its economic boom. In what has been an exodus out of the industrial North or oversaturated labor markets of the West, the South is now home to a large share of the nation's commerce, manufacturing, and informational and technology centers. It also has seen more job growth than any other U.S. region over the last 20 years. As for Latino immigrants and working-class natives, there has been a steady increase of “hard-labor” industries, such as meatpacking, carpet (textile), and construction. As LeDuff (2000) and Parrado and Kandel (2008) find, the high demand for cheap labor in meatpacking brought many Latinos to rural towns in North Carolina and Georgia. Mohl (2003) points out that

Immigration, the New South, and the Color of Backlash

5

the 120 carpet factories in Dalton, Georgia turned specifically to Latino labor to avoid paying higher wages and unionization by native-born citizens. Parrado and Kandel (2008) also find that threats of unionization, higher wages, as well as the lack of native-born interest in “dirty” jobs, brought Latinos to the meatpacking and construction trades. With the increase of economic prosperity and more people, new construction of residential and commercial properties became a serious incentive for Latinos to move to every major metropolitan area in the South (Lippard 2008a; Parrado and Kandel 2008). For instance, in 2006, Latinos represented about 25% (roughly 2.2 million workers) of all reported construction workers (11 million) in the U.S. (Pew Hispanic Center 2007a). In the South, Latinos in construction represent between 18% and 22%, with higher concentrations in Atlanta, Charlotte, and New Orleans (Kochhar, Suro, and Tafoya 2005). Another pull was a supposed climate of tolerance in the South. As many suggest, business owners and politicians have sold Atlanta as a city “too busy to hate” (Bayor 1996, 2000:42; Keating 2001; Sjoquist 2000). As Furuseth and Smith (2006:2) suggest, the New South slogan suggested above helped in “glossing over the inequality, injustices, and racial discrimination that continued to thrive despite the region's movement towards modernization and industrialization…” This was true for Latino immigrants in which labor-intensive industries and farms in the South greeted them with open arms at first. As some researchers find (Griffith 1993; Fink 2003; Lippard 2008a; Mohl 2003; Parrado and Kandel 2008; Torres, Popke, and Hapke 2006), new southern industries actively recruited Latino women and men to come and work. As Jesus, a Mexican immigrant who came to work in a Georgia poultry factory stated, “Yeah, man. They gave me a bus ticket and $500 dollars just to come here and work for $15 an hour and even told me where I could get a place to live. I felt welcomed and wanted.” Even in rural areas, like West Jefferson, North Carolina, where farmers need a steady stream of H-2A workers to harvest Christmas trees, farmer's associations held “Bienvenidos” parties and attempted to help Latino immigrants, especially families, transition into their new homes and lives (Brock 2000). Churches, both Protestant and Catholic, also used their community resources to help establish Latino families and introduce them to vital public services (Griffith 2008). However, regardless of the perception of welcome, Latinos, like Blacks in the 1950s and 1960s, went to the streets because they saw a clear “racialized” backlash against their community. For instance, six southern state legislators and several municipalities proposed and enacted their own immigration laws (Stateline 2008). These laws

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specifically targeted Latinos to stem the tide of illegal and legal immigration, as can be seen with the Georgia State Senate's Bill 529 in 2005, which sought to restrict Latino driving privileges, require mandatory documentation screenings for all industries that hired Latinos, and to prohibit the use of state monies to provide health care and education to undocumented Latinos. In addition, several new anti-immigrant hate groups, as well as a new fervor among Klu Klux Klan chapters, now litter the South to stop illegal immigration, citing Mexicans as the source of all economic and social ills of late (SPLC 2008). We also see new law enforcement partnerships between local law officials and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement federal agency, which have conducted raids of southern towns and communities to extract undocumented workers and send them back to their home countries or incarcerate them on felony charges. In short, the South has become the battleground once again for race and ethnic relations because now, as Mohl (2003:56) identified, the New South became the “Nuevo New South… Ready or not, Dixie appears to be on the cusp of a long-term process of Latinization.…” The main thrust of this collection of original research and theoretical writings is to principally question whether the newly-arriving Latino population will actually challenge or change the complexities of race and ethnic relations within the New South. By drawing on ethnographies, interviews, survey research, and secondary data analysis, the authors in this edited volume provide a snapshot of how the BlackWhite dichotomy of the South has undoubtedly been disrupted, challenged, and possibly changed. Race Matters: The Racialization of an Immigrant Nation

Up to this point, we have merely described the dramatic demographic and economic changes within the last twenty-five years that has ushered in a new era in which there are three prominent racial and ethnic groups to consider in the bustling New South: Black, White, and Latino. However, there is more to it than just population swells. As Furuseth and Smith (2006:2) state, “In a region where social status, economic relations, and public consciousness have been framed by the bi-racial constructs of 'White' and 'Black,' the arrival of a growing number of culturally different and linguistically alien immigrants has had far reaching effects.” This seems to be true since, as we pointed out with the April 10th, 2006 demonstrations, Latinos want local, state, and federal governments to recognize their concerns about immigration policy and, more broadly,

Immigration, the New South, and the Color of Backlash

7

equal treatment as human beings. Some scholars and commentators would argue that the Latino demonstrations and the arrival of so many to the South, in particular, only describe the current “immigration problem,” not necessarily a “race problem” because the majority of Latinos are immigrants. Clearly, the antagonistic response towards Latino immigrants is not new to American history. In the mid-1700s, Benjamin Franklin had this to say about the waves of German immigrants that were thought to be taking over the country: “I have great misgivings about their clannishness, their little knowledge of English, their press, and the increasing need of interpreters” (Yzaguirre 2004:4). Our “enlightened” founding father believed that recently arrived German immigrants could and would never assimilate. Not only had this group rejected embracing “American” culture through assimilation, but there was the concern that this group was trying to “Germanize” our fledgling “Anglo-Saxon” republic. Speaking only in German, setting up schools where the German language was often spoken in place of English, building and settling in German “ghettoes” (Germantown, USA) was proof positive that a separate pluralism, rather than cultural and structural assimilation, was the path this group had chosen to follow. There would be no American Dream for this group because they quite simply did not see themselves as, nor did they want to be, “Americans.” Fast forward almost three hundred years and we are told by Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington that Latinos today, much like the Germans in colonial America, wish to construct a separate nation here in the United States. Reflecting on the need for Latinos to learn, think and even dream in the idioms of the United States, Huntington declares, “There is no Americano Dream. There is only the American Dream created by an Anglo-Protestant society. Mexican Americans will share in the Dream and in that society only if they dream in English” (Huntington 2004:45). Huntington's Franklinesque predictions that the United States will soon Latino-ize reminds us that history, in this case the history and treatment of ethnic groups by the majority, does repeat itself. However, there is something more afoot than just anti-immigrant or nativist rhetoric and actions. In very obvious ways, Latinos in the South, and across the U.S., have been racialized systematically as a minority group with problems. Through words and rhetoric, they are seen as lawbreakers, job-stealers, welfare queens, and anti-American. Politicians, police officers, and civilian soldiers hunt them down as illegal “border-jumpers” and “reconquistadors.” While it is s obvious that many Latinos understand that they are not necessarily counted in the

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U.S. today as White or Black but something else. They also cannot solely exist as a nationality or ethnicity such as Mexican or Guatemalan in a country that pushes all of its immigrant populations into the melting pot to produce the “typical” American. As with the rest of this introduction and the main premise of this collection of research, we strive to point out that race matters more than ever in describing the “immigration problem” currently because these immigrants are “brown” and they have moved to the racialized American South. We recognize, however, that the issues of race relations and immigration can be two separate entities—having very different foci, consequences, and challenges. We are also in no way equating the racial experiences of Latinos in recent years to the hardships African Americans; although, there are certainly correlations to examine and emphasize. We also do not ignore the past treatment of Hispanics in the South because, as recent scholarship has pointed out (e.g., Macias 2006; Orozco 2009; Suárerz-Orozco and Páez 2002), Mexican Americans and immigrants alike have endured the violence and degradation of white racism when facing the same lynching parties and de jure segregation that afflicted African Americans throughout America and the South. Moreover, Hispanics have struggled in finding their place within racialized America, where they are not seen as quite “white” or “black” enough. Obviously, though, Hispanics and Blacks exist within different contexts when it comes to race. As Rodriguez (2004:131) noted, “For all the segregation that Mexican-Americans suffered in the Southwest, that region was never the Deep South.” However, this does not mean that white racism does not target Latino citizens or immigrants in the same ways it does African Americans. If the social conditions in the American South and the U.S. at-large suggest that they are socially, politically, and economically inferior, then in many ways, Blacks and Latinos find themselves in the same struggle. What set these two groups apart; however, are the recent fears of an “immigration problem.” While viewed and treated in very similar ways as past immigration waves in the early twentieth century, recent immigration from Latin American countries is different because this wave is more intertwined with race relations than past surges, especially since Latino immigrants have effectively spread across America. First, as Jaret (1999) points out, this particular era of immigration has seen a high number of immigrants entering the country illegally (without proper documentation) or staying after their visas have expired. Recent estimates suggest that there are about 12 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., and Latinos represent about 78% of this estimate (Passel 2006:ii). During the first waves of immigrants from Europe in

Immigration, the New South, and the Color of Backlash

9

the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the U.S. was able to document and track most newcomers but this was easier because they arrived in areas that had established immigrant processing centers, such as Ellis Island, New York. There were also temporary work programs, such as the Bracero Program, that helped document even Hispanic arrivals. The issue of documentation has spurred several debates about whether “illegals” should be given equal access to public resources, such as public schools, or afforded protections under U.S. laws. The attacks of 9/11 has also fueled fears about an invasion of hostiles or “reconquistadors,” which were here to take and not give back (Salins 2004). In addition, 9/11 helped to push Latino immigrants into the American mindset as yet another group threatening the American way of life. As the comedian, Chris Rock craftily pointed out America's views of race and racism were tweaked after 9/11 to include other new and existing groups into the racial hatred that plagues America. Impersonating a White American screaming in protest after 9/11, Chris Rock recites, 'I'm American, man! I'm American! Fuck all these fucking foreigners!' 'I'm American, I'm American.' And you are like, 'hey, like calm the fuck down!' There was a lot of accepted racism when the war started…. 'I'm American! I'm American, man! Fuck the French!' That was cool! 'I'm American, man! I'm American, man! Fuck the Arabs!' And, that was cool. 'I'm American! I'm American! Fuck all the illegal aliens.' Then, I started listening because I know niggers and Jews is next. I was like, any day now! That train is never late (Chris Rock, Never Scared, 2004)!

This fear, coupled with the inactivity of the federal government to pass new immigration legislation, has sparked many states to enact their own immigration laws to stem the tide of illegal immigration. Second, and most important to this book's discussion, is that these immigrants are “brown.” U.S. immigration policy has always preferred more White, Western European immigrants over other groups (Bean and Bell-Rose 1999). However, after the passage of the Hart-Cellar Act in 1965, which emphasized family reunification and the need for individuals with special or economy-driven occupational skills, the Asian and Latino populations have exploded. These immigrants, particularly those from Central and South America, are often poorer and

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Being Brown in Dixie

less educated than previous waves of immigrants, even those arriving ten to twenty years ago (Alba and Nee 2003; Bean and Bell-Rose 1999; Portes and Rumbaut 2006). Also, due to their recent arrival, many Asian and Latino immigrants do not speak English very well, making them seem less likely to assimilate into the American culture, even though recent research suggests otherwise (see Alba and Nee 2003; Portes and Rumbaut 2006; Rodriguez 2004). As for the “Hispanic” or “Latino” view of American racial classifications, research suggests that these individuals are not necessarily ready or willing to identify themselves as a particular race, nor do they completely understand the U.S.'s rigid and bifurcated racial system (e.g., Jones-Correa 2008; Montero-Sieburth and Meléendez 2007; Rodriguez 2000; Waldinger and Feliciano 2004). In fact, calling all Mexicans, Colombians, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and Guatemalans “Hispanic” or “Latino” does not capture the variety of cultures and lifestyles associated with these groups. Some argue that these groups do share a common language (which is a way to describe ethnicity but not race), but this is not necessarily true when Brazilians speak Portuguese and several native dialects are used by Mexican immigrants who cannot speak Spanish. Personal accounts from “Latinos” also suggest that they have a hard time fitting into the “White” and “Black” racial designators because they do not see themselves in this manner, so people around them decide their racial categories for them (see Macias 2006; SuárezOrozco and Páez 2002; Rodriguez 2000). For instance, Rodriguez (2000) pointed that she, as a light-skinned Latina, found that people waffled on whether to call her White or Black based on the context, particularly when they wanted to separate her out as a “minority.” Hispanic or Latino groups, however, clearly understand based on past and present interactions with Americans that there is privilege and oppression associated with racial classification, where privileges typically accrue for those who fall into the White or at least “White-ish” end of the racial spectrum. Thus, many Hispanics in Southern California, living near poor African Americans, identify as racially Black because they live near and have similar social experiences (e.g., poverty, drug problems, police harassment) (Macias 2006). In addition, Hispanics or Latinos tend to view race somewhat differently than most Americans. As suggested by Sonya Tafoya's (2004) research with Latinos in the U.S., “Whiteness” and “Blackness” represent higher social status that is not necessarily associated with skin color. Thus, one could be seen as “White” but still have dark skin because of his/her economic status or civic enfranchisement. In addition, language fluency, cultural separation, and immigration status (i.e., years in the U.S.,

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documented or undocumented, generations), which are all measures of acculturation, change Hispanics' or Latinos' conceptions of race. Recent scholarship examining how the American racial classification and stratification system will change because of the overwhelming presence of Latinos proposes varying possibilities. One possibility is that Latinos, as well as Asians, will fall in line with America's already well-established racial dichotomy but will change it slightly from a Black/White system to a Black/non-Black system (see Gans 1999;Yancey 2003). Certainly, in the past, other immigrant groups like the Irish and Italians who were not “White” when they arrived eventually were accepted into the American racial system as “Whites.” This possibility recognizes that some Latinos who already identify as “White” and look and act the part will end up being accepted as “nonBlack.” Other parts of the Latino population will be pushed into the “Black” category based on darker skin color and social positions (i.e., education, income). This possibility supports the age-old melting pot theory for some Latinos because they will assimilate into the (White) mainstream American culture (see Alba and Nee 2003; Portes 2004; Rodriguez 2004). Or, in a more nuanced way, Latinos will help shift the color line to accommodate Latinos and Asians as non-Blacks, but continue to leave African Americans behind (see Lee et al. 2003). Another possibility takes into account a more globalized and complex explanation of racial categorization after the recent surge in Latino immigration to the U.S. Bonilla-Silva and Embrick (2003:34) argue that there will be a “Latin Americanization” to race in the U.S., placing even more emphasis on skin color or “pigmentocracy” in conjunction with other socially accepted cultural qualities and expectations. In other words, not only will skin color matter but also levels of education, income, and rates of assimilation, which puts every “ethnic” group into a race, regardless of their willingness to do so. Bonilla-Silva and Embrick (2003) identify three racial categories for the future: “Whites,” made up of native- and foreign-born Whites, as well as light-skinned assimilated Latinos and Asians; “Honorary Whites,” consist of those immigrants that assimilate and are socio-economically successful but do not fit neatly into the phenotype “White,” and the remaining category of collective “Blacks” are those newly-arriving, nonassimilated immigrants and African Americans who are dark skinned. As Rodriguez (2002:35) points out in his book, Brown: The Last Discovery of America, “'The future is brown,' or, more likely, not just Black and White.” The final possibility is, as Bonilla-Silva and Embrick (2003:35) state, “ … racial diversity in the United States will lead to balkanization

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and cultural bastardization.” Tinged with anti-immigrant rhetoric likened to the “Know Nothing” campaigns against Irish Catholics in the 1800s, many conservative commentators and political activists view the “Latino invasion” as a significant blow to what it means to be American, regardless of the divisions between Blacks and Whites. In fact, they also suggest a clear dichotomous division based on nationality or ethnicity, Americans versus Latinos. As Samuel Huntington (2004:30) wrote in a piece entitled, The Hispanic Challenge, “The persistent inflow of Hispanic immigrants threatens to divide the United States into two peoples, two cultures, and two languages…. The United States ignores this challenge at its peril.” Undoubtedly, scholars have already begun to contemplate the inclusion of Latinos, whether as immigrants or citizens, as a test of America's racial stratification system (see Gallagher 2008; Orozco 2009). It also seems that, in spite of Latinos and other groups wanting to self-identify their race and ethnicity, Americans have already begun to classify these heterogeneous ethnic groups into a clear racial category of “Hispanic” or “Latino.” Lee et al. (2003) agree that how Americans treat Latinos and Asians highly depends on their racial classification. As Rodriguez (2000) found when examining the U.S. Census, America has already spent decades attempting to “racialize” Spanish-speaking groups to set them certainly apart from Whites. However, this categorization goes well beyond labels because being a certain race, not necessarily an ethnicity (except in a global context), assigns privilege in America. Within the context of immigration, race is central as an emergent identity because the racial lines which mark one group from the next are shifting. What is taking place currently with Latinos in the South lends itself to a reformulation of how we conceptualize racial categories. In the context of this book, Omi and Winant's (1994) racial formation theory frames how an “immigrant problem” structurally becomes a “race problem.” As Omi and Winant (1994) suggest, the categories of race are socially constructed and contextual; proposing that any racial category has flexible meaning and varied weight to determine human value of any group and the division of power, privilege, and resources. Omi and Winant (1994) point out that within the U.S., the social construction of racial categories of “White” and “not-White” helped to assure that whichever groups were White were seen as superior and continued to gain advantages from their “Whiteness” despite resistance from non-Whites. More importantly, White America uses its institutions to make sure that their privilege is sustained and

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maintained, letting in “new members” when necessary to secure or stabilize the status quo. However, what is important is that there is a “racialization process for any group who enters America who seems to have racial ambiguity or an uncertain classification. Omi and Winant (1994) suggest that in the context of meshing immigration with race, racial meaning is extended to either secure White domination or to hinder these groups from gobbling up resources needed by Whites. For instance, Irish immigrants were often identified as “Blacks” when they refused to assimilate or took jobs that some Whites valued during economic depressions. However, participation in the American Civil War and the avid rejection of Blacks helped the same Irish immigrants be accepted as Whites (Roediger 1991). Today, this can be applied to Latinos. At the present moment, hostile anti-immigrant sentiment has helped to “racialize” Mexicans, Guatemalans, and Colombians, etc., as one distinct group—Hispanics or Latinos. Undoubtedly, racializing all Mexicans, Columbians, and Puerto Ricans as a homogeneous group is not new, especially when we recognize that these groups have historically lived in a tri-apartheid system in many places like Texas, and have had specific laws and policies passed to hamper their abilities to be considered equals (e.g., Mexican Repatriation Movement of the 1930s). Also, we can see this within recent research on hiring practices in the construction industry where White employers often racialize Latinos as allies when they provide cheap, docile, and efficient workforces. However, once Latinos become too “Americanized” by wanting raises, time off, or wanting to start their own construction businesses, White contractors often categorize them with Blacks as worthless, lazy, and untrustworthy (Lippard 2008a). Omi and Winant's (1994) discussion becomes even more critical when we consider how racialization is the precursor to the development of “racial projects,” which are ways in which the meaning of race becomes embedded within social institutions to dictate benefits or oppression. For instance, while the Federal Housing Administration was created to assist all homeowners in purchasing their first homes, Omi and Winant (1994), as well as others (see Shapiro 2004), find that it helps Whites more than Blacks obtain mortgages because of underwriting policies that exclude Blacks due to their supposed inabilities to manage money or to be responsible. Identified as a racial project, these institutionalized issues of racial stereotypes become powerful mechanisms of discrimination and ways to solidify racial classifications and to create barriers that keep out unwanted competition.

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A second way to understand how immigration becomes a race issue is through Herbert Blumer's (1958) prejudice or group-position theory. Blumer theory links racially-based social status and the belief in resource entitlement to racial hierarchy. He suggests that individuals in every group have a perception of where the particular group “ought” to stand in the American racial pecking order. Groups also, over time, develop strong prejudiced feelings toward other groups that threaten their sense of group position. In essence, any act of racial prejudice comes from a groups' concerns for protecting their perceived privileges or entitlements (Bobo and Johnson 2000). These threats include challenges to valuable resources that stabilize a group's position, such as jobs, self-employment, housing opportunities, and education. Therefore, using Blumer's arguments as a theoretical link makes it possible to see how even nativist sentiments toward Latino immigrants can lead to racial prejudice because they are created by the same fears: one group taking another group's privileges and resources. Moreover, White fears, prejudice feelings, and discriminatory actions match when looking at their rhetoric or actions toward Blacks and Latinos side-byside. For instance, most U.S. individuals polled suggest that their biggest fear is that Latino immigrants are taking needed jobs and receiving social benefits they do not pay for or deserve, like public education and social welfare (Pew Hispanic Center 2006b). In the same way, recent immigration legislation, passed in several states and attempted at the federal level, provides examples of how America, especially White America, feels a proprietary claim to the rights, jobs, and space within America and, more importantly, feels that its way is threatened. Juan Crow and the Color of Backlash

Now, take the notions of race-making and race-protecting presented above and apply them to the South where large numbers of “brown” immigrants are entering a place that has dealt with race, literally and figuratively, in Black and White. As some suggest (e.g., Hirschman and Massey 2008, Marrow 2008; Smith and Furuseth 2006; Winger 2006, 2008), most American citizens have rarely had any personal day-to-day contact with the immigrant populations. As Hirschman and Massey (2008:11) stated, “Although immigration may have been viewed as a 'crisis,' for many citizens it was a crisis in the abstract.” However, in the South, the rapid increase and saturation of the Latino population into the small homogeneous White towns, cities, and suburbs have made the crisis real for many Southerners. And, even though there is a façade of economic progress that often covers up race

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issues, the newest evidence of racial discrimination and conflict has emerged in the South with the arrival of Latino immigrants. More importantly, while Latino immigrants may arrive as just “immigrants” and face anti-immigrant sentiment akin to past immigrant waves (see Lee et al. 2003), there are already blatant responses and mechanisms being used to “racialize” Latinos into a minority group that threatens the well-being of both Black and White Americans. In a compelling article, Robert Lovato (2008) suggests that much of what Latinos face in the South could be analogous with the racist laws and actions of Jim Crow before desegregation and the Civil Rights era. Lovato (2008:1) states, “[Latino children] are growing up in a racial and political climate in which Latinos' subordinate status in Georgia and in the Deep South bears more than a passing resemblance to that of African Americans who were living under Jim Crow. Call it Juan Crow…” While it is certainly not slavery or de jure segregation, the hostility apparent in local sentiment, state action, and the resurgence of hate groups has stigmatized Latinos, regardless of their immigrant status, as a second-class minority group. As Reverend Joseph Lowery, a lieutenant to Martin Luther King Jr., stated after seeing how Latinos were being treated in Georgia, “ … though we [Blacks and Latinos] may have come over on different ships, we're all in the same damn boat now” (Lovato 2008:3). There are several ways to see how Latinos are being racialized and prosecuted similar to African Americans in the South. In one way, many Southerners, as well as the much of America, attempt to label Latino groups into one of two “other” categories: “Mexicans,” and/or “illegals.” This can be seen in newspaper accounts across the South, as well as in the wordage of recent state legislation (see Bohon 2006a). For example, one Latino respondent in Lippard's (2008a:102) book on the Atlanta construction industry, stated this about the stigmatized label: You know, I'm a Mexican American, and everyone always puts Mexicans down it seems. One way, they say we are great workers and another, they say we're nasty and spreading like roaches. It is so bad that even Mexicans don't want to be called Mexicans because it carries a bad position. You know, no one wants to be a dirty Mexican, and Americans don't understand that we all didn't come through Texas. The only ways that we are the same is that we are all human, just like Blacks and Whites. If they don't want us to call them names, then they shouldn't either.

In other words, “Mexican” becomes a racialized word, distinguishing this group from anything White or Black. Or, as another

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Latino respondent, who is a U.S. citizen, said to a reporter, “People look at me, and they just assume I'm illegal” (Collins 2007:2). Comments from local citizens also help identify Latinos as a new racialized group based on their competition with others. For instance, nationally, most Americans have been split as to whether the new immigrant population “hurts” (45%) or “helps” (45%) the U.S. (Pew Hispanic Center 2006b). The Pew Hispanic Center also found that a majority of Americans feel that illegal immigrants only take unwanted jobs and will eventually assimilate, causing minimal damage to the economy and culture of America. But, when researchers ask Southerners these questions, they get stronger responses. For example, in North Carolina, research suggests that 70% of Blacks and Whites felt that Latino immigrants were a problem in the state because they used up public services (i.e., education and healthcare), as well as took away needed jobs (McClain 2006). In addition, while Whites were more adamant than Blacks in suggesting Latino immigrants were a problem, Blacks were more likely to report direct economic competition. As one Black respondent quoted by McClain (2006:16) stated, “Latinos seem to get all the benefits, and it seems like they are taking all of the good benefits from low-income Blacks. They seem to come and go in and out of the country and not pay taxes. They seem to be getting too much.” Other researchers have found these same sentiments all over the South, especially in places with high concentrations of Latinos in jobs that had a large number of Whites and Blacks participating (see Lippard 2008a; Marrow 2008; Mohl 2003; Parrado and Kandal 2008; Winders 2006). Moreover, some of the explanations of why Latinos are a problem echo the old Black-White divide. For instance, in the Atlanta construction industry, one White subcontractor said this about Latino subcontractors: “They are a damn menace to society just like the Blacks are. Bitch and complain even though they've got it made because now, like Niggers, they can get all the good jobs and still get welfare while I have to work hard to feed my kids. It's the same damn thing, different day” (Lippard 2008a:234). Blumer's theory of group status and the perceived loss of social and material resources suggests that competition over resources leads to prejudice and ultimately racist actions. Interestingly, much of this sentiment is due to the persistent recruitment of Latinos by new industries in the South. As several researchers have found when studying labor in the New South (see LeDuff 2000; Mohr 2003; Parrado and Kandel 2008), Latinos have replaced almost entire Black and White labor forces. For instance, in the Smithfield packing plant in North Carolina, LeDuff (2000) suggested that almost 60% of the labor force

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was Latino when it used to be all Black and White. The same is true for construction industries in places like Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh, and Nashville, where 60% to 80% of the manual laborers are Latino, which has happened in the last twenty years (Lippard 2008a; Parrado and Kandel 2008). As Borjas (2004) had predicted, undereducated and lessskilled Latinos receiving the new industry jobs would soon lead to competition with American citizens who had the same education and skill levels, although it has been the case for decades that filling these low wage, menial jobs has been more than a challenge for the poultry and farm industries. Many Southerners believe Latinos consume more in social service than they contribute in taxes for those services. Researchers have documented that in many new destination towns, public schools saw dramatic increases in Spanish-speaking students to schools that had little or no Spanish-speaking teachers, staff, or money to accommodate the change (Mohl 2003; Kandel and Parrado 2006; Wainer 2004). In these new destination points, businesses, from McDonald's to hospitals, had to provide translators, signs, handouts, and phone answering services to Spanish-speaking people. These acts of accommodation served to make Latinos more visible to the rest of the community and also to raise concern that such action would impede assimilation. As one White protester asked while seeing Latinos march by on April of 2006, “Shouldn't you learn our language!?!” As for paying taxes, since most Americans, including Southerners, believe that most of the Latino population resides in America illegally (see Pew Hispanic Center 2006b), then they probably do not pay any taxes. However, as Kasarda and Johnson (2006) found when examining the economic impact of Hispanics on North Carolina, Hispanics or Latinos do pay their fair share of taxes through sales tax, which offsets the state's expenditures on public services. Of course, these responses could be seen as just anti-immigrant rhetoric but, on the contrary, this public outcry helped fuel more political and institutional actions that surely resemble the racial projects of isolation and degradation of Jim Crow. While other “new destination” states have also enacted their own state immigration policies (see Anrig and Wang 2006), southern states were some of the first to enact comprehensive immigration policies. In fact, much of the policies proposed or enacted were similar to California's Proposition 187 that attempted to bar access to public services for undocumented immigrants. For instance, in Georgia, State Senator Chip Rogers introduced Senate Bill 529 that represented an effort to curtail “Latino” illegal immigration to Georgia and disallow undocumented immigrants from

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using public services, including public schools. While Senator Rogers' initial draft did not pass, the Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act, signed into law in 2006, represented the toughest state laws against undocumented immigrants up to that point. This legislation now restricts undocumented immigrants from obtaining Georgia driver's licenses, fines businesses for hiring immigrants without appropriate documentation, and requires local law enforcement to detain any immigrant suspected of being in the state illegally. Along with Georgia, five other southern states, including Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia, have attempted or enacted similar legislation that has exclusively focused on Latino immigrants, especially those who are undocumented. In addition, many local and state governments have teamed up with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to curtail the influx of Latino immigrants. As part of Homeland Security, ICE is a federal agency responsible for enforcing federal immigration and customs laws to protect the United States from terrorist attacks. It specifically targets illegal immigrants to reduce the threat of terrorism in America (see www.ice.gov). In 2007, ICE removed over 276,000 “illegal aliens” from the U.S. (ICE 2007). Much of this removal was in the South because of a new partnership program called the Agreements of Cooperation in Communities to Enhance Safety and Security program (ACCESS). This program is designed to encourage federal and local law enforcement partnerships to aid in training and deputizing local law enforcement to help ICE chase, detain, arrest, and jail illegal immigrants. As of 2008, ICE has trained over 700 local and state law enforcement officers and has 55 active partnerships. 52% (29 partnerships) are in seven Southern states (Alabama, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia). The most partnerships are in North Carolina (8) and Virginia (9) (ICE 2008). While ICE raids have happened all over the country, some of the more brutal ones have occurred in many of the industrialized towns in Georgia that have large numbers of Latinos working in poultry and textiles. Most of these raids focus on groups of Latino immigrants suspected of being undocumented and often take any immigrant present, regardless of their immigration status. Lovato (2008) quotes what one Latino girl, Mancha, who is a documented immigrant, said about her experience with an ICE raid early one morning in Reidsville, Georgia:

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I was getting ready for school, getting dressed, when I heard this noise. I thought it was my mother coming back…. Some people were slamming car doors outside the trailer. I heard footsteps and then a loud boom and then somebody screaming, asking if we were 'illegals,' 'Mexicans.' These big men were standing in my living room holding guns, one man blocked my doorway. Another guy grabbed a gun on his side. I was freaked out. 'Oh, my God!' I yelled.

There has also been a resurgence in Klu Klux Klan activity. Several Klan rallies have been held in Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina using the frustration locals have towards Latinos to again swell the ranks of the Klan. In 2000, David Duke, an ex-Klansman from Louisiana, spoke in Siler City, North Carolina at an anti-immigration rally outside of the poultry plant where many Latinos worked. Duke stated, “To get a few chickens plucked, is it worth losing your heritage” (Mohl 2003: 53)? Another rally occurred in Gainesville, Georgia in 2002 to help lobby state lawmakers to pursue stiff laws to curb immigration because, as Chester Doles, the head of the Georgia State Unit of the neo-Nazi National Alliance complained, “Hispanics in Gainesville have completely taken over” (Mohl 2003: 53). Intertwined with the recent presence of the KKK, there has also been the rapid growth of nativist hate groups in the South and across the country. Lovato (2008) suggested that there were 144 new “extreme nativist” groups and 300 anti-immigration groups in the country. These include groups identifying themselves as “minutemen” and “civilian border patrol agents,” which can be found in Jim Gilchrist's Minutemen Project or the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps. Both of these organizations have active chapters throughout the South, as well as other support organizations that include the American Freedom Riders, American Resistance (Georgia), and Americans for Legal Immigration (North Carolina). Certainly, Latinos have felt the heat of hostility and the chilled welcome within the last decade. Nationally, the Pew Hispanic Center (2007b) found that 53% of all Latinos surveyed feared deportation of themselves or their family, regardless of their legal status. In fact, onein-three surveyed suggested that the social climate had worsened and the hostility portrayed in the media and by locals makes them stay home. Fifty-four percent of Latinos in the Nation also feel that discrimination is a major problem that keeps them from succeeding and acculturating in America. Researchers have noted similar reports of discrimination in the South. Lacy (2007) found that within South Carolina at least 40% of the

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Mexican immigrants surveyed said they had faced some sort of discrimination while living in the state. Many reported harassment by police and public health agencies, as well as being treated as “invisible.” Lyubansky, Harris, Baker, and Lippard (2008) found that 70% of Latinos interviewed throughout Georgia felt they had faced discrimination through their employment or by local law enforcement. Both of the studies in South Carolina and Georgia also found that many of their respondents were afraid of deportation or that their children might be harmed by angry locals. Even in the isolated communities of the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, where there are significantly smaller numbers of Latinos, 52% of Latinos report facing discrimination within the area's public services, as well as by the police (Lippard 2008b). As one Latino woman reported when discussing her treatment at an emergency room, “It hurts. They look at me and judge me and put me off. I had blood gushing from my head and they didn't want to treat me because I was illegal… I was a minority” (Lippard 2008b:23). The Scope of the Volume

The title of this book, Being Brown in Dixie, serves as a metaphor for the monumental social, political, and economic transformations and challenges resulting from the millions of Latinos now residing in the American South. Up until recently, the South has viewed its issues with race and ethnicity as a biracial phenomenon in which the problems and hardships of other racial and ethnic minorities were either ignored or overshadowed. The purpose of this volume is to specifically point out the shifting nature of race and ethnic relations in the South at the beginning of the 21st century. More important, the scholarly works included in this book highlight the challenges Latinos face as a racialized group in the South where the discussions of race have been bitter and difficult. As suggested by several scholars (e.g., Falk, Talley, and Rankin 1993; Falk and Rankin 1994; Glaser 1994; Johnson 1941; Wimberley 2008; Wimberley and Morris 1996), Blacks have been subjected to incredible amounts of violence, extreme poverty, and discrimination, which are distinctive to the racist values and beliefs of the old South or Dixie that most of America remembers. While the treatment of Latinos does not fully compare to the hardships and atrocities African Americans have faced in the South, this region continues to be a place that has always played a unique role in shaping the discussions of race and racism in America. Moreover, identifying this area as a place in which “brown people” reside and struggle

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suggests a new chapter to this very old and sometimes painful story of race in the South. More importantly, the title, as well as the content of this book, puts into play the notion that race matters when discussing an ethnic group that has considered themselves White until arriving in a place that cannot accept them as White. This book tackles the very complex question of how race still matters, especially when the history of race relations has historically used skin color as the proxy of acceptance, privilege, and power. These chapters point out how the South views Hispanics as a race, as a color that is less than “White,” by chronicling the unethical, discriminatory and illegal mistreatment Latinos have been subjected to, in which Blacks in the American South know about all too well. While each author approaches this topic in their own unique way, they all address three major questions posed by this volume. First, how will the sudden increase of Hispanic/Latino populations in the South transform the U.S. conceptions of race, ethnicity, and racism? More specifically, with most of these changes occurring in the traditional South, could this change our understanding of the Black-White dichotomy that has dominated this region's racial history? Second, how will these changes affect the various social institutions within the South based on racialized lines? And finally, are the responses and actions Latinos face as they move into the South qualitatively different than what Whites or Blacks have faced, especially concerning issues of prejudice and discrimination? The authors also tackle these questions in three distinctive ways. First, many authors attack the theoretical explanations of the reconceptualization of race, ethnicity, and racism in the South. Regine Jackson's, “The Shifting Nature of Racism,” theoretically examines how the entrance of Latinos into the South will challenge the bifurcated nature of America's racial hierarchy, and how African Americans, as well as other racial and ethnic groups in the South, will fare in this new racial climate. In tandem, Helen Marrow provides examples through the analysis of intergroup relations between Hispanic newcomers' and Whites and Blacks in eastern North Carolina. She finds that Latinos experience both prejudice and discrimination based on racist and antiimmigrant sentiment posed by Whites and Blacks. Eileen Diaz McConnell's, “Racialized Histories and Contemporary Population Dynamics,” links James Loewen's notion of sundown towns to the recent immigration phenomenon by examining the past practices of Georgia to remove Black residents and the apparent segregation of Whites and Latinos today in these areas. McConnell argues that there is

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some possible correlations between the treatment of Blacks and Latinos in this area based on past sundown town policies and current segregation rates. In “The Myth of Millions,” Stephanie Bohon and Heather MacPherson take a look at the conceptualization and perception of “unauthorized immigration” in Georgia based on media accounts. They find that news reports often overestimate and overemphasize the illegal immigrant issue and only report negative issues when discussing Latinos in Georgia. Finally, Elaine Lacy's, “Integrating into New Communities,” provides the Latino perspective concerning their arrival and acceptance in South Carolina, reporting what Latino families find most important in acculturating into their new communities, and how they view their newly acquired racialized positions. Second, many of the chapters examine the institutional shifts and policy changes that have occurred across key areas of the South. Stephen Sills and Elizabeth Blake tackle the issue of unfair housing practices for Latinos in North Carolina in “Unfair Housing Practices in Black and Brown.” By providing an overview of residential segregation, these authors find that Latinos perceive and face serious issues of discrimination in housing and they often mirror the experiences of African Americans and not Whites. In “The Public School's Response,” Andrew Wainer provides an analysis of the impact of the immigration boom on the public education system in the American South. He presents case studies of schools in Arkansas, Georgia, and North Carolina to explain the concerns, challenges, and programs implemented to address the increase in Latino students, especially those that speak only Spanish. Orlando Rodriguez's, “Southern Crime and Juvenile Justice,” delves into an assessment of juvenile justice custody rates between old and new immigrant gateway states to determine if there is a significant difference between states in adjudicating Hispanic juveniles. He finds that while Southern states have recently seen higher Hispanic juvenile custody rates it is not that much different from other areas because the strict policy of juvenile custody is the same and the rates of increase are due to increases in Latino juveniles in these areas. Finally, four chapters focus on the issues of Latino integration into labor and politics. In “Racializing Hiring Practices in Dirty Jobs,” Cameron Lippard provides an in-depth analysis of Black, Latino, and White hiring practices in the Atlanta construction industry, pointing out how the need for cheap labor sways hiring practices to only want new Latino immigrants in a booming industry. Francesca Coin's “Organizing Labor in a 'Right-to-Work State” takes up the issue of migrant farm work in the South and points out the problems, contradictions, and deteriorating conditions Latino H-2A workers face in North Carolina.

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She also discusses ways in which the farm-labor movement has failed and needs to be repaired. Focusing more specifically on politics, Paul Luebke's, “AntiImmigrant Mobilization in a Southern State,” chronicles the experiences and issues he faced as a legislator in North Carolina when dealing with anti-immigrant legislation. In “The Rise of the Southern Tier,” Lisa Martinez examines the political mobilization of Latinos in three states with large Latino populations. Using Census data and the National Survey of Latinos in America, she suggests that the diversity of the Latino population presents some potential challenges for political elites to mobilize them, as well as more concern on how Latinos in the South (including southern California) may be politically influential. In last chapter, “Success Stories,” Bill Baker and Paul Harris report on Dalton, Georgia's proactive response to the extreme influx of Latino workers and families to an area that has been traditionally all-White. They find a cache of creative ways to integrate and welcome the influx of newcomers, and they suggest that Dalton can serve as a model for positive public policy and community action. Overall, research and discussions in this volume should demonstrate the growing complexity of discussing race and ethnic relations for the American South with the significant arrival of Latinos. It should also act a cursory barometer to the waves of challenges and changes for Blacks, Latinos, and Whites in this area, presenting the possible events unfolding today that will shape ideology, public policy, and the lives of all these racialized groups tomorrow. Finally, we contend that the volume pushes scholarship to merge the notions of immigration and race relations in the U.S. into a cogent discussion about group-positioning and the fluidity of power, privilege, and wealth based on skin color in the New South.

2 The Shifting Nature of Racism Regine O. Jackson

A recurring theme in the emerging scholarship on the southern response to contemporary immigration is the hostility between African Americans and Latino immigrants. In the old South, blacks were the victims of oppressive racism and discrimination. However, in the “new South,” much of the literature emerging in the wake of contemporary immigration to the area casts African Americans in a new antagonistic role. In discussions of race and racism, historians, social scientists, journalists, and other commentators are more likely to identify interethnic hostility, antagonism, and conflict among disadvantaged minority groups—or horizontal racism—as the new race problem in the South. Consider the following examples: There’s a day coming soon where the Mexicans are going to catch hell from the blacks, the way the blacks caught it from the whites (African American worker, quoted in Goldfield 2005; Le Duff 2000; Mohl 2003). We are not comfortable amending laws that originally were passed to aid racial minorities such as African Americans and Native Americans who have a long history of being discriminated against (Member of Georgia’s legislative Black Caucus quoted in Schmid 2003). Why don’t you do something about those Mexicans?… Can’t you pass a law to send them on back to where they came from? Most of them are here illegal. Taking our resources. Not paying for it (Elected official describing African American constituents quoted in McClain 2006).

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This is America and I want to start hearing some English now (African American worker in Robeson County, NC quoted in Goldfield 2005)! When I first got here, I was confused. I went to a mostly white school in Gwinnett County and started noticing the fifth-grade kids saying things to me, racial stuff, asking me questions like, 'Are you illegal?' … But when I was in seventh grade, I went to Richards Middle School, where it wasn't the white people saying things, it was black people. They didn't like Mexican kids. They would call us 'Mexican border hoppers,' 'wetbacks' and all these things. Every time they'd see me, they yelled at me, threatened to beat me up after school for no reason at all.… It's like, now since they have rights, they can discriminate [against] others (Mexican High school student in Georgia quoted in Lovato 2008). The tensions are really among the poor people: blacks, Asians and Hispanics (Refugee Program Director for Save the Children quoted in Brice 1994a).

In his book, White Supremacy and Racism in the Post-Civil Rights Era, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (2001:61) describes “racetalk” as the specific ways individuals articulate racial views. Myers (2005:205) adds that such language is subject to innovation: “Racetalk is contextspecific, arising and developing according to the social pressures of the situation.” What I want to suggest here is that horizontal racism has become part of the vocabulary of contemporary racial discourse (ways of talking about race or race relations), especially in depictions of what has become known as the new South. On Their Backs… Again

The year Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize for Literature Time Magazine published her essay, “On the Backs of Blacks.” In it, she points out a tendency in popular texts on immigration, shaped by film, theater, and the press—and I would like to add the social scientific scholarship: Although U.S. history is awash in labor battles, political fights and poverty wars among all religious and ethnic groups, their struggles are persistently framed as struggles between recent arrivals and blacks. Whatever the ethnicity or nationality of the immigrant, his nemesis is understood to be African American (Morrison 1993).

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Changes in immigrant settlement patterns in the United States (see Gozdziak 2005; Massey 2008; Singer, Hardwick, and Brettell 2008) and the growing population of Latino immigrants in non-traditional destinations in the South has revived the form of racetalk Morrison describes above. The conventional wisdom that native-born whites hold the key to the reception and integration of immigrants no longer applies; horizontal racism, and in particular African American hostility toward immigrants, is presented as the new race problem. Whereas traditional, vertical racism refers to discrimination against blacks and other minorities, horizontal racism denotes discrimination among minorities. It relates to groups such as blacks, Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans “believing, acting on, or enforcing the dominant (White) system of racist discrimination and oppression” (Adams 1997:98). In this chapter, I argue that there has been a shift in the portrayal of Southern race relations from a focus on vertical racism to horizontal racism. I discuss how the idea of horizontal racism operates as part of the new South mythology, especially how it suppresses information that would disrupt the image of a racially reformed South. In this way, the chapter is interested in how the myth of the “new South” is created in discourse, and how the idea that “things are better now” becomes powerful and persuasive. What I find significant in the literature reviewed here is who is seen as active and powerful and how white southerners’ continued influence is often obscured. Methodologically, I focus on how researchers, analysts and commentators talk about race relations in the South, rather than the accuracy or validity of their accounts of society. Following an ethnomethodological approach, I take their constructions of social relations as topics of inquiry, rather than claims subject to challenge. The general procedure was to review the literature on contemporary southern race relations with an ear for common “stories,” assumptions and standard rhetoric (see Wetherell and Potter 1992 for more on this approach). And importantly, I looked for patterns across the emerging interdisciplinary scholarship, rather than in one scholar’s work or a particular discipline or field. In sum, I am less interested in proving “racist intentionality” than I am in demonstrating, in detail, the commonalities in the emerging literature and examining the role of social scientists in keeping certain conversations alive (Anthias 1995; Shapiro 1987). This rhetorical analysis is the basis for my argument about the ubiquity of horizontal racism in contemporary racial discourse about the South and the suppressive work that it does. The following section outlines the conventional wisdom about the transformation in the new South, with particular focus on descriptions of

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the racial situation. The most important dimension of this sketch is the idea that Fred Hobson (1999) refers to as “the racial conversion narrative.” Then, although the focus is on the emerging scholarship on the southern response to immigration, I use a brief discussion of two popular films to punctuate the description of horizontal racism offered here and to show how horizontal racism is deployed by the media. This section not only describes the new racial rhetoric, it also suggests that this discourse makes it possible to shy away from addressing the complexity of the situation generated by the region’s transformation. In the review of the scholarly representations of Latino–African American interactions that follows, I identify three interpretive frames (BonillaSilva 2003:26) or ways in which the discourse of horizontal racism functions. These frames offer set paths for interpreting and explaining racial phenomenon. By way of conclusion, I suggest that the rhetoric of horizontal racism works to: (1) mask ongoing anti-black discrimination, especially as it relates to the racism that underscores economic competition between African Americans and immigrants; (2) suppress white racism, by characterizing it as “a thing of the past” or leaving white opposition to immigration racially unmarked; and (3) normalize the redefinition of racism, which then mediates actual interactions between new immigrants and African Americans. The Myth of the New South The real story of the southern experience over the last hundred years is the transition, not from the Old South to the New South, but from one New South toward another. (Cobb 2005b:1)

The idea of a new South whose characteristics and development path set it apart from its historic lineage has been a component of the local ethos for a long time (Furuseth and Smith 2006:2). As James Cobb, the southern historian, reminds us: the region also crawled into the 20th century, with its labor-intensive agricultural economy and its rigid system of racial segregation, proclaiming to be a New South. But the old (new) South was characterized by poverty, ignorance, and extreme forms of resistance to change. The region’s sense of place was marked by its distinctiveness from the rest of the country and its unique race relations. Moreover, “In the minds of many Americans,” Griffin and his colleagues maintain, “the idea or image of ‘a southerner’ had a color and that color was white” (Griffin, Evenson, and Thompson 2005:7). Today, the image of the new South is one of a multicultural, multi-racial

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community that has thrown off the burden of racial prejudices (Cobb 2005a). Sociologically, economic change and the diversification of people and communities characterize what distinguishes the new or modern South from the old. Focusing on urbanization, occupational redistribution, income and education, McKinney and Bourke (1971:399) claimed that “the South, in most sectors of socioeconomic behavior, has been changing more rapidly than the rest of the nation during the last forty years.” This emphasis on the economic situation remains prevalent in today’s literature, linking economic progress with the contemporary diversity. The most familiar story we are told about the South’s transformation concerns the way globalization has erased the traditional color line. As jobs and investment capital relocated from the northern and mid-Western industrial centers to the South, with its cheaper labor market and lower operating costs, the region “plunged into the nation’s economic mainstream” (Cobb 2005b:8) making it more attractive to contemporary immigrants from the Americas, Asia and Africa. Further, unlike the South of old, this transformed zone holds no distinction as the bastion of racism in American life. Although some research shows otherwise, the preponderance of survey evidence supports this characterization. Using data from the 1972, 1976, 1980, and 1984 General Social Surveys, Firebaugh and Davis (1988) present strong evidence that racial prejudice declined more rapidly in the South than in the North during this period. Other authors have similarly concluded that the gap is narrowing and that the South is no longer the hotbed of racist attitudes (Greeley and Sheatsley 1974; Schuman and Bobo 1988; Smith 1981a, 1981b; Tuch 1987). According to Kuklinski, Cobb, and Gilens (1997:323), anti-black prejudice among southern whites, especially those born after the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, now closely mirrors that found among non-southerners. Even their parents and grandparents, once the carriers of the banner of prejudice, no longer harbor an intense animosity toward blacks. Another indication of change is the post-Civil Rights era return migration of African Americans. Whereas nearly 10 million blacks left the South between 1910 and 1960 (Cobb 2005a:60), the last three decades are marked by a noteworthy migration of blacks from the North to the South (see Frey 2004; Stack 1996). Between 1975 and 1980, nearly one-half million blacks moved to the South; this trend continued throughout the 1980s and accelerated dramatically in the 1990s. As Cobb (2005a:60) states, “During the last quarter of the twentieth century, the number of African Americans entering the region exceeded

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the number leaving by more than 1.2 million.” In fact, some have argued that the new South is the best regional location for black progress. In short, the impression one gets from the literature is that the new South represents a new social order, one in which blacks enjoy important political and economic opportunities. Gone are the open, legal, and extreme acts of racial discrimination, including lynching, Jim Crow legislation, and rigid segregation. And this time, unlike the first new South after the Civil War, whites have accepted the new reality. Accordingly, the region is marketed as a place that is rich in history, economically advantageous for industrial and technological growth, and free of the racial turmoil which characterized the past. The modern South is not only transformed demographically or economically, it is fundamentally a new society. An important component of these celebratory or “triumphalist” stories (Hu-DeHart 1993) about the South is the idea that Fred Hobson (1999) refers to as “the racial conversion narrative.” He describes a literary trend where “products of and willing participants in a harsh, segregated society, confess racial wrongdoings and are ‘converted,’ in varying degrees, from racism to something approaching racial enlightenment” (Hobson 1999:2). In the public life of the South, notable examples of “racially born-again” whites over the past few decades include former segregationist George Wallace crowning and kissing a black beauty queen during the halftime show of a University of Alabama homecoming game or the fictional Wallace in a 1997 television docudrama, depicted confessing his racism, apologizing, and asking forgiveness of John Lewis, Jesse Jackson, and the members of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. Hobson (1999) notes that in the novels and memoirs that illustrate this genre of southern expression, white southerners detail their personal journeys in coming to “see” race and white supremacy. Alongside literary racial conversion narratives, stories about how the Civil Rights Movement radically changed the South function as part of a powerful southern mythology. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to fully elaborate this point, but I call the idea of the “new South” a myth in part because it is so ubiquitous. “Things are better now” serves as the fundamental assumption of anyone who talks about the region; it is taken for granted, and it explains any experience or phenomenon that seems illogical. As Samuel Hynes (1999:207) notes in a discussion of the First World War, the term myth identifies the simplified, dramatized stories that have evolved in our society to contain meaning. As such, myth is not meant to imply distortion or deception, rather a myth is a story that simplifies, dramatizes, and selectively narrates. Myths flatten

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complexity. They are constructed or shaped—either by deliberate manipulation or intentional action, or perhaps through the particular resonance of works of literature and art (Bell 2003). The depiction of a region that has overcome all its obstacles, on a triumphant march towards the perfect fulfillment of the American ideals of freedom, equality, and justice, is at best partial. Southern cities have indeed witnessed dramatic change as a result of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements—including the economic and immigration policy changes that attracted foreign-born newcomers to the region—but that change has been limited by what Jim Crow left behind (Hanchard 2000:265). That was Then, This is Now

My argument in this chapter pertains specifically to the particular racial discourse operating in the South today. Scholarly and popular understandings of race have shifted over the past few decades in recognition of the racial and ethnic diversification of the South’s population, and with them ways of talking about racism have also shifted. Blatant racism has largely disappeared; but this does not mean that racism itself has disappeared. Contemporary racism is indirect, subtle, less conscious, and paradoxically, it can seem quite nonracial (see Barker 1981; Bonilla-Silva 2001; Collins 2004; Pettigrew 1971; Sniderman, Brody, and Tetlock 1991). Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (2003) contends that since the late 1960s, an increasingly coded racial rhetoric has replaced the overtly racist discourse of the Jim Crow era. The explicit references to biological and moral inferiority, the open discrimination against blacks and other nonwhites, and the complete exclusion of people of color from positions of power have become taboo. According to Bonilla-Silva, opposition to affirmative action and interracial marriage, as well as the existence of all-white neighborhoods and schools, are rationalized by seemingly nonracial interests: abstract notions of equal opportunity and individual choice. More poignantly, most whites insist that minorities (especially blacks) are the ones responsible for whatever ‘race problem’ we have in this country. They publicly denounce blacks for ‘playing the race card,’ for demanding the maintenance of unnecessary and divisive race-based programs, such as affirmative action, and for crying ‘racism’ whenever they are criticized by whites (Bonilla Silva 2003:1).

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The idea of horizontal racism, like reverse racism or meritocracy, is an important part of this post-Civil Rights era racial discourse. It refers to conflicts that arise within and among groups of blacks, Asians, Latinos and Native Americans. It is the hostility that exists among people of color. Horizontal racism can occur among members of the same racial group or between members of different, subordinated racial groups. Another way to describe it would be “democratic racism,” but the dominant concept in the literature is “inter-ethnic conflict.” Harris and Ordona (1991) prefer to use the term “cross-racial hostility.” They argue that horizontal racism implies that it is on the same level as vertical racism, whereas the relationship implied in “cross-racial hostility” lacks the essential dimension of power (see Wellman 1993). I will use these terms somewhat interchangeably, deferring to the language used in the research I discuss. However, the choice of language here is deliberate. First, horizontal racism has an identifiable converse in vertical racism. The old racism, vertical racism if you will, is top down, hierarchical; in the South, it refers to anti-black discrimination by powerful whites. Vertical racism is distinguished not only by the access whites have to powerful institutions to advance its interests (the media, economics, education, political parties, the legal system, law enforcement and the military), but by their control over them. My use of horizontal racism is intended to keep the reality of vertical racism and the issue of control close at hand. In terms of policy responses to the new immigrants, for instance, it becomes clear that the decisive agents of power are the ones who circulate in all directions. On these grounds, horizontal racism may appear to be “racism lite” (Bonilla-Silva 2003) or “weak racism” (Fiske 1996) because it does not have control over the resources that would make it strong. According to (Fiske 1996:155), “horizontal racism of the subordinate has recourse only to words and physical violence.” However, I maintain that horizontal racism is quite powerful. Because it is so basic and transparent, horizontal racism can meaningfully impact the use of public spaces. And, central to my argument here, it works to divert our attention from the influence of powerful majority groups. In this way, horizontal racism works to evade issues of racial inequality. Questions of power and structure are collapsed into questions of cultural understanding and interpersonal civility in this popular redefinition of racism (Kim 2004); and rather than permitting the differentiation of one racism from the other, this discourse suggests that horizontal racism has replaced the oppression of vertical white racism. So, I use horizontal racism in part to call attention to its unsound construction.

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It is also important to note that although I prefer the term horizontal racism, I do not mean to imply that African Americans and Latinos in the South are equals. Their relations are not precisely horizontal. There is a vulnerability to the status of Latino immigrants as a foreign-born, racial, largely disenfranchised, non-unionized, linguistic minority— especially among the undocumented—that African Americans in the South do not experience. There is a very clear status difference, especially given how some southern African Americans have moved into the middle classes. Moreover, even given this local advantage, in relations between African Americans and Latinos, horizontal racism also operates from the bottom up. Filmic and the literary depictions of horizontal racism are particularly helpful in describing this phenomenon. Unlike scholarly work, they are ways of locating public-sphere racial discourse. As Thomas and Clarke (2006:4) point out, cultural products “theorize the ways people understand, perform, or subvert racial identities by mobilizing knowledges gleaned both from the particularities of their local circumstances and the range of ideas and practices that circulate within their public spheres.” In this case, films can be seen as “part of a broader project that leads us to misrecognize the nature of the racial divide in which Americans live” (Vera and Gordon 2002:2). Crash, directed by Paul Haggis in 2005, is one especially useful example. Crash has won widespread popular approval as a supposedly “realistic” race film, and has been screened in university classrooms and diversity training programs around the country. The film debuted in the U.S. in the year that marked the 40th anniversary of the Watts Uprisings, the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the assassination of Malcolm X, and the violent clashes between Civil Rights demonstrators and local authorities in Selma, Alabama. As a contrast to that highly memorable period marked by traditional racism, the film suggests that, forty years later horizontal racism has eclipsed discrimination at the hands of whites. In the film, the diverse cast of 12 to 15 characters (made up of African Americans, Mexicans, middle- and working class whites, Persians, Koreans and others) are united by their racism. The very scope of the racial diversity challenges the notion that contemporary racism can be understood in terms of social binaries (blacks/whites or whites/nonwhites). Crash takes as its point of departure the notion that everyone is racist in more or less the same way and includes dozens of examples of nonwhite characters expressing racist views, especially toward each other.

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For instance, Officer Ryan, a white police officer, engages in racial profiling, sexual harassment, and blatant racial prejudice—all directed at blacks whose race is not effectively mediated by material wealth, light skin, marriage, gender, or respectable employment. But Shaniqua Johnson, the HMO supervisor who endures Ryan’s racist taunts at the beginning of the story, concludes the film by spewing ethnic slurs of her own, screaming “You better know how to speak American” to Kim, a Korean American woman who accidentally hits her car. The generic Middle Eastern convenience store owner—actually Persian, not Arab— is depicted as so intrinsically violent that he tracks down a Mexican man and shoots him in front of his family (Ray 2007). Peter and Anthony, two African American youth, not only run over an Asian man in a stolen SUV, Anthony reductively refers to Koreans, Cambodians and Thai nationals as “Chinamen” throughout the movie. In Crash, such racist jokes made by African Americans are common; the film’s only racial innocent is a Mexican locksmith. White racial reconciliation turns out to be a central theme of Haggis' film. One night, Officer Ryan arbitrarily stops an African American couple driving a luxury SUV for engaging in oral sex while operating a motor vehicle. He not only harasses and physically intimidates the husband, he also performs a lewd “weapons search,” digitally penetrating the female character, Christine. The rescue sequence at the end of the film between Ryan and Christine functions as the climactic scene—as well as a sort of drama of racial reparation—in which Ryan heroically atones for violating the woman, and by extension his other virulently racist sins that we witness elsewhere in the film, by saving her life. Of course, Crash is about race relations in Los Angeles and takes us (geographically) far off topic. A less distant example of public sphere horizontal racism pertaining to the Southern region is Mississippi Masala (Mira Nair 1991), which ironically also features a collision scene to characterize the encounter between blacks and immigrants. The film depicts conflict between African Americans and South Asians in Greenwood, Mississippi over an interracial relationship set against the backdrop of Idi Amin’s expulsion of Asian Indians from Uganda. The project of this film appears to be racial solidarity. However, in the juxtaposition of these two narratives, the Indian filmmaker, Mira Nair, implies that Indians are no more welcome in the post-Civil Rights era South, than they are in independent Uganda; that in a place where blacks are in power, immigrants will face hostility. Mississippi Masala subtly juxtaposes the similarities between the attitudes of well-settled Ugandan Indians and the attitudes of working-

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class Indian immigrants in Mississippi. In Greenwood, the Indian characters express their racism in multiple cultural contexts, comfortably proclaiming their superiority over African Americans. For example, an Indian motel-owner, Pontiac, refers to Demetrius as “that carpetcleaning kallu,” or “nigger.” When Anil learns that his cousin has escaped to Biloxi with a black man, he bursts into the hotel room, bellowing, “You leave our women alone!” Notably, it is Mina and Demetrius’s courtship that exposes the problem of horizontal racism. Anil employs Demetrius to clean carpets at the Monte Cristo Motel and is horrified to learn that Mina is sleeping with an African American employee. Later, an Indian woman gossiping about Mina and Demetrius’s affair exclaims in horror, “Can you imagine dumping Harry Patel for a black?” The cultural self-fashioning of the Indians in Mississippi in the 1990s, like that of the Ugandan Indians in the early twentieth century, rests on the community’s powerful need to separate itself from other dark-skinned minorities. “In other words, the Indian characters achieve social and economic mobility by emulating the capitalist values of the white ruling class and, as a corollary, denigrating black people” (Seshagiri 2003:188). The viewer is left with the seemingly enlightened post-Civil Rights era message that, as one character puts it: “Cruelty has no color.” In its emphasis on the complexity of race relations, especially in the South, the focus on interpersonal interactions among racial minorities in these films and in the discourse of horizontal racism, more generally, captures a salient and undeniable aspect of contemporary American life. In the post- Civil Rights era, non- or anti-racialist rhetoric and policies (color blindness, multiculturalism, diversity, racial pluralism, equal opportunity, etc.) have replaced a racial discourse rooted in unapologetic claims of biological inferiority (Winant 2006). And, there is growing visibility of diverse ethnic and national groups and greater recognition of the ties and conflicts that shape their experiences. Thus, the focus on race relations among minority groups is understandable but, nonetheless, I am arguing that it is deeply problematic—there is something important missing in these depictions of contemporary race relations. All stories highlight certain points and suppress others for narrative coherency (Kim 2004). In a film like Crash, individual choices are not constrained by structural inequality; instead, individual decision-taking is presented as the dominant structure. A viewer comes away from the film with a very liberal and localized understanding of how racism works:everybody's a little bit racist, and you never know when you will find yourself in a situation when and where your racist nature will emerge. Further, the film normalizes white privilege not only by

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presenting a cornucopia of hate speech, but also by suggesting that all races are equally intolerant. Blacks, Koreans, and Latinos all participate in and reap benefits from various forms of racism no less than whites. Similarly, in Mississippi Masala, although the relationship between blacks and Indians takes center stage, the larger contexts in which these relations develop is ignored. As one reviewer notes, whites rarely appear in the movie. Nair claims that she deliberately kept the white presence to a minimum in Mississippi Masala because “There are other stories to tell” (Stuart 1993:214). Consequently, the burden of racism in Greenwood is laid completely on the minorities. The Indian and African American communities are seen bickering and cheating one another throughout the film, claiming a phony solidarity at one moment that falls apart in the next. In other words, we see the individual weaknesses, hypocrisy, and bigotry of the racial minorities, without recognizing that it is the result of systematic and enforced oppression that has been perpetrated by whites in the South for decades and continues today. In both films, instead of challenging white racism, the racial minority characters merely confront each other. Similar stories of conflict surface in the literature on the southern response to immigrant newcomers. The idea of horizontal racism functions to produce, not merely reflect, representations of African American–Latino relations in the scholarship. Blacks as the New Villains

If “speed” has been the characteristic most associated with Latino population growth in southern communities (Kochhar, Suro, and Tafoya 2005; Waters and Jiminez 2005; Winders 2008b), the quality most associated with African American–Latino relations is conflict. Although there is very little scholarship that focuses exclusively on African Americans and Latino immigrants in the South, the expectation of friction between these groups is ever-present. Some research suggests that negative attitudes on the part of Latinos are to blame for the lack of intergroup cooperation; reports from numerous cities across the U.S. indicate that Latinos do not show much interest in cooperative relations with blacks (see Bobo, Zubrinksy, and Oliver 1994; Bobo and Massagli 2001; Cummings and Lambert 1997; Kaufmann 2003; Mindiola, Neimann, and Rodriguez 2002; Tedin and Murray 1994). In the southern literature, however, it is more common to position African Americans— acting out fear of economic displacement, political entitlement or a history of suspicion and hostility toward immigrants—as principal agents in subordinating the newcomers. I found the discourse of horizontal racism embedded in three scholarly conversations, where

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African Americans are depicted as complicit, if not directly responsible, for the hostile response Latinos receive in the region. Figure 2.1: Political Cartoon

Source: The Amsterdam News, 23 October 1971.

Because of space limitations, I will discuss only two of the ways a rhetorical commitment to horizontal racism functions in the scholarship on contemporary race relations in the South. However, in addition to framing discussions of black-brown relations in terms of economic displacement and African American political monopolization, horizontal racism is also presumed to be the historically accurate or natural response to immigrant newcomers. Accordingly, the positions and public statements of a previous generation of African Americans form the ground on which contemporary horizontal racism develops, supported by a sense of tradition. The authority of the historical figures with whom anti-immigration sentiments are associated (W. E. B. Du

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Bois, Booker T Washington, Frederick Douglas) reinforce such claims, even when there is no evidence of actual hostility between African Americans and Latinos. In works that deploy this characterization, African Americans are portrayed as suspicious, antagonistic, and hard to get al.ong with, unable to accept the racial realities of the new South. Whereas whites in the modern South are racially reformed, blacks are not capable of the same kind of conversion (see Fuchs 1990; Malloy 1990; Steinberg 2006a for illustrations of this theme). Ironically, the first step in the characterization of blacks as the new villains is to establish how simultaneously vulnerable and powerful they are as a group in the South. On the one hand, the scholarship operates from the assumption that African Americans have the most to lose from the immigration of such large numbers of low-skilled, Latino workers. On the other hand, African Americans are placed in powerful positions in the new South, because of the gains of the Civil Rights Movement. This apparent contradiction, sometimes within the same scholarly work, attests to racism’s ability to be inconsistent and hegemonic at the same time (see Stoller 1997). Economic Competition

The most widely accepted perspective on in the literature reviewed here is that African American attitudes toward immigration are largely based on perceptions of economic competition among minority groups (see Diamond 1998; Espenshade and Calhoun 1993; Muller and Espenshade 1985). Fetzer (2000) asserts that when immigrants depress wages and cause job displacement, lower class citizens are affected, and become disproportionately opposed to immigration. The logic that connects economic competition to horizontal racism is not new. Blalock (1967) defines competition as the struggle between groups for scarce resources, in which the success of one group in obtaining such resources adversely impacts the prospects of the other groups. Bonacich (1972) found that those workers whose wages and/or labor positions are most threatened are more likely to exhibit animosity. It is not surprising, then, that groups develop negative attitudes toward those with whom they compete (Quillian 1995), but the binary (black/Latino) dimension of the antagonism is a particular hallmark of horizontal racism when it is linked to economic relations in the South. Not only are whites absent as low-wage workers, there is also scant attention to their role in creating the tensions that researchers detect among minority workers. For instance, Paula McClain’s work on the North Carolina response to Latino immigrants illustrates how this logic is operationalized in the

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literature (see McClain 2006; McClain, et al. 2006; McClain And Tauber 1998). McClain (2006) is not principally concerned with African American hostility to immigrants, but the response of government to the demographic changes in the state. She begins with a discussion of the demographic growth of the Latino population in North Carolina and presents a portrait of their socio-economic condition, which emphasizes the vulnerability of Latinos: These figures paint a portrait of a population whose members are without health insurance and draw heavily on the public health system; most likely living in substandard housing for which they pay above market rental rates; avoiding the use of banks because of their immigration status, which makes them more susceptible to criminal victimization; drawing heavily on services for non-English speakers in the public school system; and gathering at specific locations in the hopes of being hired for a one-day job, among other things (McClain 2006:12).

What is important to note here is the absence of overtly biased or anti-immigrant vocabulary of the sort a reader might find in documents published, for example, by FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform); McClain does not use the polemical language of “illegal immigrants” “social problems” or criminality to describe the population under study. Instead, she draws attention to their susceptibility to exploitation and crime. McClain is not at all accusatory. Rather, I would characterize the tone of the writing as sympathetic. This next section lays the ground for what will follow. Based on Griffith (1993), she describes how African American workers have been displaced by Mexican workers in agriculture, the poultry industry, meatpacking and seafood processing plants (McClain 2006:13). She then extrapolates based on data from Durham, NC that a similar pattern exists in low-skilled occupational categories in the urban areas. The argument then moves seamlessly to a detailed exposition of tensions and conflicts in response to Latino population growth, with special attention to the growth of negative black attitudes (see p.14 -16). Notably, evidence for the claim of African American “concern” about Latino immigration is drawn from a 2006 Elon University Center for Public Polling study, as well as a 2003 poll conducted in Durham. The author segues out of this discussion conclusively:

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Results presented in Table 2.2 show that almost a third (30.87percent) of blacks were concerned “a great deal” about rapid growth of the Latino population, compared with less than 1/5 (17.20 percent) of whites who feel the same way. When the categories of concerned “a great deal” and concerned “somewhat” are combined, 61.07 percent of blacks were concerned with the rapid growth of the Latino population compared with 41.4 percent of whites in Durham. This represents a shift from the 1996 data when whites were more concerned about immigration than were blacks (McClain 2006:16).

While quantifying the results of the survey is standard reporting in social science scholarship, the associated percentages and their manipulation (“when the categories of concerned ‘a great deal’ and concerned ‘somewhat’ are combined”) also makes the information reported seem more precise and objective. An extract from the openended responses on the survey punctuates the point that blacks are more concerned about immigration than whites: Latinos seem to get all the benefits, and it seems like they are taking all of the good benefits from low-income blacks. They seem to come and go in and out of the country and not pay taxes. They seem to be getting too much (McClain 2006:16).

McClain (2006:17) also recites an anecdote from an interview conducted as part of the Durham Survey of Intergroup Relations that “suggests the type of feedback elected officials receive from black constituents about Latino immigration: I mean, comments that I hear ‘Oh, why don’t you do something about those Mexicans?’… ‘Can’t you pass a law to send them on back to where they came from? Most of them are here illegal. Taking our resources. Not paying for it.’ And these are black folks in the… discussing relationships with Hispanic/Latinos. I think it’s unfortunate, but that’s the way it is.

No other open-ended responses or interviews are quoted. Other examples of horizontal racism at work in this way are found in discussions of attitudes toward immigration in Georgia. Like McClain (2006), Neal and Bohon (2003) insist that blacks are more likely than whites to feel threatened by other ethnic groups based on the relationship between the economic situation and “threat-based hostility.” Their incredibly informative examination of the 2001 Peach State Poll finds that: “For Blacks, immigrants may be viewed as another group competing for those scarce resources reserved for minority populations”

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(Neal and Bohon 2003:186). Following Johnson et al. (1997), they argue that: “This issue is of particular concern for Blacks, many of whom feel that increased immigration will result in fewer job opportunities for them” (Neal and Bohon 2003:187). Interethnic hostility is attributed to realistic experiences or perceptions of obstructed self-interests—end of story. In their embrace of the argument that competition with immigrants, especially Latinos who are willing to provide inexpensive labor, principally shapes race relations, these scholars are more likely to link economic competition to horizontal racism than to racism by employers. The reasoning is oddly one-dimensional. McClain (2006), for example, only casually notes that in interviews, Griffith (1993) found that plant managers readily admitted to a preference for Mexican over African American workers. The author seems to interpret this is a positive attribute—as it signals a non-negative response to Latinos. McClain’s (2006:13) very language on this point indicates that attention to traditional racism will be minimal: “During the 1980s, African American workers were pushed out of work by imported Mexican labor.” The absence of an active white subject here foreshadows the prevalence of horizontal racism in her analysis. In another text (McClain et al. 2006), findings from the study of Durham, North Carolina are used to conclude that relations between African Americans and Latino immigrants are likely to be one of conflict rather than a joining together based on shared minority status in the South. The authors note that “only 9.2% of Latinos feel that most or almost all blacks are hard working, only 26.5% feel that most or almost all blacks are easy to get al.ong with, and only 8% believe that most or almost all blacks can be trusted” (McClain et al. 2006:579). Again, there is no mention of where these stereotypes originate or the minority workers’ response to exploitation by white employers. Where scholars see economic competition between African Americans and Latinos, they articulate or assume a connection to horizontal racism, but not to discrimination by white Southern employers. In what is generally acknowledged as a multi-racial, culturally diverse new South, there are only two groups represented; and only their economic interests are racialized. Political Clout

There is a bit of a logical tension between the economic competition thesis and the claims that link horizontal racism to the second most common line of argument in the literature. Whereas competition implies

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that African Americans are hostile because they are economically vulnerable, here the assumption is that African Americans have achieved a dominant political position in the South since the Civil Rights Movement. As the southern decision makers, they are depicted as largely responsible for the political exclusion of Latinos. Moreover, they are so invested in protecting their place that horizontal racism emanates from a sense of African American entitlement and an abuse of power. In this frame, given the demographic transformation of the region, horizontal racism reflects attempts by African American elites to reconfigure race, not merely conceptually but, in the sense of maintaining power and position. In studies that deploy this characterization, the fact that African Americans represent the numerical majority in some southern cities and towns is taken as an indication that they are also the politically dominant group—discounting the history of overt white supremacy in the region. For instance, Schmid (2003) aims to evaluate the nature of “the significant changes” in the states of the old Confederacy in the wake of the growth of the Latino and Asian populations in the 1990s. Most relevant here is her examination of anti-immigrant attitudes and actions during the period of heavy immigration, which includes a discussion of English-only laws. Notably, Schmid (2003) reports that since 1981, “Official English” enactments were passed by state legislatures by overwhelming majorities in Arkansas (1987, signed by former President Clinton), Georgia (1996), Mississippi (1987), North Carolina (1987), South Carolina (1987), Tennessee (1984), and Virginia (1984). Following Tatalovich (1997), she finds that in the southern states: The push for Official English did not represent a groundswell from mass opinion. While patterns varied among states, the legislators who were supportive of Official English were likely to be Republicans, White, and male. (Schmid 2003:140)

The author concludes, then, that “English-only agitation is a response to immigration policy, cultural change, and the expansion of minority rights” (Schmid 2003:144). However, in the next section where she discusses southern race relations more directly, the focus is no longer on the racism of white, male Republicans:

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Race relations between the White majority, Black minority, and the new immigrants are an unchartered area in the New South. Some strains between Blacks and the new immigrants are evident. In Georgia Black legislators defeated a bill supported by the governor to broaden the state’s minority designation to include Hispanics. The bill would have allowed Latinos to be included in tax breaks for companies that hire minority contractors. ‘We are not comfortable amending laws that originally were passed to aid racial minorities, such as African Americans and Native Americans who have a long history of being discriminated against’ replied a member of the state’s Legislative Black Caucus (Schmid 2003:152).

Here, and more generally in the analysis of discussions of diversity in the new South, the onus of managing race relations on the ground is on African Americans, especially politically-empowered African Americans. As Winders (2008a) shows, the African American community is commonly named as the site where “real growth must begin” to address the South’s growing diversity and complex race relations. This leads to an emphasis on instances—either involving African American politicians, policeman or service providers—where a black racial identity correlates with power, suggesting that African Americans set the agenda. However, this is not representative of the situation of most African Americans. While it is true that some are in powerful positions, a large number of African Americans still find themselves in low-paying “3-D jobs”—dangerous, dirty and dead-end (Easton 2007; Waldinger and Lichter 2003; Wilson 1996). Even in Atlanta, which boasts a sizeable black middle class, the areas where African Americans are concentrated have the highest unemployment and poverty rates in the entire metropolitan area (Bullard, Johnson, and Torres 2000; Keating 2001). Ronald Bayor’s Race and the Shaping of Twentieth-Century Atlanta demonstrates how whites continue to wield power to block black opportunity. He and others show the extent to which wider regional and national forces constrain African American achievement. The scholarship also conveys a sense that blacks, not only dominate civil rights circles and local electoral politics but, act inappropriately as gatekeepers in these arenas, thwarting Latino efforts to establish themselves in local communities. In the following examples, extracts from first person accounts are used to “give voice” to such claims. For example, according to Goldfield (2005:32):

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Jose Valequez of the Latino-Memphis Connection, a social service agency, has noted, ‘There are some people who see the growth of the Latino community as a threat.’ Some in the city’s black community ‘think we’re going to take things away from them without having to go through the same struggles.’

Similarly, in a 1994 Atlanta Journal Constitution report that ponders whether Georgia is a “melting pot or simmering cauldron,” Xuan Nguyen-Sutter, refugee program director for Save the Children is quoted: I’m trying to get kids into Head Start Programs, into all the services that are available for low-income people, and we do get a lot of reluctance. The midlevel managers feel like the program is more for African-Americans. They feel that we are taking spots that should be reserved for African-American children (Brice 1994a).

These examples suggest that horizontal racism is not only produced or constructed by social relations but also constructs social relations. The myth of the “new South” is a persuasive post-Civil Rights era narrative. And, as Gay (2006:996) notes, “A group stereotyped as ‘difficult to get al.ong with’ or as a ‘people to fear’ is unlikely to be viewed as a potential partner.” Other works where horizontal racism is framed in this way begin with an expectation of racial solidarity; but—as in the film Mississippi Masala—it is a feigned solidarity and, more importantly, the burden of race is on the minority groups. For example, Smith (2006:235) takes on important questions, such as “How might activists’ strategies include new racial/ethnic groups, while still addressing the historically entrenched racism directed at African- Americans in the South? Can ‘civil rights’ encompass the goals and demands of diverse people of color in the region?” Drawing on findings from a community based research project involving centers in Memphis, New Market, Tennessee and Atlanta, she notes that class-based collaborations are fraught with tensions derived from many sources which unfold between African Americans and Latinos. Further, she points out that activism which focuses on common experiences of racial discrimination face numerous challenges:

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Civil rights organizations like the Southern Regional Council, historically defined by the African American freedom struggle, faced difficult internal debates among board, staff and long-time supporters over the advisability of devoting organizational resources to Latinos and other immigrants (Smith 2006:238).

In her discussion of the practical barriers posed by the volume and speed of Latino migration, Smith (2006:239) recounts a story about a statewide meeting of African American and Latino activists where an African American participant requested that English only be spoken during the collective discussions, The situation was resolved by agreeing to speak English during the meetings (fortunately, all Spanish-speaking participants also spoke English), while simultaneously acknowledging people’s right to speak their native language in other social contexts over the weekend. Although this allowed the meeting to go forward, requiring people to forsake their own language is neither feasible nor ideal as a solution to language differences. We gradually learned that language is a form of power that those who speak the dominant language in any particular situation may too easily ignore (See also Smith, Williams and Johnson 2004:6-7).

African Americans intolerance to difference surfaces as the primary threat to such collaborations; and the reader is left with the message that inflexibility or ethnic chauvinism on their part undercuts the potential for coalition building (see also Bobo et al. 1994; Cohen 1982; Dyer, Vedlitz, and Worchel 1989; Freer 1994). Further, Smith (2006:241) reports that “certain African American activists in Atlanta spoke with bitterness” about the prospect of being displaced: One avowed nationalist argued, ‘Looking externally [toward collaborations with Latino immigrants]… is up for debate, but efinitely I don’t see that as a priority. I see that… as a way to infiltrate, co-opt, and manipulate different movements.’

Where whites are depicted in powerful positions, the representation of race relations is markedly different. “Hospitality and Hostility: Latin Immigrants in Southern Georgia” by John Studstill and Laura NeitoStudstill (2001) provides an effective illustration, because of its use of first person accounts as evidence and its similarity to what Hobson (1999) describes as racial conversion narratives. The authors focus on the reception of former migrant workers from Mexico who have “settled out” in two Georgia counties. They describe one county in the “peach-

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growing zone just south of Macon,” where the white farming elite “as a whole forms a virtual ethnic upper class and represents 48 percent of the total population of whom only 7 percent are classified as poor” (Studstill and Neito-Studstill 2001:70 -71). “Tobacco County,” on the other hand, is 70 percent white, 25 percent black and 5 percent Latino. Several Mexican families, including the Ochoas, are described as having “developed a very positive, long term relationship with the growers” in Fruit County (Studstill and Neito-Studstill 2001:73). But it is a narrative related by “Miss Bea,” the owner of small mobile-home park in Tobacco County that is most telling: The first Mexicans came to my park in Farmtown about 1984, a few years before my husband died. They paid their rent better than the blacks and poor whites I’d been renting to. I liked them and started carrying one or two Mexican children with me to the Baptist church. Now sometimes I take ten or twelve kids with me on Sunday.… I have some families that have been with me for six years. They say that the Mexicans at the mobile-home plants will do twice as much work as the whites. I’ve had a few blacks from time to time in my trailers, but blacks don’t accept Mexicans as much as the whites do. Some of the whites weren’t too friendly at first, but they have changed. There was one woman at my church that didn’t like me bringing the Mexican children to Sunday school. She said, ‘Why don’t they go to their own church?’ But later I saw her helping out with the children, and one Sunday I remember seeing one of the little boys sitting with her—he went to sleep on her lap.… We don’t have any Blacks or Mexican adults in our church (Studstill and Neito-Studstill 2001:75 – 76; Emphasis added).

According to the authors, one of the younger, more acculturated and successful members of the Ochoa family senses some jealousy about the relationship between the Mexican workers and local white growers: He thinks that the problems between Afros and Euros have a long history and will be hard to overcome; the Mexicans, however, do not share this burden of the past. He also feels that Latins in general think that Afros are less willing than the Latins are to sweat and work hard at jobs paying minimum wage. Moreover, he has not met ‘a single Latin who works for a black man’ (Studstill and Neito-Studstill 2001: 78; emphasis added).

Grower Tom adds: “It’s not like the 1950s any more [sic]” (Studstill and Netio-Studstill 2001:79). Studstill and Neito-Studstill (2001:79) conclude that the only hostility notable between the locals and the newcomers is on the part of

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African Americans, whose anger comes, in part, from the “number of intermarriages between Mexicans and Euros, and the lower level of racism implied by such unions.” They attribute the integration of the new Latinos to the concerted efforts of the growers in Fruit County to ward off problems and the individual, humanitarian efforts of people like Miss Bea in Tobacco County. Again, it is implied, that in response to disparate treatment, African Americans express hostility toward Latinos—not to whites—and that the so-called jealousy comes from the tolerance Latinos experience—not the injustices and exclusions they continue to endure. Nowhere do the authors acknowledge that the tolerance shown by “Miss Bea” or to the “Ochoa family” is contingent on acquiescence to white privilege on the part of Latinos. A Racially Reformed South?

There are a number of perspectives from which the literature on the southern response to immigration might be interpreted. One the one hand, studies concerned with horizontal racism are often progressive in that they bring attention to minority experiences. It is often, and with good reason, noted that scholars pay too little attention to the opinions of African Americans on immigration (Steinberg 2006a, 2006b; Wilkinson, Rouse, Nguyen, and Garand 2007) and to inter-minority relations (see Jackson 2010; Kim 2004). Moreover, the research literature cannot be held accountable for the reality it reports; the interview excerpts, quotations, and survey results reflect the anxiety and frustrations expressed by actual respondents. I certainly do not intend to suggest that there is evidence of poor or irresponsible scholarship here; or that humanizing white characters do not exist. As we know, race relations are complex and no one study can hope to tell every story. On the other hand, as Michael Shapiro (1987:376) notes: Descriptions of evidence contain evaluations. Figures of speech, and rhetorical and grammatical structures of discourse, are not simply extra means of expression used to represent thoughts. What is thought is produced by the figuration of the text.

So, while there are many good reasons to focus attention on the African American response to Latino immigrants, I want to offer at least one reason for pause or hesitation: horizontal racism is a very efficient premise in terms of obscuring power relations. The idea of fractured minority communities which puts subordinate racial groups into conflict with one another, also keeps whites safely out of the firing line (e.g.,

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Archibold 2007). As average white southerners become invisible, African American hostility seems unjustified and astonishing. In this way, when horizontal racism operates as part of the new South mythology, it suppresses information that would disrupt the image of a racially reformed region. So, while the focus on inter-minority relations appears to pay attention to African American and Latino points of view, the gesture functions as an act of suppression or containment. The reader is shielded from wrestling with the complexity, and at times paradoxical nature, of a local minority perspective. By way of conclusion, then, I would like to point out two related silences in the literature, to focus some attention on what is not represented. First, white opposition to immigration in the South is largely racially unmarked in the literature. For instance, when Erwin (2003) reports the following statements by Latino poultry processing plant workers and small business owners, a generalized American hostility to immigrants is highlighted, not white southern racism: The North Americans don't show us respect. They are racist. They do not integrate us into the community.” “La gente es muy cerrada, y no les gustan 10s cambios (the people are close-minded and they don't like changes) (p. 60; Italics in original).

Also, in Neal and Bohon’s (2003) discussion of social threat there is no mention of whites specifically. In fact, unless the authors are discussing African American opposition, the examples of southern hostility to immigrants in this literature are not specifically racialized. And where it is acknowledged (almost apologetically), it is portrayed as cultural, rather than racially motivated: For Whites, immigrants may be seen as threatening the fragile minority-majority balance. More generally, the emergence of different languages, churches, businesses, and other cultural institutions may challenge traditional conceptions of Georgian life. (Neal and Bohon 2003:186)

Alternatively, white opposition is marked with extremist exemplars—Ku Klux Klan rallies or white supremacist discourse—that seem sensational and outdated. For instance, Garrett (2000:6) reports that at a Georgia rally, a Ku Klux Klan member railed, “I have a dream that one day we will take our county back from 60,000 illegals… We’re standing up for the white race.” Goldfield (2005:32) similarly acknowledges white opposition in Siler City, North Carolina where: “The Ku Klux Klan and Louisiana white supremacist David Duke

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denounced the town’s Hispanic population for taking jobs away from local residents.” Not only do these fanatic examples suggest that white opposition is anomalous, Goldfield (2005) is quick to qualify. The very next sentence concludes: “But the objections are often less race-based than class based” (Goldfield 2005:32; see also Chandler and Tsai 2001). The more prevalent, everyday expressions of white racism are not given the same weight, either in the amount of space devoted to their discussion or their reappearance in other related scholarship. For instance, one white politician stated openly to Erwin (2003:62): Well, as long as they are illegal, they are fine 'cause they aren't causing any trouble and they know their place. If they make them legal, they won't have to worry about being deported. The threat of fines and deportation keeps people in line. We'll be overwhelmed if they're all legal.

Such a declaration surely is worthy of some sort of follow-up, whether by the author in the original examination or in the later works. Rather, there is a tendency in the literature to explain away the negative feelings of white southerners toward Latino immigrants, either by pretending that there are no significant negative sentiments, or by shifting the blame onto powerful or more vocal blacks. Whereas the scholarship on the response of southerners to new Latino immigrants tackles head on matters of race, it elides any discussion of southern whiteness. This holds equally for work that focuses on interpersonal or policy responses. The absence of certain negative, everyday white responses to Latino immigration is as revealing as the black opposition that is taken for granted. Secondly, there is a remarkable lack of attention to anti-black discrimination by whites in discussions of economic displacement and competition. Whether or not immigration is directly to blame, it has been well documented that African Americans—especially male workers—have experienced the greatest amount of economic dislocation in the urban marketplace (Borjas 1998; Lim 2001). Yet, analysts “downplay the role of rank, outright racism and discrimination” (Steinberg 2006a:56). In this regard, Stephen Steinberg (2006a:56) persuasively argues that: They emphasize the role of labor market mechanisms—‘network hiring,’ the ‘capture’ of occupational niches by particular ethnic groups, and employer ‘preferences’ which… they construe not as naked bigotry, but as responses to perceived and actual deficiencies of black workers.

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He goes on to explain that these explanatory factors are little more than “circumlocutions for racism.” Network hiring is a device that employers use to prevent blacks from even getting their foot in the door. This is racism, plain and simple! It is a working-class variant of “the old-boy network” that affirmative action was designed to counteract. In other words, network hiring is a mechanism of discrimination, and indeed one that employers use precisely because it insulates them from allegations of racism since they are not directly implicated in the recruitment of workers (Steinberg 2006a:56).

Understood from this perspective, the focus on horizontal racism is nothing but a new form of old racism. It is the culture of poverty (Lewis 1966) or blaming the victim (Ryan 1971) revisited. And as I have shown, these notions show up as everyday “racetalk” among minorities in the South and in the media. Recall the immigrants quoted by Brice (1992, 1994a, 1994b) or Lovato (2008). Winders (2008a) describes a highly mediated police scandal that rocked Nashville in the late 1990s involving off-duty police officers employed by the private security firm, Detection Services, Inc. The officers abused and harassed Hispanic residents of a southeast Nashville apartment complex, disparagingly referred to as “taco city” (Winders 2008a:255; see also Stern 1999a, Stern 1999b). They sprayed mace in the residents’ faces, poured beer on them, stole their money, and beat the Latinos for nearly 18 months with impunity. Two details are worth noting here: (1) this corruption and scandal occurred under the watch of the first black police chief in Nashville history, and (2) throughout the two-part story that ran in the alternative newspaper, The Nashville Scene, the offenders are never referred to as white. Winders (2008a:257), commenting on the ensuing debate between LULAC and the NAACP, concludes: Through this exchange, Black and Latino civil rights groups were placed on opposite sides of a debate that increasingly turned from the abuse investigation and civil rights violations to the police chief and the politics of racial solidarity. Framed this way, the scandal pitted one minority group against another within different understandings of racial and social justice, leaving the broader question of police profiling and racism largely unaddressed.

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Conclusion

This chapter attempts to move beyond cataloguing the conflict between African Americans and Latinos in the South or identifying hostility as the dominant theme in the emerging literature. Rather, my goal was to link conversations about the southern response to new immigrants to a discourse of horizontal racism that is becoming the hallmark of contemporary racetalk. My analysis illustrates how, as part of the new south mythology, horizontal racism works to obscure power relations. As the numerous examples from the literature show, southern whites who can change the way in which power dynamics flow (those who control the institutions that can advance their interests) are invisible to those who operate only horizontally, on the level of interpersonal relations. Horizontal racism, then, succeeds in capturing our attention; it is visible, astonishing even, but it does not overwrite white racism. We cannot begin to understand the contemporary South, let alone predict what the future holds for its newcomers, if we deny the significance of the racial transformations of the post-World War II decades. But, our interpretive frames must do more to capture the complex and shifting realities of race in the post-Civil Rights era South.

3 Intergroup Relations: Reconceptualizing Discrimination and Hierarchy Helen B. Marrow

Several features distinguish the racial context of reception currently greeting a host of nonwhite and nonblack newcomers in the “traditional” U.S. South—defined here as the former 11 confederate states minus Florida and Texas, which have greater experience with “Hispanics/Latinos” (Mohl 2002a; Bankston 2007; Saenz 2000). First, natives of the traditional South, especially ones living in rural areas and small towns, have been the most isolated from both historical and contemporary immigration (Bankston 2007; Eckes 2005; Marrow forthcoming; Odem and Lacy 2009; Reimers 2005; Schmid 2003). Second, blacks are present in higher absolute and relative numbers in many areas of this region than they are elsewhere. Third, the American racial “binary,” which has long served to divide superordinate whites from subordinate nonwhites, remains strongest here (Lee and Bean 2007; McClain et al. 2007). Indeed, when we hear that immigrants are now settling in rural areas of the traditional South, it is precisely the region’s lack of immigrant history, large populations of African Americans, and binary racial structure that piques our concern about how newcomers will fare, get along with local residents, and ultimately become integrated into local social life. In this chapter, I analyze Hispanic newcomers’ patterns of social interactions with whites and blacks in rural eastern North Carolina in 2003-04, focusing on the extent to which they reported experiencing discrimination and exclusion, the axes along which they perceived such discrimination to operate, and the degree to which they saw their own racial identities as nonwhites or nonblacks to be blocking their full incorporation into rural southern society. Overall, Hispanic respondents

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perceived better interpersonal relations with whites than with blacks. They perceived that whites treat Hispanics better than whites treat blacks, and many also perceived that Hispanics are “discriminated” against more by blacks than by whites. This often came as a surprise to them, since upon arrival in eastern North Carolina their expectations were that that blacks and Hispanics would be treated poorly by whites, not that Hispanics would treated poorly by blacks. These results complicate our traditional conception of white-onnonwhite racial discrimination and hierarchy it has historically operated in the rural South, since they show that in the mid-2000s, Hispanic newcomers reported feeling most excluded from full incorporation into rural southern society not as racial subordinates by whites, but rather as undeserving outsiders by blacks as well as whites. As such, Hispanic newcomers’ experiences with what they saw as discrimination and exclusion were not necessarily engendering close affiliation or identification with African Americans, even though some Hispanics also identified as nonwhites, acknowledged negative treatment by whites, and admired African Americans’ struggles against white domination. I discuss the implications of these results for the changing contours of the rural southern color line in the concluding section. A few notes on terminology are in order before proceeding. Hispanics: I employ the general term “Hispanic newcomer” throughout this chapter for two reasons. First, it provides a convenient way to capture the experiences of both foreign- and U.S.-born individuals in eastern North Carolina who fit the U.S. Census’ official definition of Hispanics/Latinos. More importantly, it reflects how the terms Hispanic and Latino were used in eastern North Carolina during the time of my field research—largely interchangeably and referring to both foreignand U.S.-born individuals, the latter of whom include many internal migrants from other parts of the United States—while maintaining consistency by using only one term as much as possible. Thus, while I recognize that the term Hispanic is controversial, especially in other parts of the country, it acknowledges the dominant racializing discourse operating both in major public institutions and on the ground in eastern North Carolina during the time of my research. Blacks: Next, I also employ the terms “black” and “African American” interchangeably. In 2003-04 local discourse in eastern North Carolina followed the common institutional practice of separating Hispanics from nonHispanic blacks, despite the U.S. Census’ acknowledgment that these groups are not mutually exclusive (Patterson 2001). Furthermore, with few foreign-born members yet among the local black population in this eastern part of the state, the terms black and

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African American still referred largely to a cohesive group of individuals who share a collective history of slavery and racial subordination in the United States. Whites: Finally, I employ the term “white” throughout this chapter, noting that neither “Chicano” nor “Anglo” are commonplace terms in the traditional South. As with the terms black and African American, local discourse in eastern North Carolina tended to follow the common institutional practice of separating Hispanics from nonHispanic whites, despite the U.S. Census’ acknowledgment that these groups are not mutually exclusive. Elsewhere I discuss several cases of Hispanic respondents who either self-identified or appeared as “whites” to rural southern natives, and thus who challenged this clear distinction (Marrow 2009). However, when most people used the term white in this region more abstractly, their references were almost always to native-born, nonHispanic whites. Thus, while it is possible that the identifications of some Hispanic newcomers as “whites” may engender a rethinking of the boundaries of whiteness in eastern North Carolina in the future, in the mid-2000s this had not happened yet. The Rural Southern Racial Binary in Local Context

Data come from 129 individual semi-structured interviews and additional ethnographic research that I conducted between June 2003 and June 2004 in Bedford and Wilcox counties, pseudonyms for two rural “new immigrant destination’ counties in eastern North Carolina. North Carolina was the premier new immigrant destination state in the 1990s, posting the highest growth rates in its Hispanic/Latino (394 per cent) and immigrant (274 per cent) populations among all states. Bedford and Wilcox are located in the rural eastern part of the state, where poverty is more acute than in the central piedmont region, and where the black-white binary is extremely sharp (on eastern North Carolina, see Griffith 1993; 2005; Key 1984; Torres, Popke, and Hapke 2006). Slightly over half of the 129 interviews (N=70, 54 per cent) were conducted with Latin American immigrants of varying nationalities, in either Spanish or English. These foreign-born respondents hailed primarily from Mexico (N=39), but also South America (N=16), Central America (N=14), and Cuba (N=1). Many were direct migrants from abroad, and they included 12 naturalized U.S. citizens, 12 legal permanent residents, 7 “nonimmigrant” workers employed under temporary contract visas or work permits, 33 undocumented immigrants, and 6 immigrants whose legal status I was unable to determine. An

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additional one seventh of the interviews (N=18, 14 percent) were conducted with U.S.-born Hispanics, mostly Mexican and Puerto Rican Americans, in both Spanish and English. These native-born Hispanic respondents were from New York (N=6), Puerto Rico (N=4), Texas (N=2), Florida (N=2), and “other states” (N=4), and all but two were “newcomers” to the traditional South. Finally, approximately one third of the interviews (N=41, 32 percent) were conducted with “key nativeborn informants,” in English. These native-born respondents were both white (N=27) and black (N=14), and served to triangulate my findings among Hispanic respondents, on whose views I concentrated. The high proportions of Mexican- followed by Central and South Americanorigin respondents among Hispanic respondents reflects their dominance among North Carolina’s Hispanic population, which was 65.1 percent Mexican, 8.2 percent Puerto Rican, 1.9 percent Cuban, and 24.8 percent “other” Hispanic in the 2000 Census. Interview respondents were located by combining theoretical and snowball sampling designs across four institutional arenas in both counties: workplaces, elementary school systems, courts and law enforcement systems, and politics. Interviews ranged from thirty minutes to three hours, and respondents were asked a battery of questions regarding their migration history; family background; racial/ethnic identification; employment history; views on race, immigration, and life in the rural south; and political participation. Employers, school and legal personnel, and political leaders were asked additional questions about their experiences with the local Hispanic community. I supplemented these interviews with various forms of participant-observation research over the course of the year (see Marrow 2008). To ensure anonymity, all names and identifying characteristics of respondents and places have been changed. The strong binary racial context is evident in Bedford and Wilcox counties in several key ways. First, minority groups other than African Americans have little historical presence in either county, with Hispanics arriving since the 1980s. Second, like many other places in the “lowland” or “Deep” South, the population of African Americans is large in both counties (58 percent in Bedford and 29 percent in Wilcox in the 2000 Census). Third, the separation of blacks from whites runs deep in both counties. Whites are internally divided along several lines, especially class status; they generally belong either to the middle class or to the poor and working classes. In contrast, blacks’ socioeconomic position is weaker; in both counties most belong to the poor and working classes, while only a few belong to the middle class. In this way, Hispanic newcomers to both counties enter local rural contexts that

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are very heavily structured by the historical legacy of the racial binary and its resulting inequalities. They encounter a native population starkly divided by both race and class, including a native black population that is almost entirely poor and working class. Yet they also enter rural contexts where population sizes are small enough that “everybody knows everybody” and complete racial isolation is not possible (Jiménez 2005: 31). That is, broad tensions between racial and ethnic groups do exist, blacks are socioeconomically disadvantaged compared to whites, and there is visible residential and social segregation between blacks and whites in both counties (which Hispanic respondents saw and remarked on). Still, unlike the situation in many highly segregated gateway cities, what Erwin (2003) calls the “limits of space, resources, and opportunities for segregation” in rural areas also force members of all groups to interact in workplaces, neighborhoods, public spaces, and public schools. Consequently, almost everyone I interviewed reported having come into contact with someone outside their own group, usually in these spaces, and even if they did not know many people outside their own group personally, they at least knew something about one another (Jiménez 2005: 165). The one exception could be contracted seasonal farmworkers, who were often isolated on farms with little interaction with other residents (see Griffith 2005). However, even the Hispanic agricultural workers I interviewed had some contact with whites and blacks within their workplaces. Negative Black-Hispanic Relations

The big picture of intergroup relations and responses to Hispanic newcomers that I uncovered in eastern North Carolina in the mid-2000s is “mixed,” characterized by both cooperation and conflict. Even still, Hispanic respondents in Bedford and Wilcox counties reported better interpersonal relations with whites than with blacks. Not only did many perceive that whites treat Hispanics better than whites treat blacks (Marrow 2009), but many also perceived that Hispanics are “discriminated” against more by blacks than by whites (see also Griffith 2005; Rich and Miranda 2005). Álvaro, a formerly undocumented immigrant from the city of Saltillo in Coahuila state, Mexico, who migrated directly to North Carolina in 1990 and then became a legal permanent resident in 1997, aptly illustrated many Hispanic respondents’ view that whites respond to them in more bifurcated ways than do blacks, who respond to them more negatively overall:

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Álvaro: I see more white people, Caucasians, doing or trying to do, positive things to the Hispanic community versus the African American people. With a better attitude, with a better approach. Whites are being more kind. I can’t say [the relationship between Hispanics and blacks] is good. Because my opinion is that a big part of the African American population, they really doesn’t accept the Hispanic community. We are intruders. Just a small part, one probably quarter of the population, they are the ones who realize or can see us as allies.

This distinction may seem surprising, given the legacy of white-onnonwhite discrimination in the traditional South, the larger gap separating the material positions of Hispanic newcomers from whites than from blacks in the region, and the relative lack of resources with which rural black southerners can truly “discriminate” against other groups. Yet one reason is that rural southern blacks and Hispanics have met under more competitive structural conditions than have rural southern whites and Hispanics, due to how race and class structure continue to interact in the lowland rural South. In other words, Hispanic newcomers perceived that education and class strongly structure natives’ responses to their presence, with better-educated and higher-class natives responding more positively than less-educated and lower-class ones (Fennelly 2008; Hernández-León and Zúñiga 2005; Mindiola, Niemann, and Rodríguez 2002; Vallas and Zimmerman 2007). By this class-based logic, since blacks in eastern North Carolina are poorer than whites, at both the group and individual levels, Hispanics respondents perceived that blacks’ reactions to newcomers are more negative, as African Americans respond to greater fears of being displaced or “leapfrogged” by Hispanics, not only economically in low-wage workplaces but also socially in lower-class neighborhoods and public schools (Marrow 2008). As expressed by Alicia, an immigrant from Santiago, Chile, who migrated directly to Bedford county in 2000 and was currently in the process of naturalizing through her white American husband, discrimination is perceived to come mostly from black Americans “and the white people that here you call ‘rednecks.’ It’s social class that accounts for it.” In this way, the structural conditions affecting Hispanic newcomers and blacks in the rural South create a context in which Hispanics’ interpersonal relations with blacks are more heavily shaped by symbolic—if not actual—economic competition than are their relations with whites (Dunn, Aragones, and Shivers 2005; Erwin 2003;

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Hernández-León and Zúñiga 2005; Rich and Miranda 2005; McClain et al. 2007; Marrow 2008). In such competitive situations, negative tensions between minority groups carry great potential for misinterpretation as group rejection (Rockquemore 2002), or even discrimination (Kasinitz et al. 2008), such as when a college-educated, undocumented Colombian respondent working in a textile mill in Bedford county said “I feel the blacks don’t like us. And that it is worse than with the whites,” or when a poor, undocumented Guatemalan respondent working in a food processing plant in Wilcox county said that “the black race does not like Hispanics very much because they think that we are taking away their jobs,” reporting that this thing “you could even call racism, right?” makes him feel “humiliated” and “made fun of” by some blacks. Nonetheless, the serious black-Hispanic tensions I uncovered are not solely reducible to the different groups’ relative positions in the local class structure, although class structure is indeed a major part of the story. Another central factor is citizenship, which creates lines along which Hispanic newcomers perceive blacks as well as whites to be acting as agents of “nonracial” discrimination and cultural exclusion against them. These experiences run counter to what we might expect would be the case in the binary rural South. Racial Discrimination and the Minority Group View

To explain, there are several reasons to think that Hispanic newcomers might experience discrimination in the traditional South in ways reminiscent of African Americans’ historical experience, and therefore, that they might interact with and identify more closely with African Americans than with whites. Elsewhere in the United States, researchers have speculated that discrimination from whites against Hispanics, as “nonwhites,” will lead the former to develop interests and outlooks more in common with African Americans than whites over time, as Hispanics start to confront the various barriers to economic, social, and political incorporation that African Americans confronted in the past. This perspective is usually referred to as the “minority group” or the “rainbow coalition of color” view, since common experiences of racial discrimination are envisioned as the basis on which various groups of nonwhites can unite despite their other internal differences (for concise overviews, see Lee and Bean 2007 and Rogers 2004). In this view, the growth of a new subordinate group (here, Hispanics) is predicted to activate threat among the superordinate group (here, whites), such that the latter will begin to react negatively toward the former, as has been

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African Americans’ historical experience relative to whites (Fossett and Kiecolt 1989; Glaser 1994; Key 1984; Taylor 1998). In the traditional South, especially in its rural areas, such speculations are compounded by the tenacity of the region’s adherence to the racial binary and its ugly history of racial discrimination and conflict (Saenz 2000). As Duchón and Murphy (2001:2) phrase it, we would probably expect immigrants to have a hard time in the South since “after all, the South has a history of racial intolerance, xenophobia, and poverty” that might work to keep Hispanic newcomers on the nonwhite side of the color line, alongside blacks. Such speculations are also supported by similarities between African American and Hispanics’ low socioeconomic positions in the region relative to those of whites and Asians. These might give African Americans and Hispanics in the rural South—especially Mexicans and Central Americans, who are both the largest in number and most socioeconomically disadvantaged among them—a set of common experiences through which to filter and interpret their experiences of racial discrimination. Indeed, some Hispanic respondents did recount instances of mistreatment by whites based on race or skin color. And when they recognized such discrimination—whether against African Americans or themselves—as “racial,” it could serve as a powerful tool for developing a sense of nonwhite identity or racial solidarity with African Americans. Two examples illustrate this potent force, the first stemming from an instance of explicit white-on-Hispanic discrimination interpreted partially in racial terms, and the second stemming an instance of explicit white-on-black racial discrimination. First, in October 2003, in Alexandria county (a pseudonym for an immediate neighbor to Bedford county), a white county Board of Education member whom I will call “Michael Henry” incited great controversy at a local school board meeting by making a recommendation to separate the English- and non-English-speaking students in a small rural elementary school. Located in a rural portion of Alexandria county heavily dependent on migrant agricultural labor, by 2003 Alexandria Rural Elementary School had seen its non-Englishspeaking student population grow to more than one third of the school populace, the great majority of whom spoke Spanish as their primary language. Two Hispanic officials affiliated with the Alexandria county school system—Isabel García, the Hispanic ESL Program Coordinator in the Alexandria county school system, and Esperanza, the Migrant Education Program Recruiter/Parent Facilitator in the AlexandriaArcher Bluff municipal school system—quickly responded to Mr. Henry’s comments, calling them “ignorant” and “racist.” Isabel called

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them ignorant because she did not think Mr. Henry acknowledges how much progress that non-English-speaking students are making in learning English at the school, something she argued was assisted by contact with (not separation from) English-speaking students. Isabel also called them racist because she thought Mr. Henry’s call for “segregation” of the English- and non-English-speaking students violates the federal Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974 (which “prohibits specific discriminatory conduct, including segregating students on the basis of race, color, or national origin”) as well as N.C. state law (in which “each school district must ensure that limited English proficiency students are ‘educated in the least segregative manner based on the educational needs of the student’”) (Archer Bluff Times [a pseudonym], October 23, 2003). While both Isabel García and Esperanza acknowledged that Mr. Henry’s intentions toward the non-English-speaking students may have been misguided rather than intentionally racist—and also that separating students by language ability is not necessarily equivalent to separating them by race, color, or national origin—both held firm in their view that Mr. Henry would not have called for separation of these two groups of students if he were truly concerned about the linguistic progress of nonEnglish-speaking students. Instead, Isabel and Esperanza thought that the terms “English-speaking” and “non-English-speaking” became codewords for “whites” and “Hispanics,” and that Mr. Henry’s recommendation to separate the two groups concerned not the latter’s English language ability, but rather the racially exclusive interests of white students at the school (including his own son, whom he had already transferred to another school). Consequently, through this experience both women have developed a deeper sense of connection to African Americans. In fact, Isabel reported that their African American coworkers stood in coalition with them against the recommendation, at least in private (both women clarified that few of their African American coworkers were willing to extend this show of support in public), interpreting it as a white attempt to exclude Hispanic students from full participation in the public school system in a way that reflected their own historical experience:

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Isabel: I realized that I had a problem here with the Board of Education member, because the blacks were like, “Oh, good for you! Thank you, thank you.” They were thanking me. Because they felt attacked when Michael Henry attacked me. Because he really did. The black people felt that, too. Because they were like, “You can see the way whites treat us, because they’re treating you the way they treated us so many years ago.”

Likewise, Esperanza has come to sense a connection between whites’ ability to exclude Hispanics from full participation in American public schools and their ability to exclude other racial minority groups and low-income students in general. The incident has helped her to develop a sense of nonwhite identity and racial solidarity with African Americans that is informed by class as well as racial exploitation (Guinier and Torres 2002; Jennings 1997; Smith 2009). Such solidarity can also be encouraged by clear examples of whiteon-black racial discrimination. Horacio, an outgoing man from Honduras who attended the Hispanic Leadership Course in Wilcox county in Fall 2003, recounted a troubling experience at work when his direct white superior actively tried to “divide and rule” black and Hispanic construction workers on the job by using Hispanics as a tool to intimidate African Americans: I work in construction, doing soldering and bricklaying in Warner, and there were five of us Latinos there. I came back from lunch, and I saw the [confederate battle] flag hanging there. This white guy I work with, he is a contractor. He works for our employer and brings his own equipment with him. And he had the Latinos hang the flag up for him. He had them put it up on his own crane. And when I came back from lunch I saw the flag flying up there, and I went over to the other Latinos and I asked them, ‘Why did you put that flag up?’ And they didn’t know better. They didn’t know what it meant. They just put it up there because the white guy told them to. And I said to them, ‘Don’t you know that it’s racist?’ And they said, ‘No, we didn’t know. ‘Racist to whom?’ And I said, ‘To the blacks.’ And so then I went over to the white contractor, and I asked him why he put that flag up. And he told me, ‘Because I don’t like blacks. And some of those black guys working over there are messing up on stuff, so I decided to put up this flag so they’d know.’ And I thought about it for a while, it made me feel really bad, and then I looked at him and I said, ‘Well if you don’t like the blacks very much, you probably don’t like us Hispanics very much either, right?’ And he laughed and looked back at me and said, ‘Nah, I like y’all just fine. You’re really good workers.’

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And then a black guy saw the flag and he came up to me, he was going on and on saying a lot of bad things to me, asking me why the hell we Latinos put that flag up. I explained to him that, ‘First of all, it wasn’t me who put it up. And second, the other Latinos had no idea what the flag meant. They didn’t know and they just did it because the white guy had told them to. They thought they were following directions like always (fieldnotes, Horacio, Hispanic Leadership Course, Module 4, October 15, 2003).

After the class ended, Horacio told me that the black man had eventually come to understand how the Hispanic workers had not been trying to actively discriminate against him. Horacio also said that this experience has given him a better understanding of how whites discriminate against African Americans by viewing them as the moral inferiors of Hispanic newcomers, whom whites “like” and view as sharing in whites’ commitment to the value of “hard work.” Together, the two examples illustrate how there is indeed some potential for Hispanic newcomers to identify closely with African Americans in the rural South. But they simultaneously emphasize how such identification often hinges on Hispanic newcomers’ recognizing that whites actively discriminate against either blacks or Hispanics in clearly racial ways (Uhlaner 1991). This recognition can produce blackHispanic cooperation either by fostering an awareness among Hispanics that blacks harbor their greatest resentment toward whites, not Hispanic newcomers, or by fostering, as illustrated by Juan, an undocumented immigrant from Guadalajara, Mexico, a shared sense of “what it is to discriminated against.” Juan: I would say there are more common interests [than tension and problems] between African Americans and Hispanics. Because the majority of black people that I know, it’s like they have a vision of what it is to be discriminated against. Like they know what it is to be discriminated against [by whites], and they know that Hispanics are doing through that. So they don’t bother us Hispanics.

Minority Group Views of Nonracial Discrimination

In practice, however, recognizing racial discrimination is not so clear. In fact, the minority group view does not adequately capture the multiple dimensions along which Hispanic newcomers perceived discrimination and exclusion to operate in eastern North Carolina in the mid-2000s. In other words, it is significant that Horacio was the only Hispanic whom I encountered over the course of a full year who described such an

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explicit example of an attempt by white employers to “divide and rule” black and Hispanic workers. Allegations of such a strategy are frequently invoked by labor and political activists (including members of the Farmworkers Labor Organizing Committee and the North Carolina Coalition on Black and Brown Civic Participation in my field research) as well as academic scholars (see, for examples, Alvarado and Jaret 2009; Jennings 1997; Stuesse 2009), all of whom are deeply concerned about continuing racial discrimination and the structural constraints placed on American minority groups’ prospects for upward mobility and political incorporation. Yet they were not common among my Hispanic respondents. In fact, many Hispanic respondents did indeed perceive that they are discriminated against, but they did not perceive such discrimination to be “racial.” Instead, they spoke about discrimination along “nonracial” characteristics such as English language ability, class status, personal appearance, nativity, legal status, and so forth, and they frequently distinguished such discrimination from that based on race or skin color. To illustrate, Neida is an immigrant from Michoacán, Mexico, who traveled for a long time throughout the United States on the agricultural circuit with her parents before settling down in North Carolina in 1988 and later naturalizing as a U.S. citizen. Neida could not recount any discrimination based on race or skin color, but she did draw a clear link between discrimination and personal appearance and class status: Interviewer: Have you ever been discriminated against for being Hispanic or being an immigrant in this country? Neida: Well, no. Look, right now, today, no. When I first got here to North Carolina, I did notice that [white] Americans looked at us in a pretty ugly way. But afterwards, a [white] American friend told me that what you have to do in order to not be discriminated against by Americans is when you go to apply for a job, always look presentable. When you go into an office—whatever office it is, maybe a clinic or a hospital or whatever, she told me—you should always look presentable, because Americans treat you according to how you look. Therefore, I had a very good experience from then on. Now if I go out with my children on the weekends, I try to have them be very clean. Well, more than anything, to go out nicely dressed so Americans don’t say anything to me or my children!

Interestingly, Neida also reported learning how to avoid discrimination in the United States by dressing in a more “presentable” fashion through advice she received from a white female friend.

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Other Hispanic respondents reported instances of discrimination linked primarily to their lack of English language ability or their poor English accents. One was Lidia, a legal permanent resident from Oaxaca, Mexico, who despite having moved up from her first job working in American agriculture to become an influential Hispanic community organizer and transnational political leader, reported once having been turned down as a volunteer for the Girl Scouts due to linguistic discrimination against people with foreign accents: Lidia: Another discriminatory experience that I had was when I applied to the Girl Scouts as a volunteer. I feel that because I had a very strong accent back then, they never called me back. I filled out an application, and for the simple fact that my name was Latina and I had a strong accent, they didn’t give me the opportunity to be a volunteer.

Likewise, Stephanie, a legal permanent resident who migrated illegally to California from Guanajuato, Mexico, in 1991 before settling down in North Carolina with her husband in 2001, also reported having experienced discrimination by Americans due to not speaking English well, while she did not report any similar incident of discrimination due to race or skin color. In her words, she “feels al little bad” because natives have told her “that I speak English badly, that I don’t know many things,” and because one even told her “that I could confuse the kids” when she volunteers at her children’s school. Still other respondents reported instances of discrimination linked primarily to their foreign place of birth or foreign cultural practices. In this way, Alfonso, an undocumented immigrant originally from Querétaro, Mexico, who lived all over the East Coast before settling down in Wilcox county, thought that discrimination negatively affects all people who are “not from here” irrespective of their race or skin color: Interviewer: Have you ever been discriminated against for being Hispanic or being an immigrant in this country? Alfonso: Yes. Interviewer: How so? Alfonso: For example, when you aren’t from here, you don’t have the same opportunities as the people from here, the Americans.

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And finally, as illustrated by Eduardo, an undocumented immigrant from Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, discrimination based on foreign place of birth or cultural practices often includes many Hispanic newcomers’ reports of being discriminated against due to lack of legal status, whether it is real or simply presumed: Interviewer: Have you ever been discriminated against for being Hispanic or being an immigrant in this country? Eduardo: Honestly, I think for being an immigrant. Interviewer: How so? Can you give me an example? Eduardo: Like if Like if I go and I want to get my ID. They don’t give me the right [to get a North Carolina ID] because I’m not legal. That’s what I have felt. Not for being Hispanic, or for being anything else. Like if I am not legal, I can go to whatever office and they aren’t going to pay any attention to me, because I don’t have identification to present Interviewer: So you think it has more to do with being an immigrant, not with being Hispanic? Eduardo: Yes.

For Alfonso, Eduardo, and many other Hispanic respondents, discrimination based on these characteristics associated with “foreignness”—especially discrimination based on lack of citizenship or legal status—trumps that based on race or skin color. And it is perhaps the most hurtful to them because it is legally and institutionally sanctioned by the U.S. government, which violates their moral expectation that Hispanics should be justly recognized for the positive contributions they are making to the United States through their “hard work.” Such quotes are significant because they illustrate how Hispanic newcomers reported experiencing discrimination and exclusion not just due to racial discrimination, wherein white natives can mark them as racially inferior along a vertical skin color axis. They also experienced discrimination and exclusion along other dimensions that, when viewed together, comprise what Kim (1999) calls a horizontal (non)citizenship axis wherein both white and black natives can mark and ostracize them as undeserving civic and cultural “outsiders” (see De Genova 2006 and Kim 1999 on the historical and contemporary racial triangulation of

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Native, Asian, and Hispanic Americans as “outsiders” to the American nation-state, versus the inclusion of African Americans as “insiders,” albeit of a subjugated racial status). This second horizontal axis is theoretically important because it serves to distinguish Hispanics’ experiences of discrimination from those of African Americans, rather than allying the two groups’ experiences together as is generally predicted by the minority group view. As Smith (2006:243) insightfully points out, it often generates tension between Hispanics and African Americans in the South because blacks’ experiences are more strongly oriented around the vertical skin color axis, whereas Hispanic immigrants often consider their citizenship and immigration statuses to be “far more powerful determinants of their own unequal treatment.” In fact, in many instances Hispanic respondents only implicated their physical features or skin colors as factors in how they experience discrimination insofar as such traits serve to denote or signal civic and cultural “outsiderness” instead. Such is the case for Roberta, a 1.5 generation immigrant youth who accompanied her parents to North Carolina from Oaxaca, Mexico, in 1994. Roberta reported being discriminated against by her white American peers for her “ugly” appearance. But like other Hispanic middle school students who respondents described as being “teased” by their native peers and told “that they don’t belong here and that it’s not their country,” Roberta explained that whites rely on Hispanic students’ physical features and skin colors primarily as a proxy for marking them as “not from the United States.” “They see your color,” she told me, “and they tell you that you’re not from the United States. And they can tell you where you came from by the way your color is, and they always are like, ‘Your color skin is so ugly.’ They make fun of you.” Such is also the case for many Hispanic newcomers who reported being stopped by policemen or highway patrolmen for “driving while Mexican” or “driving while Hispanic.” These respondents understood that law enforcement officials often identify them as “Hispanic” according to their physical appearances, yet they thought that this is primarily because their “Hispanic” features are associated with probable undocumented immigrant status, which is something that ultimately serves to ostracize them along civic and cultural lines as undeserving “foreigners” instead. As Jiménez (2008) argues, in the contemporary era of unprecedented Mexican immigration, race has become so tightly conflated with nativity and citizenship that having dark skin, indigenous features, or Spanish surnames often serves the purpose of implying that Hispanics are foreign-born and likely also undocumented, even if they are U.S.-born citizens. By this logic, Hispanic newcomers in eastern

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North Carolina are undergoing a complex process of racialization, yet it is one in which perceived that “nonracial” discrimination (particularly along the lines of noncitizenship) is most important, with “racial” discrimination playing a supporting role. Greater Nonracial Discrimination by Blacks than Whites

Interestingly, while Roberta reported being discriminated against by her white schoolmates, she also reported facing discrimination from her black schoolmates—but for things other than her skin color, such as her accent and foreign culture. Indeed, not only did the horizontal (non)citizenship axis frame Hispanic respondents’ experiences of exclusion most strongly, but they often perceived blacks rather than whites to be its worst perpetrators. Such is the case for Merced and Octavio, a working-class undocumented immigrant couple from Sinaloa, Mexico, who migrated to Bedford County in 1999 after their initial attempt to settle down with extended family on the West Coast “didn’t work out.” Together they expressed great frustration with local blacks who “ignore them” when they attempt to communicate in English, whereas they noted that whites “try to help” them more: Merced: Even though some blacks do understand you, they say they don’t. Octavio: Right. They say, “I don’t understand what you are saying. What do you mean?” And if there is someone around who speaks a little Spanish, they’ll say, “Wait a moment.” But if there isn’t, the bad thing is that they will just ignore you. They’ll say, “I don’t understand you.” Merced: Exactly! It’s even happened to me! Sometimes I go up to our English teacher, and I’ll ask him, “How do you say X thing?” And he says, “You say it like this.” And then I say it back to him like he said it to me, and he tells me, “Yes, you’ve got it!” So I ask him, “How come some black people tell me they don’t understand what I am saying to them?” Octavio: Almost the majority of gringos ask me to talk, and they will try to understand me. And they help me. I will say it, and they will try to understand and if there is a problem, they will correct it and say, “No, say it this way.” However, there are other people who make fun of you. There is some difference [between whites and blacks] there.

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Like Merced and Octavio, other Hispanic respondents perceived that whites are more “open-minded” toward them and their “foreign” cultures than blacks, whom they perceived as “staying more separate” and attempting to exclude Hispanics more strongly. Raquel, a 1.5generation undocumented youth originally from Honduras, who dropped out of her high school in Tennessee after the tenth grade, recalled severe rejection by black schoolmates who ostracized her according to her “foreign” dress and personal appearance, compared to whites, who came to form her close circle of friends. Laura, an immigrant from Chihuahua, Mexico, who migrated to eastern North Carolina in 2001 via Texas and New Mexico, thought that there is “more communication and common interests” between Hispanic newcomers and whites than between Hispanic newcomers and blacks. Perhaps this is because, she mused, “whites try to strike up more conversation with Hispanics” in order to get to know more about them and their backgrounds, while “blacks, well, not as much.” Similarly, Stephanie, the legal permanent resident from Guanajuato, Mexico quoted earlier, thought that “Hispanics and the white Americans get along better” than Hispanics and blacks do “because the blacks put up a barrier that you can’t get across. Maybe because of their color. Because they feel like they are another race. And they just want to preserve their group.” Together, these quotes demonstrate how many Hispanic newcomers—even some of the most socioeconomically disadvantaged Mexican and Central American labor migrants among them, many of whom are also undocumented—often felt more excluded by blacks than by whites, rather than vice versa. And even when Hispanics did not perceive whites as particularly “open-minded,” that did not mean they necessarily saw blacks as more so. For example, despite the fact that Silvia, a Puerto Rican American from Spanish Harlem, thought that whites in eastern North Carolina and the American South are closeminded and racist, she reported getting “more hostility from African Americans than anyone else.” Likewise, Eugenio, a 1.5-generation undocumented youth from Oaxaca, Mexico, thought that while whites ostracize Hispanics as “dirty” and undeserving foreigners, blacks do so even more strongly. Here, Eugenio tapped not only into the acute threat of socioeconomic disenfranchisement that lower-class African Americans feel in the face of rising immigration, but also into their sense that they, like whites, are the kind of “real Americans” that Hispanics are not:

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Eugenio: They always look at you and they say, “Well, you know, he doesn’t speak English.” Because I’ve been in restaurants and I’ve had black people sitting next to me, or white people. And they’re just talking fast. They just keep on yapping, yapping, yapping… “Look at that. He’s dirty. And all these Hispanics come and steal our jobs.” And this and that. Well, one time I turned around, I said, “Excuse me, what did you say? Because I couldn’t hear you exactly. And I would like to hear what you said again.” Those people just stood up and left. Because that’s what I like doing. I like sitting down. I don’t say a word, and I want to hear what people say about us. That’s how I know what problems Hispanics have in this country. They’ll sit there and, man, they’ll just keep on talking trash about you. Interviewer: This negative treatment, this talking trash—do you think Hispanics get it mostly from white Americans or black Americans? Eugenio: They get it mostly from blacks. Interviewer: And why? Eugenio: Honestly, I don’t know. Like one time, during Hurricane Floyd, all the lights went out. And the Salvation Army, or the soldiers would come over here to Bedford Mobile Home Park with dump trucks. And they would drop clothes off here, or water, or canned foods. In the center of the Mobile Home Park. And I overheard a conversation that a black lady had. She said, “You know, look at ‘em. They come over here to our country, to our land, steal our jobs, steal our money. And now they even want to steal our needs [i.e, donated relief items]. Those needs are for us, the Americans.” You know, I was just listening to that. They were saying this and that about us.

Expectations of Versus Encounters with Discrimination

Finally, Hispanic newcomers’ perceptions of whites as more “openminded” than blacks are exacerbated by the difference between their expectations about prejudice and discrimination versus their actual encounters with it upon arrival in eastern North Carolina. On one hand, many Hispanic respondents reported that despite having expected to encounter significant discrimination by whites, they have generally been surprised by the positive ways that many (but not all) whites in eastern North Carolina treat them on an interpersonal level. Take the following quote by Marta, for example, a legal permanent resident from Hidalgo, Mexico. Based on her knowledge of U.S. immigration policy and antiimmigrant vigilante activity on the U.S.-Mexico border, which she has acquired primarily through watching television, as well as one very

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negative personal experience with a white man in Chicago, Marta thought that whites in the United States harbor a lot of anger toward Hispanics: Marta: Whites have anger toward us Hispanics! There are many laws. More than anything, we Hispanics have problems with whites. Interviewer: Like what? Marta: Well, for example we see on the television that on the border there are a lot of illegal people that cross farms. And there are white people who mistreat them. Or we see in the news that the farmers, or the contractors, mistreat them. They hit them, they cheat them, they humiliate them. And with the blacks, not really. They don’t get into problems with Hispanics like that. The majority of what you see in the news is with whites. Interviewer: Why do you think this is? Marta: Well, we think that whites think that we’re coming to take away their jobs. They’ve said that. And once I was in a park in Chicago, with my children, and a little white girl came over to talk with my son. And her father grabbed her, and he took the girl away. And they left the park. So we learned how that man was racist. He didn’t want his American girl hanging out with my Hispanic son. That was the first time that I saw that racism.

Continuing, Marta speculated that blacks probably do not discriminate against Hispanics as much as whites do because they see Hispanics struggling against racial discrimination like they did in the past. However, couched within her description of common racial experiences between Hispanics and African Americans, Marta mentioned something important: she had not yet encountered “this type of discrimination” from whites in eastern North Carolina, where she reported that Hispanics and whites “talk normally” together: Marta: So the problem is this. I have talked with the whites, but I haven’t seen this type of discrimination here. We talk normally. But in the national news, in the reports, you realize that whites say that we come here to take away their things. Their jobs, their culture, their rights. That’s what we’ve heard that they’ve said.

In fact, Marta then reported having received a lot of personal assistance from local white residents, including from a close white

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friend who was currently helping her and her husband finance the purchase of their own trailer, and also from a white stranger who once lent her a cellphone to use after a car accident. She also reported good interpersonal relations with both whites and African Americans at her children’s schools and in her job in Poultry Processing Plant, Inc. (a pseudonym), as well as having seen whites becoming closer friends with Hispanics outside the plant. Marta’s case, like those of several other respondents, is instructive. It demonstrates how even while Hispanic newcomers may acknowledge racial discrimination from whites at a structural level, or report negative interpersonal relations with whites elsewhere, many also report positive interpersonal relationships with whites in eastern North Carolina, which has helped to improve their perceptions of white-Hispanic relations overall. In contrast, very few respondents expected to experience prejudice or discrimination from blacks. Many of those who were born abroad reported not knowing anything about African Americans at all before migrating to the United States (see also Stuesse 2009 on the lack of understanding of African Americans’ history of racial oppression and economic exclusion among Hispanic poultry processing lineworkers in rural Mississippi), while others reported knowing something about blacks’ historical subordination in the United States, often mentioning slavery or the Civil Rights Movement. Thus, Hispanic respondents said that the expectations they have about blacks’ relationship to prejudice and discrimination upon their arrival in eastern North Carolina—if they have one at all—is that blacks will be treated poorly by whites, not that Hispanics will be treated poorly by blacks. In this context, the negative treatment that many reported coming from blacks has hardened their perceptions of black-Hispanic relations overall. Such is the case for Inés, a middle-class undocumented immigrant from Medellín, Colombia, who reported being most surprised at encountering discrimination by blacks against Hispanic newcomers, not by whites against either blacks or Hispanics. Such is also the case for Mauro, a poor undocumented immigrant from Guatemala City, Guatemala, who despite having heard about the KKK and antiimmigrant vigilante activity on the U.S.-Mexico border before migrating to the United States, reported being surprised to encounter interpersonal discrimination not from whites, but from a black coworker who refused to return his smiles and greetings each morning at work. In contrast, “From what I have gotten to know of white Americans, they have always been very friendly. I have never felt any discrimination from them.”

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Conclusion: Connections to the Future of the Colorline

In this chapter, I have analyzed Hispanic newcomers’ patterns of social interactions with whites and blacks in eastern North Carolina in 200304, focusing on the extent to which they reported experiencing discrimination and exclusion, the axes along which they perceived such discrimination to operate, and the degree to which they saw their own racial identities as nonwhites and nonblacks to be blocking their full incorporation into rural southern society. Hispanic newcomers in eastern North Carolina reported that, on the whole, they are treated better by whites than by African Americans. Not only did they perceive that whites treat Hispanics better than whites treat blacks (Marrow 2009), but many also perceived that Hispanics are “discriminated” against more by blacks than by whites. One reason for this perception of greater discrimination and exclusion by blacks than whites has to do with the continuing interaction between race and class in the contemporary rural South. Racialized class structure is fundamental because it places Hispanics and blacks in more competitive situations, at both the individual and group levels, than it places Hispanics and whites. Consequently, Hispanic and white respondents alike noted that rural southern blacks perceive, in academic parlance, greater socioeconomic and symbolic “threat” from Hispanic immigration than do rural southern whites. In response to this threat, these respondents perceived the reactions of African Americans to Hispanic newcomers to be more negative than those of whites, exacerbating black-Hispanic tensions in both counties (Marrow 2008). Yet another reason has to do with Hispanic newcomers’ expectations about, and multiple interpretations of, the meaning of “discrimination,” particularly along the lines of citizenship. Hispanic respondents interpreted discrimination predominantly in terms of characteristics associated with their “outsiderness” (particularly noncitizenship), not race or skin color per se, and they were particularly surprised to encounter it from blacks, whereas they had expected some racial and nonracial discrimination from whites. This complicates our traditional conception of white-on-nonwhite racial discrimination and hierarchy it has historically operated in the traditional South. According to the minority group view, Hispanic newcomers entering the rural South, a region with a well-earned reputation for racial and cultural intolerance, are expected to develop a “rainbow coalition of color” sense of identity with African Americans, wherein common experiences of racial discrimination vis-à-vis whites serve to unite the two groups, as nonwhites, despite their other internal distinctions. This may well have

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been happening among small groups of political elites and black-brown coalition-builders, or as I have shown, during specific instances when Hispanic newcomers do perceive mistreatment by whites based on race or skin color, whether against African Americans or themselves. But it was not generally the case among the masses. Rather, via perceptions of greater class-based competition with and greater nonracial discrimination and horizontal exclusion by blacks than by whites, many Hispanic newcomers—including those with dark skin colors, low socioeconomic statuses, and undocumented legal statuses— had come to perceive that the boundaries separating themselves from whites, although existent, are somewhat more permeable than those separating either themselves from blacks or whites from blacks. Elsewhere I argue further that these perceptions combine with two other mechanisms frequently highlighted in the scholarly literature on immigrants’ racial incorporation—immigrant newcomers’ own antiblack stereotypes and whites’ preferences for immigrants over African Americans—to facilitate racial distancing from blacks and blackness (Marrow 2009). This in turn suggests a classic pattern of racial assimilation, and it lends tentative support to predictions that a new black/nonblack color line (Gans 1999; Lee and Bean 2007; Yancey 2003) may be developing in the rural South—the very region where African American populations are still the largest, where the uniquely American racial binary has reigned most supreme, and where the pressures to divide whites from nonwhites have always been strongest. Of course, racialization processes depend on a multitude of factors, and intergroup relations stemming from them have been shown to vary across both place and time (Montejano 1987). Thus, more research will be needed to determine how stable the patterns that I uncover in eastern North Carolina are, and how applicable they may be to places elsewhere in the South. This will be especially important in places that have larger middle-class African American and Hispanic communities, since poverty and lower-class status are central in fueling black-Hispanic tensions, and places which have smaller black populations, since the boundaries separating whites from Hispanics have historically been least salient in places with large populations of other racial/ethnic groups. Other questions emerge as to how the patterns that I uncover in eastern North Carolina might develop over time and over generations, particularly as immigration continues and anti-immigrant sentiments sharpen, as they have since I conducted my research. On one hand, we might imagine that such trends could lead first-generation Hispanic immigrant to perceive greater discrimination from whites, particularly if they also perceive blacks to begin exhibiting more solidarity and

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empathy rather than exclusion in the context of everyday interactions. On the other hand, we might also imagine that such trends could exacerbate tensions between first-generation Hispanic immigrants and blacks, increasing perceptions of economic and symbolic threat and the salience of noncitizenship more generally. Looking beyond foreign-born Hispanic immigrants to focus on later generations of Hispanics currently coming of age in the rural South will be even more telling. In my research, few of the 18 U.S.-born Hispanic respondents reported significantly better relations with blacks than did foreign-born Hispanic respondents, and the 1.5-generation Hispanic youth I interviewed expressed acute perceptions of discrimination from blacks, often in the context of negative experiences attending American middle and high schools. However, it is still possible that new generations of U.S.-born children of immigrants may begin to acknowledge more discrimination from whites, or to conceive of the discrimination they do experience more in terms of race or skin color than other nonracial factors. Such changes would indeed alter the landscape of intergroup relations from what I have described here. A final area ripe for research will concern Hispanic newcomers’ reactions to African Americans’ efforts to include them in race-based “coalitions of color.” Smith (2006) offers a nuanced analysis of the promises and pitfalls of coalition-building practices in the traditional South, cautioning against natives’ tendency to subsume new immigrants within pre-existing southern social identities and political frameworks, such as race-based “community of color” or class-based “worker” coalitions. While in her view this tendency is not wrong, it still “avoids the particularity of Latino immigrants’ status as immigrants, who challenge and potentially alter our regional sensibilities and strategies” (Smith 2006:253, my emphasis). Based on my research, such cautions are sage. While many Hispanic newcomers in eastern North Carolina resented the discrimination and exclusion they perceived from blacks in the mid-2000s, some were equally skeptical of early attempts being made by some African Americans to include them in “black-brown” coalitions. To be sure, some Hispanics did appreciate such efforts, especially when they were searching for ways to challenge racial discrimination from whites, or when they perceived that blacks are genuinely trying to get to know them better and to represent their interests within a common framework. However, other Hispanic respondents perceived these efforts less positively. They wondered—some quietly, others vocally—if African Americans are simply trying to co-opt them into an existing African American agenda that will ultimately be resistant to substantive change,

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or if African Americans are simply reacting out of a selfish fear that the country’s changing demographics will threaten their own status and power if Hispanics do not join them in a race-based coalition against whites In this respect, Hispanic newcomers in eastern North Carolina resembled Afro-Caribbeans in New York City, who often perceive that African Americans’ appeals to common racial experiences are “halfhearted, begrudging, and lukewarm” (Rogers 2004: 296), and in my research, a few of them were beginning to distance themselves away from African Americans’ political appeals and agendas in response. Consequently, future research will do well to examine how and why such efforts are being extended by African Americans in the rural South, especially since 2005 as anti-immigrant sentiment has sharpened. It will also do well to examine how Hispanic newcomers are interpreting and responding to them in return, and not just at the elite level among political and community leaders, but also on the ground among everyday workers and residents, where the tensions borne out of strong economic competition remain most salient.

4 Racialized Histories and Contemporary Population Dynamics in the New South Eileen Diaz McConnell

A recent and well-documented shift occurring since 1980 is the movement of foreign-born individuals to areas of the United States that had previously had few immigrants (Durand, Massey, and Charvet 2000; Singer 2004; Zúñiga and Hernández-León 2005). This change has been particularly remarkable vis-à-vis Latin American migrants, especially those from Mexico. While just 14 percent of Mexican migrants arriving in the U.S. between 1985 and 1990 went to states other than California, Florida, Illinois, New York, and Texas, fully 39 percent arriving between 1995 and 2000 chose these other destinations (Massey and Capoferro 2008). A rapidly growing academic literature examines the causes and consequences of this trend, particularly the movement to smaller and medium-sized destinations across the country (Gożdziak and Martin 2005; Hernández-León and Zúñiga 2000; Kandel and Parrado 2005; Massey 2008; Millard and Chapa 2004; Stull, Broadway, and Griffith 1995). This work has been useful for documenting the diversity of migration streams and the challenges and opportunities of migrant incorporation and community vitality across U.S. contexts. Many scholars contend that research focusing on contemporary international migration should be situated within a historical context that recognizes the centrality of race and the larger racial/ethnic context (Fitzgerald 2006; Winders 2005). For example, according to Winders (2008b), the lack of extended discussion about the connections of Latin American migration and race in academic research, particularly in the American South, reflects “a general haziness about Latino migration’s effects on racial formations, categories, and intergroup relations…” (p.

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252). Yet, also hazy—in both studies about the Southern U.S. and other regions—are the larger racial histories and racialized contexts of communities receiving newcomers, the diversity of those contexts and histories across locations, and explicit consideration of how past experiences might be linked with contemporary events such as recent inmigration of non-White newcomers, whether they be Latinos, Asians, and/or African Americans. Recognizing the centrality of race in American society seems particularly necessary when investigating communities that have been nearly all-White for decades and are currently receiving substantial numbers of racial/ethnic minorities, particularly immigrants. Most importantly, some of these places have long histories of implementing community and/or county-level practices to maintain whiteness within their boundaries; that is, they were nearly 100 percent White for decades on purpose. Indeed, as James Loewen (2005) shows in his book, Sundown Towns, perhaps ten thousand towns, suburbs, and counties across the country established policies to exclude African Americans and others from settling within their boundaries. Similarly, in Buried in the Bitter Waters, Elliot Jaspin (2007) provides detailed evidence of nearly a dozen cases of “racial cleansings” where local Whites forced nearly all Blacks to flee the area. Historical census data shows that hundreds of counties experienced declines in Black populations of at least fifty percent occurring within a single decade, perhaps all due to similar types of “cleansings” (Jaspin 2007). This chapter examines the phenomenon of former sundown places, defined here as areas that attempted to exclude African Americans and others, and explores how these histories could be linked with contemporary phenomena occurring in these places, such as recent changes in racial/ethnic diversity, structural responses to these population dynamics, and residential segregation. The chapter begins with an overview of practices used to exclude and/or drive out Blacks and others from small towns, suburbs, and counties across the country. This section draws from published scholarship and an examination of newspaper articles published between the late 1800s and early 1900s. The chapter then turns to three Georgia counties within close proximity to Atlanta: Forsyth, Hall, and Whitfield Counties. In each of these counties during the early 20th century, some Whites tried to remove the resident Black population. The racial histories of one of these counties has been carefully documented and is well-known, the exclusionary practices of the other two counties have received little contemporary scholarly or media attention. Therefore, the original archival research conducted in the present study supplements and extends scholarship

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about Georgia’s racial history. Census data indicates that although all three counties have experienced sizeable increases in their non-White populations since 1980, there is considerable diversity in their more recent population dynamics. By 2006, nearly a century after each county implemented policies to exclude Blacks and others, one remains nearly 85 percent White; the other two counties are less than 66 percent White. Finally, drawing from observations of one Midwestern former sundown town, the chapter explores how past racially exclusionary practices could be relevant to present-day population dynamics, structural responses to diversity, and the spatial distributions of Hispanics, NonHispanic Whites, and others. The conclusion includes suggestions for future research. Multiple sources are employed in this chapter, including: (1) published books and articles, (2) newspaper articles printed in the Atlanta Constitution and The Atlanta between 1885 and 1925, (3) U.S. Census Bureau data collected between 1890 and 2006, and (4) 1990 and 2000 residential segregation figures for Hispanics and non-Hispanic Whites based on Census data. Census figures for 1890 to 1960 come from the University of Virginia (2004); 1990 and 2000 decennial census data and 2006 American Community Survey data come directly from publicly available figures on the U.S. Census Bureau’s website (www.census.gov). Residential segregation figures for census block groups, an appropriate geographic level for examining segregation in less-populated areas, were obtained from the Racial Residential Segregation Measurement Project (2000). Information about Riverbend, the pseudonym of the former Midwestern sundown town discussed later in the chapter, comes from previously published material (McConnell and Miraftab 2009; Miraftab and McConnell 2008) and recent newspaper articles published about the community. The connections that this chapter makes between exclusionary racial histories and recent phenomena are descriptive and exploratory rather than causal. Nevertheless, investigating the racial histories of areas with contemporary influxes of diverse newcomers reveals important information about the broader racial context of a community, county, and surrounding areas. Indeed, uncovering this history and considering its relevance for present-day events may offer valuable insights about a broad range of issues, such as which locales (and why) are experiencing growing racial and ethnic heterogeneity in the United States while others are not, how and why communities might have heterogeneous responses to rapid population increases of Non-Whites, and diverse patterns of minority and immigrant adaptation and mobility across U.S. contexts.

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The American South is a particularly interesting place to consider these connections. The South has been the site of oppressive violence vis-à-vis African Americans, including lynching, burning down the homes and churches of Blacks, and other forms of terrorism targeting this population (Litwack 1998; Patterson 1999). However, according to Loewen (2005), the South was the least likely to implement sundown practices of all regions and the most progressive in dismantling those policies. More recently, the South has experienced significant population changes, both in terms of overall size and increasing racial/ethnic diversity since 1980. Indeed, a substantial number of international migrants have moved to small towns, large metropolitan areas, and suburbs throughout the region in recent decades (Massey and Capoferro 2008; Singer 2004). U.S. born individuals, both White and minorities, have also been relocating to the region from other areas (Frey 2006). Consequently, Atlanta, the largest metropolitan area in the South, is considered both an “emerging gateway,” with rapid immigrant growth from Mexico, India, China, and elsewhere since 1980 (Singer 2004) and an important destination for Whites and African Americans from other parts of the country. Given these changes, a larger proportion of the total U.S. population lived in the South in 2000 (36 percent) than in previous decades; the opposite is true for regions like the Midwest (Hobbs and Stoops 2002). Clearly, the Southern U.S. is an important and distinctive geographic area that merits closer investigation. Exclusionary Practices

The term “sundown” is used here to refer to a broad range of exclusionary practices primarily implemented after 1890 to discourage the temporary and permanent settlement of persons deemed to be undesirable, particularly African Americans (Loewen 2005). One prominent strategy was the use of sundown signs: public billboards and signs posted at city limits explicitly informing Blacks and others that they were not welcome within city limits after dark (Loewen 2005). These signs were not isolated to one or two areas; rather, they were posted in locations across the country. For example, individuals recall the presence of a billboard in Marlow, Oklahoma warning, “Negro, don’t let the sun go down on you here”; a sign in Fallon, Nevada stated, “No Niggers or Japs allowed”; another in Elwood, Indiana announced, “Nigger, read this and run. If you can’t read, run anyhow” (Loewen 2005). Whistles were also commonly used to indicate that an undesirable group should leave the area at sundown. For instance, a whistle audible in Minden and Gardnerville, Nevada warned American

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Indians to leave the area after dark (Loewen 2005). Similarly, until 1999, a siren in Villa Grove, IL rang out at 6pm to tell African Americans to leave town (Loewen 2005). Another strategy employed by some communities and neighborhoods to maintain all-White populations was the use of local ordinances or covenants with private developers. For example, in large cities such as Seattle, hundreds of restrictive covenants—that is private agreements between buyers and sellers of property–excluded nonCaucasians from neighborhoods across the city (Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project 2006). Similarly, Tarzana and Culver City, California; Tuxedo Park, New York; Greenbelt, Maryland and dozens of other planned communities used covenants and other tactics to prohibit the settlement of Blacks, Jews, Chinese and others (Loewen 2005). As these examples make clear, African Americans tended to be the most commonly targeted group, but others were also excluded. Although sundown towns appear to have been less common in the South than in the Midwest and other regions, some counties and towns in the “non-traditional” South posted sundown signs: particularly in Appalachia, the Cumberlands, the Ozarks, and parts of Florida and Texas (Loewen 2005). Additional exclusionary policies separated African Americans and Whites in the South, such as racially restrictive covenants or zoning ordinances in Atlanta, GA; Louisville, KY; Richmond, VA; Winston-Salem, NC and other areas (Jones-Correa 2000). Consequently, just as in other U.S. regions, Southern towns such as Siloam Springs, Arkansas were proud to advertise that there were “No Malaria, No Mosquitoes, No Negroes” within their boundaries (Loewen 2005). Figure 1 is the cover of this advertisement, a 10 page color brochure printed in 1919. The rest of the brochure praises the “Unrivaled Scenic Wonders” of the area, its municipal amenities, educational facilities, and the “refined class” of the local population (“Siloam Springs: The City of Natural Beauty,” 1919). Moreover, some places in both the South and elsewhere employed overtly violent strategies, including threats of physical violence, harassment and intimidation spearheaded by chiefs of police and other officials to forcibly drive African Americans and others out of town (Jaspin 2007; Loewen 2005; Williams 2007). Newspaper articles published between 1880 and 1930 indicate how intimidation was used to eliminate the local black population. For example, an 1894 newspaper article describes the situation in Alabama:

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White caps have made their appearance at Brantley, Ala. J. T. Cooper, of Columbus [GA] conducts a big sawmill there. . . .Mr. Cooper has recently imported a number of negroes to work his mill. This broke up the white men’s snap and they have posted the mill, warning negroes and their families to leave the vicinity by March 10th or suffer the consequences. Trouble is feared. . . (the) negroes are greatly alarmed. (“Posted the Sawmill: Black Laborers Are Warned Not to Continue Working” 1894). Figure 4.1: An Advertisement for Siloam Springs, Arkansas, 1919

Source: “Siloam Springs: The City of Natural Beauty,” 1919.

The Whitecaps were founded in Indiana in the 1870s and spread to Southern states between 1880 and 1900; their activities were similar to those of the Ku Klux Klan, and included night raids with the objectives of attacking Black landowners, driving Black laborers from Whiteowned farms, and enforcing moral standards (Flamming 1992; Martinez 2007). Similarly, an 1892 newspaper article about Norman, Oklahoma notes an “alleged determination of the people there to drive the negroes out of town” including a note left for the local Black barber warning “DEATH” if he did not leave town within ten days (“Running the Negroes Off Warning Notes Received by Them—Flight of a Barber” 1892). Another newspaper article reveals the specific nature of the threats in Brownwood, Texas:

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Notices were found posted in various parts of town today, reading as follows: Notice—All negroes are to leave here on short notice, or they will be roughly dealt with. All negroes seen on the streets of Brownwood Saturday evening will be roughly treated. We mean business. (Signed) Many Men. (“Warning Negroes to Leave” 1886).

By all accounts, these practices quickly “encouraged” many local Blacks to rapidly flee the area. Some of these places likely went on to use sundown signs, whistles, and/or restrictive covenants to ensure that Blacks would not return to the area (Loewen 2005). These practices appear to have been effective at controlling the racial/ethnic composition of these populations for decades. For example, in one Midwestern rural community, historical documents including archival newspaper articles and oral histories support Loewen’s (2005) work indicating that Blacks were prohibited from living in the town or spending the night (McConnell and Miraftab 2009). In this town, a place that McConnell and Miraftab (2009) call Riverbend, sundown practices seem to have been sufficient at ensuring that few Blacks would live in the area; though some worked in town during the day as porters at the local train station and as domestics and nannies. Indeed, historical census data shows that fewer than fifteen African Americans resided in the entire county from the town’s founding through 1980. In the late 1980s; however, the makeup of the community changed: thousands of Latinos began to arrive to work in the local meat processing plant. Consequently, a town that previously excluded African Americans had become more than one-third Latino, nearly all Mexican migrants, by 2006. Understanding Riverbend’s history is useful: the current influx of immigrants is not the first time that the town or larger geographic area has confronted either issues of immigration or race (McConnell and Miraftab 2009; Miraftab and McConnell 2008). Such a context may be one factor among many that helps shape current outcomes, such as the spatial distributions of Latino newcomers in the community (McConnell and Miraftab 2009). The experiences of this community will be described in more detail later in the chapter. Despite the often brutal methods to achieve all-White places in across the country and their impacts, these exclusionary policies are rarely acknowledged, thereby constituting a “hidden” history of white racism in America, a history hidden at least to Whites (Jaspin 2007; Loewen 2005). In discussing these practices it is important to note the federal government’s support for the creation of all-White communities. In fact, starting after the Great Depression, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) insisted on restrictive covenants prohibiting

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African Americans from purchasing homes in the community before the FHA would insure mortgage loans (Loewen 2005; Oliver and Shapiro 1995). Moreover, until the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1968, the FHA was not legally prohibited from refusing to guarantee loans in neighborhoods with changing racial compositions (Conley 1999; JonesCorrea 2000). Therefore, although scholarship discussing sundown signs, covenants, and “racial cleansings” often focuses on specific neighborhoods, communities, and counties, the federal government is also implicated in the creation and maintenance of deliberately all-white places. The South

The Southern U.S. has experienced substantial racial/ethnic change since the 1980s, in both small-towns and larger cities such as Dalton, GA; Nashville, TN and elsewhere (e.g., Hernández-León and Zúñiga 2000; Kochhar, Suro and Tafoya 2005; Winders 2008b; Zúñiga and Hernández-León 2009). Researchers studying recent international migration to the South have noted tension and conflict present between locals (both White and Black) and Latino newcomers (e.g., Marrow 2008; Rich and Miranda 2005), often stemming from the displacement of some locals in factory work or other types of employment in favor of Mexican immigrants and others (Griffith 2005). Scholars also observe some cooperation and collaboration between long-term residents and Latin American newcomers in the South (Hernández-León and Zúñiga 2005; Marrow 2008). As this chapter will show, some Southern counties with racially exclusionary histories have considerable racial/ethnic diversity at the current time. However, to date, researchers studying such contemporary trends have not delved into whether such places previously engaged in practices to exclude Blacks. The present study provides examples of three Southern counties, all in northern Georgia, with varying levels of documentation about some Whites’ attempts to exclude Blacks. A review of census data indicates that some of these places have remained nearly all-White in the 21st century; others have more multiracial populations, including significant numbers of Latino immigrants. This overview begins with Forsyth County, Georgia, the most well-known example of a Southern site with this history, before moving on to nearby counties with less-documented histories of racial exclusion.

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Forsyth County

White settlers found gold in Forsyth County in the 1830s and consequently forced out the Cherokee Indians who had been living there for hundreds of years (Huff 2006). By 1910, the county had a population of nearly 12,000; approximately 1,100 were African American and more than 10,800 were White. In 1912, local Whites began to drive Blacks out of Forsyth County; the “explanation” given was the rape and murder of a White woman allegedly committed by an African American male resident. The alleged perpetrator was lynched and the other two identified as allegedly committing the crimes were convicted and executed after a trial (Jaspin 2007). Black churches and farmhouses were burned and Black households were told to leave the area (Firestone 1999). The local White community appeared to support this endeavor; and “For almost a month, gangs of night riders harassed and intimidated the black population into moving out of the county” (Huff 2006). As was true across the country during this period, violent actions targeting Blacks typically were blamed on the victims’ alleged misbehavior such as interracial rapes and black crime waves (Loewen 2005). Yet, a reporter reveals the true story of the motivation in Forsyth County in 1921, as told to him by citizens of Forsyth and neighboring counties: the real cause for the intimidation and running away of negroes . . . was the desire of white laborers to rid themselves of labor competition. These same men declared that crime, declared as the cause of racial trouble in Forsyth county ten years ago, was only a pretext (“Intimidation of Negroes Charged in Six Counties” 1921).

An examination of other newspaper articles published during the period indicates that this article is unusual for its directness about the economic motivations underlying the drive to rid an area of Blacks. However, the reason itself is not unusual; such explanations were used to justify why some whites targeted Blacks in other Georgia counties discussed in this chapter. Not all Whites were in favor of the racist practices targeting Blacks (Jaspin 2007; Loewen 2005). Nevertheless, Whites decrying the attempts to remove local Blacks often provided justifications based on racist stereotypes. For example, in 1899, a South Carolina Senator argued that persons terrorizing Blacks were “white cowards” and that it was unfair to “abuse the poor, innocent black wretches” (“Tillman Defends Negroes” 1899). Whites’ actions during this time were effective in reducing the Black population in Forsyth County. Indeed, between 1910 and 1930,

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the African American population in the county dropped from 1,098 to 17 (Bagley 1985; Loewen 2005: 176); that is, from comprising 9.2 percent of the total county population to less than 0.2 percent twenty years later. African American residents who were forced to leave lost their property and businesses, experiencing the same types of financial devastation as those fleeing from other areas (Loewen 2005). Some local Whites directly benefited from the expulsion of Blacks; analyses of Forsyth County land deeds and tax documents show that White neighbors of local Blacks who were forced to leave took over their properties rather than paying a fair price for the land (Jaspin 2007). The expulsion of African Americans from Forsyth County has cast a long shadow, both in terms of the county’s racial/ethnic composition and perhaps more recent actions. For example, there were fewer than 50 African Americans in the county, or less than ½ of one percent for years after they were driven out. Even decades later—in 1960—there were only 4 African Americans in a county of more than 12,000. In 1987, Atlanta civil rights leaders organized a march in the Forsyth County seat to document the rights of Blacks to live in the area (Firestone 1999). Some Whites, including Ku Klux Klan members from the county and other areas, assaulted the demonstrators by throwing glass bottles and other objects at them. Shortly thereafter, nearly 20,000 civil rights demonstrators marched in the county; approximately 1,500 White supremacists counter-demonstrated (Huff 2006). That same year, civil rights activists argued that ancestors of black property owners forced out of Forsyth County in 1912 should have their land restored; the Georgia Attorney General disagreed (“Restitution to Blacks Unlikely in Georgia County” 1987). To date, the ancestors have not been compensated. Forsyth County has experienced strong population growth since the 1980s. In fact, Forsyth was the fastest-growing county of all U.S. counties with a population of at least 10,000 in 1997-1998 (Census Bureau 1999). Between 1990 and 2006, the total population of Forsyth County increased by 243 percent, reflecting its close proximity to Atlanta. Despite large population increases, Forsyth County is still considered to be a markedly “White” place. In fact, Census Bureau 1997 estimates identified Forsyth County as having the highest proportion of non-Hispanic White of all 600 U.S. counties with the largest populations (Firestone 1999). Some suggest that it’s “lack of diversity—its homogeneity — is an attraction” for White residents (Firestone 1999). Though Forsyth County remains predominantly White today, the racial/ethnic composition of the population has changed. The White population represented 98 percent of the county in 1990, and declined to about 85 percent by 2006. Over the 16 year period, the African

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American population increased from 0.03 percent of the population to 2.1 percent, Asians increased from 0.2 percent to 3.9 percent, and Latinos from 1.4 percent to 7.9 percent of the county. Forsyth’s increasing racial/ethnic diversity is likely due to the presence of two local poultry processers (Georgia Department of Labor 2008a). Employment in poultry and other food-processing industries is a wellknown draw for immigrants from Latin America and Asia (e.g., Griffith 2005; Kandel and Parrado 2005; Stull et al. 1995). Forsyth residents also work for Delta Airlines and other employers in neighboring counties (Georgia Department of Labor 2008a). Newcomers may have been drawn to Forsyth County for the same reasons immigrants have been attracted to other “new destinations” (McConnell 2008; Millard and Chapa 2004; Vásquez, Seales, and Marquardt 2007): a nearby major metropolitan area, a reasonable cost of living, and, until recently, little enforcement of federal immigration laws. Hall County

Neighboring Hall County, about fifty miles northeast of Atlanta, is another site of past activities to exclude Blacks. Jaspin (2007) notes that the “demography of northern Georgia had changed dramatically” by 1913, as a result of the expulsions starting in Forsyth and spilling over to Hall and other counties (p. 139). Newspaper accounts published at the time provide more details. For example, an article published in 1912 notes that in the county seat of Gainesville: [a] crowd of nearly 100 white men, composed of carpenters, brickmasons and other mechanics went to the new two-story brick building being erected by M. A. Gaines… and ordered the negro bricklayers off the job. The negro masons were told that they must leave, quietly.… It is believed that conditions prevailing in Forsyth and Dawson counties has accentuated the condition between the races of over here.… In Forsyth and Dawson, many negroes have already left, and others will do so before Christmas (“Gainesville Negroes are Driven from Job” 1912).

Apparently, Forsyth County residents were willing to help neighboring counties such as Hall in their drive to get rid of Blacks. According to one source, “five hundred armed men from Forsyth county had offered their services to help run the niggers out of Hall county” (“Intimidation of Negroes Charged in Six Counties” 1921). Another article is more specific about why the activities in Forsyth County led to similar activities in Hall County and other neighboring

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counties. According to a journalist writing in 1912, the city of Gainesville was: [b]eing invaded as a haven of refuge by hordes of negroes from Forsyth and neighboring counties, who have been driven from their homes by indignant whites. The negro sections of the city have been flooded with safety-seeking negroes, and scores of shanties and dwelling houses shelter as many as six or more families. All roads entering Gainesville from the southeast are flanked by improvised camps, sheltering the fleeing blacks. . . .This influx of negroes has created a wave of resentment throughout the hot-tempered and lawless element of the section. . . . Anonymous letters have been sent almost every planter in the hill country, demanding the dismissal of all negro laborers. . . mobs of whites appeared at negro homes on farms and openly demanded evacuation of the shacks and shanties (“Trouble Brewing in [sic] Hill County: Clash of Races Feared in Northeast Georgia” 1921).

The reporter’s description points to a coordinated effort on the part of “lawless” Whites, perhaps a large proportion of county residents, to expel local Blacks. However, other Whites in Gainesville appeared to disagree with these actions. For example, in response to the “race sentiment” in the area, the same article notes that the Chief of Police strengthened the police force and that a local judge planned to investigate the threatening letters. In addition, the editor of the local paper, the Gainesville News, criticized groups of Whites who were attacking Black homes to force them to leave (Jaspin 2007). Historical census data shows that some, but not all, Blacks were driven out of Hall County. Blacks represented 15.8 percent of the county’s population in 1910. The Black population dropped from 4,030 in 1910 to 3,493 in 1920, a decline of 13.3 percent during the period where much of the activity to exclude them occurred. Yet, in 1920, Blacks still comprised 13.0 percent of the county. In the following decades, Blacks continued to represent 9 percent or more of the county. For example, in 1960, there were nearly 5,400 African Americans in Hall County out of a population of approximately 50,000. Therefore, despite threats of intimidation and acts of harassment, the strategy appears not to have been successful at expelling all Blacks, compared to Forsyth County. Perhaps one reason is that some local authorities expressed support for the rights of Blacks to live in the area. However, there was less support for Blacks at the state level. Georgia’s governor at the time, Joseph Brown, did not take action against the night riders active in Georgia in 1912; arguing that the “suppression of such

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lawlessness rested with the county authorities” (“Night Riders’ Threats Running Negroes Away” 1912). Hall County has a more diverse multiracial population at present. For example, in 2006, more than one-quarter of the population was Latino (25.5 percent), 8 percent was African American, 2.8 percent was Asian, and 65.7 percent was White (U.S. Census Bureau 2008b). The county seat, Gainesville, is even more diverse than the county as a whole. Indeed, in 2006, Gainesville’s population was 15.7 percent Black, 33.2 percent Latino, 2.7 percent Asian, and 46.3 percent NonHispanic White (U.S. Census Bureau 2008c). As in Forsyth County and other parts of the South and Midwest, recent Latino population growth in the county is likely due to local manufacturing employment opportunities and other factors. Three of the five largest employers in Hall County are poultry processors, a fourth is a national staffing company providing temporary employees to the processors and other companies (Georgia Department of Labor 2008b). Whitfield County

Whitfield County, a rural county along the Georgia and Tennessee state line, also has a little-known history of excluding Blacks. In recent years, the county seat, Dalton, has experienced strong population increases, growing by nearly fifty percent between 1990 and 2006. The increasing population size of Dalton, numbering approximately 33,000 in 2006, has been accompanied by large changes in its racial and ethnic composition. In 1990, approximately 81.6 percent of Dalton was non-Hispanic White, 10.6 percent was Black, and 6.5 percent was Latino. By 2000, 49.7 percent of Dalton’s population was White, 40.1 percent were Latino, and 7.3 percent were Black; the proportions were similar in 2006 (U.S. Census Bureau 2008d). Scholars have been very interested in the dramatic growth of Latinos in Dalton, Georgia (Hernández-León and Zúñiga 2003; Hernández-León and Zúñiga 2000; Hernández-León and Zúñiga 2005; Zúñiga and Hernández-León 2009); population changes most likely occurring because Dalton is the “Carpet Capitol of the World” (Hernández-León and Zúñiga 2005: 246). Their work shows that increasing numbers of primarily Mexican immigrants have transformed the community in diverse and important ways, revealing both accommodation and resistance on the part of the local community. Published research to date about Dalton and the surrounding areas typically focuses on local changes occurring since the late 1980s, although Hernández-León and Zúñiga (2005) note that the Black

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population declined precipitously between 1890 and 1930 and that “racial fault lines run deep” in Dalton (p. 245). The examination of historical newspaper articles undertaken in the present study documents, perhaps for the first time, evidence of early exclusionary practices vis-à-vis Blacks in the county. Indeed, there were attempts to drive Blacks out of Whitfield County and the county seat of Dalton, as occurred in other counties in Northern Georgia. The Klu Klux Klan appears to have been active in this endeavor, as they were in other states (Loewen 2005). For example, a 1909 newspaper article notes, “Band of kuklux [sic], 25 to 30 strong, pays visit to Dalton in Midst of Night—No Violence Done, but Many Warnings Left for Negroes and Blind Tigers” (“Kuklux [sic] Band Issues Threat to Dalton Men” 1909). The KKK frequently targeted “blind tigers,” or illegal saloons (Blee 1991), as well focusing on African Americans. Several years later, the KKK were still operating in Dalton: A revival of the days of the klu-klux [sic] klan occurred here at 2 o’clock this morning, when a band of about thirty masked and robed men entered the city and quietly proceeded to the home of Johnny Watkins, where they secured Watkins and administered a severe thrashing to him. . . Watkins is a half breed. After whipping Watkins, they told him to leave Dalton and be certain not delay more than three days, for if he did, they would return and hang him (“Klu [sic] Klux Klan Busy at Dalton” 1912).

Although violent force was sometimes used, it appears to have been unnecessary at encouraging some Blacks to leave Dalton and Whitfield County. Indeed, as another newspaper article claims in 1912, “so far there has been little violence, for the notices left by the night riders have been sufficient to cause an exodus of negroes” throughout Northern Georgia (“Georgia in Terror of Night Riders” 1912). These activities appear to have been moderately successful in Whitfield County: the decline in Blacks was largest between 1910 and 1920, when the Black population dropped by 22 percent. Therefore, although Blacks accounted for nearly 15 percent of the population in 1890; they represented less than half that proportion by 1930 (6.7 percent). Yet, like Hall County, although many Blacks left Whitfield, there were still a significant presence in Whitfield County in 1930, numbering nearly 1,400 out of a population of about 21,000. The contemporary population is much more racially/ethnically diverse: Latinos represent 40.1 percent and African Americans comprise 7.3 percent of Whitfield County in 2006.

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Racialized Histories in the “Old” South and Contemporary Trends in the “New” South

Research to date suggests that past exclusionary practices have had long-term effects that persist to the present. For example, most towns, suburbs, and counties with histories of driving out or keeping out Whites remain nearly 100 percent White in the year 2000 (Loewen 2005). Similarly, Jaspin (2006) examined counties that represent the “most extreme examples of expulsions” because they experienced at least a fifty percent decline in the local black population within one decade, all remain nearly all White today. Indeed, in each of the counties that Jaspin (2006) examines—nine located in five Southern states—the county’s population is still 96 percent or more White in 2000. This result is striking, given that three-quarters of a century or more have passed since attempts to force Blacks to leave each county; such patterns suggest how past practices might continue to be relevant for contemporary patterns. As shown in this chapter, three Northern Georgia counties with historical attempts to drive out Blacks have had varying levels of “success” in this endeavor, as measured by the Black population that remained after the drives to remove them. Moreover, contemporary quantitative data indicates that these communities also have disparate levels of racial and ethnic diversity at the present time. These two issues could be linked. For example, the most-well documented example, Forsyth County, was also the most effective of the three counties at eliminating Blacks. Indeed, between 1910 and 1920, the black population declined from 1,098 to only 17. Even today, Forsyth County is much less diverse than the other two counties and the state of Georgia as a whole. Perhaps Forsyth County’s infamous reputation, among other factors, could help explain why other counties in Northern Georgia, of varying distances from Atlanta, have much higher proportions of non-White populations at the present time. This chapter draws from historical newspaper articles to document how some Whites in Hall and Whitfield counties tried to remove the local Black population, accounts that do not appear to have been discussed elsewhere. These “hidden” histories of racial expulsions, compared with the publicity surrounding Forsyth County, may mean that both counties are perceived as more hospitable to non-Whites, including African Americans and immigrants from Latin America and Asia. Yet, more diversity does not necessarily mean that the community or county actually are tolerant of racially diverse newcomers, there are strong anti-immigrant sentiments in Gainesville,

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the seat of Hall County (e.g., Zúñiga and Hernández-León 2009; Slevin 2006). Taken together, past and present events in Forsyth, Hall, and Whitfield counties suggest a complex portrait of exclusionary practices targeting African Americans and contemporary racial/ethnic change. The heterogeneity of the racialized histories and current demographic trends of these three Northern Georgia counties are intriguing. The counties were not homogeneous vis-à-vis the size of their Black populations before the attempts to drive them out early in the 20th century. The counties appear to differ in the level of coordination vis-àvis efforts were to remove Blacks. Moreover, the drive to remove Blacks did not lead to homogeneous outcomes, either. In one, only a few dozen Blacks remained; while more than a thousand Blacks continued to live in the other two counties. Finally, the racial/ethnic makeup of each county in 2006 also vary, although in none of these counties does the Black population represent a larger proportion of the population than in the state of Georgia (29.9 percent). These examples suggest that scholars studying the movement of Latinos and other non-Whites to “new” destinations across the U.S., including Georgia, might want to dig deeper in their investigations. More specifically, researchers should, at the very least, consider how past exclusionary practices of communities and counties could be linked with the subsequent economic and social development of such places, changes in racial and ethnic diversity within their boundaries, and contemporary outcomes. Of particular interest is if and how the history of such places: 1) may be related to the recent in-migration and settlement of African Americans, Latinos, and Asians, 2) help shape current community-level activities and responses regarding these groups, and 3) is linked with the incorporation and upward mobility of non-Whites in those places. The following section considers two possible ways in which these racialized histories and current events could be linked. Structural Responses to Increasing Racial/Ethnic Diversity

One potentially fruitful area of investigation is whether past exclusionary practices of a community may be connected with institutionalized reactions to present-day changes within the community. Many studies have documented the responses of community members to increasing numbers of immigrants, particularly from Latin America (e.g., Bump 2005; Fennelly 2008; Marrow 2008; Millard and Chapa 2004; Zúñiga and Hernández-León 2005). This scholarship documents

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the diversity of reactions—sometimes negative, sometimes ambivalent, and sometimes positive—of “old-timers” and the community’s institutions to the influx of diverse newcomers. Much of this research highlights individualized responses. Indeed, qualitative studies have persuasively argued how small-town community members show newcomers “their place”—by individual acts of discrimination in work or social arenas, and by expressing racial prejudice and distaste about immigrants and specifically Mexicans (e.g., Millard and Chapa 2004; Zúñiga and Hernández-León 2005). However, the past practices that some places have employed to maintain their “whiteness” is suggestive about the importance of structural responses on the part of community, county, state leaders and institutions. For example, the move of some metropolitan areas and smaller towns to conduct immigration sweeps in particular neighborhoods or towns, such as in Guadalupe, AZ in Spring 2008 (Billeaud 2008), represent structural responses, not individual ones. Such reactions are occurring in many different types of communities, not just ones with sundown histories. Nonetheless, the point is that for communities with histories of excluding Blacks or others, current activities are certainly not the first institutionalized or semiinstitutionalized actions to target non-White persons judged to be undesirable. Indeed, places with past exclusionary practices have, on the whole, been very effective in deciding who can stay for the night in public accommodations, who can move to town, and who should be “encouraged” to leave the community (Jaspin 2007; Loewen 2005). Likewise, as occurred in some Georgia counties described here, there have been coordinated, and sometimes violent, efforts among White residents to eliminate the local Black population. These strategies were often effective, both in the short and long term. Moreover, having this background provides some communities with the historical memory of a fairly continuous period of racial homogeneity. Fennelly (2008) refers to the contemporary symbolic threat of non-Whites to long-term rural White residents as stemming from “rural nostalgia” (152). In places with histories of exclusionary policies, this nostalgia is based on deliberate historical practices to remain all white; practices that could include intimidation, crossburning, lynching, local policies that made daily life difficult for African Americans, and restrictive covenants forbidding non-Caucasian renters or owners. In Riverbend, the pseudonym for the Midwestern rural community described earlier in the chapter, sundown signs were posted that prohibited Blacks from settling in the town (McConnell and Miraftab

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2009; Loewen 2005). This practice not only contributed to the community’s racial/ethnic homogeneity until Latino newcomers began to arrive in the late 1980s but, along with other factors, may provide a historically-based interpretation of the racial/ethnic change as negative (McConnell and Miraftab 2009). For example, the current mayor, a lifelong Riverbend resident and previously employed at local meatprocessing plant, has served intermittently as mayor since the 1980s. Consider comments he has made about the town: [Riverbend] had been an all-white, redneck community for 160 years…. For a community like that to have a different ethnic group come in, well, it's hard to adjust…. [Until 1990] there were no Hispanics here. I'd like to think I had a lot to do with that (italics added, news service, Nov. 9, 2003).… If I could wave a magic wand, I’d rather have no Hispanics and have this town be like it was in the ‘50s. But that’s just not going to happen” (news report, June 7, 2007) (quoted in Miraftab and McConnell 2008).

The mayor’s references to Riverbend’s previous lack of diversity and his attempt to take credit for keeping the town “all-White” is rendered more meaningful in the context of the town’s decades-long practices of deliberately keeping African Americans out of the community and the county. The earlier absence of Non-Whites seems to be a source of pride for this politician, suggesting his participation in upholding the town’s traditions of keeping the town all-White. He is surprisingly open about his “rural nostalgia”: “If a genie would jump out of a bottle and ask me if I'd like to have it the same way as 15 years ago, damn right I would. But that's not reality” (news service, Nov. 12, 2003). Riverbend’s mayor is certainly not the only political figure to make unflattering comments about immigrants and to express a longing for a “Whiter” past; however, the statements achieve special significance in view of Riverbend’s prior institutional support for excluding outsiders. Indeed, in light of this history, his comments seem to reflect a historically-based community approach and not simply the prejudicial attitudes of one individual. Riverbend residents ground their objections to the recent growth of Latinos in the criminality of unauthorized immigrants and migrants’ perceived resistance to assimilating. For example, an informal survey of residents in 2007 reported a consensus that “if someone is relocating to another culture, they should learn the language and expect to follow the laws of the land” (city newspaper, April 11, 2007). Interviews with locals in 2006 suggest that they feel that Riverbend “has bent over backwards,” for newcomers, with access to public open spaces for

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Sunday afternoon soccer games, bilingual public education, and community festivals to celebrate Mexican holidays (McConnell and Miraftab 2008). Such oft-repeated concerns—about the rule of law, failures to assimilate or integrate, and concerns that newcomers are taking advantage of the community’s goodwill—may be similar refrains heard in communities across America about Latin American immigrants (e.g., Fennelly 2008). However, in Riverbend these concerns have been buttressed by previous institutional actions to keep non-Whites from settling in the community (McConnell and Miraftab 2009). The racialized history of Northern Georgia also may be connected with recent responses to increasing racial/ethnic diversity. For instance, although Forsyth County has become more diverse, especially since 2000, its racist past may be linked with old-timers’ attitudes about the newcomers, even those that are not Black. Newspaper articles hint at hostility towards the new Latino immigrants in Forsyth County: Thirty miles north of Atlanta's urban core, the ring of hammers and the pop-pop-pop of nail guns welcome you to Forsyth County. A woodsy, suburban area flush with million-dollar homes, it's the second-fastest growing county in the nation. Many builders say the rapid growth was possible only because there were so many Mexican laborers willing to work for $10 an hour or less….”People look at me funny for hiring Mexicans, and I hear them say they won't ride through their part of town,” said landscaping contractor Ken Buffington, who is white. “But they're not crime people. They're here to work” (Gettleman 2001).

More diverse Northern Georgia counties may not be entirely welcoming of new diversity, either. In 2006, for example, the county seat of Hall County, Gainesville, was targeted for neo-Nazi demonstrations in 2002 because of the growth of Latinos; neighboring towns have passed legislation about day laborers who try to attain work on street corners (Gettleman 2002). Future research may be able to determine whether there is a causal linkage between past practices in these counties and current responses to the in-migration of non-Whites. Contemporary Patterns

The racialized context of these communities may be linked with contemporary events, such as the spatial distributions of the long-time, White residents and the racially diverse newcomers. A commonly-used measure of segregation is the index of dissimilarity, an indication of the “evenness,” or the relative degree of separation, of two groups (Massey and Denton 1988). Turning to the example of Riverbend, analyses of

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census data indicate that non-Hispanic Whites and Latinos were moderately segregated in 2000 (McConnell and Miraftab 2009). Of particular interest is that Riverbend’s index of dissimilarity for Hispanics and non-Hispanic Whites declined by 30 percentage points between 1990 and 2000, a decline that was more than twice the mean drop for all rural areas categorized as new Hispanic destinations (Lichter et al. 2008). Riverbend’s history of keeping out Blacks, together with the features of the local housing market, community regulations, and other factors, may help account for the spatial distributions of Latinos and non-Hispanic Whites in 2000 (McConnell and Miraftab 2009). The Northern Georgia counties examined in this paper have diverse patterns of residential segregation in 1990 and 2000 and changes in segregation over the decade. Forsyth County had a Hispanic/NonHispanic White dissimilarity index at the census block group level that is considered low in 2000 (35.3), a level of segregation that has remained fairly stable since 1990 (34.5). Hall County had a much more uneven distribution of Hispanics and Whites in 1990 but some decline by 2000, a dissimilarity index that declined from 61.8 in 1990 to 55.4 in 2000. In contrast, Whitfield County had moderate and fairly stable Hispanic-White residential segregation at the census block-group level in both 1990 and 2000: 54.5 and 53.4, respectively. The level of BlackWhite segregation for each county in 2000 show similar patterns as those for Latinos and non-Hispanic Whites (32.7 for Forsyth, 58.5 for Hall County, and 53.6 for Whitfield County), with declines in BlackWhite segregation for Hall and Whitfield counties between 1990 and 2000. Although past racially exclusionary policies in these three Georgia counties may be connected to more current phenomena such as residential segregation, the exploratory work undertaken in this chapter is insufficient to make this determination. Additional studies employing a multi-method, qualitative and quantitative approach of a large number of places with and without sundown histories may be able to identify more concrete linkages between the histories of places that previously tried to exclude African Americans, trends in racial/ethnic diversity, and contemporary outcomes. Conclusion and Directions for Future Research

This chapter focuses on the practices of a large numbers of towns, suburbs, and counties across the U.S. with sundown histories, that is, places that used deliberate strategies to become or remain all White. Despite the publication of several authoritative books on this “hidden

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history” (Jaspin 2007; Loewen 2005), there is a need for additional documentation about the extent and variety of these practices across U.S. locations. Drawing from newspaper articles published between 1885 and 1925, historical and more recent census data, residential segregation indicators, and the insights drawn from a multi-method case study, this chapter describes the racial histories of three Georgia counties, one with an infamous history of racist practices, and two others with less well-known attempts to drive out Black residents. Many places with histories of excluding (or attempting to exclude) African Americans and others are still nearly 100 percent White at the current time (Jaspin 2007; Loewen 2005). Yet, recent census data indicate that some locales with these histories are now experiencing increasing racial/ethnic diversity. Indeed, of the three Northern Georgia counties discussed in this chapter, two are at least one-third minority (Latino, Black and/or Asian) in 2006 and could be considered “new destinations” for Latin American and Asian immigrants. Clearly, these developments point to the need for additional research. More exhaustive research in these and other communities could document the temporal duration and range of community or county-level exclusionary strategies. Perhaps most importantly, scholarship about “new destinations” should more fully document the racial histories of those places before the arrival of racially and ethnically diverse newcomers. As this chapter shows, some of these communities have long, and complex, histories of trying to manage the racial makeup of the local population. Scholars could incorporate archival newspaper research and historical census data in documenting the historical context of communities now experiencing large racial/ethnic demographic change. In addition, researchers could consider whether past racialized histories may help shape a broad range of contemporary outcomes. Such work could lead in new and innovative directions. For example, this work could help identify whether racially exclusionary practices are an additional source of variation in the process of migration and individual -level outcomes across U.S. destinations. Studies that compare places with past exclusionary policies to those without these histories might be able to separate individual-level responses to population change from more institutionalized responses influenced by past practices. Similarly, research examining the quantitative and qualitative features of communities, the implementation and enforcement of municipal regulations, and local economic development across places, including those with varying “success” at causing all Blacks to leave and other locales that did not engage in these practices,

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might provide additional insight about whether past racialized histories can be connected with current phenomena of the types discussed in this paper. Such studies might also illuminate whether newcomers in these areas, whether U.S. born minorities and/or immigrants, have different individual-level outcomes in locales with and without these histories. Although it will take some time for this body of literature to develop, such work will allow scholars to provide more nuanced interpretations of contemporary trends in the South and elsewhere.

5 The Myth of Millions: Socially Constructing “Illegal Immigration” Stephanie Bohon and Heather Macpherson Parrott

Between 1995 and 2000, slightly more than 200,000 immigrants entered the state of Georgia. This flow represented part of a larger trend in the shifting of immigration streams away from traditional immigrant receiving states like California, Florida, Texas, New York, Illinois, and New Jersey into emerging gateway states in the Midwest and Southeast. In the nineties, the immigrant population in Georgia increased 233 percent, and by 2004, there were an estimated nearly 725,000 immigrants living in Georgia (U.S. Census 2000a). This influx contributed to and coincided with a number of other significant demographic changes in the state including an increase in the total population by more than two million people. This resulted in an overall population increase between 1990 and 2004 of almost one-third. At the same time, the Latino population in the state increased 429 percent and in-migration of African Americans accelerated sharply, so that Georgia currently has the seventh smallest non-Hispanic white population (as a percent of the total). Overall, the state experienced the second largest proportional increase in minorities during the nineties (U.S. Census Bureau 1990; 2000b; 2004). Rapid population changes—particularly those that result in a shift in the composition of the population—often lend themselves to both real and perceived new social problems (Ahlburgh 1998; Blank 2001; Bongaarts 1992). Immigration is particularly likely to prompt people to equate population change with impending social problems, despite the fact that a number of studies have demonstrated that the net impact of immigrants is to provide more social benefits than harm (Borjas and Tienda 1986; Tienda and Jensen 1986; Borjas and Trejo 1991; Simon

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1999). Espenshade (1995) asserts that the tendency to equate immigration with social problems is ages old. He notes: [L]ittle has changed in how immigrants are perceived. At least since the 1880s, immigrants have been assumed to take jobs away from and to lower wages of native workers, to add to the poverty population, and to compete for education, health and other social services. . . All that seems to have changed are the origins of the migrants and the terms used to describe them (201).

The social problems that are associated with population growth are often attributed to immigrants because they are easily differentiated from natives by their accents, customs, and phenotype. In Georgia, a state traditionally inhabited almost exclusively by white and black residents, immigrants from Latin America and Asia are particularly noticeable. Consequently, they are ready scapegoats for the frustrations resulting from the rapid growth of the population, such as traffic tie-ups, water shortages, and deforestation, despite the fact that only a fraction of that growth is immigrant related. In a state-wide poll conducted of Georgians in 2001, more than a quarter of state residents equated rising crime rates with immigration, and almost three quarters asserted that immigrants get too much assistance from the government (Neal and Bohon 2003). State residents expressed resentment about the speaking of Spanish in public places like grocery stores and parks, and they argued that immigrants are putting excess strain on the education and health care systems. Prominent among their concerns is a growing unease surrounding what they perceive to be a glut of recent arrivals who are unauthorized entrants to the United States. Seventy percent of Georgians contacted in the 2001 Peach State Poll believed that the majority of immigrants entering Georgia are “illegal aliens.” Certainly as Georgia’s immigrant population has grown, the state has seen a rapid increase in the percent of the population that is unauthorized (Passel and Zimmerman 2001; Passel, Capps, and Fix 2002), and it is now estimated that close to 40 percent of immigrants in Georgia have either entered the United States without inspection, overstayed their visa, or are awaiting a hearing on asylum petitions (Passel, Capps and Fix 2004). A closer examination of these trends, however, shows that the total number of unauthorized immigrants in the state is estimated to be only 200,000-250,000, which is a mere 2.6 percent of the state’s total population (Passel 2006). If every unauthorized immigrant in the state were concentrated in Atlanta, they

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would comprise only five percent of that metropolitan area. On a larger scale, 65 percent of all unauthorized immigrants are living in just six states, and Georgia is not one of them (Passel, Capps, and Fix 2004). Despite the fact that Georgia’s unauthorized immigrant population has grown rapidly, the relatively small size of that population raises the question of whether or not unauthorized immigration really poses a social problem for the state of Georgia, and, if so, is that problem of much magnitude? We speculate that the “problem” of unauthorized immigration has been socially constructed by various actors across the state, and that unauthorized immigrants are currently posing no significant threat to the state’s welfare. Drawing upon the theoretical studies of social problems that posit that many social problems are constructed by actors with a vested interest in garnering public support for policy change, we examine unauthorized immigration as it is presented to the public through the media. In this study, we look at how the phenomenon of unauthorized immigration in Georgia has been presented by the press and how the public has responded to that presentation in the same format. Specifically, we examine reports on illegal immigration by the Atlanta Journal Constitution—the Southeast’s most widely circulated newspaper. In this study, we focus on the voices of claims-makers in order to examine their impact on shaping public attitudes regarding unauthorized immigration. The Social Construction of Social Problems

Sociologists have frequently highlighted social problems as constructed artifices, rather than objective social conditions. They contend that society actually participates in the creation of social problems, and much of the study of social problems is concerned with “people who say and do things in order to convince audiences that a troublesome condition is at hand” (Loseke 1999:19). The people who frame social problems, called claims-makers, include politicians and heads of private organizations. Claims-makers know that their audience must be convinced that a condition exists, that this condition is troublesome and widespread, that it can be changed, and that it should be changed in order for their claims to have an impact (Best 1987). Consequently, they tend to address numerous audiences to have their perspectives heard; in their attempts to garner interest, they often simultaneously address allies of the movement, the general public, the press, and policy-makers. Claims-makers pay particular attention to ensuring that media takes an

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active role in the dissemination of their message, as public reporting ultimately legitimizes their claims. Effective rhetoric—typically grounded in examples, numeric estimates, and a strong definition of the problem—is a necessary first step in the construction of a social problem. Coltrane and Hickman (1992) note that even when the statistics used are false or are not easily confirmed, they are often subsequently cited by the media and develop a life and legitimacy of their own. These claims may become recognized by the general public as true, even when the basis of these claims is false. Additionally, the social context of such claims can greatly impact the emergence and maintenance of the issue as a social problem. For example, the social problem of child custody and child support arose in the 1980s out of a specific social context that included increasing divorce rates, an increase in economic hardship for single-parent households, and an ideology that focused on children’s need for a continued relationship with both parents. In the case of unauthorized immigration, a context of increasing immigration, particularly in the aftermath of the September 11 bombings largely perpetrated by visa over-stayers, creates an environment where claims regarding the dangers of unauthorized immigration become particularly believable. Understanding claims-making activities, particularly the use of effective rhetoric, can shed light on why some widespread problems are generally dismissed by society while other, relatively rare, phenomenon, garner a great deal of attention. Take, for example, car accidents. Although much attention has been paid to the dangers posed by drunk driving, little attention has been given to the issue of sleepy driving, despite the fact that research has shown that driving without sufficient rest is more common and at least as risky (Powell, Riley, Schechtman, Blumen, Dinges and Guilleminault 1999). This is not to say that drunk driving is not a legitimate social problem; however, sleepy driving—a more widespread and equally dangerous phenomena—is not defined by society as such. In the case of the current study, we are interested in how certain claims about illegal immigration have come to be legitimized as social problems while social justice issues faced by the immigrant population and immigrants’ positive contributions to society receive little public attention. Unauthorized Immigration in the Press

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) is Atlanta’s only daily Englishlanguage newspaper and the most widely circulated daily in the Southeast. It is among the twenty most widely circulated daily

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newspapers in the United States. It was formed in 2001 by a merger of two smaller papers, each operating for over a hundred years in Atlanta. One of those papers, the Constitution, was at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement in the sixties, and several of its writers and editors have won Pulitzer Prizes for articles dealing with racial discrimination. When the decidedly liberal Constitution joined its newsroom with the more conservative Journal, the editors aimed for a more balanced reporting approach. Despite the attempt at offering a more moderate viewpoint, the AJC is still widely considered to be liberal-leaning, and the AJC continues to receive awards for reporting on issues of interest to liberal thinkers, such as work on racial discrimination in lending (Perry 2004). We chose to limit our content analysis to the AJC precisely because of its widespread impact and presumed liberal bias. We believe that the paper is less inclined than other print sources in the Southeast to print stories that portray the unauthorized population in a negative light; consequently, the findings we report here should be more conservative than what might be yielded had we focused on other papers. At the same time, as the leading daily newspaper in the Southeast, the impact of the AJC in disseminating information and misinformation to the general population should be rather large. Unauthorized Immigration by the Numbers

The dissemination of statistical data is important in the creation of effective rhetoric (Coltrane and Hickman 1992). In attempting to garner support in the fight against a social problem, claims-makers cite numerical estimates related to the problem that are often exaggerated, distorted, or simply made up. It should be no surprise, then, that individuals and groups concerned with unauthorized immigration often inflate the size of the unauthorized population. The U.S. Census Bureau—a group with little stake in the creation of the unauthorized immigration “problem”—estimates the unauthorized population to be between 11.5 and 12 million (as of March 2006). If we assume those numbers to be the best estimate of the real numbers (and we admit that it is impossible to obtain a true count, as we explain below), it is worthwhile to note that as many as a million of those labeled “unauthorized” are awaiting hearings on petitions for government asylum or temporary protected status (Passel 2006). In other words, a sizeable proportion of immigrants lack documents because the bureaucratic processes to gain documents have yet to run their course. This means that even official estimates include immigrants who do not

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fit the image of the unauthorized immigrant that is typically evoked (i.e., someone who blatantly flaunts U.S. laws by slipping across the border under cover of darkness). Groups pressing for increased border enforcement and changes in immigration laws cite numbers at least double those of the Census Bureau. NumbersUSA estimates the unauthorized population in the United States (as of March 1, 2006) at over 28 million and counting (http://www.numbersusa.com). The American Resistance Foundation, a Georgia-based group (http://www.theamericanresistance.com), and Immigration Counters (http:immigrationcounters.com)—another group organized around immigration enforcement—also estimate numbers greater than 20 million and have real time population clocks on their websites with numbers that supposedly increase at the rate at which unauthorized immigrants are entering the country. In the case of unauthorized immigration, it is difficult to argue for a single, accurate estimate of the size of the population, but some estimates are more reliable than others. One method has been widely recognized by population scholars as likely to yield the least biased estimates is the residual method. This method compares reports of the total foreign-born population against the known immigrant population, adjusting for births, deaths, and emigration (see Passel, VanHook, and Bean 2004). Academics and governmental agencies rely heavily on these estimates. The Census Bureau and other agencies usually contract annually with Jeffrey Passel, a demographer and senior research associate at the Pew Hispanic Center (and formerly of the Urban Institute), to make estimates using this method. It is acknowledged among social science scholars that Passel’s figures most reliably reflect other estimates generated using other unbiased estimation techniques. For these reasons, and because Passel’s estimates are used as the government’s official estimates, we use Passel’s numbers as the gold standard to which other estimates are compared. Comparing Passel’s annual estimates to AJC reports on unauthorized immigration from 2000 to 2005, we find that the AJC often underreported national numbers. From late 2001 until mid-2003, there was a consistent tendency to report the size of the national unauthorized population at 8 million, just slightly below Passel’s estimate of 8.4 million in 2001. Reporting at 8 million persisted even when official estimates went up to 9.3 million. Throughout this two year period, there was an occasional tendency to report numbers as high as 11 million, but most reports remained at the lower fixed level even when official estimates had risen to 10.3. Since May 2005, when the Passel issued new numbers at 11.1 million, the AJC numbers have been more

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in line with those estimates. We speculate that this pattern of reporting stems from two sources. First, in the early 2000s, reporters tended to rely on previous press reports for their numbers. This tendency is consistent with Coltraine and Hickman’s (1992) contention that unsubstantiated press reports of numbers can take on a life of their own. Second, since 2005, unauthorized immigration has gained so much attention that reporters are paying more attention to changes in the estimates. While underreporting the national numbers, there was a slight tendency for the AJC to over-report state numbers during the same time period. Official estimates place Georgia’s unauthorized population at between 200,000 and 250,000. From 2000 to 2005, AJC reports of the size of the population fell in the 250,000 to 300,000 range. Interestingly, between January and March of 2006—when the number of articles on unauthorized immigration published in the AJC escalated dramatically—the estimate of 800,000 appeared with some regularity. To date, the AJC has yet to provide a source for its occasionally cited and relatively new 800,000 number. Furthermore, the 800,000 number has appeared in some articles even when more reliable estimates are reported in the same issue. For example, in a front page article published on March 8, 2006, AJC staff writer Mary Lou Pickel reported on a recently released report by Passel estimating the March 2005 unauthorized population. The report estimates the unauthorized population in Georgia at no more than 250,000. In an article published along side Pickel’s entitled “Worry Grows over Illegal Immigrants,” staff writers Brian Feagans and Craig Schneider repeatedly report that there are as many as 800,000 unauthorized immigrants in the state. The 800,000 number appears six additional times in the AJC in February and March. This inflation of numbers has also been accompanied by an increase in inflammatory language about “illegals” during this period, hence demonstrating effective rhetoric surrounding the “illegal immigration problem.” Interestingly, when AJC reported numbers were in line with official estimates, some AJC readers took exception to the reporting. Their comments featured prominently in the editorial pages. For example, on December 11, 2005 one reader wrote that “the oft used figure of 250,000 illegals in Georgia is ridiculously low… many independent studies show that because of the amnesty of 1986 there are now likely 20 million illegals present nationally.” This letter is representative of several others that cite “independent studies” that are never identified by the letter writers. The distribution of these letters both reflects and perpetuates the view that unauthorized immigration is a pressing and growing problem.

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The editorial page is a readily available outlet for claims-makers who are attempting to legitimate their position. More usual than a tendency to over- or under-inflate the numbers is a tendency to offer confusing numerical information. For example, in a March 23, 2006 front page article, it is reported that unauthorized immigrants make up 13 percent of all agricultural workers. Passel is reported as the source for that number. In the very same story, it is reported that unauthorized immigrants account for four out of every five farm workers (i.e., 80 percent). Interestingly, the Passel article that is cited actually reports that unauthorized immigrants account for 24 percent of all farm workers. In these cases, the AJC does not appear to consistently exaggerate claims of an unauthorized immigration problem, but neither does there appear to be much effort to obtain reliable estimates and to report them accurately. Unauthorized Immigration and the Hispanic Population

The AJC has not joined the ranks of other claims-makers by wildly inflating unauthorized immigration estimates. However, staff writers do distort the true picture of unauthorized immigration by conflating this issue with Hispanic in-migration. Articles in the AJC on unauthorized immigration often intertwine that issue with general Hispanic issues, painting the picture that unauthorized immigrants are Hispanic and (more alarmingly) vice-versa. To fully understand the magnitude of this distortion, it is important to first examine the demographics of the Hispanic population in Georgia. According to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, there were an estimated 576,113 Hispanics or Latinos living in Georgia on July 1, 2004. In 2000, 40 percent of Georgia’s Hispanics were U.S.born and another nine percent were naturalized citizens (U.S. Census Bureau 2000a). Following this trend to July 1, 2004, we can project that there are at least 282,295 Hispanics living in Georgia who are U.S. citizens. Additionally, there are at least 258,000 Hispanic immigrants living in Georgia with permission from the government, including H-2A visa workers, students on visas, and immigrants with work permit “green cards.” Passel (2006) estimates that 76 percent of the unauthorized population living in the United States is from Latin American, especially Mexico. Assuming the official upper estimate of 250,000 unauthorized immigrants living in Georgia is correct, and also assuming that 76 percent are Latino, this means that there are an estimated 190,000 unauthorized Hispanic immigrants in Georgia. Thus,

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there are almost twice as many citizen Hispanics than unauthorized Hispanic immigrants. Although Hispanics who have every legal right to live in Georgia far outnumber those who have entered without inspection or overstayed their visas, AJC reports on unauthorized immigration often show graphical inserts of the legal Hispanic population, giving the impression that most Hispanics are unauthorized. For example, a March 8, 2006 front-page story titled “Worry Grows over Illegal Immigrants” shows an inset state map highlighting five Georgia counties and listing the size and growth of the Hispanic population in those counties. Among other things, the inset, which is centered in the middle of the front page, notes, “Between 1990 and 2000, the Hispanic population [in Whitfield County] grew from 1183 to 7156 (505 percent increase).” These numbers are consistent with the Census reports, but the positioning of this data in an article focused on the problems of unauthorized immigration lends credence to erroneous claims that all or most Hispanics living in Georgia are unauthorized. Additionally, it ignores the fact that many of Georgia’s Hispanics are not immigrants at all. Certainly the conflation of the terms Latino or Hispanic and unauthorized immigrants is not new. The racial slur “wetback” or “wet,” most often used in the West and Southwest in reference to Hispanics, implies entry without inspection by swimming across the Rio Grande River. Nor is this conflation new to Georgia. At a Ku Klux Kan rally in north Georgia in the late nineties one speaker railed, “I have a dream that one day we will take our County back from 60,000 illegals”(Garrett 2000). The County referenced, Whitfield County in north Georgia, has the largest proportionate Latino population in the state at 22 percent. It does not, however, have 60,000 immigrant residents, legal or otherwise. In fact, the carpet industry—the largest employer of Latinos in Whitfield County—takes extraordinary measures to ensure that its workers are authorized, although there are some who say they are not doing enough (see Bohon 2006a, 2006b). Of course, the construction of social problems is discursive: the AJC tendency to mix Latinos and unauthorized immigrants may be a reflection of the attitudes of the larger society just as the society’s perception of unauthorized immigration is shaped by the press. One AJC interview reported on a local resident who was unhappy that his local Wal-Mart makes announcements in their store in English and Spanish. The resident is quoted as saying, “Why are we changing to accommodate illegals?” In this resident’s mind, the speaking of Spanish is a signifier of unauthorized status.

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The tendency to link unauthorized immigrants with the overall Hispanic population is not simply a semantic issue; it results in real problems. The most prominent example of this is related to the fact that both authorized immigrants and U.S.-born Latinos fall under a cloud of suspicion simply because of their ethnic status. An illustration of this appeared in a letter to the AJC editor published March 27, 2006: I have a huge problem with free health care for illegals. I have a new baby, and because of the astronomical cost of health insurance, I must work outside the home. I cringe everytime I see a Hispanic woman pushing her baby down the sidewalk. I want to stay at home with my child too, but I can’t because the illegals are robbing legitimate citizens blind [emphasis added].

Clearly, the writer equates Hispanic phenotypical traits with unauthorized status. On the same editorial page, another writer who identified himself as concerned with unauthorized immigration adds, “The politicians are caught between displeasing their business supporters and displeasing the voters, who are concerned with the corrosive effects of the rapidly increasing Latino population” [emphasis added]. Blurring of the lines between Hispanics and unauthorized immigrants can have violent consequences. One incident in Farmingville, Long Island, has received considerable national attention, including a PBS documentary. There, two day laborers were taken to a remote job site and beaten severely with shovels simply because they were Mexican immigrants and presumed to be unauthorized. In October 2005, a south Georgia community was rocked with violence when a group of African Americans killed five Mexican farm workers and injured several more in a string of home invasions across three counties. This incident—referred to in the press as the “Night of Blood”— illustrates the problem at hand. The perpetrators of the killings justified their acts by saying that their victims were illegals who had taken native jobs. These victims were, indeed, Hispanic immigrants, but it is doubtful that their attackers asked to see proof of legal status before killing them. Rhetoric of Press Accounts and the Voices of Claims-Makers

In the United States, there is an ongoing controversy over the appropriate term to describe immigrants who have entered without inspection or overstayed their visas. Federal government reports (see, for example, Congressional Budget Office 2007) use the phrase

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“unauthorized immigrants.” We chose to do likewise. Unauthorized immigration is a relatively value neutral term, and we believe that it is more appropriate than the more commonly used phrase “undocumented immigrants” to a describe a population comprised of people who intentionally enter without documents, those with documents who have overstayed their visas, those who are without documents because they are awaiting immigration hearings, and those whose documentation has been temporarily suspended due to bureaucratic processes that may or may not be the fault of the immigrant. Claims-makers concerned with the unauthorized immigration “problem,” however, invariably use the phrase “illegal immigrants” to make reference to this population. In articles published in the AJC since 2000, almost all use the phrase “illegal immigrants” or the shortened term “illegals” when referring to unauthorized immigrants. Ironically, this is true even of articles written with the specific purpose of reporting the latest findings of Passel (who also prefers “unauthorized”). We found only one AJC article that used the phrase “undocumented immigrants” consistently throughout. Its publication resulted in several letters to the editor decrying the use of a “politically correct” term to describe “illegals.” Furthermore, the majority of articles on unauthorized immigrants that continue to a second page use the leader line “illegals,” as well. The consistent use of the term “illegal immigration” is a rhetorical device that lends credence to claims that unauthorized immigrants pose a threat to our society. It also diverts attention from the fact that a sizeable number of immigrants who fall into that category are awaiting government processing on asylum and other legal entrance claims. Setting aside the fact the being in the United States without proper authorization does not violate criminal laws, drawing attention to the illegality of a person’s immigrant status underscores the menace that unauthorized immigrants are purported to pose. For example, a March 8, 2006 front-page articles notes that the unauthorized have “flooded into the state.” An earlier report indicates that the unauthorized “sap vital resources” (February 19, 2006, A5). Readers’ letters to the editor exhibit more extreme language. One editorial exclaimed that “we are being invaded” by “illegal” Mexican workers, and that multiculturalism and multilingualism will “lead to the downfall of America from within” (February 26, 2006). Perhaps the most alarming finding from our qualitative content analysis was how often the problems of unauthorized immigration were framed simply by unquestioningly quoting claims-makers. In many of the recent articles about unauthorized immigration there is a heavy reliance on reporting people’s claims while paying scant attention to

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whether or not the comments reflect the state’s reality. For example, it is reported that Georgia residents are concerned about “gang graffiti and overburdened schools” as the result of unauthorized immigration (February 19, 2006 A5), but there is no substantiation of the gang graffiti or overburdened schools problem or whether this problem is specifically attributable to unauthorized immigrants. Social problems such as these are only tangentially linked to unauthorized immigrants, yet the choice of terms used to describe these immigrants and their activities paints an overtly negative picture of the population. The social problems most commonly attributed to unauthorized immigration in the press reports are rising education costs, increased crime, indigent health care use, and extensive use of public services. Again, these links are mostly made by reporting people’s attitudes and comments rather than by direct substantiation. In one example, an interview with a convenience store worker was reported as follows: “But she [the convenience store worker] said about half of the Hispanics who come into her store pay with food stamps and she guesses that many are in the County illegally. ‘I have to pay taxes, and I don’t get any help,’ she said.” Such reporting fuels the view that unauthorized immigrants take more out of public coffers than they put in. Nowhere in the article is it reported that immigrants use much less public assistance than natives, and that unauthorized immigrants and legal immigrants who are recent arrivals are ineligible for food stamps (Congressional Budget Office 2007). Although astute readers are likely savvy enough to know that many of those interviewed are not experts, those who are assumed to be in the know are also quoted without the benefit of factual contexts. For example, in a March 9 article on the Senate passage of the Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act, Senate President Pro Tem Eric Johnson is quoted as saying, “Georgia had the seventh-largest illegal immigrant population in the United States, estimated at between 250,000 to 800,000… [L]ast year Medicaid expenditures for emergency medical care for illegal immigrants in Georgia topped $100 million.” We could find no factual basis for either the 800,000 number or the Medicaid expenditures, but they were reported uncritically, reflecting a stenographic, rather than investigative, approach to reporting. This uncritical use of quotations is alarmingly common. On December 4, 2005, Senator Chip Rogers is reported as referencing an estimate that “educating and caring for illegal immigrants in Georgia costs over $1 billion a year.” The number, from the anti-immigrant Federation for American Immigration Reform, is highly disputed

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because the government does not estimate the costs or contributions of the unauthorized immigrant population. The controversy surrounding this number is noted, but it is published and arguably still impacts the public’s perception of illegal immigrants. Occasionally these quotations run counter to press accounts in the same issue, yet they are not addressed in the articles in which the quotes run. In a February 19, 2006 article, the aforementioned Senator Johnson claimed that the influx of illegal immigrants has “import[ed] a lower standard of living in our country,” by overburdening Georgia schools, prisons, and health care system. An adjacent article noted that Mexicans, of all legal and citizenship statuses, have paid $317 million in Georgia taxes. This is followed by claims from the president of the Migration Policy Institute that “Americans have come to depend on low prices of illegal immigrant labor to bolster the standard of living in this country.” Despite the appearance of inconsistent findings, it is important to note that although alternate claims-makers occasionally appear in AJC articles, their arguments tend to be less prominent, appear on the continuation of the article, appear in smaller articles, and lack the recap that many of the anti-immigrant articles receive. For example, in a lengthy front-page article from February 19, 2006 titled “Center stage in illegals debate,” the AJC focused on Senator Rogers as the central figure in pushing for a restrictive unauthorized immigration bill. Opposing viewpoints in the debate are presented on the second page and only after an extensive discussion of the political and personal life of Rogers, including a rather flattering description of his family and charity donations. His position on unauthorized immigration is then recapped in bold face at the bottom of the page. Conclusion: The Social Construction of Illegal Immigration in the South

In our research, we have examined how claims about unauthorized immigration have been legitimized as social problems through the construction of the illegal immigration “problem” in the pages of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. As we examined articles and editorials on unauthorized immigration in the AJC, we found a pattern of inflammatory language use, uncritical parroting of the “illegal problem” and the conflation of unauthorized immigration and Hispanic inmigration, especially since 2005. Specifically, we found that (1) the newspaper offered confusing and occasionally conflicting estimates of the number of unauthorized immigrants in Georgia and the United States, (2) stories about unauthorized immigration invariably referred to

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Hispanic immigrants, and stories of Hispanic migration nearly always referenced unauthorized immigration, thereby painting a picture of Hispanics as illegal immigrants, (3) that the Atlanta JournalConstitution consistently used the phrases “illegal immigration” and “illegals” when referencing the unauthorized immigrant population, despite the fact that the U.S. government officially labels these groups as “unauthorized,” and (4) that stories on unauthorized immigration often uncritically quoted claims makers without searching for evidence to refute or verify claims. Although unauthorized immigration is not a new topic, the rhetoric surrounding the issue has become significantly stronger and more exaggerated, particularly in the South. Evidence of overt anti-immigrant sentiment in the AJC first grasped our attention in a September letter to the editor which praised Senators Eric Johnson and Chip Rogers for sponsoring legislation to ban unauthorized immigrants from enrolling in the University of Georgia system. The letter—written to the editor of a purportedly liberal, civil rights-minded paper—suggests that these legislators should broaden their bill to include elementary and high schools in the ban. We argue that anti-immigrant sentiments and negative claims about unauthorized immigration have become increasingly incorporated into the articles presented in the AJC, and that exaggerated (mis)representation of unauthorized immigration has reached a critical mass in February and March of 2006 as the state legislature debated (and ultimately passed) the most comprehensive unauthorized immigration bill in the country. Inflated estimates of the numbers of unauthorized immigration by organizations based in Georgia have been matched with unsubstantiated estimates of the cost of immigration for native residents of Georgia. The claims-makers presenting these “facts” about immigration have been able to make their claims heard by the press, which plays a key part in disseminating and legitimizing their viewpoints. We may assume that their claims-making activities have been effective in defining unauthorized immigration as a social problem, since recent polls show that 80 percent of Georgians now want the state legislature to “crack down” on illegal immigration, despite the fact that the number of unauthorized immigrants in the state remains relatively small. Like most social constructed problems, the construction of the “illegals problem” in Georgia has a basis in fact. The presence of unauthorized immigrants requires states to increase their provision of education, health care, and law enforcement services (Congressional Budget Office 2007). However, the problem with current exaggerated claims that unauthorized immigration in Georgia is pervasive,

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dangerous, and costly is that focused attention on the issue will likely result in inattention to more pressing problems (such as growing methamphetamine use and high rates of school attrition). Additionally, a distorted framing of the problem will potentially create public support for draconian measures to stem the supposed flood of illegal immigrants such as was recently seen in the recent passage of Arizona legislation that allows law enforcement to investigate those who are merely suspected of being illegal immigrants. Polls in Georgia show that most immigrants fall under this suspicion, so the passage of a similar bill in Georgia could result in the severe curtailing of human rights. As the number of Hispanic residents in Georgia rises, a critical examination of the claims made about unauthorized immigration is crucial. States such as Georgia need to create humane and rational accommodations for immigrants if their successful adaptation is to be achieved. The State also has a responsibility to protect non-immigrant residents, including those who are Hispanic. Unfortunately, in Georgia and elsewhere, the framing of Hispanic migration solely around an “illegal” narrative has already had deadly consequences for some of Georgia’s Hispanic residents.

6 Integrating into New Communities: The Latino Perspective Elaine C. Lacy

“Most of the American people they tell you, ‘You just come here because you just take our jobs. You coming here so the government give you welfare, or stamps for food,’ and they think this. But we don’t. We come to work, make a better life. . . . We here, we pay taxes, we respect the laws, we do everything like everybody else so I don’t understand why the people discriminate like that.” (21-year-old man from Puebla, Mexico, living in Anderson, South Carolina, 2003, spoken in English)

In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries South Carolina and several other southern states became new destinations for thousands of Latino immigrants. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, between 1990 and 2008 the Latino populations in Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee grew by 602 percent while increasing 103 percent in the country as a whole (Decennial Census 1990; American Community Survey 2008). Well over half (66 percent) of Latinos in these six southern states have Mexican origins. Given the Census Bureau’s undercount of Hispanic individuals, it is likely that the numbers of Mexican and other Hispanic/Latino immigrants are far higher than census data suggests. Comprising about four percent of the state’s population, Latino numbers in South Carolina lag behind those in the more populous neighboring states of Georgia and North Carolina. Still, South Carolina’s Latino population growth rate has been among the country’s highest since early in the twenty-first century, increasing by 92 percent (from roughly 95,000 to 178,000) between 2000 and 2008 while the non-Hispanic population grew by 10 percent. According to the American Community Survey 2008, about half of the state’s Latinos are

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foreign born, but it is likely that many Latinos missed by the census were born abroad. These new residents have relocated to a small, largely rural and relatively poor state: 16 percent of South Carolina’s roughly 4 ½ million residents lived below the poverty level in 2008 (American Community Survey 2008), and the economic downturn that began that year resulted in an unemployment rate of 12.5 percent in early 2010, the fourth highest in the country (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, March 2010). Even though the state and region have become more cosmopolitan in recent years, South Carolina’s population remains largely Black and white. African Americans make up almost one-third of the total population, placing the state behind Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia and Maryland alone in its percentage of African Americans within the total population (American Community Survey 2008). Further, few immigrants settled in South Carolina between the colonial period and the late twentieth century. Recent immigrants to South Carolina encounter structural and historical challenges that can affect their economic and socio-cultural incorporation, especially in terms of its infrastructure, economic circumstances, history of racism and longstanding rejection of cultural outsiders, and demographic characteristics, particularly the absence of a sizeable, longstanding Latino population. This chapter offers a history of Latino migration to South Carolina along with detailed characteristics of that population cohort, and examines the factors that shape the extent and nature of this first generation of Latino immigrants’ economic and social incorporation into South Carolina society. Much of the information in this chapter is derived from first-person interviews with and surveys of Latino immigrants to South Carolina conducted by the author, sometimes in collaboration with other scholars and researchers between 2003 and 2010. South Carolinians’ attitudes toward Latino immigrants were gleaned from the public record and from interviews conducted as part of a project undertaken by the author in Aiken County, South Carolina in 2008. Why the Southeast?

What is behind the recent demographic shift in the U.S. South? While a number of studies have demonstrated that labor markets in the U.S. drive most immigration, we cannot ignore “push” factors in Latin America that lead to ongoing emigration from that region . For example, economic crises in Mexico, the Latin American country that sends most Latino migrants to the United States, have led to unemployment, low

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wages, and job insecurity in Mexico since the 1980s (Canales 2003; Kochhar 2005; Delgado Wise and Márquez Covarrubias 2009). Further, Mexico’s population growth (from 68 million in 1980 to an estimated 111 million in 2009) contributes to both unemployment and underemployment. At least a quarter of Mexico’s workers are relegated to the informal economy, and up until the current economic crisis roughly 400,000 emigrated to the U.S. annually to find work (McKinley, Betancourt, and Malkin 2006). Social, economic and political crises in Central America and some South American countries have also driven migrants to the U.S., and in the late twentieth century, plentiful jobs, the relatively low cost of living, and social networks led many of them to the South. The influx of Latino immigrants to the South also may be traced to the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which provided legal residency status to millions of immigrants who as result were more willing to leave traditional settlement states like California, where antiimmigrant sentiments and overcrowded job and housing markets led them to seek better conditions elsewhere. Further, IRCA’s family reunification provision resulted in the immigration of vast numbers of family members, many of whom also came to the South as result of social networks (Zúñiga and Hernández-León 2009). The South’s dynamic economic growth in the 1990s also acted as an important factor in drawing migrants and new immigrants to the area. The 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta drew Latino construction workers, many of whom remained in the region for plentiful jobs in the construction, agricultural, food processing, and other industries. South Carolina’s economic restructuring in the 1980s and 1990s created a variety of low-wage jobs, many of which have been filled by Latinos relocating from other states but primarily by new immigrants from Mexico and Central America (Lacy 2007; Schunk and Woodward 2000). Contributing as well to the surge of new Latino immigrants to the state are extensive social networks. As word of plentiful jobs spread among friends and family south of the border, thousands of migrants made their way north. Many of them originate in new “sending” areas in southeastern Mexico (Massey et. al., 2002; Lacy 2007). Latino Settlement in South Carolina

The Mexican immigrant population in South Carolina grew exponentially after the mid-1990s. While Mexican agricultural workers have passed through the region since the early 1980s as part of east coast migrant worker streams, large numbers began to “settle out” of the

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migrant worker force in the 1990s to take the more plentiful and stable year-round jobs the state’s changing economy provided (Thompson and Wiggins 2002). As word spread to friends and family in Mexico, new immigrants came. Many new arrivals were pushed by deteriorating regional economies in states like Veracruz, Chiapas, Puebla, Guerrero and Hidalgo (Garrido, 2004; Lacy 2007). Before the large influx of Mexican and Central American workers in the 1990s, most of South Carolina’s resident Latinos were of Puerto Rican, Cuban, or Colombian origin, although a sizeable number of Central and South Americans also lived in the state. The majority of the state’s earliest Puerto Rican residents arrived because of military postings as early as World War II, many of them remaining in the area after completing their tours of duty (History of Fort Jackson 2010). Others of Puerto Rican origin have arrived because of business or educational opportunities and social networks. A small number of Cuban refugees arrived in South Carolina in the aftermath of the 1959 Cuban revolution, and after the Bay of Pigs fiasco of 1961 hundreds of Cuban ex-patriots who had participated in the failed invasion were inducted into the U.S. Army and relocated to Fort Jackson, where they created an organization entitled Ex-Combatientes Cubanos de Ft. Jackson. According to some sources, the group’s mission briefly included planning another invasion of Cuba. Like Puerto Ricans, many Cubans chose to continue living in the state with the completion of their service obligations. Even more Cubans arrived in the 1980s and 1990s, largely as result of additional emigration from Cuba, social networks, and professional opportunities (Thomas 1967). South Carolina’s large Colombian population began to arrive in the 1960s, most to work in the state’s textile industry. Faced with worker shortages, mills in South Carolina’s upstate recruited thousands of Colombians, largely from the textile mills of Medellín, Colombia and subsequently, more arrived from mills in the northeastern United States. IRCA’s family reunification provision brought many more Colombians to South Carolina in the 1980s, many of them fleeing the drug-related violence in that country (Safranek 2010). A number of Colombians also have relocated to the state for educational or professional reasons over the years. Many of South Carolina’s immigrants are undocumented. The Pew Hispanic Center estimated that the state’s unauthorized immigrant population in 2008 numbered 70,000 (out of a total 178,000). While not all undocumented immigrants in the state are Latinos, reliable estimates suggest that at least 75 percent of unauthorized immigrants enter the United States from Mexico and other Latin American countries,

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especially Central America (Passel and Cohn 2009). Some demographers contend, however, that Passel’s model does not take into account Mexican and Central American “sojourners,” those who continue to cross the border regularly despite more rigorous border security after the attacks of September 11, 2001 (Bohon 2006a, 2006b). The actual number of unauthorized immigrants therefore would be lower than Passel’s estimates. Demographic Characteristics of the South Carolina Latino Population

In describing Latino demographic characteristics, the reader is reminded of the limitations of census data related to that population cohort. The census undercount of Hispanics/Latinos in the United States has been widely recognized. Reasons for the undercount include diverse definitions of households (i.e. like many new immigrant groups over time, Latino immigrants often share housing but may not enumerate all individuals in the household on census forms), group and individual mobility, legal residency status, fear or distrust of government agencies including the Census Bureau, and language barriers (Davis et al. 1992; Edmonston 2002; Romero 1992). Keeping the undercount in mind, the Census Bureau reported that in 2008, most (62 percent) of Latinos in the state originated in Mexico (American Community Survey 2008). Puerto Ricans comprised 11 percent of the state’s Hispanic population, Central Americans 12 percent, and South Americans 8 percent. Hondurans and Guatemalans outnumbered other Central Americans, and the largest cohort among South Americans has Colombian roots (American Community Survey 2006-2008 Three Year Estimates). The Mexicanand Central-American-born population is likely far larger than the census data reports: University of South Carolina studies estimate that at least 75 percent of Latinos in the state are of Mexican origin. (Lacy 2007; Lacy, et al. 2007; Woodward 2006). As is true in many of the southern states, over half of Latino immigrants in South Carolina are young males, most of them between the ages of 20 and 44. The median age for both males and females is 24 years. Their median income is less than $20,000, and as a rule, they are poorly educated: 41 percent of Latinos aged 25 and older in South Carolina did not complete high school, as compared to 14 percent of the white and 26 percent of the African American populations (American Community Survey 2008). Census data indicate that well over one-third of South Carolina’s Spanish-speaking Latinos (42 percent) aged 5 and over speak English poorly or not at all (American Community Survey, 2008), but in a USC

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study, over half (51.4 percent) of the survey subjects (Latinos age 16 and over) reportedly spoke little to no English, and another 25.2 percent described their English skills as poor (Lacy et al. 2007). Latinos have settled in virtually every county in South Carolina, but large numbers have concentrated along an industrial corridor in the “upstate,” especially in Greenville, Spartanburg and York Counties; in Saluda, Lexington, and Richland Counties in the “midlands;” and in Beaufort, Charleston, and Horry Counties in the “low country” of South Carolina. Relatively few own their own homes: 39 percent are homeowners, as compared to 78 percent of Whites and 55 percent of African Americans (American Community Survey 2008). According to one study, 40 percent live in mobile homes, often sharing the space with other immigrants (Lacy, et. al. 2007). Mobile home communities that house Latinos tend to be located in the poorer sections of towns and cities across South Carolina, and they are often segregated from other groups. Most Latinos in the state have been in this country a relatively short period of time, especially as compared to Latino residents of the traditional settlement states including California, Texas, New York, Illinois and Florida. Sixty percent of Mexican immigrants in the 20032005 USC study had arrived to the state in the previous seven years, the majority of them arriving directly from Mexico (Lacy 2007). Economic Activities

In the late twentieth century South Carolina's economy underwent a dramatic shift from reliance on agriculture and manufacturing, especially in the textile and apparel industries, to a greater emphasis on service and trade sectors. These new economic activities produced a remarkable number of jobs: the state led the region in employment growth in the 1990s. State industries that grew most rapidly between 1990 and 2005 include the service sector, construction, transportation and public utilities, wholesale and retail trade, finance, insurance, and real estate. (Schunk 2005; Schunk and Woodward 2000). Since the mid-1990s many of these jobs, particularly low-wage jobs that require few skills, have been taken by Latinos. These immigrants’ entry into the local labor market is established, to a large extent, by the “social, financial, and human-cultural capital” of the immigrants themselves (Nee and Sanders 2001). Since most arrive with little social capital, little formal education and a limited skill set (including English language skills), they tend to find jobs in industries that hire other Latinos rather than in the broader economy. These “brown collar” jobs

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(where Latinos are over-represented as compared to other segments of the population) tend to segregate this group from native workers (Catanzarite 2000). Most (over 70 percent) of South Carolina’s Latino males over age 16 have found employment in the construction, service and manufacturing industries (American Community Survey 2008; Lacy et al., 2007). More of the state’s Latina women over age 16 work in the service sector than in other industries, followed by those in sales, management, and manufacturing (American Community Survey, 20062008 Three Year Estimates). Of Mexican immigrant women participating in a USC study, almost one-third worked in restaurants, about one-fourth in domestic work, and just over 15 percent in manufacturing, most of them in poultry processing (Lacy 2007). Employment opportunities for Latino and other immigrants recently have declined in the state because of the economic recession and because a tough immigration law that took effect in January 2009, the South Carolina Illegal Immigration Reform Act, requires (by July 2010) all employers in the state to verify the legal residency status of employees. Further, a widely-publicized 2008 raid by federal immigration officials of one of the state’s poultry packing plants resulted in the detention of several hundred immigrants and the prosecution of plant officials. The raid has contributed to other employers’ determination to hire only workers with proper documentation. Preliminary data from a study of Mexican immigrants in South Carolina currently underway suggests that the new state law, the raid, and the economic downturn has resulted in high unemployment rates and growing feelings of isolation on the part of Mexican immigrants (Lacy, personal communication, 2009-2010). The majority of Latinos in South Carolina earned low wages even before the new law and economic recession took effect: the Census Bureau estimates that the average annual income of Hispanics age 16 and over was slightly less than $20,000 in 2008, and per capita income for state Hispanics was not quite $13,000, as compared to over $28,000 for white and slightly over $15,000 for African American residents (American Community Survey 2008). Latino Incorporation

Scholars of immigrant incorporation argue that individual incorporation is determined by characteristics of immigrants themselves but also by the settlement context. In particular, scholars who focus on “modes of incorporation” stress the critical role of contextual elements such as the

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social and economic infrastructure, local attitudes toward immigrants, public policies affecting the newcomers, and the nature and activities of co-ethnic groups in the area (Brown and Bean 2006; Marrow 2005; Portes and Rumbaut 2006; Rumbaut 1997). Immigrants’ personal characteristics clearly shape processes of incorporation. For example, the language barrier acts as a critical factor in isolating Latino immigrants from mainstream South Carolina society, and frustration over their lack of English skills runs high for both immigrants and other state residents. Immigrants interviewed in recent studies recognize the limitations imposed by language barriers, and despite charges to the contrary, most want to learn English. A state-wide study of Mexicans in South Carolina revealed that about one-third were actively studying English in a formal setting, about a quarter were using purchased tapes, reading books in English or watching English-language television, and another almost 20 percent were attempting to learn English at work and/or from English-speaking family members (Lacy 2007). On the other hand, some respondents expressed frustration over the shortage of available English classes, lack of transportation to attend classes, or family or work obligations that prevent their attendance. As a young man from Puebla who arrived in 1998 explained, “The reason I don’t speak more English is because I work 12-16 hours every day, every week so I can have something in the future for my kids or my wife” (Lacy 2007). Another important characteristic of many Latino immigrants in South Carolina that affects incorporation relates to their place of origin. For example, a large percentage of Mexican immigrants have arrived from new “sending” states in southeastern Mexico. For vast areas of these states, outmigration is a relatively recent phenomenon, meaning that emigrants lack social capital, the “actual or virtual” resources (in this case, pertaining to migration to the U.S.) that may be accessed through a network group of individuals with previous migratory experiences (Palloni et al. 2001). In addition, the majority of South Carolina’s Latinos have arrived directly from their countries of origin, therefore bypassing the learning experiences that living in other U.S. states could provide. Further, they have settled in a state without a longstanding, multi-generational ethnic cohort that can ease the transition of newcomers into a new society. As migration scholars have pointed out, without such support systems and the social capital they provide, new immigrants’ incorporation into new societies is less smooth and can take far longer than it does for those with easy access to social capital on both sides of the border (Massey and Espinoza 1997; Palloni et al. 2001).

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A young man who came directly from Chihuahua to South Carolina in 2002 expressed the helplessness many immigrants feel. “We need help,” he said, to learn about “services, doctors, cars, and language. If you need information and don’t speak English, you need someone who is bilingual to get information from, to find work, to help with problems with the car or your house” (Lacy, personal communication, 20032005). The relatively small numbers of Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and South Americans in the state have not provided the same type of social capital that a longstanding co-ethnic community could offer the mostly Mexican and Central American newcomers. In fact, some within the majority Mexican community complain that Puerto Ricans and South Americans in the state treat them as badly as do native South Carolinians (E. Lacy, personal communication, 2003-2005; Safranek 2010). Contextual factors including South Carolina’s lack of preparedness to accommodate non-English speakers and public policy regarding language use have also affected immigrant incorporation. State agencies and social service providers have struggled to meet the needs of nonEnglish speakers, in part due to a shortage of Spanish-speaking personnel. Entrepreneurs have helped fill the need for interpreters and translators in health facilities, but public service providers, including law enforcement personnel, continue to lag behind neighboring states in terms of their ability to communicate with the immigrant population. For some, however, the decision not to serve the public in languages other than English is a calculated one aimed at forcing immigrants to learn English or, in some cases, ridding the state of unwanted immigrants. In late 2006, Hilton Head Island officials offered town employees a bonus if they learn Spanish in order to better serve the island’s growing Latino population, but many local residents objected, saying officials were “catering to illegal immigrants” rather than “facing the problem headon” (Donnelly 2006). “The problem,” in this case, was the influx of Spanish-speaking residents. Compounding the problem for non-English speakers, in early 2007 Beaufort County commissioners voted 6-1 to remove all public signage or other public information in languages other than English. The bill’s sponsor said it was the commissioners’ responsibility to “stop the bilingualization of America where we can,” and that providing information in other languages “makes it easier for illegal immigrants to obtain taxpayer-funded services, programs and benefits they are not entitled to” (Voss 2007). In 2008 and 2009, South Carolina state legislators introduced bills that would require all state agencies to speak and publish materials in English only, to include instructional manuals

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and testing for driver’s licenses. While the bills did not pass, local civil rights groups expect conservative legislators to continue to press the issue, given the anti-immigrant atmosphere that pervades the state. The state’s refusal to allow unauthorized immigrants access to driver’s licenses and to legally purchase new automobiles, along with an exceedingly limited public transportation system, has also served to isolate and marginalize new immigrants. Roughly half of Mexicans interviewed for one state study said lack of transportation was among the most serious problems they faced (Lacy 2007), and limited transportation has been shown to be a barrier to health care access, to learning English, and to securing jobs in South Carolina (Lacy, 2007; López De Fede and Torres 2001; Smithwick-Leone 2004). Other studies found that lack of access to transportation, like limited English skills, led to feelings of social isolation and depression among immigrants (Grove 2005; Hudgins 2005). South Carolinians’ lack of exposure to and experience with immigrants over time has shaped the ways in which new immigrants are perceived, which in turn affects their mode of incorporation (Brown and Bean 2006). As a colony, South Carolina’s population was more diverse than that of many other east coast settlements, but as time passed the plantation economy and blending of the white population created an almost exclusive Black/white society with a white population predominantly of northern European origin (Edgar 1998). The state’s only experiences with immigrants until the late twentieth century were not positive. As was true elsewhere in the region, South Carolina’s growers and industrialists led efforts in the late 19th and early 20th century to attract a European immigrant labor pool. Though relatively few immigrants settled in the South, most of them from southern and eastern Europe, southerners “were predisposed to distrust outsiders” and rejected the new arrivals (Berthoff 1951). Nativists in the state believed that the mostly Catholic, swarthy, non-English speakers could not be assimilated, that they competed economically with natives, and would undermine the character of the state’s people. In 1910, Senator Frank B. Gary said he would prefer that South Carolina’s “uncultivated lands should forever lie fallow, and our water power go unharnessed to the sea, than that we should be overrun by a lot of aliens from southern Europe,” who he compared to the “mongrels” who destroyed the Roman Empire (Berthoff 1951). Even though the state became far more cosmopolitan in the twentieth century, many of today’s attitudes toward immigrants mirror those of a century earlier. Anti-immigrant sentiment in South Carolina has increased as the number of Latino immigrants has risen and as the state’s economy has

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worsened. Prior to the late 1990s, South Carolinians tended to think of Latinos primarily as agricultural workers passing through the state, and perceived the relative few who had settled permanently with curiosity or indifference. Newspaper stories about new immigrants in the 1990s included titles such as “Outreach Program to Aid Hispanics (2004),” “Understanding Hispanic Heritage (2004),” “Banks Trying to Attract Hispanics (2006),” and often described ways in which some small communities were undergoing changes as Hispanics moved in. A series of newspaper articles in the 1990s in South Carolina’s largest newspaper, The State, profiled Latino immigrants who had taken jobs in local poultry and other facilities. They also included few negative comments about the new arrivals (Butler articles,1998a,b,c,d). During the first decade of the twenty-first century, however, a number of factors began to affect attitudes toward new immigrants, including Latinos’ growing visibility, especially in small communities around the state; concern over “outsiders,” given the lingering effects of September 11, 2001; national attention to federal immigration reform; anti-immigrant rhetoric in the media and on the Internet; the 2006 proimmigrant rights rallies; and the economic recession that began in 2008. Negative feelings toward immigrants are not unique to the South, but have a long history in the United States (Reimers 1998; Suárez-Orozco and Suárez-Orozco 2001). Historically, such attitudes have arisen in response to perceptions that immigrants pose economic, social or cultural threats to native-born residents (Espenshade and Calhoun, 1993; Espenshade and Hempstead 1996; Fetzer 2000; Scheve and Slaughter 2001). In this first decade of the twenty-first century, virtually all publicly expressed opinions related to Latino immigrants and immigration in South Carolina, whether in legislative hearings, town hall meetings, newspapers, personal interviews, online newspapers, or on list serves and blogs are negative. Most of the negativity has focused on immigrants’ real or presumed legal status: as is the case in the country as a whole, the widespread perception is that most immigrants have entered the United States illegally (Espenshade and Hempstead 1996). Once the immigrant is labeled an “illegal,” they become the “other” who potentially is a criminal, perhaps even a terrorist, and hence a threat. Some South Carolinians associate the act of illegally crossing the border with a character flaw: an Aiken County retiree said in 2008, “the immigrant, . . .Spanish-speaking population doesn't have the moral standards which have made this country great. They don’t abide by our rules of western civilization” (Lacy, personal communication, 2008).

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For many, the act of illegal entry is associated with immigrants’ use of public services to which they are not entitled. Such concerns comprise part of a broader category of fears, i.e. that Latino immigrants pose an economic threat because they overburden taxpayers, especially as result of increased health care and educational demands, they do not pay taxes themselves, and they suppress wages and take jobs that should rightfully go to natives. Historically, waves of anti-immigrant sentiment have paralleled economic downturns in the United States, in part because union leaders and politicians have put the blame on immigrants for economic woes (Bustamante and Cockroft 1983; Citrin et al. 1997; Foner 1964; Higham 1955; Portes 1977). In South Carolina, politicians have been among the most vocal critics of undocumented immigrants, and some target all non-English speakers regardless of legal status. In 2007, Senate President Pro Tempore Glenn McConnell proposed a Constitutional Convention that would give states the right to deny undocumented immigrants of benefits, including the right to U.S. citizenship even if they are born in this country (Wenger 2007). Early the following year State Representative Bobby Harrell (R. of Charleston) wrote in an online news op-ed piece that “illegal immigrants” were costing South Carolina taxpayers more than $186 million annually, a figure he apparently took from the website of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a group that openly seeks to limit the number of immigrants allowed into the United States. Noting that Oklahoma and Georgia have passed restrictive immigration legislation, Harrell warned that if South Carolina “does not take action while our neighboring states continue to, South Carolina will become a safe haven for illegal aliens and our taxpayers will heavily bear that cost” (Harrell 2008). After South Carolina lawmakers passed what is among the most restrictive pieces of state immigration legislation to date, McConnell said that South Carolinians were taking steps to “stop the silent invasion” by undocumented immigrants (Adcox 2008). Not content with the draconian legislation’s effect and playing to the conservative majority in the state during the Governor’s race of 2010, Lieutenant Governor (and gubernatorial candidate) André Bauer asserted that the state continues to be overrun with “illegals” because too many South Carolinians were lazy and refused to take jobs that immigrants fill (Davenport 2010). Public opinion clearly shapes much of politicians’ rhetoric, especially in election years. The belief among many South Carolinians that immigrants (whether in the country legally or not) overburden the

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local and state economy and abuse social welfare programs is commonplace. In late 2008 a local law enforcement officer complained, The part [about immigration] I think is . . . a greater negative overall . . . [is] the economic drain. I think that the government is . . . providing services, . . . they have to support them, whether it's the kids in the community, whether it's health issues, whether it's law enforcement or fire response for citizens that probably aren't paying taxes, aren't paying their fair share into social security. So I think there's a lot of money being lost and a lot of services put out just to let them live in a freer kind of, better society (Lacy, personal communication, 2008).

An Aiken County native recently expressed what many others in the state believe: “[immigrants] know how to use the system. They learn how to get money through different programs. Even though they're illegally here, they still get programs” (Lacy, personal communication, 2008). A female insurance firm employee who has lived in Aiken county for 25 years said, “I think that they are educated to take advantage of the system. I think that they need to be taxed just like we are. It's my understanding that they are not; that when they come to this country, it used to be, they have seven years of non-tax” (Lacy, personal communication, 2008). Further, the belief expressed by one South Carolina resident that “the state goes out of their way to help [illegal immigrants] through welfare—all kinds of help—things that our own people don't get” is a common misperception. Even state health department employees appear to be misinformed regarding the rights of undocumented immigrants: one complained, “I think [immigration] would be . . . an okay thing if they had the same exact rules as we do here. If they come in, they speak English, they pay taxes, they cross the line the same as we do. But that's not the case with a lot of them. I think that they almost have more advantages sometimes than the citizens” (Lacy, personal communication, 2008). The economic downturn provoked increased anti-immigrant sentiment, especially over the issue of job displacement. One young native resident complained, “I think they should send [immigrants] back because like I said, they're taking all of our work from us and that's why we don’t hardly have any work. That's why I'm having a tough time with my family because it's hard to find work” (Lacy, personal communication, 2008). Those responding online to an early 2009 newspaper story that the South Carolina legislature was considering a bill that would end worker’s compensation payments for unauthorized workers overwhelmingly favored the proposal. A Myrtle Beach, South

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Carolina resident wrote, “Send the illegals packing, I need a job” (Davenport 2009a). A Charleston man complained in an early 2009 letter to the local newspaper editor, “As a local mason contractor looking for work, I found that out-of-state general contractors come in to our state and contract work to subcontractors who use illegal workers. Local workers are losing their homes and dignity” (Tortorella 2009). Many within the state’s African American community view Latino immigrants as competitors for low-wage jobs and public services. Nicolas Vaca’s exploration of Black-Latino issues in the South led him to conclude, “The Latino arrival [to the South] brings . . . the same tensions that afflict Latino-Black relations in other states where Blacks and Latinos have a history of competing over jobs and resources” (Vaca 2004). The major causes of tensions between Latinos and African Americans in South Carolina appear to be economic competition and cultural differences. Job displacement and the fact that Latino immigrants are willing to work for very low wages rankle many of the state’s African Americans. The tendency to portray all immigrant workers as “illegal” is apparent among that group as well: a Black female stable hand in Aiken (a community with a large Latino population with legal residency status) complained in 2004, After the first illegal is hired the American is forced to make a choice of working for less or losing their job… If you go the illegal has a cousin, brother, uncle or friend ready to take the job. On the race track you may have done the same work for ten, twenty or even forty years and they will pay you exactly the same as the person unable to communicate in English, with only days of experience” (The Informer 2004).

In a public forum on health care for Latinos in South Carolina in 2005, an African American woman openly expressed the resentment that “her people” felt as result of job losses to Latinos in the state. She said that African Americans know that certain jobs are “worth more than $7 an hour, so we won’t take them, but Latinos will. Instead of raising the minimum wage, we let those people just take the jobs” (Lacy, personal communication, 2005). In interviews Mexican immigrants have described conflicts with African Americans over issues of jobs, wages, and women in the state. They also claim to have been mistreated by Black supervisors in the workplace (Lacy 2007). Cultural differences have created inter-ethnic tensions as well. In a 2005 USC study conducted at a Columbia poultry processing plant, some African American workers repeated stereotypes that they had

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heard about Latinos: they are “illegal”; they come here to have their children born in the U.S.; they tend to throw trash on the floor; they “party” too much (i.e. drink too much); and can behave in a violent manner, especially with other Latinos. A Mexican employee also described problems with their Black next-door neighbors, who complain regularly about the Mexican family’s life style (Lacy and Morehouse 2005). Both black and white South Carolinians regularly raise the issue of language barriers. The Spanish language has become a flash point in South Carolina, and for some, immigrants’ continued use of Spanish represents a deliberate effort to remain separate from mainstream society, or as a sign of disrespect of American culture. The tendency to associate the English language with American national identity has played a role in anti-immigrant feelings over time: at the center of national debates over U.S. identity in the 18th through 20th centuries were charges that immigrants were unwilling or unable to integrate into the American nation (Ngai 2003; Zolberg 2006). “[Immigrants] have no intention of integrating,” a retiree who has lived in South Carolina for 27 years argued. “They make no effort to learn the language” (Lacy, personal communication, 2008). A Greenville resident commented in response to a story about Latino immigrants on an Internet news site, “[Immigrants] don’t want to be assimilated into the American culture; they don’t want to learn English. They form Mexican enclaves throughout the country” (Koffler 2008). In early 2007, residents of Charleston and Saluda, South Carolina testified in public hearings on a proposed piece of state legislation that would deny health care and K-12 education to Latino immigrants that Latinos in their areas did not want to learn English, do not respect American culture, have poor hygiene and spread disease, live in overcrowded and unhealthy conditions, take jobs from Americans, sacrifice animals in religious ceremonies, and come to the state to have “anchor babies” and to live on government benefits. Some residents of Saluda have launched a campaign to “save” their community from the “bottom feeders” they see as having ruined it (Fausset 2008; “What Illegal Aliens Have Done” 2007). The Southern Poverty Law Center reports that the number of active “hate groups” in South Carolina increased from 12 in 2002 to 36 in 2010, ranking the state fifth in the U.S. in the number of such groups after the more populous states of Texas, California, Florida, Georgia and Tennessee. A spokesman for the SPLC said that “illegal immigration is a top issue for all” of these organizations (Ordoñez 2007; SPLC 2009). Groups including the National Socialist Movement, a neo-Nazi

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organization, have begun to stage rallies in South Carolina in recent years. Even though such organizations claim that their objective is to stop “illegal immigration,” their rhetoric often reveals their main objection: Latino immigrants pose a threat to U.S. culture and identity. The “commander” of the National Socialist Movement said of Latino immigrants, “A lot of them don't speak English. They're not trying to speak English. They're coming to conquer our country, not to become a part of it” (Neo-Nazi 2007). Latino immigrants are well aware of how they are perceived in South Carolina, and have described incidences of name-calling, discrimination in the workplace, poor treatment in medical facilities and by public servants, discrimination in housing, bullying in high schools, being ignored in shops, harassment by law enforcement, and being verbally abused by both Blacks and whites (Lacy 2007). Many believe their treatment is motivated by racism. Studies elsewhere demonstrate that Latinos have or are undergoing a process of racialization (Itzigsohn and Dore-Cabral 2000; Marrow 2007; Zhou 1997a), and it is easy to see how some responses to Latinos, especially to Mexican immigrants in South Carolina, are based on ethnic and perhaps “racial” differences. Regardless of the basis of anti-immigrant attitudes, those immigrants who believe that they are being rejected because of racial or ethnic differences are more likely to self-identify with their own ethnic group rather than with majority “American” society (Golash-Boza 2006). In addition to workplace provisions, South Carolina’s new immigration law makes the transporting or harboring of “illegal aliens” a felony, “authorizes and directs” law enforcement divisions to “negotiate an agreement” with U.S. Homeland Security to help enforce federal immigration laws, and prohibits undocumented immigrants from attending public colleges and universities, among other requirements. This law, combined with the severe economic recession, the contraction of the construction and service industries, and recent federal (ICE) raids and the resulting firing of thousands of Latino workers across the state apparently has caused many immigrants to leave the state, although no hard data exists to date (Lacy, personal communication, 2009, 2010). Not all of the response to immigrants in South Carolina has been negative. Employers have repeatedly stressed the benefits of this immigrant work force for South Carolina’s economy, and some argue that employing these highly productive, low-wage workers helps them remain competitive in an increasingly global economy (Norton 2004; Phillips 2006; Woodward 2006). Immigrant outreach organizations exist in all metropolitan areas of the state, offering immigrants assistance in learning English, finding jobs and housing, and sometimes providing

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food and clothing. Other advocacy groups include Latino social and cultural organizations, legal justice and human rights groups, and, in response to the dramatic rise in crimes against Latinos, victims assistance programs. The National Latino Police Officer’s Association started a South Carolina chapter in 2006 in part to combat discrimination against Latinos. Churches across the state have also reached out to Latino immigrants by offering services in Spanish and English-language classes, hiring bilingual priests or ministers, and providing assistance with food, clothing, and sometimes help with medical, housing, and other costs. Relatively fewer Catholic churches exist in South Carolina compared to many other states, but in recognition of the increase in the Latino immigrant population the Charleston Diocese appointed a Vicar for Hispanic Ministry in the 1990s, and has deemed outreach to Latinos a primary objective. Many new immigrants around the state are attending Protestant churches in South Carolina, in part because several Protestant denominations are actively reaching out to this population. Conclusion

South Carolinians are struggling to adjust to the new socio-cultural and economic realities that increased Latino immigration has brought to the Palmetto State. While employers and immigrant advocates tout the benefits this new population brings, anti-immigrant sentiment is on the rise across the state and region. Many express concerns that immigrants are making the state’s economic situation worse by taking jobs from natives, driving down wages, increasing the cost of education, health care, social services, and law enforcement. Nativists argue that Latino immigrants are not learning English and are unwilling to become part of mainstream society and culture. While such sentiments are not unique to South Carolina, the state’s long history of racism and rejection of cultural difference continues to shape modern discourse. As the literature on immigrant incorporation makes clear, the nature and extent of incorporation depends on the individual characteristics of the immigrant and on characteristics of the place of settlement. The Latino population in South Carolina is comprised largely of workingclass Mexicans and Central Americans who, having recently arrived directly to the state, many of them from new “sending” areas, bring with them little social capital. They tend to take “brown collar” jobs and bring in a modest income, and to live and work mostly with other Latinos. At the same time, these immigrants cannot count on a large, multi-generational co-ethnic community to help them navigate the

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uncertain terrain of a relatively small, poor state whose residents are unaccustomed to diversity beyond Black and white. The majority of Latino immigrants therefore find themselves isolated and excluded by cultural and class differences and by a lack of knowledge about their new place of residence. Perhaps the most salient individual characteristic driving recent Latino immigrants’ exclusion, however, is the legal residency status of a large portion of the immigrant community. Undocumented immigrants are excluded from political participation, social benefits, labor options, and an active role in society. Many live in fear of deportation and/or lack a valid driver’s license, and therefore leave their homes only for work, food purchases, and other essential reasons (Córdova Plaza 2009). Unauthorized immigrants tend to take low-wage jobs, and therefore tend to remain at the lower end of the economic scale even after many years in the U.S. Also shaping recent immigrants’ social and cultural incorporation are structural, legal and social factors in the state, including a poor transportation system, lack of support for non-English speakers, failure to provide English-language training for adults, laws aimed at restricting jobs, transportation and services to unauthorized immigrants, and the shortage of Spanish-language publications and signage. Negative attitudes toward immigrants also slow incorporation, in part because immigrants tend to identify with those in their own ethnic group rather than with mainstream society when facing discrimination. The recent economic downturn has hindered incorporation as well, in that the construction and service industries have been hard hit, therefore leading to widespread job losses for Latinos (Kochhar 2008a). The state’s economic problems also have led to increasingly negative attitudes toward immigrants. Although advocates have made efforts to assist immigrants and to educate the public regarding immigrant rights and contributions, the voices of politicians and anti-immigrant forces in the state have been far stronger, as evidenced by recent and pending legislation. On the whole, Latino immigrants’ incorporation into mainstream South Carolina society is minimal. Aside from their economic contributions to the state, especially through providing a reliable and low-cost labor force, most remain economically and socially marginalized. The future of inter-group relations will depend largely on how the state’s economy fares, the nature of federal immigration reform under the Obama administration, and how the second generation of Latinos in the state negotiate the process of economic and cultural integration. Perhaps the only surety is that change will continue to occur.

7 Unfair Housing Practices in Black and Brown Stephen J. Sills and Elizabeth Blake

Hispanic immigrants living in a trailer park faced threats of deportation and racial insults and their children were not allowed to play outside. The grounds in front of their property were unsanitary because the manager’s dogs run loose, water drainage problems bred mosquitoes, and the trailer park had placed garbage dumpsters in front of the trailer. Additionally, the managers were charging in excess of $100 a month for water services without documentation of water usage. These conditions persisted even with investigation and intervention by housing advocates and Fair Housing enforcement (Immigrant Assistance Center of Faith Action International House). A Mexican family had to go to a nearby fast food restaurant to use the bathroom because the one in their apartment was inoperable. The apartment had mold and mildew and a terrible smell throughout the apartment; the ceiling was leaking because the upstairs bathroom leaked into her apartment, with parts of the kitchen ceiling falling apart; and apartment was not secure because the windows locks did not work. When they signed the lease, they were promised that the apartment would be made clean and safe (Greensboro Housing Coalition).

The preceding anecdotes exemplify the housing issues facing Latinos in North Carolina, principally the lack of safe housing with the same legal protections and fair treatment afforded to other ethnic groups. As America has become more “open” and “fair,” affording opportunities to broader segments of the society and establishing legal rights and policies that are aimed at promoting a more meritocratic system, immigrant groups face structural impediments and discrimination that limit significant upward mobility. Thus, integration and assimilation of Latino

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migrants has been severely restricted by the context of reception in the U.S. Housing rights in particular have quickly emerged as a battleground in the social debates and struggles around immigration. While the Fair Housing Act became law forty years ago, testing has revealed continuing patterns of housing discrimination against minorities and immigrants. Moreover, as Oliveri (2008:56) notes, “Many local governments have recently sought to take measures into their own hands by passing anti-illegal immigrant (“AII”) ordinances. These ordinances typically contain a combination of provisions: they make English the ’official language‘ of the municipality; eliminate gathering places for day laborers; penalize employers for hiring unauthorized immigrants; restrict unauthorized immigrants’ access to public benefits; and prevent unauthorized immigrants from renting housing.” When minorities find their residential mobility blocked because of discrimination, it creates a barrier to spatial assimilation, a key component to socioeconomic and occupational mobility. It also threatens their health and safety as the only housing available to them is substandard. The proportion of immigrants in America has increased to about 13 percent of the total population. The majority of migrants enter the U.S. today with lower levels of “human capital” than U.S. citizens, placing them at a disadvantage in competing for fewer and fewer higher prestige, higher income jobs. Latinos are three times more likely to live below the poverty level than whites, even though they participate in the labor force in equal proportions to whites. These figures are indicative of the social context within the United States, where economic and educational parity is not occurring as rapidly for Latinos as for other immigrant groups (Newburger and Curry 2000). For intergenerational mobility to occur, the children of migrants must overcome barriers to assimilation, including their low ascribed status and fewer opportunities in the economy. In particular, mass migration has created ethnic enclaves that may act to limit opportunities for upward mobility. In this chapter we will present a brief review of the history of residential segregation, fair housing legislation, the deleterious effects of residential discrimination, and the changing demographics of the Greensboro, NC area. We will then report on the findings of four recent studies of housing-related discrimination in Greensboro. The discriminatory actions documented have helped to maintain residential segregation in the city. First, we present findings from minorities and immigrants on their perceptions of housing inequality drawn from the Strategic Study of the State of Human Relations in Greensboro (DeHoog, Davis, Carter, Jones, Jovanovic, Murphy and Sills 2008). We

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will then look at the incidence of discrimination in rental housing documented in an audit study entitled the Discrimination in Immigrant Housing (DIH) project. Next we review findings of disparities in mortgage loan approvals documented in the Factors Influencing Denial report which was prepared for the City of Greensboro Department of Housing and Community Development. Finally, we look into the case files of the Fair Housing Division of the City of Greensboro to observe a few specific incidences of unfair treatment which led to mediation and arbitration. Our analysis focuses on Latino immigrants comparing their experiences with those of African Americans and whites. Residential Segregation in America

Residential racial segregation emerged in America between 1900 and 1940 (Farley and Frey 1994; Massey and Denton 1993). In the South, the Jim Crow system governed the terms of inter-racial contact by subordinating African Americans and enforcing strict public separation of the races, but it did not create or enforce residential segregation (Massey and Denton 1993). Segregation levels were actually lower in 1900 than they were in the 1990s (Farley and Frey 1994). Beginning in 1910, Southern cities used municipal ordinances to separate African American and white neighborhoods. In 1916, the Supreme Court found these ordinances unconstitutional, and in 1948 another Supreme Court ruling declared restrictive covenants unenforceable. Civil rights historian William Chafe (1980) noted that in Greensboro, NC, where our studies take place, there was a city ordinance on the books from 1914 to 1929 that prohibited African Americans from living on streets that contained a majority of white households. As late as 1967, more than 90 percent of African American residents lived in the southeast quadrant of the city, an area covering only 14 percent of the city’s space, hemmed in by infrastructural barriers including an interstate highway, an industrially-zoned district, and the commercially-zoned downtown area. The federal government also instituted practices that contributed heavily to the racial discrimination and the spatial reorganization of American housing patterns (Jackson 1985; Massey and Denton 1993; Mohl 1997, 2002b; Rabin 1997; Shipp 1997; Hall 2002). During the New Deal, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) was created to protect small homeowners from foreclosure and to boost homeownership rates. The HOLC developed the modern mortgage loan system and pumped billions of dollars into low-interest loans and refinancing. However, it also institutionalized the real estate profession’s practice of “redlining” (assessing value and risk using

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racial, ethnic, and class characteristics of each neighborhood). Secret color-coded “Residential Security Maps” indicated neighborhood racial composition (Jackson 1985; Massey and Denton 1993; Mohl 1997). African American, mixed, and changing neighborhoods were systematically undervalued and excluded from this cash infusion, as were high-density and older city neighborhoods (Jackson 1985; Massey and Denton 1993). Private banks, the Federal Housing Administration, and the Veterans’ Administration adopted the HOLC’s system, virtually excluding minorities from the unprecedented postwar housing boom that massively expanded homeownership and reshaped the entire housing industry throughout the 1940s and 1950s (Jackson 1985; Massey and Denton 1993). By the 1960s it was standard practice for realtors, landlords, and rental agents to discriminate with impunity against non-whites in a wide variety of ways. Real estate professionals regularly advertised properties according to race, directed people to a particular area because of race, misrepresented availability of units to minority clients, screened applicants differently according to race, charged minorities higher rents and fees, and often flat-out refused to do business with anyone but whites (Helper 1969; Farley and Frey 1994; Fischer and Massey 2004). In 1967, President Johnson set up the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders to address the urban rioting that had been occurring across the country. The Commission made its investigation and returned with its conclusion: “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one African American, one white - separate and unequal” (National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders 1968). The report identified the cause as residential segregation; it also recommended comprehensive, enforceable fair housing legislation as a solution (National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders 1968). After intense political wrangling, the Fair Housing Act passed in 1968 (Kotz 2006; Mathias and Morris 1999). The new law banned racial discrimination in the housing market, but its enforcement mechanisms were idiosyncratic and lacking in force (Massey and Denton 1993; Massey 2001; Kotz 2006; Goering 2007; Schill and Friedman 1999; Turner et al. 2007). The Fair Housing Amendments of 1988 corrected the 1968 legislation’s major flaws by strengthening enforcement mechanisms and broadening the scope of the original law (Massey and Denton 1993; Mathias and Morris 1999; Schill and Friedman 1999).

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Housing Discrimination Today

According to fair housing laws, “it shall be unlawful because of race… to restrict or attempt to restrict the choices of a person by word or conduct in connection with seeking, negotiating for, buying or renting a dwelling…” (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 1988:45025). By law, discrimination exists if an agent violates either one of two standards. The first involves the “disparate treatment” of customers on the basis of their membership in a protected class. The second standard involves the use of practices with a “disparate” or “adverse impact” on the members of a protected class, and uses the “effects test” to judge practices that purport to be race-neutral but which in effect have a disproportionate impact on a protected class (Yinger 1998). Yet, housing discrimination is usually clandestine and thus can occur without the knowledge of the victim (Massey and Denton 1993; Denton 1999; Fischer and Massey 2004). For example, home seekers may be “steered” away from particular neighborhoods or toward others on the basis of race. Steering appears to be more common in the sales market, but it can occur in the rental market as well, especially when an owner, agent, and company is managing multiple rental properties (Galster 1990b; Galster 1990c). Other ways housing discrimination can occur include misrepresenting or withholding information about rental unit availability, making fewer or less desirable properties available for inspection for minorities (or none at all), altering terms and conditions, offering different quantity and quality of commentary about a property or neighborhood, and providing differing levels of encouragement and follow-up contact (Ross and Turner 2005). In addition, agents may engage in what Fischer and Massey (2004) term “linguistic profiling” when listening to their voice messages, and minority callers may be screened out without ever meeting the agent. The deleterious effects of residential segregation have been widely studied. Spatial assimilation models have long demonstrated the links between ecological and social conditions (Drake and Cayton 1945; Duncan and Duncan 1955; Foote 1943; Park 1926; Taeuber and Taeuber 1965; Warner and Srole 1945). Clear and well established correlations have been shown between poverty, race/ethnicity, immigrant status, community conditions, substandard housing, and disparate health outcomes (Bashir 2002; Burridge and Ormandy 1993; Dunn 2000; Evans and English 2002; Haan, Kaplan, and Camacho 1987; Kawachi, Daniels, and Robinson 2005; Krieger, Chen, Waterman, Rehkopf, and Subramanian 2005; Matte and Jacobs 2000; Rauh, Chew, and Garfinkel 2002; Saegert and Evans 2003; Williams and Collins 2001; Yen and

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Kaplan 1999). Restricted spatial mobility has been shown to limit access to jobs, education, and services (Katz and Turner 2006; Turner 2007; Wilson 1978; Yinger 1999), and is associated with poor health and high stress (Epstein 2003). Landlords often leave rental houses occupied by low-income residents in disrepair because they know the occupants have nowhere else to go. Some landlords threaten undocumented residents with deportation if they complain about substandard conditions (Kane 2006). Poor housing conditions of these low-rent areas have been associated with higher rates of illness, mental health concerns, and deaths. Haan et al. (1987) found a clear elevation in mortality for residents in high poverty areas as compared to residents of nonpoverty areas. Yen and Kaplan (1999) demonstrated that depression and self-perception of health status were higher for those living in areas of high poverty. Matte and Jacobs (2000) specifically found that health disparities could be due to specific hazards of substandard housing including: mold from excessive moisture, exposure to lead, exposure to allergens that may cause or worsen asthma, rodent and insect pests, pesticide residues, and indoor air pollution. Similarly Rauh et al. (2002) investigated specific health-related causal factors, finding that allergen levels may be related to household disrepair, insect activity, or frequent changes of residence (community instability). Williams and Collins (2001) attribute disparities in health by race/ethnicity to de facto segregation in housing. They explain that “efforts to eliminate racial disparities in health must seriously confront segregation and its pervasive consequences” (Williams and Collins 2001:404). In North Carolina, the costs of substandard housing in negative health outcomes for children (illnesses, injuries, diseases, and disabilities) has been estimated at more than $95 million annually (Chenoweth 2007). Ethnic Diversification and Housing Patterns Greensboro, NC

America is becoming more diverse and less white (Frey 2006; Iceland 2004; Jaynes 2000). By 2050, it is projected that Latinos will account for nearly 30% of the total population (Passel and Cohn 2008). The white population is not growing at the same rate as other groups due to a lower birth rate and immigration contributing more to Latino, Asian, and African American populations (Frey 2006). In 1965, Congress passed legislation that overturned national-origin immigration quotas that favored Europeans, and in the years since, immigration to the U.S. has drawn more from developing countries in Asia and Latin America (Frey and Farley 1996, Frey 2006; Jaynes 2000; Zolberg 2006). Since then,

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major metropolitan areas in the U.S. have attracted large numbers of immigrants, both documented and undocumented, altering the existing African American-white racial paradigm to one that is much more diverse (Iceland 2004; Jaynes 2000). More recently, Latino and Asian populations have been spreading out from their traditional urban port-ofentry centers, while African Americans have been increasingly returning to the South (Farley and Frey 1994; Jaynes 2000; Frey 2006). North Carolina led the nation in Latino population growth from 1995 to 1999, with Mexican migrants often beginning as agricultural workers and then moving into other low-wage sectors such as poultry processing, construction, and service work. Anthropologist David Griffith (2005) notes those agricultural labor contractors who move Mexican work crews in the Southern states will usually not go north of the North Carolina-Virginia line because Virginia lies in a different jurisdictional region of the U.S. Department of Labor, one which enforces the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Workers’ Protection Act (MSAWPA) more strictly. Like much of the South, the Greensboro-High-Point, NC, Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) has undergone rapid diversification as a result of migration. Greensboro is a mid-sized Southern city of about 245,000 residents and is one of the thirty metropolitan areas in the United States with the largest African American populations. Its segregation levels are somewhat lower than most in the South and much lower than those in the North (Massey 2000) (see Table 7.1 for exact breakdowns for 1970-1990). Even though this area compares favorably to other cities with fairly large African American populations, its segregation scores in the fifties and sixties mean that over half the African American population would have to move in order to achieve perfect integration. In addition, when it comes to race relations, Greensboro has a history that includes a number of explosive events including the sit-in protests of 1960 and the 1979 Ku Klux Klan shooting of Communist Worker Party protestors known as the “Greensboro Massacre.” A contentious and ongoing racial discourse has been well-documented elsewhere in the literature (see Chafe 1980, Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission 2006).

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Table 7.1: Trends in Segregation and Isolation

Northern Cities Average Southern Cities Average Greensboro

Dissimilarity Index 1970 1980 1990 84.5 80.1 77.8

Isolation Index 1970 1980 1990 68.7 66.1 68.9

75.3

68.3

66.5

69.3

63.5

64.9

65.4

56.0

60.9

56.1

50.1

55.5

Source: Massey 2000

According to the Greensboro City Planning Department (2003), the proportion of the population that is African American has risen from about one-quarter in 1960 to 37.4 percent in 2000. Simultaneously, there has been a rapid increase in the Latino population. In 1980 and in 1990, the Census counted .4 percent of Greensboro’s population as being Latino. By 2000, Greensboro’s Latino presence had surged to 4.4 percent, and in 2006 the U.S. Census Bureau counted it at 7.2 percent (U.S. Census Bureau 2006). The overall picture is one of a city that once experienced race in a binary, white-majority-African American-minority framework, to one that has become less white and less binary, such that Asians, Latinos, biracial and multiracial adults, and others in addition to African Americans and whites, have become a visible part of the everyday social landscape. By mapping the residences of minority and immigrant populations we find a concentration in particular Census tracts forming a “crescent” from northeast Greensboro to southwest Greensboro. Whites are located in higher densities in north and northwest Greensboro. Figures 7.1 through 7.3 below show population densities for Greensboro for African American, Latino and white populations. Investigating Segregation and Housing Discrimination

Greensboro’s increasing diversity has been highly concentrated in particular neighborhoods that were historically African American or in areas that have been correlated with higher levels of poverty and substandard housing. This phenomenon of residential concentration is not only local. Iceland (2004) examined U.S. Census data from 1980 to 2000 to investigate the effect of diversity on segregation. He found that black-white segregation was the most pronounced type of segregation, but its rate had modestly declined since 1980. Latinos and Asians experienced lower levels of segregation, but those levels have not dropped in the same time period. High levels of

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multi-group diversity may be collections of ethnically homogeneous immigrant enclaves, rather than integrated neighborhoods. Iceland (2004) posits that the persistence of immigrant enclaves is probably related to the high concentration of recent immigrants outweighing the effect of dispersion of longer-term residents, as well as other factors including mobility decisions, which are in turn influenced by socioeconomic differences and housing costs, housing market information and perceptions, preferences, and discrimination. Iceland (2004) notes that his data is consistent with Frey and Farley’s (1996) hypothesis that the presence of Latinos and Asians may serve as a “buffer” between African American and white neighborhoods, thus decreasing segregation. Iceland (2004) indicates that a growing Latino population is consistent with declining segregation, and that the presence of multiple minority groups is altering the dualistic framework for understanding race relations that was the dominant paradigm in the past. Figure 7.1: African American Population Density for Greensboro

Source: U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 2006 Dataset available: http://factfinder.census.gov/

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Figure 7.2: White Population Density in Greensboro

Source: U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 2006 Dataset available: http://factfinder.census.gov/

Figure 7.3. Latino Population Density for Greensboro

Source: U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 2006 Dataset available: http://factfinder.census.gov/

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Four Recent Studies of Housing Segregation and Discrimination in Greensboro

Following are the findings from four recent studies of housing segregation and discrimination in Greensboro. These studies examine discrimination as one of the causes of the segregation of immigrants. The first study looks at community perceptions of housing discrimination. The subsequent study finds evidence of structural barriers to mortgage loans. The third study presents evidence from an audit study of unfair treatment by landlords. Finally, a case study of unfair treatment on the basis of national origin that resulted in complaints and legal action by the Fair Housing Division of the Human Relations Department at the City of Greensboro is presented. Collectively these findings illustrate the complexity of race and immigrant status, discrimination, and their relationship to housing segregation in the South. Perceptions of Discrimination in Housing

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro’s (UNCG) Social Research Group together with colleagues at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical (NCA&T) State University’s Department of Sociology conducted a study of the state of human relations in Greensboro, North Carolina between January and June of 2008 (DeHoog et al., 2008). The purpose of the study was to provide data and recommendations to the Human Relations Department of the City of Greensboro for their Five Year Strategic Plan. The study examined discrimination, access to opportunities, and inter-group relations in the areas of employment/economics, housing, education, and law enforcement. The project used a mixed-method research design for data collection and included a review of previous research; focus groups throughout the city; in-depth interviews; and 1168 written, face-to-face, and web-based surveys. A recurrent theme that emerged from interviews with key informants on the issue of housing was the perception that immigrants and African Americans were “closed out” of housing opportunities (DeHoog et al. 2008). For example, one interviewee noted that antiimmigrant sentiments were giving the impression that migrants were unwelcome in the community:

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A preponderance of Latinos have been subject to backlash in the last 6-7 years connected to September 11th. There was an immigration raid at [a local company]. It creates a dynamic of what’s left of families-“you’re not welcome here”. The children couldn’t raise themselves and the women are not eligible for welfare. Those without documentation receive the worst abuse (housing, jobs). I’ve heard many stories involving housing. [African American female]

Another interviewee provided examples of the kinds of exploitation that immigrants must deal with when securing housing: One Latino family had their 11 year old son dealing with the contract. The contract said, you pay me $10,000 now and $1,000 a year for 30 years. It was to be a lease to own. The house was ½ built. The owner was to finish the house and he got a little behind the payment. He was thrown out. They said, we didn’t record it as a lease to own, just as a lease and he was evicted. [Caucasian female]

Interviewees noted that the African American community is also faced with discrimination in housing. In many of these cases, individuals were “steered” to particular neighborhoods because of race: “the realtor kept showing houses in one part of city. I conducted an internet search for homes… the realtor was surprised when I asked to go to the different areas of Greensboro” [African American female]. Yet, African Americans may in turn be engaging in some forms of discriminatory behavior toward Latinos. One African American male explained: “You hear it all the time, why are they moving in? Not more Mexicans… I have Mexican friends who are harassed; it’s a growing problem.” Another theme that emerged from the study was the issue of substandard and unsafe housing. In particular, immigrant tenants were ignored when requesting routine maintenance and repairs: We have an overwhelming infestation of cockroaches that eat any food they can access. There is also a leak in the roof, which allows water into the kitchen when it rains and has created a situation where mold and mildew cover the walls and ceiling and likely inhabit the inner walls. The combination of mold and cockroaches poses a dangerous situation for us living in the house and a much more dangerous situation for my three children. We brought up this issue of the roaches and leak to the landlord only once for fear that we would be kicked out. When it was brought up the landlord shrugged it off and never did anything about it [Female respondent].

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Likewise there was a perception among immigrants of unfair treatment by landlords in rent and other fees. One female immigrant responded: Our landlord doesn’t take care of the house and constantly charges us different amounts for rent and utilities. I feel our landlord is dishonest with regard to payments. If and when he would explain the reason for the charges to me, he does so very quickly and without visual representation, such as a water bill or receipt.

Paper, web, and face-to-face surveys provided additional corroboration on the perception that immigrants and minorities experienced incidences of housing discrimination. Survey respondents were asked to indicate major life event discrimination that had occurred to them in the last year (based on questions derived from the Detroit Area Study, 1995; see Jackson and Williams 2002). Three questions dealt with housing and neighborhood discrimination. Latinos indicated perceptions of housing discrimination in the last twelve month in at about the same proportions as African American, but much more frequently than white respondents. African Americans had the greatest degree of discrimination overall (See Table 7.2). In the last year, 8.2 percent of Latinos indicated that they were prevented from buying or renting a home as compared to 7.8 percent of African Americans and less than 1 percent of whites. However, overall 27.5% (n=102) African Americans reported being prevented from buying or renting ever. This was significantly higher than for Latinos (14.8%, n=9, z=1.952,α=.025). Yet, we must note that Latinos are far more recent arrivals in Greensboro and discrimination may have occurred well in the past for some African Americans. Latinos also have recently had difficulty with their neighbors (8.1%) in similar proportions to African Americans (7.8%). Again, though, African Americans reported higher rates of difficulty overall (30.2% overall as compared to 16.2% for Latinos and 14.3% for whites). Finally, 6.8 percent of Latinos reported that they had moved in the last year because of neighbors as compared to 4.8 percent of African Americans and 1.9 percent of whites. African American again had the highest rate overall with 15.0 percent ever moving as compared to 10.2 percent of Latinos.

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Table 7.2: The Percentage of Respondents Who Perceived Discrimination by Race/Ethnicity Perceived Discrimination Prevented from buying/renting in last 12 mos. Prevented from buying/renting > 12 mos. Ago Total Neighbors difficult in last 12 mos. Neighbors difficult > 12 mos. Ago Total Moved because of neighbors in last 12 mos. Moved because of neighbors > 12 mos. ago Total

African American (N=371) 7.8 (29)

Latino (N=61) 8.2 (5)

White (N=864) .8 (7)

19.7 (73)

6.6 (4)

4.9 (42)

27.5 (102) (N= 371) 7.8 (29)

14.8 (9) (N= 62) 8.1 (5)

5.7 (49) (N=864) 3.9 (34)

22.4 (83)

8.1 (5)

10.4 (90)

30.2 (112) (N=332) 4.8 (16)

16.2 (10) (N=59) 6.8 (4)

14.3 (124) (N=849) 1.9 (16)

10.2 (34)

3.4 (2)

4.6 (39)

15.0 (50)

10.2 (6)

5.7 (55)

Greensboro Fair Housing Audit Study

While the Human Relation study provides ample anecdotal evidence from interviewees about the perception of unfair treatment among minorities and immigrants and provides some quantifiable evidence of the incidence of perceived discrimination, verifiable proof of unequal treatment must be shown by other means. In the fall of 2007 a systematic audit study was conducted pairing trained Latino, white, and African American testers and sending them into rental units to gauge disparate outcomes. Early housing discrimination studies (Helper 1969) have revealed that housing agents use steering, discouragement, evasion, misrepresentation, withholding information, delay, and differential screening and pricing, or downright refusal to do business with nonwhites. What these studies did not do was reveal the frequency of such practices (Fix and Turner 1998; Yinger 1999). After the passage of the Fair Housing Act in 1968, local fair housing advocacy organizations began developing what is now the methodological centerpiece of housing discrimination investigation: the fair housing audit (Fix and Turner 1998; Fischer and Massey 2004; Yinger 1998). This process of paired-tester audits systematizes the study of discrimination with a quasi-experimental design that can measure the incidence of discrimination in a housing market and provides

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researchers with greater control and more internal validity than other designs common in the social sciences (Fischer and Massey 2004). The process pairs trained auditors by matching them on intrinsic characteristics such as age and sex, and providing them with similar fictitious background identities that match them on characteristics such as income, education, employment, and household composition, and sends them to rental or sales agents to pose as home seekers. The auditors then complete detailed and standardized reporting forms about the treatment they experienced (Galster 1990a, 1990b, 1990c; Galster and Godfrey, 2005; Choi et al. 2005; Ross and Turner 2005; Yinger 1986, 1999). While paired-testing is standard methodology for examining disparities in the rental market, it does have its limitations. Some forms of discrimination may be concealed if they occur outside the range of properties and behaviors being sampled (Yinger 1998). For instance, submitting a completed application is not one of the transaction components being studied. Therefore, if discrimination occurs at that point in the process it will go undetected (Ross and Turner 2005). Sampling frames may also leave out important components of the market where incidence and type of discrimination may differ (Fix and Turner 1998; Ross and Turner 2005). Finally, each tester may interpret the protocol differently, which could have a non-random effect if there is a systematic difference in the way that white and minority testers implement the protocols (Heckman and Seigelman 1993). The properties in this study were randomly selected from local advertisements. The sampling frame was limited to “affordable” properties at or below the 2007 Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit for the Greensboro-High Point HUD Metro FMR Area ($705). Weekly we tested 2 to 3 percent of available two-bedroom rental units meeting this description. A total of 95 individual tests, or 46 pairs of tests, were conducted. Sixteen individual tests were conducted by African Americans, 31 by Latino testers, and 48 by white testers. Thirty-two tests (32) were conducted by men, while 63 tests were completed by women. Testing concluded in mid-December of 2007. Seven tests were deemed invalid: one was a test verification only conducted by the testing coordinator; two were invalidated due to tester deviation from the protocol; two were omitted due to errors in assignment of property or profile information, and two were invalidated due to the length of time between tests (exceeded three days). Nearly all calls (97.6 percent, n=81) found that the apartment advertised was still available. However, three callers were told the unit was no longer available when their counterpart was told that it was

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available; all three were African American, one female the other male. Of the 30 pairs reporting rents, 13 pairs (43.3 percent) reported differing amounts quoted over the phone. The differences ranged from $14 to $50 a month (average $30). Four of the 10 tests with African Americans showed a discrepancy. Only seven of 28 tests with Latinos differed. Rent differences most often favored the minority testers. Seven of the 26 pairs (26.9 percent) reporting deposits showed discrepancies. In all but one case (a Latino-white pair), white testers were quoted lower deposits than their minority counterparts (from $35 less to $685 less; on average $185 less). Four visits were not made either because the tester was told the property was no longer available or the tester was unable to reach the property manager to arrange a visit. We see that these limitations to visits were disproportionately found in tests involving African Americans. In two tests (one African American, the other Latino) auditors were unable to meet with an agent at the property. African American testers reported visits of 22 minutes on average while Latino testers were at the property for 28 minutes and whites for 29 minutes. In eight tests, the property was said to be unavailable for the required time and no other property was shown. In four cases alternative but comparable properties were shown. Disproportionately, African American testers were either shown alternative properties or told that housing was not available when they needed it. Two white testers were told by the agents that they “didn’t recommend the property” and that the tester should look at another apartment that they managed. More than a third (37.9 percent) of Latinos were asked about family size. Only 13.6 percent of whites and 9.1 percent of African Americans were asked. More than a quarter (29.5 percent) of whites were asked about their occupations while 17.2 percent of Latinos were asked. No African Americans were asked about occupation. Almost one-fifth (18.2 percent) of African Americans were asked about length of employment while only 6.8 percent of whites and 3.4 percent of Latinos were asked. There were 12 tests with discrepancies in reporting invitations to apply. In the Latino-white tests (n=10), nine cases favored Latino testers being invited to complete an application on site. Of the two African American-white tests, both favored the African American testers. Similarly, 11 tests showed discrepancies in reporting an invitation to take an application home to complete later. In the Latino-white tests (n=7), two cases favored Latino testers, while five favored whites. Of the four African American-white tests, three favored the white testers. Thus we found that whites were disproportionately favored over African Americans in access to the properties. Measures of disparity in

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access to the property for the bilingual, professional Latino showed little to no difference with whites. However rental agents asked about family size in a third (37.9 percent) of the tests with Latinos (compared with 13.6 percent of whites, and 9.1 percent of African Americans), and several Latino testers noted questions about their legal status. White testers making inquiries of properties in historically African American communities were also steered away from these neighborhoods. Whites also received more favorable quotes on deposit amounts than African Americans, yet less favorable rental amounts than both Latinos and African Americans. Latinos and African Americans were encouraged to apply on site during their visit, while whites were more often encouraged to take an application with them to complete at a later date. Inequitable Outcomes in Mortgage Lending

Discrimination may occur at different stages in the process of buying a home. Yet, the final measure would be whether or not a house is sold or a mortgage loan is approved. It would be very difficult, not to mention costly, to conduct paired testing with the actual origination of a loan and purchase of a home as the final outcome. Thus, data from actual loans must be analyzed for patterns of disproportionality in approvals or denials on the basis of racial or ethnic characteristics of the borrower. This is possible as the Loan Application Register (LAR), a standard reporting form submitted by lending institutions to the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC), is readily available and reported in a public use dataset as per the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) of 1975. The LAR captures information regarding the type of loan, the type of property, the purpose of the loan, whether the property will be owner occupied, the loan amount, if pre-approval was requested, and the action taken on the loan application. A common methodology for analysis of this data is logistic regression (Avery and Beeson 1994; Calem and Longhofer 2002; Courchane, Nebhut, and Nickerson 2001; Covington 2000). This methodology has been used quite broadly. For example, it has been used to find that the odds of receiving higher-priced mortgages are increased for minority borrowers (Apgar, Bendimerad, and Essene 2007) and the fact that the odds of loan approval for African American borrowers decrease at African American-owned institutions (Black, Collins, and Cyree 1997). This method allows for the investigation of which factors are most salient in determining approval or denial of a loan, while controlling for loan characteristics, amount of loan, and

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income of the borrower or other characteristics which may factor in the lending decision. In 2006, (the most recent year for available data), there were 65,970 loan applications in the Greensboro - High Point MSA reported in the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) dataset. After a thorough descriptive analysis and exploration of correlations between variables, logistic regression models were constructed to determine what factors were statistically associated with mortgage application approval. Probabilities of loan acceptance were plotted and logistic regression was used to predict the odds that a loan application would be approved when holding constant the loan characteristics, property characteristics, applicant characteristics, and community factors. Minorities were found to be less likely to receive loan approval than white applicants. More than two-thirds (70.3 percent) of applications made by white primary applicants were approved. In comparison, only 54.9 percent of applications from non-white primary applicants were approved. This 15.4 percentage point difference was found to be statistically significant. Logistic regression models (See Table 7.3) were constructed to observe loan approval rates controlling for loan characteristics, community context, and to test personal characteristics of the lenders. It was found that when controlling for other factors, the sex, minority status, and income of the applicant were statistically significant predictors of the probability of loan approval. Female applicants were less likely to have a loan approved than male applicants when all other factors were held constant. Income provided a mediating factor in that for every $1,000 increase in the annual reported family income the odds of loan approval increased 0.3 percent. When all other factors were equal, the probability that mortgage applications would be approved for non-white applicants was significantly lower than odds of approval for white applicants: Latino (27.5 percent), Asian (-23.1 percent), and African American (-38.7 percent). Analysis of Fair Housing Complaints to the City of Greensboro

A final measure of housing inequality comes in the form of complaints of discrimination filed with the Greensboro Human Relations Commission. When housing discrimination complaints are filed, investigation and attempts at voluntary conciliation are begun as both separate and parallel processes. If the conciliation efforts result in a mutually-acceptable outcome, then the parties sign a conciliation agreement and the investigation is closed.

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Table 7.3: Logistic Regression Models Examining Loan Approval Rates Constant

Model 1 43.757** (1.008)

Model 2 -.184 (.832)

Model 3 1.500*** (4.84)

-1.227*** (.293) 0.320*** (1.377) -1.084*** (.383) 0.964*** (2.623) -0.002*** (.998)

-1.302*** (.272) 0.383*** (1.467) -1.004*** (.367) 0.966*** (2.627) -0.002*** (.998)

-1.326*** (.266) 0.374*** (1.454) -1.040*** (.353) 1.053*** (2.866)

0.000* (1.000) -0.001 (.999) 0.009*** (1.009) 0.000** (1.000) 0.000 (1.000)

0.000** (1.000) -0.004*** (.996) 0.009*** (1.009) 0.000*** (1.000) 0.000 (1.000)

0.000*** (1.000) -0.004*** (.996) 0.008*** (1.008) 0.000*** (1.000)

-0.129*** (.879) -0.635*** (.530)

-0.130*** (.878)

-0.102*** (.903)

Loan Characteristics Home Improvement/ Refinancing Not Owner Occupied Manufactured or Multifamily housing Non-Conventional Loan Loan Amount (Thousands) † Community Characteristics Population† Percent Minority† Census tract to MSA Income† Owner Occupancy† One to four family units † Applicant Characteristics Female Minority Hispanic Asian African American Other (Multiracial, Native American, Pacific Isl) Income (Thousands) †

-

0.004*** (1.004)

-

-

-

-0.321*** (.725) -0.263*** (.769) -0.490*** (.613) -0.041 (.960) 0.003*** (1.003)

-0.300*** (.741) -0.253*** (.776) -0.487*** (.614) -0.047 (.954) -

-0.211*** Loan to Income Ratio† (.810) Classification Table % Correct 69.5% 68.8% 69.1% -2 Log likelihood 53808.57 60384.16 59968.89 Cox & Snell R2 0.133 0.136 0.143 Nagelkerke R2 0.183 0.186 0.195 Model Chi-square 6693.03*** 7545.73*** 7961.01*** df 13 16 14 N 47004 51773 51773 Missing 18786 14017 14017 Notes: β are listed for each model and Exp (β) in parentheses. * p .05; ** p .01; *** p .001, † Centered on Mean

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If a conciliation agreement is not reached, the investigation proceeds, usually resulting in court determinations or out-of-court settlements. A "no cause" determination means that the court finds that there is no reasonable cause to believe that discrimination occurred based upon evidence obtained in investigation (U.S. HUD 2007). The largest group of tenants and prospective renters whose cases resulted in conciliation and/or "cause" findings were Latinos (31 percent of all complaints). In our analysis (see Table 7.4), we reviewed the disposition of 126 cases that were opened in Greensboro from 1997 to 2008. For the first three years, the housing office investigated only a few cases per year (24 cases were opened in each of the first three years), but from 2000 to 2007, presumably due to increasing public education and awareness following the city’s implementation of the fair housing ordinance, the city investigated an average of ten new cases a year. The largest group of complainants (40) were filed by Latino tenants, partly due to a single apartment complex, referred to by the fictional name “Woody Hills,” in which all 28 complainants were Latino. However, even without the “Woody Hills” cases, 12 of the complaints involved Latinos, of which seven were validated cases. This represents a large minority, especially given that Latinos make up only 7.2 percent of Greensboro’s population. Table 7.4: The Number and Percentage of Respondents Who Logged Complaints by Selected Characteristics, 1999 Protected Group Race: African American Race: White National Origin: Latino National Origin: African National Origin: Other Handicap: Physical Handicap: Mental Familial Status: Children Sex: Female Religion Totals

# Complaints 29 4 40 3 4 22 5 14 4 1 126

% Total Complaints 23 3 32 2 3 17 4 11 3 1 100

Source: Greensboro Human Relations Commission Fair Housing Division

"Woody Hills"

Incidents at a single rental complex generated 26 cases at the same time when ownership and management of the property changed hands. This rental complex was home to a large number of Latino families (over 40

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percent according to one statement by the management). According to the complainants, the previous management had approved and allowed the installation of small satellite dishes for residents wanting satellite television. It was noted in the case documentation that satellite dishes are particularly important to Latino residents because it offers their only access to Spanish-language programming. One weekend, however, the new management dispatched the maintenance crew to remove “unauthorized"dishes; the maintenance staff did this by attaching a towing cable to the equipment and uprooting it using a pick-up truck. This caused damage not only to the exterior equipment, but also to equipment inside of the residences as the cables were still connected. The property management company claimed that residents had been forewarned that they needed to re-apply for approval or face removal, but residents claimed that management had provided insufficient notice of only three days. When residents confronted management about the removal of their property, the management attempted to charge them a fee for return of the equipment which had been damaged beyond repair in many cases. At least 18 residents ultimately filed complaints based on this set of events. When fair housing officials—including a Spanish speaking staff member—arrived at the property to initiate an investigation, they reported being surrounded by a group of Latino residents describing this and other discriminatory practices. There were at least 12 additional cases involving maintenance requests being ignored, including a report of going for weeks without hot water during the winter. One resident stated that the only time she could get a prompt response to her maintenance requests was if she had a white male friend call in the request. Many cases described communication problems stemming from the loss of the previous management company’s on-staff interpreter. The investigation of the Woody Hills cases almost all resulted in ample evidence to support a “cause” determination and/or conciliation. However, the large number of cases swamped the fair housing office and it took three years to conclude all the cases. A majority of the cases (at least 13) were administratively closed—despite being on track for court or conciliation—due to the inability to locate the original residents. Not surprisingly, many moved away from the complex and the fair housing office had a difficult time remaining in contact with most of them. Those that remained in contact, however, participated in the conciliation process and were awarded monetary compensation for their satellite equipment ($300 in five cases and $600 in two). In addition, the management company agreed to pay for and attend a fair housing training session. A condition of the conciliation agreement was that the

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complainants agree to drop any court action and agree to take no further legal action against them in the future. An admission of wrongdoing was not part of the agreement. The Woody Hills case illustrates the hazards that are typically experienced by immigrants attempting to bring fair housing complaints. Although no other cases brought by Latinos involved property destruction, many of them involved maintenance requests being ignored and selectively rude treatment. Conclusion

These fours studies have shown different facets of housing discrimination from perception of discrimination, discriminatory practices in rental housing, structural barriers to purchasing homes, and maltreatment by landlords. Our study of the perception of major life event discrimination has shown that Latinos perceive a greater degree of housing-related discrimination than whites and African Americans. In particular they report relations with neighbors that are strained and have resulted in the need for over a third of respondents to change residence. In our tests of rental housing, we found educated, bilingual Latino apartments seekers fared better than equally matched African American renters. Yet, they were also asked more often about family size and legal status than their audit pairs. Moreover, we found Latino home buyers were far less likely to be approved for home loans than white applicants when all other factors were held constant. They were only marginally more likely to be approved than African Americans, though Flippen (2001) attributes this difference to the pooling of resources within the family rather than individual access to credit. Finally, complaints to the housing enforcement agency of the City of Greensboro have disproportionally come from Latinos. Even when omitting the single apartment complex from which 28 complaints originated (representing 22% of all complaints in the past decade), Latino complainants are overrepresented in the case records. The consistency of these findings substantiates claims that Latinos and African Americans experience discrimination leading to limited choices of housing. The racial zoning and redlining of the early 1900s are no longer legally allowed, yet we have found that residential segregation and discriminatory practices continue today. The duality of white neighborhoods versus African American neighborhoods has been transformed into a more complex situation with the introduction of Latino and Asian immigrants, yet the outcome remains consistent: segregation of minorities into low-income neighborhoods without equal access to resources, unfair treatment by landlords and rental agents, and

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limited access to capital for the purchase of a home. Moreover, as noted by the comments of one of the interviewees in the Greensboro Human Relations study, there exists animosity or resentment among some longtime African American residents toward newcomers which makes the binary of the earlier race-relations a more complex issue today. Legal protections and fair housing litigation has afforded greater protections to minorities, yet landlords take advantage of cultural and linguistic barriers, using to their advantage the potentially undocumented status of their tenants, to neglect the care and maintenance of their properties when their renters are from another country. One interviewee who works with a local tenant’s organization explained: We see really, really dangerous housing conditions that make people sick, that poison them, to make them permanently disabled. Immigrants and minorities live there much more than whites…. The ones who are really blatant about it say, “You’re Mexican, what else do you expect.” Or, “It’s better than the jungle you used to live in.” Some landlords ignore requests by immigrants and minorities. Then someone white will call, and the repairs are made. There’s nothing fair about it. And some of the landlords really exploit immigration issues. They will threaten deportation if anyone complains so the conditions get worse and worse and worse because they’re afraid. And even if another landlord is not like that, there have been other cases, so people are afraid to complain. Then their kids get sick, like with asthma.

Substandard living conditions, indicated by the high number of housing code violations that are correlated with the neighborhoods of highest minority ethnicity, have been shown to contribute to negative health outcomes. Furthermore, findings of the Greensboro Housing Coalition indicate that, “minorities and immigrants are more likely to live in substandard housing or near condemned housing and to be denied access to rentals in safe condition” (McKee-Huger 2008). In the battle to provide fair and safe housing in Greensboro, a number of neighborhood activists, housing advocates, immigrant advocates, social workers, county public health professionals, city code enforcement officials, attorneys, university professors, and housing rehabilitation program volunteers have come together. After a stakeholder meeting during the “Healthy Homes Greensboro” collaborative in spring 2006 efforts have continued through a series of organized studies and campaigns to confront substandard housing and document abuses. This collaborative has actively partnered with fair housing officers and community planners in the City of Greensboro to began seeking to expand resources

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for research to measure the factors that contribute to racial disparities as well as to provide the “hard data” they need to creatively design policy changes to address disparities.

8 The Public Schools’ Response to the Immigration Boom Andrew Wainer

Jackie Beasley, a principal at an elementary school in the Atlanta suburbs, has seen her student body change drastically in recent years. “About 12 to 15 percent of the student body used to be eligible for free and reduced lunch,” she says. “Now it’s 70 percent.” Her school traditionally educated a European American and African American student body. The racial integration of the South during the 1960s was a difficult change for the community—one that still lingers. The district is currently undergoing an equally dramatic—and difficult—change. Beasley says that in 2004, 42 percent of her students spoke another language at home, mostly Spanish. As recently as 1991, her school district student body was 2 percent Hispanic. Now it is 16 percent. Beasley struggled during the Latino student influx of the 1990s. The change came rapidly. Every year there were more immigrant students— most could not speak English, had little formal education, and were unfamiliar with public education in the United States. The school system was unable or uninterested in reacting to the change. Although she lacked local models for successful immigrant student integration, Beasley was raised in a large Eastern city with an ethnically diverse population. She used federal grant monies and her own background to adapt the school to the needs of the new immigrant population. Beasley developed a variety of enrichment and extension activities for immigrant students and the children of immigrants: a Spanish-language Girl Scout club, classes in art, technology, drama, and dance. Beasley also demanded that her staff take the extra steps and make the adjustments to integrate immigrant families into the life of the school by consistently reaching out to involve immigrant parents in their children’s schooling. Many parents, accustomed to arrogance, indifference, or ignorance from

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school officials, reacted warmly. “Parents slowly started to come in when they saw that I did not belittle them,” Beasley said. Today, Beasley’s school serves as a 24-hour community center for Latino immigrant families. In the early mornings, the school offers academic enrichment programs for students. One day during the week is spent in the school orchestra. In the evenings, the school provides a variety of seminars and classes for parents, including a seminar on buying a home. Beasley’s educational commitment to immigrant students and their families is considered a model for other administrators in the school system. Still, the transformation of the school over the past decade leaves Beasley exhausted. “They didn’t tell me how to do this in principal school,” she says. Beasley’s school is not typical of emerging immigrant communities in the South. Most teachers and school administrators experiencing similar demographic change are at a loss on how to educate immigrant students effectively. Latino dropout rates are high and college attendance rates are low. Testing scores for Latinos are also typically far below district averages. Some educators and experts talk about a looming “education crisis” regarding Hispanic immigrant education in the South. There is a view among those in the education field that policymakers in the South are missing an historic opportunity to create a public education system that breaks the national cycle of substandard Hispanic academic achievement outcomes. “The fact that Latinos have been in the state for such a short amount of time is something that policymakers have not seized upon,” one Latino official from Georgia said. This paper supports the nascent literature on Latino immigrant education in the South and expands upon it by providing a regional overview of the challenges that Latino immigrant families are facing in emerging immigrant communities throughout the region. It also provides policy recommendations based on my findings. Although the level of overt racism in these communities cannot realistically be compared with that of the South during the Civil Rights battles of the 1960s, the impact of systemic discrimination and incompetence on Latino immigrants and the children of immigrants are leading to a re-stratification of the South along ethnic lines. This chapter provides an analysis of the impact of the immigration boom on the public education system in the American South. Following the introduction, I focus on the changing demographics of my case study sites in Arkansas, Georgia, and North Carolina and its impact on public education systems in these areas. I also provide an analysis of Latino education achievement measures in “emerging immigrant states” and

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case study site communities. I also review the literature on Latino immigrant education in emerging communities. The use of the phrase “New Latino South” throughout this paper is not used to mimic previous notions of a “New South,” including Henry Grady’s notion of an industrialized New South during the late nineteenth century. That said, this paper echoes many of the conflicts this region has experienced at different points in history when it proclaimed itself “renewed.” Like Grady’s promotion of industrialization in the New South, the New Latino South is also being transformed economically and socially, although in today’s South education is more important to securing social wellbeing and economic development than it has ever been. The remainder of the chapter is divided thematically, focusing on the four major immigrant education barriers identified during the case study research: parental involvement, teacher training, immigration status, and discrimination. I conclude the paper with a synthesis of the issues facing educators in new immigrant communities and provide several policy and research themes facing the region now and for the foreseeable future. The remainder of this section will be devoted to presenting my research project methodology and data. Research Methodology

The primary data for this study was gathered through three case site studies of public educational institutions in fast growing Latino immigrant communities. The three communities were chosen from the top ten fastest growing counties from 1990 to 2000 in terms of the percentage of Latino population. Counties were identified using U.S. Census Bureau data from 1990 and 2000. The selected counties must have had at least 10,000 Latino residents in 2000 in order to qualify for inclusion on the list. Each study site consisted of two adjacent counties: Wake and Durham in North Carolina; Washington and Benton in Arkansas; and Hall and Gwinnett in Georgia. From the ten counties identified, the final three study sites were selected due to their geographical diversity. The sites offered a unique mix of geographic, economic, and ethnic variety. Within each of the three selected counties, the school systems with the largest number of Latino students were selected for qualitative and quantitative research and analysis. I conducted interviews primarily with public education professionals in each of the study sites. In addition to teachers, principals, and so forth, other respondents included religious leaders, governmental officials, and immigrant parents and students.

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Respondents were employed from the pre-school to university level, but most interviews were conducted among K-12 respondents in public school districts. Of the K-12 interviews, most of these were conducted with elementary school teachers and staff because most Englishlanguage learners nationwide are found in the early elementary grades (August and Hakuta, 1997). Identification of Respondents

In each study site, research was initiated with either one or two focus group sessions involving key immigrant education informants and experts in each county. This included teachers, principals, parent liaisons, social service personnel, and Latino policymakers. I sought to include educators and administrators who possessed an overview of the immigrant education milieu in each case study site.The goal of these sessions, which typically involved seven to twelve participants, was to help identify and organize the major barriers to immigrant education in each site and identify educational and social service respondents for subsequent in-depth individual interviews. The four major thematic barriers to Latino immigrant education presented in this report were developed through participants’ open discussion during the focus group sessions in each of the three case study sites. The four themes presented in this report were only some of more than ten broad themes offered to focus group participants for discussion. Indeed, participants were encouraged to expand beyond the prepared list of issues if they thought of other major barriers to Latino immigrant education in their communities. So, although the themes were suggested among a list of other possible themes in the focus group sessions, participants were not confined to any of the listed themes if they did not find them compelling. Focus group respondents in each site were given the opportunity to present the top four or five major barriers to Latino immigrant education in their school districts. Although each case study site gave differing weights to each of the four barriers cited in this report, there was remarkable consistency in the major themes cited in focus groups in each of the case study sites. The primary themes generated in the focus group sessions were integrated into the semi-structured questionnaires subsequently administered to the 108 respondents in the individual interviews. Thus, in the individual interviews, each respondent was prompted to comment on the extent to which each of the four major barriers mentioned in this

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report was relevant to what they saw as the major obstacles in immigrant education. Although the four primary themes generated in the focus groups were suggested in the individual interviews, in some cases respondents sought not to comment on a certain theme because they did not have information on it or did not think it was important. Respondents were not forced to comment on all themes and, like the focus group sessions, were also given the opportunity to raise other major immigrant education barriers beyond those presented in the survey instrument. The extent to which respondents confirmed the magnitude of these barriers confirmed that these were the issues at the forefront of Latino immigrant education in each of the case study sites. At least two-thirds of respondents expressed that each of the four issues identified were significant immigrant education barriers in their communities. There were other issues raised both in the focus groups and during the individual interviews, but these issues were cited by a small number of respondents and did not have the same level of consensus as the four themes cited in this report. In each of the four issue sections below I present a short quantitative summary of how many and what percentage of the individual respondents from each case study site state confirmed the focus groups’ identification of the issue as a major barrier and those that did not. These summaries are found at the beginning of each of the thematic sections. Those respondents that chose not to comment on the theme or made only minor comments are counted as not confirming my hypothesis that these are the major issues facing these communities. I went into the individual interviews with themes that I postulated based on the focus group sessions and literature review, but individual interviewees were given the opportunity to refute these hypotheses. In actuality, the individual interviews overwhelmingly confirmed that the major immigrant education barriers identified in the focus group sessions were the most relevant to each case study site. I also left each focus group with a list of teachers, principals, teaching assistants, district-level personnel, immigrant families, and others identified by their peers and supervisors as providing exemplary services to immigrant students and the children of immigrants in their school system. This group of respondents was refined so that their responses would provide a panoramic view of immigrant education in each case study site. Respondents in both the focus groups and individual interviews were typically middle-class teachers, teachers’ aides, principals, or others involved in school districts. I also interviewed some immigrant

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families (both parents and children) and these respondents tended to have lower levels of education and income and spoke less English. Data Collection and Analysis

A total of 108 individual interviews were conducted in order to gather information on the most significant barriers to immigrant education. A total of 36 interviews were conducted at the Wake-Durham study site, 44 were conducted at the Washington-Benton study site, and 28 were conducted with respondents from the Hall-Gwinnett study site. Most of the interviews were conducted at the respondents’ work place, typically a school or district office. Interviews were conducted from June 2003 to March 2004. A slight majority (55%) of all respondents in the individual interviews were Latino, while the rest were white. Given that the majority of respondents worked in the educational realm it is also understandable why 69 percent of respondents were women and 31 percent men. Interviews were conducted in-person and over the phone, and averaged about 45 minutes each, although the interview duration varied. Almost all the interviews were recorded. The interview protocol was semi-structured and consisted of open-ended questions designed to encourage respondents to talk extemporaneously around various topics. Recordings were then transcribed and organized thematically in order to identify immigrant education barriers. In addition to interviews, I also use a variety of secondary data from the U.S. Census Bureau, school districts, and states, in order to help ground the report and findings in socio-economic and demographic reality. Information gathered from respondents was transcribed and coded thematically based on the major immigrant education barriers identified in the focus groups for each study site. The prevalence of themes across interviews was assessed by a simple counting procedure. Many of the quotes from the interviews were directly incorporated into the paper narrative. These quotes are often intertwined with the report author’s interpretations to form the narrative of the article. The validity of respondents’ information was ensured through including information from a number of respondents in the same organization. For example, at one school a teacher, principal, student, counselor, and parents would be interviewed in order to provide a panoramic view of the programs and practices at the school. This also allowed me the opportunity to examine discrepancies among respondents. The report draft was also examined and assessed by a number of experts prior to publication. During the focus group sessions,

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the findings from previous sessions and results from other case study sites were presented for comparison and comment from respondents from other study sites. I approached this project as a European American, non-Latino specialist in Latino immigrant education who has experience living in Latin America and working in immigrant classrooms in the United States. I also have experience as a social science researcher focusing on Latino public policy issues (including education). I am fluent in Spanish and interviews with some Latino respondents were conducted in Spanish, although the majority of interviews among both Latino and non-Latino respondents were in English. On one hand, given my different ethnicity and, in some cases, socioeconomic background, I approached this project as somewhat of an outsider. But my outsider status provided me objectivity regarding the variety of comments and sentiments expressed in focus groups, individual interviews, and in the community at large. At the same time, my experience living in Latin American (including Mexico), working in bilingual classrooms, and working in immigrant communities, provided me the cultural and socio-economic understanding of the immigrants’ homelands and sending communities as well as some notion of their realities in the community and in schools. Although I have had a variety of personal and professional experiences that provide extensive contextual knowledge of issues surrounding Latino immigrant education, there is no doubt that I approach the project as an outsider both as a non-Latino and a native Californian who has not lived in the South for long periods of time. Therefore, in some sense, I approached this research as a double outsider and therefore have tried to adhere to the data, sources, and experiences of this project as closely as possible. Latino Educational Achievement in the South

The lack of effective intervention by public educational institutions is manifested differently at each level of bureaucracy. At the state-level, the political imperatives to provide sufficient resources to newcomers who cannot vote and wield relatively little economic power are weak. On the other hand, in North Carolina, the state leadership has begun to include Latinos in the educational policy making realm. But even when the state leadership signals its interest in Latino immigrants, resistance at the local level can stifle change. One Anglo immigrant educator from Georgia explained how immigrant students in her school are advised and tracked academically:

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“Unconscientiously, I suppose, we first look at socio-economic level,” she said. “We tend to expect more from kids with monied parents, just as we tend to not expect as much from lower SES [socio-economic status] kids.” Even if much of the literature and most respondents in this study said that overt racism was not common, the prevalence of the attitudes like those cited above means that in many cases less is expected of Latino immigrant students and less educational resources are devoted to them. It is this, often “unseen” discrimination that is tending to track Latino students into a long-term underclass in these communities. While scholars’ findings point to a somewhat positive overall environment for Latinos in the South (with significant exceptions), Latino public education in emerging immigrant communities has been quite troubled (Dale et al. 2001; Beck and Allexsaht-Snider 2002; Wortham et al. 2002). Although school systems have recovered somewhat from the initial immigration shock of the mid-1990s, Hispanic achievement scores and dropout rates are alarming and educators and administrators continue to struggle to integrate Latino immigrants successfully into southern educational institutions. While communities generally acknowledge the economic value of Latino immigration, there has not been an appropriate allocation of resources and commitment to immigrant education. As one North Carolina Latino governmental official said, “Some people think they [Latino immigrants] are good for one thing [manual labor], that they are temporary and when they do not need their labor any more, they will go back.” Prior ethnographic research has thoroughly documented the poor facilities, inadequate training, stereotyping, and neglect that are all endemic in immigrant education in the South (Wortham et al. 2002). Scholars have ascribed these shortcomings to a lack of Latino political power in new communities, (Hamann et al. 2002) reactionary attitudes toward educational multiculturalism, or both (Beck and AllexsahtSnider 2002). Given Latino immigrants’ and the children of immigrants’ alienation from school, the financial barriers to college, and the lure of immediate income from manual labor jobs, many are opting for lowskill professions with little hope of career advancement and further education. This pattern is supported by the regional economy: the huge corporations and small employers throughout the South whose profits derive from immigrant labor have generally not sustained a significant commitment toward the educational well-being of their workers’ sons and daughters (Hamann et al. 2002).

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But if the crisis in Latino education in the South is widely recognized by scholars and educators alike, what is being done about it? There is significant research on immigrant integration (Grey 2001; Mace-Matluck et al. 1998; Walqui 2000) but typically, it does not focus on education (Grey 2001) nor does it take into account the particular social, political, and economic circumstances of new immigrant communities (Mace-Matluck et al. 1998; Olson et al., 1999; Spauldinget al. 2004; Walqui 2000). Although some southern educators and administrators are open to new ideas and strategies on how to educate Latino immigrants, there has been little research on innovative immigrant educational strategies in the region. One major exception to this lack of in-depth research on educational innovation is the educational policy work conducted on “the Georgia Project” (Hamann 2003) that analyses the efforts of a north Georgia community to attempt to integrate immigrant students’ into the community’s public schools. This ambitious project sought to link Dalton Public Schools in Whitfield County, Georgia with the Universidad de Monterrey, a private university in northern Mexico. Among other initiatives, this innovate project involved sending teachers from Georgia to Mexico for training and inviting bilingual Mexican teachers to Dalton. It also involved initiating a bilingual curriculum, conducting a needs assessment of the newcomer community, and building newcomer political organizations. Although this example is highly useful and provides a potential model for other new immigrant growth areas to consider, it does not provide research and analysis of other new immigrant communities in the South and is focused closely on Dalton and the surrounding community. Latino Educational Achievement in Case Study Sites Research Triangle Park, North Carolina

North Carolina’s public schools have been heavily impacted by this rapid immigration, especially since Hispanics now comprising 5 percent of all students in the state’s public schools for 2001-2002. Some researchers cite a 38 percent graduation rate for North Carolina’s Latino students (Greene 2001). Others paint a less bleak picture, citing an 8 percent Latino dropout rate compared to 3 percent for whites and 5 percent for African Americans (Glennie 2002). But, in every case, Hispanic high school dropout rates in North Carolina are the largest of any ethnic group in the state apart from North Carolina’s small Native

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American population (NC DPI 2002). Our interviews with respondents inside and outside the state’s public education system indicate that many Latino immigrant students do not find a home in the state’s K-12 public schools and end up earning their GED through adult education programs offered at community colleges or through alternative programs within the school districts. Demographic change in the Wake and Durham public school systems mirrors that of the county as a whole. From 1991 to 2000, Wake County Public Schools experienced a 597 percent increase in Hispanic students—the fastest growing ethnic groups in the school system. By 2001, Latinos accounted for about 5 percent of Wake County Public Schools’ student population. Durham Public Schools, while much smaller overall than Wake County Public Schools, is much more diverse with 56 percent African American, 29 percent white, 9 percent Hispanic, 3 percent multiracial, and 2 percent Asian American students. Northwest Arkansas

Hispanics now account for about 5 percent of the state’s 449,000 public schools students. The state has a tradition of English-only instruction that legally limits the type of programs ESL educators can put in place. Unlike our other case study states, Hispanic immigrants in Arkansas have similar dropout rates that do not vary much from the state average. For the 2002-2003 school years in Arkansas, Hispanics dropout rate was 6 percent compared to whites who also had a 6 percent dropout rate. Latino academic achievement scores, while typically higher than those for African Americans, are well below the state average and those of whites. Almost two of three Hispanic eighth graders in Arkansas have “below basic” scores in mathematics for the 2002-2003 school year. The National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) defines basic achievement scores as “partial mastery of prerequisite knowledge and skills that are fundamental for proficient work at each grade.” Only 8 percent of Hispanic eighth graders scored at the “proficient” or “advanced” level in mathematics. Although generally higher than African American educational achievement scores, they do not compare well with the state average or with those of whites. According to the NCES, Latinos fare much better in Arkansas in terms of reading achievement scores. Although they still lag behind whites, more than two-thirds of eighth grade Hispanics scored at or above “basic” in their reading scores. Demographic change in northwest Arkansas can probably best be viewed in its school districts that have been transformed over the past decade. The Springdale Public School

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system in Washington County has been transformed from a 97 percent white and 1 percent Hispanic student population in 1990 to being 63 percent white and 29 percent Hispanic in 2003. Almost one-third of the 13,700 students in the district are now limited-English proficient, the highest number in the state (Springdale School District 2003). Suburban Atlanta, Georgia

According to the state department of education, 6 percent of students are Hispanic and statistics on Hispanic academic achievement are not promising. The Hispanic graduation rate is 49 percent compared with a 63 percent average for the state overall and Hispanics have the lowest graduation rate of any of the state’s ethnic groups. In fact, Hispanic achievement scores in almost every category and measure are the lowest of any ethnic group (Georgia Governor’s Office of Student Achievement (GAOSA) 2003). Latino activists in the region attribute this to a lack of focus in the state’s educational approach to immigrant Latinos. “It is a novelty in Georgia to have a program tailored to students that do not speak English,” one Latino social service official said in Georgia. In Hall County, Georgia Latinos are the only major immigrant group in the public schools. The Latino influx has transformed the student population of Hall County. In the small Gainesville City School district, Latinos accounted for 47 percent of students all students in 2004, an increase from 19 percent in 1994. Gwinnett County is much more diverse than neighboring Hall. Having reviewed the contours of Latino and immigrant growth in our three case study states and its impact on public education state-wide, I will now present a more in-depth analysis of the educational barriers uncovered during my research. Parental Involvement

Research indicates that significant academic achievement can be realized when parents or family members are involved in students’ education (August and Hakuta 1997; Bermudez and Marquez 1996; Quezada et al. 2003). Educators from all three case study sites echoed this research consensus, adding that engaging immigrant parents is challenging in emerging immigrant communities. Relations between Latino immigrant parents and school system officials in new immigrant communities in the South are subject to similar miscommunications and misunderstandings documented by researchers in other locales prior to this project (Valdes 1996). What is

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different in this case is that the gap between the southern school systems into which many Latino immigrants matriculate is even greater than the gap experienced by immigrants in gateway communities where there is a well-established immigrant community and where many Latinos occupy teaching and even leadership positions in schools and districts. In most, if not all of the communities cited in this study, Latino immigrants are building their new communities without a substantial Latino population base or history (Villenas 2002). The lack of understanding between many mainstream teachers in these communities—who have never had to accommodate students and families with greatly different world views—and Latino immigrant families whose perspectives are often shaped by the rhythms and rules of the Mexican countryside are indeed massive. Even if there is a wellorganized and intelligent effort by school systems to understand new immigrant parents and engage them in an egalitarian discourse regarding public education, meshing the world of the Mexican immigrant with the world of American public schools is very challenging. Unfortunately, in many cases in these communities, school systems do not know even where to begin in working with immigrant families to bring their two very different worlds together. In the survey administered to the individual respondents, interviewees were prompted to comment on engaging immigrant parents. Even though the large majority of respondents (and educators in general) in the case study sites realize that engaging immigrant parents is important, they are often unsure of how to achieve it. Although engaging parents from any cohort of students may be difficult, immigrant parents present a particular set of challenges to educators. “People move too much,” one Atlanta-area Latina school counselor said. “I started English classes for mothers with 15 to 20 people and ended with one.” Many respondents noted the socio-economic challenges weighing on most Latino immigrant families and how that impacts immigrant children’s education. “Sometimes it is just priorities: food and shelter,” one Latina assistant principal in Georgia said. “They believe they will have to put that before their children’s education.” In our case study sties, outreach to immigrant parents is typically conducted on an ad-hoc basis from school to school, if it is conducted at all. “Well-established schools do a good job of outreach, but some are just groping for ways to cope with influx of limited English proficient (LEP) students,” one Anglo North Carolina school district official said. Respondents from all study sites noted that schools with significant numbers of Latino students lack printed material in their native languages that would give immigrant parents more access to and

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understanding schools. Many school staff lack plans on how to involve immigrant parents. “Principals do not know what to do,” one Anglo Georgia principal said, “or how to communicate with parents.” Immigrants’ educational and socio-economic background and their lack of experience with the United States’ school system compounds the shortcomings of school district’s outreach strategies. Immigrant parents and school districts don’t know how to engage each other. Teachers and principals emphasized the difference of the educational system in Mexico that does not encourage parental involvement in schools. Teachers said many Latino immigrant parents come to the U.S. school system with “a very hands-off attitude” due to their experiences in Mexico and their own lack of education and self-confidence. The chilly reception often received by immigrant parents in the schools exacerbates parents’ timidity. “They don’t feel related to the school, if they do not see familiar faces or feel welcome they are not going to come,” one Arkansas Anglo principal said. Respondents expressed doubts about school districts’ ability and willingness to reach out to immigrant parents. “Schools are so bureaucratic that it allows little impact from outside and many schools are not prepared for immigrant participation,” one North Carolina Latino administrator said, adding, “Parents are often not welcomed into schools; there are no resources to help them.” Another Latino respondent said, “There are very few schools that the Latino community feels are welcoming and fair to its students.” Much of what works in terms of getting immigrant parents involved is done independently from school to school and depended greatly on the personality of the principal at each school site. Some schools had a wide array of activities and outreach to immigrant parents while others seemed to operate in a perpetual “crisis management” mode, as one Anglo school district official said. Respondents said the lack of successful parent outreach was more a case of the schools “not knowing what to do” rather than “not wanting to do anything.” Bureaucratic inertia and school personnel’s inability to make the changes needed accounted for the bulk of problems. “What schools put in place is what they have always done and they are surprised when the Latino parents don’t show up, but they don’t have a clue how to attract them,” one Latino North Carolina administrator said. In other cases, teachers fail immigrant students because of stubbornness and unwillingness to change. “Teachers are very defensive that they are doing everything accurately, but they do not check to see that everything they are saying is being understood,” one North Carolina Latino statelevel official said.

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Given the lack of preparation of parents and schools for a partnership, solutions to this problem take commitment and perseverance. “It takes twice the effort on the part of schools to get immigrant parents involved,” one Anglo North Carolina teacher said. Most Latino immigrant families have long work schedules that cut down on the amount of time and energy immigrant parents are able to devote to activities in their children’s schools. Many emerging Latino communities also lack extensive public transportation systems, putting immigrant parents without cars at a further disadvantage. Although typically there is a lack of a coherent strategy on how to engage immigrant parents, some school districts in emerging communities have taken steps to reach out to parents. Principals who care about providing an optimal learning environment for immigrant students have many Spanish speakers on staff, and teachers make house calls with immigrant parents regularly, not only when there is a problem. Educators have employed a variety of practices, policies, and programs that have succeeded in engaging immigrant parents in their child’s education. Teacher Training

One of the fundamental problems facing students in emerging immigrant communities is the paucity of educational personnel trained in ESL methodology, bilingual education, or Spanish. Although there is much scholarly debate on how to teach immigrant and English-language learners (ELL), federal law dictates that if students cannot meaningfully and equitably participate in the English-only school environment because of limited English, they are eligible for special services (August and Hakuta 1997).The type of services offered should depend on the grade level, English-language acquisition level of the students, and other factors decided by a teacher, school, and community. Research shows that academic achievement for English-language learners in “math and English language arts is facilitated by different approaches, depending on student background” (August and Hakuta 1997). Thus, effective programs for immigrant students vary greatly depending on local circumstances. In some cases, ESL students are offered classes with significant instruction in their primary language (bilingual education), in others, the curriculum is delivered exclusively in English—usually described as English as a Second Language and its variants (Gilroy 2001). Although the recommendation of a particular methodology for immigrant students is beyond the scope of this paper, I offer some

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innovative strategies that should be transferable to similar school settings regardless of the details of its instructional model. One ESL coordinator in North Carolina said the school system is “just now beginning to focus on this [immigrant education] issue” years after the school system’s awareness of the increasing immigrant population. This is not uncommon for school districts in new immigrant communities. Respondents inside and outside the school system agreed that the lack of ESL and bilingual trained teachers was a major barrier to immigrant educational success. “Coming into a new environment and not having someone speak their language is quite intimidating,” one Latina North Carolina principal said. “All systems are being taxed; the public school system does not have enough ESL teachers,” one Latina North Carolina community college official said. The shortage of teachers trained to work with English-language learners and immigrant students is a nationwide problem. According to a 1994 report by the General Accounting Office, 175,000 additional bilingual teachers were needed to adequately teach English-language learners. In the decade since that report was issued, the amount of immigrant students in America’s public schools has increased dramatically. As August and Hakuta (1997) report, “there are large and increasing numbers of English-language learners and few teachers specially trained to work with them.” Individual interviews in each case study site indicate that the large majority of respondents view teacher training as a major barrier to immigrant education. The large percentage that offered comments on parental engagement indicates that they saw it as a major immigrant education issue in their community or educational institution. I found this problem to be particularly pressing in northwest Arkansas. “There is not enough bilingual staff in the attendance office, in the main office or in the counseling office,” one Latina Arkansas high school official said. “There is a lack of faculty when it comes to having that [bilingual] knowledge base.” The shortage of bilingual and ESL trained personnel results in some Latino students being bused to schools far from their homes because the schools closest to them are not staffed with adequately trained teachers. The teacher-training shortfall is exacerbated by the inability or reluctance of some experienced teachers to adapt their methods and curriculum to their new student populations. “Award-winning teachers can have trouble teaching ESL, they need support,” one Anglo Arkansas respondent said. These problems combined with the lack of experience recruiting appropriate ESL teachers makes increasing the number of ESL teachers a perennial challenge. “They do not know how to do the

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recruitment part,” one Latina Arkansas high school official said. “I know it sounds crazy but that’s how it is in these communities. They are not getting a lot of people applying who are bilingual. There is a surplus of applications but few in the ESL area.” In one northwest Arkansas school district with 25 percent Latino students, only 1 or 2 percent of staff speak Spanish, the respondent said. The lack of ESL and native language staff in many of these new immigrant communities means that some ESL teachers are responsible for up to 60 students at a time. School staff also said that each school was essentially “on their own” in terms of how to serve the immigrant. “Practices seem pretty much limited to each school site,” one Anglo Arkansas principal said. State-level officials are even less sensitive and responsive to the need for curricular and methodological classroom reform than district-level officials, according to respondents. Although there has been some lobbying at the state level to allocate more money for immigrant students, this has been stymied by a “lack of resources and the weight of other priorities,” one Anglo North Carolina respondent said, adding that with the current environment “there is not enough funding for to make an impact for Spanish speaking students in an English-speaking environment.” Respondents said that they have witnessed Latino students go through ESL programs for years without becoming proficient in English. The lack of learning that too often occurs with LEP students has led some school system officials to despair. “What we have to do is reach our regular classroom teachers and tell them that you can’t just send Jose to the back of the room with crayons while teaching a math lesson. You have to teach them [LEP students] math too.” Some districts in emerging immigrant communities have dual immersion programs where all students in the school are taught Spanish and English. This program was roundly praised by respondents. But these programs tend to be rare or nonexistent because they require great commitment and persistence from students, families, teachers and they are not easy to set up or operate. “It is hard to the find personnel to have bilingual teachers who staff an entire school, to have teachers who are committed to a half-Spanish and half-English speaking school,” one Anglo North Carolina administrator said. The impact on LEP students when school districts cannot or will not create an adequate ESL infrastructure can be devastating. “Many students’ self-esteem is lowered and they feel isolated in the ESL system” because they do not understand what is occurring in class, according to one Anglo North Carolina respondent. Another respondent told a story of how a group of Latino students would walk in the front

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door of the school and exit directly out the back door, spending the day in the woods near the school. The respondent said it took weeks before the principal found out what was going on. This respondent said Latino students too often feel, “real unhappy at school, they don’t fit in, they are not successful there, it doesn’t meet their needs, and not made to feel welcome.” Immigration Status

Legally, Latino students’ immigration status does not have a direct bearing on their right to attend K-12 public schools. The 1982 Plyler v. Doe decision ruled that states may not deny a public school education to residents of a school district simply because they are undocumented immigrants. Nevertheless, not all educational administrators follow these guidelines. Large majorities of respondents in all case study sites stated that immigration status was a barrier to immigrant education in their communities and schools. One Latino Georgia principal said that some educational administrators see Latino immigrant students as a burden and will deny them enrollment to schools if they enter after the official school start date. She described their attitude toward Latino students as, “Why should I enroll a student who will not get credit anyway and will probably cause problems.” Even if school administrators admit immigrant students, their immigration status can continue to weigh on them. “Illegal students are stigmatized in the South,” one Atlanta-area Latino principal said. “Principals routinely push them out of schools because they don’t have the legal support to fight against it.” Due to the newness of the Latino immigration to these states, Arkansas, Georgia and North Carolina have the highest ratios of undocumented persons to total foreign-born population. In all three states the undocumented make up 40 percent or more of the total foreign-born population, so restrictions on immigrant students weigh particularly heavy in these regions. The total number of undocumented people in each state for 2002-2004 was 300,000 for North Carolina; 200,000 to 250,000 for Georgia; and 20,000 to 35,000 for Arkansas (Passel 2005). Statistics on the percentage of public school students that are undocumented are difficult to assess, but federal statistics indicate that in Georgia and North Carolina, one-third of all school age (5-17 years) Latino children are not citizens. In Arkansas, federal statistics show that 8 percent of these same cohorts of children are undocumented (CPS 2005). In six southern new settlement states that include the three states analyzed in this article

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Hispanics comprised 4 percent of all public elementary and secondary school enrolments for 2001-2002 and are projected to comprise 10 percent of all enrolments in this region in 2007-2008. In 2001-2002 there were 184,055 Hispanic public elementary and secondary students in the six southern new settlement states compared to a projected 570,998 in 2007-2008 (Kochhar et al. 2005). In addition to this direct (and illegal) response to students’ immigration status, undocumented students and families indirectly feel the impact of their immigration status constantly. “Most [immigrant] families are not documented and do not feel comfortable in school,” one Anglo North Carolina social service provider said, “There is a lack of trust with schools and the teachers.” Undocumented students also find their educational opportunities greatly diminished upon graduation from high school, regardless of their academic performance. Many respondents said that the inability of undocumented students to pay the out-of-state tuition fees charged to undocumented immigrants at fouryear colleges effectively bars them from a university education. “The lack of higher education opportunities is going to lead to segregation,” one Anglo North Carolina teacher said. It also contributes to the Latino dropout rate. “Students are put into special education, they don’t get along with non-Latino kids, they can’t go to college here, they can’t understand the language, so they think ‘What are my options?’” one Anglo North Carolina teacher said. Another Anglo teacher from North Carolina called the out-of-state tuition fees, “a big brick wall at the end of tunnel in terms of attending universities.” These barriers to a higher education, combined with other factors push Latino high school students into the workforce before earning a high school degree. The barriers against Latino immigrant students attending college are reinforced by the lure of the relatively high wages they can earn by entering the workforce. One Anglo Durham County teacher stated bluntly, “Kids can earn $20 an hour doing construction [or] go into school and be told they are dumb.” These factors, and the fact that Latino immigrant families that come to these communities typically lack a tradition of higher education, means that the vast majority of Latino immigrants in emerging communities will not enter four-year universities. The dropout rate has reached such a level that the general consensus among respondents was that “something drastic must be done” quickly to stem the tide. There is a proposal in the North Carolina state legislature to give undocumented North Carolina high school graduates more access to state universities, but this legislation has little potential to be approved in the near future, Latino state governmental officials said.

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Community colleges have been a refuge for undocumented students wanting to learn English, earn an alternative high school degree, or pursue post-secondary studies. Admission and tuition practices at local community colleges are still “unclear” as one respondent stated but “people are working behind the scenes to get people admitted on an individual basis.” With the increased oversight of immigrants in the United States, even this informal route for continued education could end. Community colleges’ Workforce Development and Basic Skills divisions are filled with Latino adolescents and adults taking ESL courses and earning their high school equivalent degrees. Indeed, ESL student enrolment accounts for 51 percent of all Basic Skills students at Wake Technical Community College in North Carolina. Community colleges have demonstrated an openness and agility in meeting the needs of immigrants that has not been matched by universities or K-12 school districts. In Wake County, the Basic Skills program collaborates with faith-based organizations, school districts, hospitals, corporations and others to offer community-based learning for free to the immigrant community. Discrimination

Discrimination was present in all study sites to varying degrees, but was most marked in Georgia and Arkansas. Latino and Anglo respondents said that hostility toward immigrants was typically subtle, representing more a lack of understanding and a fear of change, rather than a hatred of any particular ethnic or racial group. Nevertheless, one Latino principal from Georgia said that the racism problem in his school district was “immense.” There were also hints from some respondents that there would be a reckoning for these communities if Hispanic immigrant education accommodations were not made. A Latina principal from North Carolina compared the situation of Latino immigrant education in the South with the turmoil leading up to the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. “People will not put up with this,” she said. In all case study sites six or seven out of ten respondents said that discrimination was a significant barrier to immigrant education in their schools and communities. In some cases the extent to which people are aware of racism means that respondents commented on it more than in sites where racism was present but not acknowledged. Although this report focuses on the local level of discrimination toward Latino immigrants, discrimination at the state level has also been an issue in these new communities. Beck and Allexsaht-Snider (2002)

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have documented how debates over English language instruction within the Georgia Department of Education have marginalized students, teachers, and local educational professionals and resulted in “deleterious results for many Hispanic students.” And in North Carolina and Arkansas, proposals to allow immigrant students that have graduated from U.S. high schools access to in-state tuition have been rejected by the state’s legislatures. Some of the racial issues explored by scholars in new communities can be traced to the newness of the immigration to the region. As Beck and Allexsaht-Snider (2002) note, although racial issues in the South remain unresolved, the African American and white communities at least “know each other,” unlike Hispanics who were a virtual unknown to much of the region until the 1990s. State-level discrimination, according to observers, was most pronounced during the term of Linda Schrenko as Georgia State Superintendent of schools from 1994 to 2002. Scholars characterized the Schrenko-led Georgia State Department of Education as being hostile to the needs of Hispanic immigrant students (Beck and Allexsaht-Snider 2002). Some of the policies promoted by the Schrenko administration at the Department of Education included advocating that teachers turn over suspected illegal alien students to the former Immigration and Naturalization Service. In addition to this unconstitutional recommendation, it was also evident that under Schrenko’s leadership, by the late 1990s, Hispanic students in Georgia were not receiving nearly sufficient specialized instruction as mandated by federal law. The history of state-level discrimination against Hispanic immigrants echoed at the local level throughout the case study sites. As one Anglo Georgia principal said, “We need to remind teachers that just because it’s different doesn’t mean that it’s wrong.” Change seemed to be disturbing to long-term educators, many of whom became set in their classroom ways years ago. Respondents said it takes particular effort to get teachers and administrators to adjust to the new school demographics and it doesn’t happen spontaneously. Usually, the retraining is led by a principal or district-level administrator. The importance of the school climate should not be underestimated when considering English-language learners. It is one of several attributes vital to immigrant educational success. The aforementioned National Academy of Sciences report on English-language learners (August and Hakuta 1997) stated that “value placed on the linguistic and cultural background of English-language learners, high expectations for their academic achievement, and their integral involvement in the

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overall school operation” are crucial to creating a successful learning environment for English-language learners. Although respondents said that schools tend to have less racial discrimination than their communities as a whole, students, teachers, and staff frequently mentioned discrimination as a significant barrier to Latino educational integration. One Anglo Georgia principal said some school administrators “automatically have a conversation about gangs with incoming Latino students even if they have nothing to do with gangs.” Another Latino principal from Hall County, Georgia said that racism was manifested in schools by “unfair placement, placing kids in remedial classes because they [teachers and administrators] don’t understand their educational need, unfair discipline and grading policies that teachers and principals engage in.” Overall, respondents said many of the residents and much of the infrastructure in the county have not acknowledged the Latino growth and have refused to deal with Latino immigrants as permanent, equal residents. “People need to open up their eyes,” one Latina North Carolina education administrator said. “We’re not going anywhere and we need to do something about this situation.” Much of the hostility toward immigrants has to do with language. Many respondents said that English-speaking Anglos and African Americans in the area resented Spanish language or bilingual signage at public buildings and had little patience when they encountered immigrants in the community with limited English skills. “People do not see bilingual skills as a positive,” one Latino North Carolina ESL teacher said. Many respondents inside the school system claimed that there was a systemic, although not overt, form of discrimination occurring against Latino students. “There is a lot of growth that needs to happen in terms of creating services for children, one Latina North Carolina principal said. “Latino students are in the cycle of permanent remediation classes and have become stuck in a lower performing cycle because of the lack of services. The district is creating a lower-performing subgroup.” Respondents said that this problem was due to the lack of educational resources available to immigrant students. They remarked that the lack of trained ESL personnel and resources, the bussing of students to ESL schools, and the testing and assessment of non-English speakers with English-language tests could result in “a major civil rights issue.” In some ways, Latinos’ growing numbers are working against them in terms of their acceptance in the community. “Now that Latinos have become more visible there has been a lot less welcoming attitude,” one Anglo North Carolina respondent said. “Latinos are still outsiders and in the very beginnings of becoming part of the state.” In schools,

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respondents said that discrimination was communicated subtly by not allowing Latino students access to computers, clubs, and after school sports as much as other students. “North Carolina was a very traditional state before this demographic shift,” one Anglo North Carolinian stated. “And we are not the kind of people that have welcomed newcomers all of the time.” Northwest Arkansas, which has the least experience dealing with a non-Anglo population of all the study sites, reported serious problems with racism. “I don’t think people have adapted very well,” one Anglo Arkansas teacher said. “People have never been exposed to someone who is different than them which create fear and misunderstanding.” In one town in northwest Arkansas, a multicultural center was shut down by community leaders before it “had a chance to make a difference.” According to respondents, “there is resistance to reopening it.” Some teachers in emerging immigrant communities don’t believe they should teach immigrant students and that it is the students’ responsibility to learn English on their own. Other teachers, especially those with many years of teaching experience, take the attitude, “I’ve taught this way for 20 years and I don’t see any reason to change, [since] I only have a few years toward retirement,” respondents said. Latino students echoed the concern of teachers and principals. “Latino students get picked on and are treated differently than whites,” one North Carolina Latino student said. “Other students get away with what Hispanic students cannot.” Racism is identified as a problem in public schools by just about everyone, yet it is not being systematically addressed. “There is not any significant dialogue on this issue because people are scared to address it due to the fact that there are no programs or solutions,” one Latino North Carolina respondent said. “There is real fear that we don’t know how to solve this,” she said. Overt discrimination against immigrants is not expressed by the large majority of respondents in any of the study sites. In all study sites immigrants are welcomed to enter the United States to perform work in the industries that need them, but moves toward the allocation of more educational resources to immigrant students are met with little enthusiasm “When you talk about sharing what the government provides to people, then forget it, because they are not citizens, do not pay taxes, are not from here,” one Anglo respondent described the situation. The view of immigrants as being limited to only a few industries and one economic level is a view shared by many.

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Conclusion

The story of immigrant incorporation in the United States is usually a conflictive one. This is certainly the case in new Latino communities in the South, where new immigrant groups are struggling to gain an economic and political foothold in areas previously unaffected by newcomers. Efforts toward winning educational resources and political power are encountering resistance from those groups have held power over the long term and those who have acquired it more recently. Interviews with respondents indicate that while this may not be a conscious effort to deny immigrants the resources they needed, the lack of attention given to immigrant education issues is a form of de facto resistance. The future of immigrant education in the South is unclear. Although dropout rates in some states remain dangerously high, some research indicates that new immigrant states have witnessed improving Latino achievement scores during the 1990s (Education Trust 2003). In the best-case scenario, the substandard Latino academic indicators in these areas are transitory and as the community becomes more established, education indicators will rise. Data cited in the introduction show that, by some measures, Latino educational statistics are comparable with Hispanic scores in traditional immigrant states. Still Latino officials in these communities have noted that state and local policymakers are missing an historic opportunity to create a public education system that can break the national cycle of disappointing Hispanic academic achievement scores and high dropout rates. This lack of initiative by policymakers and educators could lead to a less desirable future where the growing ethnic diversity in the South is stratified by race, with Latinos at the bottom. National college attendance rates among Latinos are the lowest of any ethnic group and evidence in emerging immigrant communities is that this trend is being replicated at the local level. Immigrant Latino college enrolment rates are particularly low. If the educational environment for Latinos in new communities does not improve, they will take their place in new communities as a permanent laboring class that is not expected to go to college, wield political power, or enter “white collar” professions. For the future, it is unrealistic to think that the educational problems Latinos face in rural southern communities will remain isolated. It is reasonable to assume that many Latino youth in Buford, Georgia and Springdale, Arkansas will disperse to other cities and regions of the South in the near future. Thus, the issue of immigrant education should not be seen

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only as a local school issue, but one that has state-wide and regional implications for the future. Policy Implication and Recommendations

One major implication of the New Latino South is the danger for creating a permanent underclass of immigrant student dropouts. The minority dropout crisis has already been documented in California (The Civil Rights Project 2005). Statistics from North Carolina in particular demonstrate that new Latino communities in the South have already begun following similar education patterns. With high school graduation and higher education such a challenge in these communities, new immigrant states in the South would be wise to help promote higher education among immigrants rather than further restrict it. Therefore, state level policymakers should approve bills in the state legislatures seeking to allow undocumented students who have graduated from state high schools, the right to in-state tuition fees. The passage of such laws would increase college access to high-achieving immigrant students who cannot currently afford to pay the out-of-state tuition fees demanded of immigrant families. Such laws are crucial to Latino immigrant enfranchisement in the New Latino South. To some extent, governors in these new Latino gateway states are trying to open up the education system to immigrants. In many of these states, the political will to stop immigration is weak due to the cheap labor and increased profits it brings. But there is likewise little will to allow the families of this immigrant labor increased opportunity to pursue higher education. In Arkansas, Gov. Mike Huckabee tried—and failed—in 2005 to extend state funded scholarships to the children of illegal immigrants. Lawmakers in North Carolina are currently pursuing a bill that would extend in-state tuition rates to the children of illegal immigrants (Billeaud 2005). Another major policy issue is the lack of a local or regional infrastructure to train new and current teachers how to teach immigrant students. Therefore, the establishment of permanent centers or programs for the credentialing of teachers in bilingual or ESL education should be promoted at the local and state level. This would take pressure off local school districts that cannot attract enough qualified teachers to instruct the growing numbers of immigrant students in each region. Local and regional programs and instructions dedicated to immigrant education would also allow the districts to hire more experienced staff and thereby improve the quality of immigrant education in public schools. Finally, another major area for further research and engagement is further

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research on inter-ethnic relations in immigrant communities and its implications for immigrant children’s well-being (or lack thereof) in classrooms in these communities. Although this report has focused on relations between the dominant European-American culture and Latinos, I also found growing signs of tension between Latinos and African Americans. Many respondents cited conflict between Latino immigrants and African Americans as a growing issue in new immigrant communities in general and in the public schools in particular. This was especially true in Georgia and North Carolina. Such trends are also evident in public schools in Los Angeles and have sometimes flared into open physical confrontations in public schools. To prevent such tensions form exploding into open hostility and violence in our public schools, further research on the sources of hostility among African Americans and Latinos, particularly in the school setting should be explored and community leaders should work to defuse these tensions.

9 Southern Crime and Juvenile Justice Orlando Rodriguez

It is taken for granted that America’s character has been defined by its immigrants. But paradoxically, American society has always been ambivalent about immigration. The criminal justice system has always been an important arena for grappling with this ambivalence. As the pace of immigration to the U.S. has increased in the past three decades, criminal justice system concern with immigration has increased apace. The South has not been exempt from this process. This study examines Hispanic juvenile justice involvement in the light of current patterns of immigration in the South, with a view to understanding whether and how the current strains produced by immigration manifest themselves in increasing custody for Hispanic adolescents in the Southern states’ juvenile justice systems. The study begins with an appreciation of the significance of current immigration to the South. An organizing question for this is whether the nature of Hispanic immigration drives the increasing custody rates among Hispanic adolescents in Southern states, or whether Hispanic juvenile involvement is due to differences among states in juvenile justice policy. To pursue this question, the analysis distinguishes between “old immigration” and “new immigration states.” The latter refers to states with substantial proportions of immigrants prior to 1970, primarily Florida and Texas, in comparison to other southern states in which immigration is a phenomenon mainly since the 1990s. Following the trends of earlier eras, one might expect that states with greater proportions of native-born children of immigrants might have higher juvenile custody rates. On the other hand, in states where immigration has been more recent, one may hypothesize that its people and institutions have been less accustomed to the foreign-born. Therefore, it could be that in these states, the new immigrants may be seen in conflictual terms, something that could be reflected, for example, in

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greater than expected custody rates among children of the foreign-born. Finally, a state’s juvenile custody rate might be a reflection of its juvenile justice philosophy. A state with relatively few immigrants, but which handles juvenile crime primarily by custody might have a higher custody rate than a state with more immigrants but which resorts to alternatives to custody. This study’s objective is to assess the roles of these factors in juvenile justice among Hispanics in the South. (Official juvenile justice sources hesitate to use the term “imprisonment” with respect to court dispositions. Currently the nomenclature in use is “placement,” while formerly it was referred to as “custody.” For consistency’s sake, this study will generally use the term “custody.”) The Character of Immigration to the South

Although large-scale immigration would seem to be a constant in our history, there have been periods of heavy immigration, followed by periods of quiescence, and at times, due to growing fears of foreigners, periods of attempts at expulsion. We are now in a period of heavy immigrant influx, one that has begun to match the volume of the three decades of the 19th Century and the first decades of the 20th Century. Historically, the South has not been a destination for the foreignborn. From 1850 to 1970, less than four percent of the South’s population was foreign-born, in contrast to other regions where the proportion of the foreign-born during this period reached as high as 26 percent in the Northeast in the 1910s and over 30 percent in the West in the 1880s (Gibson & Lennon 1999:Table 13). Immigrants began to move to the South in greater numbers after 1970, with migration increasing from 2.1 percent of the region’s population that year to 7.9 percent in the year 2000. As Table 9.1 shows, other regions have much higher proportions of foreign-born than the South (only the Midwest has a smaller proportion). But in the last thirty years, the foreign- born share of the population in the South increased almost four times—the highest growth rate of all regions and divisions. (In this study, the South’s Atlantic Division excludes Maryland, District of Columbia, and Delaware. These states and the District of Columbia are included in the Northeast’s Mid Atlantic Division). Historically, Florida and Texas have been the only southern states with substantial immigration before 1970. In the year 2000, 62 percent of the South’s foreign-born were Latin Americans, in contrast to half in the U.S. as a whole, and 41 percent, 33 percent, and 54 percent in the Northeast, Midwest and West, respectively. Mexicans comprise the largest proportion of Latin Americans in the South. Caribbeans

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Table 9.1: Percent Foreign-born Populations for Southern States, U.S. Regions and Divisions, 1960 to 2000 1960 1.8

South S. Atlantic

1970 2.1

1980 3.8

1990 5.4

2000 7.9

1.9

2.8

4.7

6.2

9.5

Virginia

1.2

1.6

3.3

5

7.7

W. Virginia

1.3

1

1.1

0.9

0.9

N. Carolina

0.5

0.6

1.3

1.7

4.4

S. Carolina

0.5

0.6

1.5

1.4

1.6

Georgia

0.6

0.7

1.7

2.7

4.4

Florida

5.5

8

10.9

12.9

18.4

E.S.Central

0.6

0.5

0.9

0.9

2.5

Kentucky

0.4

0.5

1.1

1.2

1.8

Tennessee

0.5

0.5

1

1.1

1.6

Alabama

0.4

0.4

0.9

0.8

0.9 0.9

Mississippi

0.4

0.4

0.9

0.8

W.S. Central

2.1

2.8

4.7

6.2

9.5

Arkansas

0.4

0.4

1

1.1

1.8 2.6

Louisiana

0.9

1.1

2

2.1

Oklahoma

0.9

0.8

1.9

2.1

3.2

Texas

3.1

2.8

6

9

12.2

Northeast

10.2

8.4

9.2

10.3

12.3

N.England

10.1

7.8

7.8

7.9

9.0 12.8

Mid-Atlantic

9.5

7.9

9.0

10.5

Midwest

4.4

3.3

3.6

3.6

4.8

E.N.Central

5.2

3.9

4.2

4.2

5.1

W.N.Central

2.6

1.8

2

2

4.0

West

6.9

6.6

10.6

14.8

18.1

Mountain

3.7

3

4.3

5.2

9.3

Pacific

7.9

7.8

12.8

18.2

21.6

Source: 1960-1990: Table 13. Nativity of the Population, for Regions, Divisions, and States: 1850 to 2000. Campbell J. Gibson and Emily Lennon (1999). Historical Census Statistics on the Foreign-born Population of the United States: 1850-1990. Washington, D.C.U.S. Bureau of the Census. Population Division. (Feb). Working Paper No. 29. Available online at http://www.census.gov /population/www/documentation/twps0029/tab13.html. Source, 2000: U.S. Census Bureau (2002). Profile of the Foreign-Born Population in the United States, 2000. Available online at http://www.census.gov /prod/2002pubs/p23-206.pdf.

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predominate in Florida and Mexicans in Texas, but in these and other states there are substantial proportions of other Latin American nationalities and of Asians as well (U.S. Census Bureau 2002:Table 41D). Almost by definition, immigrants change the social character of the society, something seen by some as a source of fear, by others as a positive development. Insofar as the late 19th and early 20th centuries represented the heaviest influx of immigrants, one could speculate that the social strains felt by our great grandparents may have been more acute than those currently experienced. However, the nature of immigration has changed significantly and in complex ways that may bring their own strains. It is useful to understand the differences between earlier and current immigration, and to determine how these differences influence our society, especially the criminal justice system. Most Americans have some sense of the ethnic differences between 19th and early 20th Century immigrants, who came for the most part from Europe, and the mainly non-European character of current immigration. The change over time in the ethnic and national origins of immigrants can be roughly described as beginning with immigrants from Ireland and the British Isles, followed by Germans and other Northern Europeans, and thereafter followed by Eastern and Southern Europeans. Post-1965 immigration, on the other hand, is characterized by its Third World character. Given the significance that American culture places on skin color as an indicator of worth, it is reasonable to imagine that, even if the proportion of foreign-born is less today than in the period of heaviest immigration, its skin colors represent greater strains between the immigrant and the native. However, this underestimates the extent to which previous immigrant groups—Irish, Italians, Jews, other Eastern Europeans - now considered part of the American mainstream through the process of inter-generational assimilation, were despised by the native-born Other differences between the nature of yesterday’s and today’s immigration work against the idea that skin color is only the determinant of current strains. Current immigration, while non-white, is more socioeconomically diverse than the earlier process. Whereas 19th and early 20th Century immigrants were mostly recruited into farming, laborer, and industrial operative occupations, immigration policies since the 1940s have encouraged the entry of high-skill occupations— businessmen, professionals, managers and so forth. At the same time, immigration policy has formally and informally encouraged the entry of immigrants to fill low-paying labor slots that are in high economic

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demand but have relatively small supply among the unskilled nativeborn. Consequently, the foreign-born today are socially and economically bifurcated, sometimes along national origin lines, sometimes not. For instance, while South Asians are in middle-to high status occupations (small businesses, professions), among Chinese immigrants are found scientists and factory operatives, while for the most part Mexicans and Central Americans predominate among service, low-skill operative, and laborer occupations. Taking high and low skills into account, immigrants today are less privileged, but only slightly less privileged, than the native-born. For example, in 1993 the native-born’s median income was $15,876, while the foreign-born’s median income was $12,179. Notably, immigrants who entered the U.S. between 1970 and 1979 had a median income almost equal to that of the native-born (U.S. Census Bureau 1995:4). While there might be strains because of cultural and skin color differences between the native-born American and the Indian motel manager or Korean grocer, the critical point of strain is with the low-skill, low-pay immigrant of color. Relevant to the Southern experience, another factor of important difference between current and previous immigration is found in the wide geographical dispersion of current immigration. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, in fact until the 1960s, immigrants came to specific regions to fill economic demands. The Northeast, especially New York was the main entry area. Other important areas were the Midwestern industrial cities, and agricultural labor states like Texas and California. In contrast, immigrants today are found to some extent in all states. Table 9.2 shows the percentage of foreign-born population in 1980 to 2000 by selected states. In the year 2000, two-fifths of the foreign-born had entered the U.S. after 1990. Traditionally high immigration states—California, New York, Texas and Florida—accounted for almost 60 percent of the foreign-born, but it is interesting to note how many other states received major influxes in the 1990 to 2000 decade. More important, recent immigrants are moving to traditionally low immigration regions. In Southeastern states like Alabama and Georgia, Midwestern states like Indiana, Southwestern states like Arizona, and Western states like Nevada, more than 50 percent of foreign-born residents entered the U.S. after 1990. As exemplified by a recent New York Times about high school students in a Georgia town (Swarms 2006), Americans in and out of the South who until recently had been unused to seeing immigrants are now seeing them every day.

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Table 9.2: U.S. and Southern State Foreign-Born Population, 1980-2000 Foreign-Born Population Entered 1990 to Total March 2000 State 1980

Total Pop. 226,546

# 14,080

% 6.2

# (X)

% (X)

1990

248,710

19,767

7.9

(X)

(X)

U.S. Southern States Alabama

281,422

31,108

11.1

13,178

42.4

4,447

88

2

47

53

Arkansas

2,673

74

2.8

41

55.3

Florida

15,982

2,671

16.7

1,030

38.6

Georgia

8,186

577

7.1

345

59.7

Kentucky

4,042

80

2

47

58.8

Louisiana

4,469

116

2.6

43

37

Mississippi

2,845

40

1.4

20

49.6

North Carolina

8,049

430

5.3

268

62.4

Oklahoma

3,451

132

3.8

70

53

South Carolina

4,012

116

2.9

61

52.4

Tennessee

5,689

159

2.8

92

57.7

Texas

20,852

2,900

13.9

1,336

46.1

Virginia

7,079

570

8.1

269

47.2

West Virginia

1,808

19

1.1

7

35.7

Source: Statistical Abstract of the U.S. 2003, Section 1, Population, Table 48. U.S. Census Bureau, Washington, DC., 2004. Available online at http://www. census.gov/prod/2004pubs/03statab/pop.pdf. Notes: Numbers are in thousands, except percents.

Another important feature of immigration in last three decades is the increase in unauthorized immigration. Unauthorized immigration has always been a feature of U.S. immigration, but official scrutiny by the government has increased over time, partly due to political pressures, and partly due to the extension of bureaucratic control over travel. Due to its nature—covert crossing of the southern and northern borders, violations of travel visas—it is hard to obtain accurate information about illegal immigration. The Census Bureau estimates that in the year 2000

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there were 7 million unauthorized immigrants, the majority (almost 70 percent) from Mexico, and an additional 13 percent from other Latin American countries (U.S. Census Bureau 2004:10). California and Texas account for almost half of the estimated unauthorized immigrants. This aspect of current immigration is particularly significant for the criminal justice system because anti-immigrant political pressure has often led to calls for local governments to turn over unauthorized immigrants to the immigration authorities. In sum, the increases in immigrant flows in the past three decades, the predominance of non-whites and non-Europeans, the fears among some of a linkage between immigration and national security, have revived ambivalences about immigrants felt in previous eras. Dealing with these strains then becomes part of the every-day criminal justice agenda in every jurisdiction in the country. Juvenile Crime and Justice in the South

In the U.S. in 2004, there were 285 violent index crime arrests (homicide, assault, robbery, and rape) for every 100,000 persons 18 or younger. This rate represents a continuation of a downward trend since the early 1990s in adult and juvenile crimes of all kinds (Snyder 2006). Juvenile violent crime rates in the South are much lower than the overall national rate. However, seven Southern states (Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee and Louisiana) have violent crime rates that exceed the national average (Southern state violent crime rates are detailed in Table 9.3, after discussion of juvenile custody rates). In the South, as elsewhere in the nation, crime and arrest are important factors driving incarceration. Juvenile residential custodies increased from 73,166 in 1979 to 107,667 in 1999. From 1999 to the latest count year, 2003, custodies decreased to 96,665. In proportionate terms, the custody rates increased from 251 per 100,000 to 369 and 281 in 1999, and then decreased to 281 in 2003 (BJS 1989:10). The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) first began to publish race/ethnicity breakdowns with the 1979 census of juveniles in custody; further differentiated at the state-level beginning with the 1997 census. One very obvious trend in custody is the decrease during this period in White custody rates (63 percent in 1979 and 47 percent in 2003) and an accompanying increase in Hispanic and Black rates in the same time span (28 percent to 47 percent for Blacks and 9 percent to 18 percent for Hispanics). Figure 9.1 illustrates these trends.

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Figure 9.1: Juveniles in Residential Custody by Race/Ethnicity, 19792003

Source: Sickmund, Melissa, Sladky, T.J., and Kang, Wei. (2005) "Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement Databook." Online. Available: http://www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org/ojstatbb/cjrp.

Of particular relevance to this study’s theme is the increase in the proportion of Hispanics in the juvenile justice population. Has immigration driven Hispanic juvenile custody in the South? Since published race/ethnic breakdowns in juvenile custody have been crosstabulated with state-level data only since the 1997 juvenile census, the influence of immigration factors on Hispanic juvenile custodies can be ascertained only since that year. Custody rates have decreased overall in all regions. However, the decrease has been flatter for the South than for other regions. In line with the assumption that immigration increases translate into custody increases, it is notable that rates for Asians and Hispanics, the newest immigration groups in the South and Midwest have increased in these regions, while they have decreased in the Northeast and West. Table 9.3 summarizes these changes for regions and divisions.

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Table 9.3: Average Yearly Change in Juvenile Custody Rates per 100,000 by Race/Ethnicity & Regions and Divisions, 1997-2003 Regional Divisions

Total

White

Black

Hispanic

Native Amer.

Asian

United States South S. ES Central S. So Atlantic S. WS Central Northeast NE Mid Atlantic NE N. England Midwest M. EN Central M. WN Central West W. Mountain W. Pacific

-6.8 -5.6 -8.4 -6.8 -1.8 -4.5 -3.4 -5.5 -2.9 -5.8 -0.9 -5.4 -2.3 -12.6

-1.1 4.8 -4.7 13.6 5.6 4.8 12.0 -2.3 -1.6 -0.6 -2.3 -2.1 1.6 -10.3

-28.9 -29.1 -27.9 -40.4 -19.0 -19.7 -20.2 -19.2 -130.0 -40.0 -194.2 -10.3 15.5 -68.1

-17.1 10.7 -4.4 33.0 3.6 -15.8 6.6 -38.2 -32.8 -25.7 -37.9 -20.5 -14.8 -33.5

-1.8 1.8 -5.2 1.8 8.7 7.2 5.4 9.0 -3.3 4.3 -8.8 -7.1 -9.4 -1.8

-11.5 -7.2 -14.2 -2.9 -4.7 -6.3 4.5 -17.0 -26.5 -19.5 -31.6 -10.2 -9.8 -11.1

Source: Author's analysis of OJJDP’s Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement 1997, 1999, 2001, and 2003" [machine-readable data files]. Table source: http://ojjdp.ncjrs.org/ojstatbb/cjrp/asp/State_Race.asp

While arrest and incarceration rates represent a combination of offender and criminal justice officials’ behavior, differences in the magnitude of each in a given jurisdiction provide a clue about that jurisdiction’s custody propensity. Table 9.4 shows that in the U.S. as a whole, there were 281 confinements per 100,000 juveniles in 2003, while there were 285 violent index crime arrests per 100,000 juveniles in 2004 - almost a 1 to 1 ratio - between confinements and arrests. Illinois and South Dakota represent extreme examples of imbalances between confinements and arrests. In Illinois, there were 185 confinements per 100,000 in contrast to 985 violent index crimes per 100,000 (a ratio of .19), while in South Dakota there were 559 confinements per 90 arrests—a ratio of 6.21 (data not shown in table). While other state system characteristics may intervene, to a great extent these ratios indicate state juvenile justice differences in custody policy. After the West, the South has the highest-custody-to arrest ratio of all regions, while the Northeast has the lowest ratio. The Midwest’s West North Central Division (the Plains states) has the highest custody-toarrest ratio of all Divisions (2.1), followed by the West Mountain Division and all of the South’s Divisions. West Virginia, Alabama, and

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Table 9.4: Juvenile Violent Crime Index Arrest Rates, 2004 and Juvenile Custody Rates, 2003 by States, Region, and Division Southern States and Regional Division

Virginia West Virginia North Carolina South Carolina Georgia Florida Alabama Mississippi Tennessee Kentucky Arkansas Texas Oklahoma Louisiana Southern states South So Atlantic South ES Central South WS Central NE New England Mid Atlantic North Midwest EN Central Midwest WN Central Midwest West Mountain West Pacific West United States

Arrests per 100,000 120 58 243 277 335 468 125 125 236 248 142 190 196 401 226 250 184 232 171 408 279 291 161 245 211 256 226 285

In Custody per 100,000 288 264 128 304 239 451 351 153 224 184 213 281 267 334 263 279 228 274 164 314 239 273 331 308 320 265 309 281

Ratio of Custody to Arrest Rates 2.4 4.5 0.5 1.1 0.7 1.0 2.8 1.2 1.0 0.7 1.5 1.5 1.4 0.8 1.2 1.1 1.2 1.2 1.0 0.8 1.0 0.9 2.1 2.2 1.5 1.0 1.5 1.0

Sources. Author’s estimates of custody rates: Sickmund et al. (2005). "Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement Databook"; Arrest rates: Snyder (2006). “Juvenile Arrests 2004.”

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Virginia have the highest custody to arrest ratios in the South—4.5, 2.8, and 2.4, respectively. Mississippi, South Carolina, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas have ratios between 1.1 and 1.5. The remaining states have ratios of .9 or lower. Clearly, high custody-to-arrest ratios are not driven only by high arrest rates. For instance, Florida has the highest juvenile violent arrest rate in the South, yet its ratio is close to 1, while West Virginia, with the lowest arrest rate (58), has a juvenile custody rate almost five times that figure. Hispanic Immigration and Juvenile Custody

Reviewing the argument so far: The South has relatively low juvenile violent crime rates, the next to lowest juvenile custody rate of all regions, and it has among the lowest custody rates of all Divisions. On the other hand, in comparison to other regions and divisions, most of its states have high custody-to-violent arrests ratios. Juvenile custody rates have decreased nationally in the last five years, and the South has kept pace with this decrease. However, in the South these decreases have been uneven by ethnicity. While nationally, Hispanic juvenile custody rates decreased yearly by 17% between 1997 and 2003, in the South, Hispanic custody rates increased yearly by 11 percent. Immigration may have influenced custody trends in two ways: due to increases in the proportion of second immigration Hispanics in states, or due to the newness of Hispanic immigration to Southern states. The conceptual basis for the two alternative immigration explanations follows. The Culture Conflict Effect

In traditional assimilation theory (Gordon 1964; Park 1950), the immigrant faces the task of changing his/her behavior and attitudes to conform to those of the native-born. Terms like pluralism and the melting pot are indicative of academic and ideological debates over the extent American society and culture changed or should change its character through the infusion of immigrant culture. As an intergenerational process, assimilation makes inroads into ethnic identity, so that by the time of the third generation, the immigrant group’s contributions to American culture and society are relegated to ephemeral cultural traits such as cuisine and popular culture. Before this point, however, cultural and socio-economic differences between immigrants and the native-born are expected to take the form of conflict and competition (Park and Burgess 1921; Park, Burgess, Park and McKenzie 1925). This view is the main orientation to understanding

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how assimilation conflict could lead to the predisposition to crime among and the immigrant groups (Black American migrants as well) in American cities throughout the 20th Century (Ianni 1998; Miller and Kleinman 1985). Second Generation, Cultural Conflict, and Segmented Assimilation Effects

In the post-Civil War period, American industrialization brought in its wake large population movements of native Whites and southern Blacks from farm to city, and of urban and rural Europeans to the developing industrial cities in the Northeast and Midwest. Alongside, professional American social science emerged as an intellectual response to the political and social challenges posed by industrialization and its largescale population movements. As the nature of immigration has changed over the 20th Century, so have the concepts devised to put intellectual order into the sometimes puzzling facts about of immigration. The concept of segmented assimilation (Portes and Zhou 1993) calls attention to aspects of contemporary immigration with important consequences for immigrants’ insertion into American society, including from our perspective, on crime patterns and relationships with criminal justice agencies. Our contemporary foreign-born population does not fit a single socioeconomic mold. Some immigrant groups have average occupational status, education and income equal to, in some cases higher than those of the average native-born American. Other groups have occupational status, education and income lower than those of the average native-born American. The immigrant group’s average education and skill influence how well its members fare in the economy and labor. Because the earlier immigration was mainly low skill labor, we tend to overlook how the higher skills and education of some immigrant groups (Jews and Japanese have been pointed out as notable examples) helped these groups to more quickly accommodate to the American market society (Steinberg 1989). One of the useful aspects of segmented assimilation is to point out the consequences of this for our society, beginning with the prediction that many of our immigrant groups may be blocked from following the expected route of upward mobility through assimilation, and may be relegated to the lower rungs, as has been the case for native Blacks and Native American populations. In clear relation to our juvenile justice focus, second generation crime involvement should occur most markedly among the children of working class, non-White immigrants who come to fill service, laboring,

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and operative occupations. Repeating the pattern formerly seen among 19th and early 20th century white immigrants, second generation youth may opt for crime as an adaptation to limited prospects and social rejection by the native-born. While the immigrant may be seen as economically beneficial, for the most part he/she is not socially acceptable to many in the receiving country; in the same way as nativeborn low skill wage laborers are also not socially acceptable. Many if not most immigrants live in substandard housing, receive substandard medical treatment and other services, and they are prey to hostile treatment. In this, the low skill, low wage migrant shares the same life chances and social stigma as the low skill, low wage native-born. To the average low-skill adult immigrant, the psychic focus is on the homeland, and therefore social rejection can be acceptable in the light of the economic benefits of migration. To the children of immigrants, social rejection is a different story. Research on the second generation (Portes and Zhou 1993; Zhou 1997b) documents perceived social rejection in the schools, particularly salient when the migrants are non-White. Many second generation youth may be seen to converge in outlook and life chances with the native-born marginal populations - African Americans, Native Americans and third generation Puerto Ricans. In fact, the latter may be seen as fore-runners of the marginalization process that other Hispanic immigrant populations may expected to undergo. Table 9.5 shows the concepts used in this study, the variables used as indicators of these concepts, and the rationales for using these variables. Table 9.6 shows the results of testing the relative influences of culture conflict, segmented assimilation, and juvenile custody policy on the Southern states’ Hispanic custody rates and changes over time. To assess the predictive power of the three independent variables, Table 6 also shows the results of Pearson correlations with the three dependent variables. The correlations’ usefulness is limited, given the small number of cases, but they are helpful in understanding the relative importance of the explanatory concepts. In order to understand the discussion of how the immigration variables influence Hispanic juvenile custody, it is useful to note from Table 6 that ten of the fourteen states coincide in the magnitudes of the percentages of foreign-born and percentages of second immigration generation. That is, each state has relatively low percentages on both or relatively high percentages on both. In terms of our conceptual scheme, culture conflict and segmented assimilation may act independently on Hispanic juvenile custody rates.

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Table 9.5: Concepts, Variables, and Rationales for their Use in the Analysis Conceptual Referent Hispanic juvenile custody patterns

Culture conflict

Variable Average Hispanic custody rates per 100,000, 1997 – 2003 Average yearly change in Hispanic Rates, 1997 – 2003 Standardized product of custody rates and average yearly change Proportion of states’ foreign-born entered between 1990 and 2000

Segmented assimilation

Percent second immigration generation Hispanics in 1999 in state

Combined effects of culture conflict and segmented assimilation

Standardized product of percent foreign-born and percent second generation in state. Ratio of custody rate to violent crime arrest rate.

Juvenile custody policy

Rationale To smooth out year-to-year fluctuations To contrast states conforming with the current national trend of decreasing custody rates with those increasing their rates, and to smooth out year-to-year fluctuations To maximize differences between states with low custody and decreasing rates and states with high and increasing rates. In states with a high proportion of recently entered immigrants, the native-born are more likely to view the latter, including their children, negatively. The variable refers to all foreign-born, but in the South, Hispanics constitute a very high proportion of all foreign-born. Defined as persons ages 10 to 16 who are children of Hispanic immigrants, and who immigrated with their parents as children, or were born in the U.S. The greater the state’s proportion of second generation children from a relatively low income immigrant group, the greater the number likely to be involved in delinquency. To contrast states that are consistently high on both immigration variables with those that are consistently low on both immigration variables. A high custody to arrest ratio denotes juvenile court personnel’s decision to process the arrestee; to some extent as well police officers’ decisions to arrest. Arrests are limited to violent offenses because the latter are more likely than other types of crime to result in arrest decisions.

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Seven out of fourteen states show consistency in the magnitudes of the juvenile custody rates and the percentages of the foreign-born population entering between 1990 and 2000. Twelve out of fourteen states show consistency between the magnitudes of average yearly changes in custody rates and the percentage of foreign-born entering after 1990. Twelve states show consistency between percent of foreignborn and the product of custody rates and average yearly change in rates. Contrary to the expected effect, the correlations between percent foreign-born and the three juvenile custody variables are negative, though modest. The highest correlation is found for the product of the two juvenile custody variables (r = -26). The negative effects may be explained by inconsistent states such as Kentucky, whose percentage of foreign-born is below the South’s median, while its custody rate is extremely low; or Mississippi, which has a relatively low proportion of foreign-born, but the highest custody rate of all states. Ten out of the fourteen states show consistency between the magnitudes of the percentages of second immigration generation and juvenile custody rates. In ten states, there is consistency between of the percentages of second immigration generation and average yearly changes in custody rates. Eleven states show consistency between the percentages of second immigration generation and the product of custody rates and average yearly change in rates. As expected, the correlations between percent foreign-born and the three juvenile custody variables are positive, though also modest. There is a fairly strong correlation between percentage second immigration generation and the product of the two juvenile custody variables (r = .38). Juvenile Custody Policy

Ten out of the fourteen states show consistency in the magnitudes of the custody-arrest ratios and the juvenile custody rates. Twelve states show consistency between the custody-arrest ratios and the average yearly change in arrest rates. Seven states show consistency between the custody-arrest ratios and the product of custody rates and average yearly change in arrest rates. The correlations run in the expected direction, but are the weakest of all (r = .07 to r = .13).

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Table 9.6: Immigration Indicators, Custody Policy, Average Hispanic Juvenile Custody Rates, and Average Yearly Change in Custody Rates, 1997 to 2003

State

% FB Pop. Enter 1990March 2000

Florida (SA)

38.6%

Georgia (SA) N. Carolina (SA) S. Carolina (SA) Virginia (SA) W. Virginia(SA) Alabama (SEC) Kentucky (SEC) Mississippi (SEC) Tennessee (SEC) Arkansas (WC) Louisiana (WC) Oklahoma (WC) Texas (WC)

59.7%

46.1%

All states

50.5%

62.4% 52.8% 47.2% 35.7% 53.0% 58.8% 49.5% 57.7% 55.3% 37.0% 53.0%

% 2nd Gener ation of Hisp. 1999

Stand. % FB X% 2nd Gener ation

Ratio Custod y Rates to Arrest Rates*

Average Hisp. Custody Rates per 100,000 19972003

Average Yearly Change in Hisp. Rates per 100,000 19972003

Stand. Rates X Change

44.2 % 51.1 % 50.0 % 30.4 % 48.6 % 49.3 % 50.0 % 64.8 % 33.3 % 45.5 % 31.3 % 43.9 % 52.0 % 58.9 % 46.7 %

0.72

0.96

172

0.8

0.05

1.29

0.71

139

19.3

1.04

1.32

0.53

197

9.2

0.70

0.68

1.10

69

5.7

0.15

0.97

2.40

106

61.3

2.51

1.12

4.55

283

-10.6

-1.16

1.62

2.81

230

22.4

1.99

0.70

0.74

97

8

0.30

1.11

1.22

708

-34.8

-9.52

0.75

0.95

205

-13.1

-1.04

0.73

1.50

146

11.5

0.65

0.69

0.83

165

-2.3

-0.15

1.17

1.36

211

7.5

0.61

1.15

1.48

309

-2.1

-0.25

1.00

0.99

242

10.7

1.00

Pearson r: Aver. custody rates Aver. change in rates RatesXchange

-0.17

-0.21

-0.26

0.13

0.18

0.24

0.27

0.12

0.14 0.38 0.35 0.07 Sources: Second immigration generation Hispanics and Percent of total population: Author’s estimates from March 1999 Current Population Survey, computed through Data Ferret, available online at http://www.dataferret.net. Percent of foreign-born entered post-1990: United States Statistical Abstract, 2003. Hispanic custody rates: author’s estimates from Sickmund et al. (2005). "Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement Databook"; Arrest rates: Snyder (2006). “Juvenile Arrests 2004.” Notes: Above Median in Bold,*Standardized state custody rate X standardized average yearly change.

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Conclusion

The South has become a significant arena for the immigration process that other areas of the nation have previously experienced. As such, the Southern states are now witnessing some of the strains that have traditionally accompanied the insertion of immigrants into the host society. The South also currently differs significantly from the juvenile justice experiences of other regions. Although some Southern states have high juvenile crime rates similar to those states in other areas, as a whole the South has lower juvenile arrest rates. As in other areas of the nation, juvenile crime rates and juvenile custody rates have declined since the mid-1990s. However, the decline in custody rates in Southern states has been flatter than in the rest of the country. Moreover, while the Hispanic juvenile custody rate decreased by almost one-fifth in the U.S.; custody rates have increased in five of fourteen Southern states, at annual rates ranging from seven percent to 60 percent. Additionally, the South is similar to other regions of the U.S. in having a severe custody policy—high juvenile custody to violent arrest ratios. In eight out of fourteen Southern states, these ratios exceed the national ratio of 1.0. Since Hispanic juvenile custody rates have increased in the South, it is reasonable to test whether this trend with is associated with the character of Hispanic immigration in the South. This study has explored the influences of these immigration trends, taking into account whether the states’ juvenile custody policies are in concert with or contravene the character of immigration. The study examined the influence on custody rates of two state immigration characteristics: the magnitude of the second immigration generation, and the recent character of immigration. Neither factor by itself shows a clear direct relation to Hispanic juvenile custody rates or trends. Contrary to expectations, recent and high influxes of Hispanic immigrants are negatively correlated with average custody rates and average yearly changes in rates. However, the state’s percentage of second generation adolescent immigrants does show a clear and positive relation with the juvenile custody indicators. Notably, there is a relatively strong correlation between the proportion of second generation Hispanics and the product of average custody rates and average yearly changes in rates. This effect is replicated when immigration is defined as the product of the state’s percent foreign-born and percent second immigration generation. In other words, Southern states with a high proportion of second generation Hispanics—as well as states that have a high proportion of second generation Hispanics conjointly with high proportions of recent immigrants - are the most

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likely to have both high custody rates combined with increases in rates over the years observed. Thus, while the analysis does not conclusively prove that there is an association between the nature of Hispanic immigration and custody rates, the study provides sufficient empirical information to show that immigration’s influence on state Hispanic custody rates cannot be ruled out, and in fact needs to be further researched. It can also be conjectured that severity of juvenile custody policy acts as an additional influence on Hispanic juvenile custody. While high immigration indicators act in concert with severity of custody policy to produce high Hispanic custody rates, severity of custody can drive up custody rates even in those states less affected by the immigration process. The study results are useful in alerting scholars and policy makers to the possible influence of immigration not only in the South, but also in other states in the West and Midwest that are experiencing a strong and unaccustomed immigration influx. In this light, it would be useful to analyze in greater depth differences between states in the other regions that differ in their immigration character and the severity of their custody policy. These investigations should help students to discover how to reduce the custody rates of Hispanic and other juveniles, in Southern states as well as other high-custody states.

10 Racialized Hiring Practices for “Dirty” Jobs Cameron D. Lippard

Research concerning the racialized structure of the U.S. labor market has often focused on hiring practices as one of the major catalysts in creating this social problem (Moss and Tilly 2001; Neckerman and Kirschenman 1991; Park 1999; Shih 2002; Thomas 2003; Waldinger 1996; Waldinger and Lichter 2003; Wilson 1996). Researchers find that employers tend to incorporate racial and ethnic biases, stereotypes, and attitudes into their decisions about hiring employees. In fact, many suggest that it may be a matter of “statistical discrimination” in which employers use stereotypes about a particular racial or ethnic group as a substitution for measuring an individual’s suitability for employment (Neckerman and Kirschenman 1991:476). Many researchers find that nearly all employers use stereotypes in some form or another to denote work ethic and attitudes of any potential employee to weed out those who are undesirable, which often excludes more racial and ethnic minority applicants than White applicants. For example, many social scientists suggest that employers continually sidestep minority applicants to hire White applicants in most positions that pertain to management or administrative positions (Moss and Tilly 2001; Neckerman and Kirschenman 1991; Waldinger 1996; Waldinger and Lichter 2003). Neckerman and Kirschenman (1991:463) found that, with respect to many employers’ opinions of racial differences, most employers suggest that, “Blacks are by and large thought to possess very few characteristics of a 'good worker.'“ They conclude, “If race were a proxy for expected productivity and the sole basis for statistical discrimination, black applicants would indeed find few job opportunities” (Neckerman and Kirschenman 1991:476).

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Immigrant minority job seekers also find themselves subjected to statistical discrimination but in a different way than Blacks. For instance, many employers suggest that Asian and Latino immigrants have a better “work ethic” or special talents that native-born groups do not possess (Moss and Tilly 2001; Rosenfeld and Tienda 1999; Shih 2002; Thomas 2003; Waldinger and Lichter 2003). For example, Park (1999) and Thomas (2003) find that employers prefer Asians to Whites and Blacks in the hi-tech and electronic industries because employers rely on stereotypes, suggesting Asians are smarter or good with electronics. On the other hand, they also prefer Latinos over Whites and Blacks because they work hard for long hours at a time without complaint. In a recent study examining hiring practices in several industries in Los Angeles, Shih (2002) finds that employers preferred immigrant workers because they followed instructions and did not question employers' authority. As Waldinger and Lichter (2003:143) state, an employer’s “best strategy is to find the labor that accepts management’s wishes with the minimum of bridling.” Put simply, employers want employees that are “willing subordinates,” who do not “rock the boat” by asserting their rights for better pay or complain about their workload, as native-born White and Black employees do (Park 1999:230; Waldinger and Lichter 2003:15; Wilson 1996). However, the other side to this argument is that employers make hiring decisions based on profitability in which cheap labor, especially in “3-D jobs”—dangerous, dirty and dead-end industries like construction and some manufacturing (see Easton 2007; Waldinger 1996; Waldinger and Lichter 2003; Wilson 1996) is a way to cut costs in these cutthroat American capitalist ventures. As Bonacich (1972) suggested early on, business owners have to seek out the cheapest and most productive labor possible to be profitable in a capitalist society. Also, Waldinger (1996) notes in his own study of the New York City construction industry, that whether formally or informally, construction contractors do a cost benefit analysis of every potential employee before hiring them—weighing out whether the person will add or subtract any economic value to the company or project on hand. Certainly, it is not racist to seek the cheapest labor per se unless employers use race or ethnicity to standardize their views of any group who they assume is cheaper, docile, and more productive. These overarching assumptions or racialized proxies for entire racial and ethnic groups also become ways for employers to make decisions on who, as Waldinger (1996) suggested, gets the “lousy” (i.e., less pay, more manual labor) or “good” jobs among employees within a particular business or industry; thus, creating a split labor market.

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In this chapter, I contribute to this debate by providing a comparative analysis in which Black, White, and Latino contractors in the Atlanta construction industry discuss what shapes their hiring practices. This chapter gives a glimpse into how capitalist motivation to maximize profits and the introduction of Latinos as a relatively cheap labor source has continued to racialize the hiring process within a southern industry that has been traditionally black and white. Even though the South and the construction industry are not strangers to race and ethnic relations issues, in this chapter, I show how Hispanic immigrants and citizens become racialized in the labor force and how these entrepreneurs stereotypical views and racialized proxies assist them in making a “no-brainer” hiring decision that favors Latinos over any other racial or ethnic employee pool. I also show how nativity may be new element in explaining hiring practices in this booming southern industry. This chapter draws on 42 in-depth interviews collected from 2003 to 2005. These interviews include Black, Latino, and White contractors’ views on hiring practices, focusing on who they prefer as employees. Overwhelmingly, all of these contractors use stereotypes, color-blind ideologies, and racialized stock stories to explain their employee selections that they view is solely about increasing their profit margins. In fact, Latino immigrants received the highest compliments because contractors saw them as the most reliable, efficient, docile, and most importantly, cheaper or more profitable in comparison to native-born Whites and Blacks. And, even though these employers were right when they suggested that Latino immigrants were the cheapest and most productive at the time of this research, they used their limited experiences and advice from other contractors to make sweeping generalizations about why they would never even consider hiring a Black, White, or “Americanized” Latino in the place of a Latino immigrant. Put simply, race and nativity became a proxy for deciding who would be the most profitable employee. Finally, I propose in my conclusions that the structural restraints of American capitalism and racism encourage contractors to do more than impact individual hiring decisions—their decisions help to solidify what Bonacich (1972) identified as a split labor market. While contractors’ racialized hiring practices prefer Latino immigrants in many ways, they certainly only see them as hard-labor workers. Certainly, these views exclude native-born workers from these jobs but it also secures other higher-end crew boss and subcontractor jobs for Blacks and Whites; thus, creating a clear racial and ethnic hierarchy within this industry.

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Floating Work Crews

Unlike most other industries that post job advertisements and require applications, the construction industry is, in most respects, completely informal in its hiring processes. Moreover, the construction industry’s employers often do not have to follow federal equal opportunity employment guidelines because it hires, as Waldinger (1996:286) found, “floating work crews.” Defined as a mix of part-time and full-time laborers and subcontractors who were hired on a contract-to-contract basis, these workers are laid off in times of bad weather, if work slows down, or once the project is finished. In this study, all of the contractors relied on a jumble of temporary, part-time, and full-time workforce in which many suggested having any other combination would be unnecessary and problematic. Clearwater, a Black contractor, stated this about the problems with keeping full-time staff: “It is hard to make sure that you have enough work for a set of full-time employees to do. While I have at least one or two contracts a month, they're still not enough to pay the guys I work with a solid salary and make sure they can live from week-to-week.” Jacobs, a White contractor, further stated: “Having a full-time staff slows you down because you have to take care of them, and economically, it costs money to have them because you have someone set up a payroll and pay taxes. It is just easier to pay a lump sum to a subcontractor, who takes care of all that stuff.” To circumvent the possible loss of time and money wasted on formal hiring processes and keeping a full-time crew, most of the contractors in this study hired their subcontractors, laborers, and company staff through informal means, namely, social networks. Even though formal processes, such as advertising and interviewing help reduce employment discrimination (see Moss and Tilly 2001), these processes take time and money away, which is a major concern for the contractors in this study. Laughing, Ortega, a Latino contractor, pointed out, “This is construction! You have to know somebody to get a job. There's no application or interview except the first day when you walk on the site and they tell you what to do. That's the formal process.” Brooks, a White contractor, stated this about the importance of his network in obtaining new employees: You know, one of the reasons I participate in relationships with other businesses is so that we can help each other find good subcontractors that are honest and reliable. It take the guess-work out of hiring someone because I can ask Joe, 'How, good is this plumber of yours?' And he can say they stink or he would recommend them. It's a great system.

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Blythe, a Black contractor, who tried to use more formal procedures, found that his friends and fellow contractors were the best source of finding quality subcontractors. He stated, “A lot of the contractors out there are my friends… [and] we'll share information. And, if somebody has some good luck with a subcontractor, then we recommend them to each other and they get passed around.” Sosa, a Latino contractor, also found that the best source for subcontractors and laborers was through his connections with other Latino business owners. He stated, “My partners, we pass subs around and I sometimes will call someone that handed me their business card but, usually, I call someone I know to get a referral.” In fact, many of the contractors used co-ethnic networks to provide them co-ethnic employees, especially Latino contractors. As Gutierrez, a Latino contractor, stated, “I can call my cousin, who’s done this for many years, and he will hook me up with some amigos that I can trust and know they won’t waste my time.” Overall, these contractors rely heavily on social networks to locate a pool of potential employees because it is cost effective and they trust their peers and employees to provide a reliable labor force. Waldinger and Lichter (2003) suggest that many employers use their employees this way because of the “predictive value” of the recommendations their employees make. More important to these contractors is that using their personal and employee networks decreases the cost of hiring individuals through formal processes. However, as Waldinger and Lichter (2003:108) suggest, using networks to refer new employees creates a “natural by-product” of exclusion and allows for more subjective and biased opinions about particular groups and the individuals they represent, especially when profit is the main concern. What Contractors Want in an Employee

Employers in this study wanted a combination of different talents and abilities in their employees depending on the industry. When I asked what these contractors’ hiring preferences were, every contractor first stated that they wanted “quality” employees, which was a vague and allusive way of describing their hiring preferences. Many, however, felt that there was a strong correlation between the quality of an employee and their businesses’ profitability. After analyzing the interviews, much of the hiring criteria contractors used to find a “quality” subcontractor, laborer, and company staff person became apparent and rested on three major criteria. First, a quality employee has to have some experience and skills specific to construction or at least the desire to learn the skills. Second, and more important than experience and skills, a quality

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employee has to have a set of attitudes or attributes that demonstrates the individual's work ethic and drive to succeed. Finally, and most important, these contractors would most likely hire someone if they added economic value or increased profits for the company. In fact, some suggested if a subcontractor or laborer worked hard at a reasonable price, then that would more likely trump racial and ethnic considerations. As Walters, a Black contractor, stated, “Price is the great equalizer of race and ethnicity. If you cost less, not just in money, [but] how much time you take to do the work, and so forth, then people want you. They don't care what color you are then.” Hard and Soft Skills

Even though the respondents in this study rarely discussed their hiring preferences in these terms, the first quality that these contractors looked for relates to the research that suggests that most employees attempt to discern the level of “hard” and “soft” skills a potential employee has to determine their employability (Neckermann and Kirschenman 1991; Moss and Tilly 2001; Park 2002; Shih 2002; Wilson 1996). Moss and Tilly (2001) define “hard” skills as any formal training, education, or experience that prepares someone for a particular industry or occupation. Moss and Tilly (2001) suggest that employers that rely more heavily on hard skills are more likely to be fair in their decisions. On the other hand, soft skills often include an employee's interpersonal skills, which can include a positive attitude, respect for authority, and a strong work ethic (Moss and Tilly 2001). Waldinger and Lichter (2003) point out that a soft skill is rarely learned in a formal setting and is considered as a talent or ability someone naturally possesses, making the judgment of soft skills more subjective. In this study, 38 of the 42 contractors viewed hard skills as the least likely reason to hire someone. In fact, they suggested that a formal education or a high level of skill had little to do with what they viewed as “quality” employees. Mackey, a White subcontractor, said this about education and hiring new laborers on his framing crews: I guess having a high school degree helps, but not really. Most of my guys come onto my crews don't have any formal training or even know what it means to frame a house… I teach them all they need to know on the job, and most of them pick it up rather fast. In time, they develop the skills and experience I need to move them up in the ranks and make them foreman or something.

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Ferry and Castillo, a White and Latino contractor, respectively, suggested that they rarely even knew what the education levels of their subcontractors and company staff were. What they worried about was whether these individuals had experience and could get the jobs done right. Castillo stated this about education: Education matters but you know, we don't really check. When you go onto a commercial job, you have to have higher qualities of performance, especially on the electrician, grading, and plumbing sides, so we make sure these people [we hire] know what they're doing by looking at some of their previous work and checking their references. It can't be first- or second-time in the field, they have to have experience.

Persons, a Black contractor, further stated: Some education is always a plus… because it is something beyond the norm in this industry. The majority of this industry has about a high school degree and only a few of the business owners have a college degree or better, but really, it's about experience. You know, having the skills to do the job a contractor wants you to do right then. If you are a plumber, you need to know how to plumb and if you're a daylaborer picking up trash, then you need to know how to do it in the most quick and efficient way. Education is done on the site, not in a classroom.

Lorenz and Gutierrez, two Latino contractors, who have large masonry companies, also suggest that most of their laborers learn all of their masonry skills on the job site. Lorenz further suggested that while there are masonry schools, anyone can come and learn the same things on the job because customers and general contractors really want masons who are experienced, and they usually do not check for education credentials. Moreover, even some contractors, like Mitchell, MacGyver, and Ortiz, suggested that they would prefer having a subcontractor or laborer that was more “malleable” or “docile.” As MacGyver, a white contractor, stated, “Give me someone that doesn't know a thing about construction and I can turn him into a little mini-me clone that knows how to work and do the job just like me, and I can sit back and be proud.” Or, as Richards, a black contractor stated, “I want well-oiled machines working for me but they don’t necessarily have to come with the experience. Man, I’d rather have a dumb bunny first and then mold him the way I want him to work and teach him the trades.” Overall, for these contractors, hard skills like education, skills, and experience were not the ultimate decision-makers for them. While they

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do suggest that skill is necessary, most suggest that they would rather develop skill and experience after the person started working. Of course, as Persons suggests, some people hired, such as plumbers and electricians need to know their trades, but having skills does not really help these contractors make the decision to hire them. Even though some researchers suggest that employers include the requirement of hard skills as a way to include and exclude individuals at the very beginning of the hiring process, it is not evident here. However, as Jack, a white contractor, pointed out, “Well, if you don’t know what you’re doing, then that’s the fastest way to get fired!” Drastically overshadowing the discussion of hard skills was these contractors constituted as the “soft skills” needed in this industry. For these contractors, a person’s employability hinged on his/her abilities to demonstrate that they were trustworthy, reliable, loyal, self-sufficient, and had a solid work ethic. The three soft skills most stated included a combination of integrity and reliability, the work-hard ethic, and loyalty. The most desired trait contractors wanted in their new employees was a “work-hard” mentality. As Lopez stated, “If you work hard for me, then you will work with me forever, plain and simple.” Many of the contractors suggested that a strong work ethic included dedication and a commitment to getting any contract done efficiently and for the least amount of money as possible. Randolph, a Black contractor, stated, “I just want an employee that works as hard as they can to get the job done and is there for me, you know? No one else but me. I'm their number one priority.” Lorenz stated this about a hard-work mentality: “I tell my employees if they give me a half day's work, then we will get along great. Of course, a half-day is 12 hours, right? Out of 24 hours? I want them to really work and not slack off because it's almost 5 pm.” Jack, a White contractor, said this about a strong work ethic: Every contractor dreams of having that elite set of subs, laborers, and staff that knows no bounds and do whatever it takes to succeed and do the job well. Everyone wants subs that knows their stuff but just out right astonish you on their quality and get the work done well and before schedule. Most of us, I bet, would pay more for a sub or someone that did give it their all and produced a flawless product.

Gutierrez also stated this about a strong work ethic: “I don't think I have one crew member that doesn't give it their all because they are committed to the success of this company. They realize that their paychecks depend on this company, so they do the job and get it done quickly so they can make money off the next project.” Mitchell, a black

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contractor, further stated, “I want them to be as good as me and they've got to be willing to hustle. They've got to really turn it up and turn it out.” Many of the contractors suggested that they would not hire a subcontractor or company staff person if the individual worried about their pay or wasted time. Mackey, a White contractor, suggested that anyone that worries about a paycheck or getting paid does not have the work-hard mentality he desires. He stated: I can't stand working these assholes that always want to know (says the following in a whiny voice), 'Mackey, when do we get paid? I got to my car payment at the end of the week.' Well, we get paid like we always do, at the end of the week, and stop whining because you shouldn't have blown all your money on beer over the weekend.

Clearwater reported that he fired those individuals that always worried about getting paid because it cut into their focus and indicated that the person was not committed to the company. He stated: I guess one thing I try to guard against is whether an employee is just looking for a paycheck, or are they looking for personal gratification, whatever. If a man is looking for a paycheck, I don't think he is going to give you his all, because it's just a paycheck to him. But if a man is looking to have some pride in his job and produce a quality product, then that's the man that you want.

Also, Jack stated this about how employees demonstrate a “lazy” work ethic and how it affects his profits: A lot of guys waste time on the job, taking breaks and taking lunch, or waiting on supplies, or something. They're just being lazy and that eats into the time they should be finishing a part of a house or something. It also means they have to hurry to finish on time, which means the quality goes down. So work hard now, play later, because you might even get Friday off if you finish the project on time.

Thus, many of these business owners view an employee with a hard worker mentality as selflessly dedicated to the advancement of their owner's business. In other words, this type of employee does the work not for the sake of pay but for the sake of making the company look better and earn more money. More importantly, not working hard enough leads to the contractor not meeting his deadlines, which reduces profits and hurts their reputations.

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As can be seen in some of the comments above, a second trait required by the contractors was that they wanted an employee to be obedient and loyal to their companies. Most of the contractors mentioned this in two ways. The first definition of loyalty was about obedience in which employees did not complain or, as James stated, “bucks the system.” Mackey, a White subcontractor, stated this about employees that complained: That is the worst thing that you can get in an employee. Someone that complains about how much work there is and how hot it is and shit like that. Some of these damn workers, that's all they do is bitch and moan and you don't get any work done. So, if I get a new guy coming in to work, I always ask him, 'You're not a whiner are you?'

Ortiz also preferred not to hire individuals that did not or would not follow directions. He stated: Sometimes, you get these new guys coming in that already know how to do a lot of the stuff I do. So, I have to re-train them to do it the way my company does drywall… but there's always someone that thinks they know how to do it better than you and tries to tell the other guys, you know, that have been with me for five years, how to do it right. I shut that down right quick, because I'm the boss, not him.

The second definition of loyalty was based on how their employees used their company. In other words, did their employees work for them or were they just there to learn the skills and move on to start their own companies and become competition. Baker, a Black contractor, suggested that he wanted any person he employed and, especially his company staff, to carry the “Baker company flag and scream from the rooftops, how wonderful my company is… they need to always sell it as their own.” Charles, a White real estate developer and contractor, stated this about what he looks for in any home builder he partners with: “I want them to know and realize that they are a part of the Charles team, and they represent me and only me when they are working. I don't want them moon-lighting on other projects because I pay them enough to be right here working with me 24/7.” This type of loyalty was also really about whether an individual would use what they learned and become a traitor because they would start their own business. For example, Rogers attested to this problem:

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Handy guys will say, you know, 'I want to do a project on my own.' That's fine, but I'm not helping I'm not going to allow an employee of mine to start off a business that will be in direct competition to me, you know? Why don't you be loyal or something. Or how about I give you one of my projects and you run it for me, but I'm not going to help you start your own business. But I wish them the best, and I would never try to hold anyone back.

Gutierrez has had individuals break off from him and start their own masonry businesses. Here is what he experienced: I've had this happen, you know, guys that might work for a month or two, or six months, whatever, and split off to do their own thing. And, the bad thing is that in order for them to get a job, most of them tell customers and other contractors that they learned everything they needed to know from me and then they go and do something stupid— really mess it up. Then, I got contractors calling me, telling me I've got some kind of guy running around and ruining my name. You can't have that.

The above comments present a powerful message about what these contractors want in an employee. These contractors do not want to hire employees who are using them to learn the trade so they can go and start their own general contracting businesses later, creating another source of competition, because this will reduce their profits and threaten their social position. As Blumer (1958) suggests, increased amounts of prejudice and discrimination come with challenges to one's sense of group position. A final trait they wanted was a combination of integrity and reliability. Many of the contractors wanted new hires to be trustworthy because they had to depend on these subcontractors or laborers to get the work done on time with few mistakes. They expected their new hires to stand by their work and correct mistakes when necessary. Contractors also wanted subcontractors that were honest because they would charge a fair price and complete the work. Blythe, a White contractor, pointed out that he was more likely to hire a subcontractor from project to project if he trusted them. He stated:

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For me, a person's character has a lot to do with it. I want somebody who's going to be honest Basically, because this business is full of crooked people. So I want someone I can depend on and know that they are going to do the work right the first time and not cause me a lot of grief and frustration. I had one guy I hired, he was gay and he was clear about it. I thought there might be some problems but because he was honest with me, we got along great and he's never once not finished a job for me or shirked on his responsibilities.

Quinones and Lopez, two Latino contractors, suggested that when they chose a subcontractor they always asked the referral source if he/she could be trusted. Lopez stated, “You really don't want someone that is going to not be there when you need them the most. They can run out on you and leave you with all the work and they've got all the cash you paid them to do the work. It happens all the time, and I've been burned by it twice.” Mitchell, a white contractor, put it more simply: “They know I'm not going to fuck them and they're not going to fuck me. That's how you build trust, knowing you have mutual respect for one another.” As many of the above comments suggest, integrity is about money and an equitable business transaction. They want a fair exchange for their money and if a subcontractor cannot provide that by skipping out on the work or doing it poorly, then they lose money and time attempting to correct the situation. Profitability

Clearly, what drives all these contractors’ selections of hard and soft skills really comes down to one very potent determination, as Bonacich (1972) asserted in her study of ethnic entrepreneurship: is there an economic benefit in hiring a potential employee in question? In all the explanations of why they hired certain individuals and what they considered to be a quality employee, most of the contractors settled with one final answer, profitability. As hinted at in most of the comments above when discussing hard and soft skills, these contractors were always doing a cost-benefit analysis of every employee they hire. These contractors not only considered the price or wages they paid subcontractors, laborers, or company staff, but they also mulled over whether the employees were efficient and finished on or before their proposed deadlines, as well as whether they produced quality work. As Brooks, a White contractor stated, “Price is important in hiring anyone… but you have to also consider [if] they can produce good work in the time allotted. You don't want someone sitting around and getting nothing done. I don't care how cheap they are price wise.” Randolph, a

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Black contractor, stated this about price: “I want a person that does everything I can do or ten times better in less time, if I pay for it. I want cheap but efficient and less time-consuming labor. That's the bottom line.” Some suggested that rationalizing their choices based on economics was a natural part of business and had to be done to survive in this industry. Mitchell, who is a Black contractor that hires two or three new laborers on each project, said this about what really determines who he picks: “They need some skills and they need to work hard but, of course, anybody running a business wants more done for less [money], that's human nature.” Rogers, a Black real estate developer and contractor, suggested that the price of an employee mattered because, like any supplies for a business, you want a good bargain: I hire whoever will get the job done at the best price. That's what's important to me…. I mean, I will handicap myself, my family, and my employees if I went out and looked for people to do the work solely on religion, sex, or color. That would be ridiculous. I just want the person that will do the work for cheap. You don't go out and buy the most expensive hammer or nails do you? No, you save wherever you can, and labor is one of those supplies you can save on.

Dmitry, a White contractor, also viewed saving money on employees as an essential part of surviving the industry. He stated: “The margins of profit are so thin. I mean, 10 to 15% profit off a building or house. That's not a lot and could be more…. Really, the only way to get more is to save money from labor and supply expenses.” Many of the contractors also viewed hiring a potential employee based on his/her economic benefit to the company as more meritocratic and less likely to include racial or ethnic bias. Charles, a White contractor, stated: “Most people believe that this is a rough and tumble industry and people don't get fair shots at things, but I think I try to be more equitable by considering what every person has to offer and most of the time it is based on their price. If you're willing to work on that price, then I'm willing to get you in the door.” Jacobs, a White contractor, stated, Color really doesn't matter to me or anyone else in construction, because they are worried about cost. How much will a subcontractor or set of workers cost me to do X? It boils down to cost. You need to do the math and figure out. Can you get more productivity and pay them less money than you can out of somebody else that you think you may not get as much productivity out of, but you're paying them more?

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So, it's kind of get the cheapest labor you can and get the most roductivity—a natural business transaction. That's it. And, I personally think that makes the industry more hospitable to all types of people; Black, White, Latino, or Romanian. It just doesn't matter.

Marcus, a Black contractor, also believed that anyone could get a job in the construction industry if they did not mind earning their pay and working to get raises. He stated, People working in this industry understand you have to earn your pay and you get more money when you deserve it. And that allows a lot of people to come into this industry without having to deal with racism or angst against groups. Because, as I hear everyone say, and I believe this too, you could be Papa Smurf blue and still get a job in this industry because you are relatively cheap or you give an honest day's work.

Martin, a Latino contractor, felt similarly to MacGyver and suggested that capitalism was a way for disadvantaged individuals, like himself, to get ahead. The great thing about being a business owner is that I don't have to hire someone that is not going to add value to my business…. Capitalism is wonderful in this country because it does allow me and other Latinos to have a chance where we wouldn't back home in most cases. Here, I can offer a lower price and get in with some great networks and rise to the top because of capitalism… the need for cheap labor. And I fill that position now and I'm okay with that because I now the boss and hire my own cheap labor.

MacGyver, a White home builder, also suggested that a cost-benefit analysis of any employee is a natural part of business. He stated, Let's look at it this way, you're a sociologist, you should know this; classic capitalism helps eliminate discrimination. If individual 'A' can offer their time and effort for less money or do the same job in less time and right than individual 'B', then you need to hire that 'A.' It's simple economics and as a business owner, you always have to consider that.

These contractors believe that capitalism is not only a system that helps them but also works as the best way to make any hiring decision fair. In MaGyver's comment, he suggested that these decisions are simple economic ones that help him, but he does not consider how it affects his employees. In addition, MacGyver and Martin's assumptions

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that capitalism decreases discrimination are incorrect. As Waldinger and Lichter (2003) suggest, the more employers consider the cost of an employee, the more they discriminate against certain individuals based on what they believe is the fairest way to make a decision: cost. However, much of this cost-benefit analysis, as Waldinger and Lichter (2003) and Neckerman and Kirschenmann (1991) point out, runs on racist and prejudicial perceptions and assumptions about different individuals because few business owners have direct experience in knowing whether every individual is cost-effective. However, regardless of their race or ethnicity, each member uses the profitability measurement. As a Black contractor working in South Atlanta, Clearwater stated, “You know, I don't care what color you are or your skill level. Just give me good products, quickly and efficiently. You make me more money, then you're in! That's the way it worked for me.” Walters, another Black contractor, also suggested that the “price” of an employee or subcontractor really represented the “great equalizer.” He stated, A lot of my opportunities have come to me because I could offer things at a lower price, at first. And, you know, some people, especially me, see that this is an advantage in this industry. I mean, I don't hire guys just on their skills or know-how, I hire based on their price and that's why I have Blacks, Cubans, Mexicans, Whites, the rainbow, you know, of people working with me, because they offer good service for a good price. That's really the great equalizer, price, because anyone can do a job well but can they do it well, fast, and without too much expense to me or them? Everyone gets included when they can do that.

Ramirez, a Latino contractor, also viewed price as a way to equalize the industry. However, he admitted that many other contractors and clients viewed him as cheaper because he was Latino, which gave him an advantage. He stated, Price is a big thing in this industry. If you can get away with bidding a project for lower than your competitors and you can still come up with some good money in your pocket, then that's good. A lot of times people assume I'm cheaper too, because that's the image Latinos carry around in this town and don't even get more bids from other contractors. So, you know, that kind of a crappy stereotype that we are always the cheapest but it works to my advantage, most times, and I milk it for what it's worth.

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One can see that minorities share the color-blind ideologies that have shaped much of this study. For instance, even though Ramirez understands that Latinos are stigmatized as “cheap” or the best, they continue to use these stereotypes to hire Latinos. As some scholars suggest (see Bonilla-Silva 2001; Gallagher 2003; Omi and Winant 1994), the power of contemporary racism and color-blind ideology is that all racial and ethnic groups almost willingly consent because they cannot visibly recognize that race completely matters in shaping privileges and a hierarchy that advantages Whites. Also, minority contractors have seen and experienced other minorities getting better jobs, becoming self-employed, or receiving contracts based on merit, hard work, and price. To be fair, these minority contractors are right to some extent. The American economy has always used and survived on cheap labor, whether it was through immigrants or African Americans (e.g., Lieberson 1980; Roediger 1991; Steinberg 1989; Waldinger 1996). But, what these minority and White contractors do not openly recognize is that cheap labor has always been filled by subordinate groups and most of those groups have been people of color (see Gallagher 2006). More importantly, as Waldinger and Lichter (2003:167) suggest, just because people hire certain groups does not mean they like them or think that they are equal with them; it is strictly an employer-employee relationship. In short, many of the minority and White contractors in this study lose sight of the racial hierarchy when their business is at stake and the often accepted color-blind ideology is there to support a business world as a fairer and more level playing field because, as MacGyver suggested, of simple economics. Moreover, all of these contractors support these explanations more when their business and social positions are on the line. Most importantly, as Roediger (1991) suggests, an economic benefit argument hides the fact that these individuals are exploiting workers. Finally, while the contractors in this study suggest that they are color-blind in hiring individuals, their hiring criteria produces a “colored” workforce that identifies immigrant Latinos as the only ones that have the set of appropriate soft skills and economic benefits necessary to be considered as potential employees. Therefore, while these business owners' hiring criteria may suggest reasonable practices, they usually lead to creating and reinforcing a racialized industry. Whom Contractors Want

Up to this point, race, ethnicity, and nativity has had little to do with these contractors’ hiring decisions. In fact, many suggested that if a

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potential employee had the above qualifications, then race, ethnicity, and immigrant-status did not matter. However, while discussing who these contractors hired, many of them suggested that not all racial or ethnic groups fit the criteria. Moreover, the link between the criteria and certain groups was severed because many of these business owners used a “racialized proxy” in which stereotypes about certain racial, ethnic, or immigrant groups became a way in which they weeded out the possibility of even considering hiring from a particular group. In short, many of the respondents used a racially biased approach of attempting to apply the qualifications above to the group that best served their needs of making money, and denounced other groups’ employability based on a stereotypical understanding about the work ethic of others. Most of what these respondents suggest concerning their hiring practices can be categorized as a “stock story,” consisting of generalizations about the differences between certain racial and ethnic groups and whether these differences affect their overall chances of being hired. As Lee (2002:97) and Yamato (1999) suggest, most racial/ethnic groups use “stock stories” to understand and explain a group's perception of, and interactions with, other groups. These stories also tend to polarize around issues of race and are most often used to compare racial and ethnic groups' abilities. However, in this study, nativity is also an important part of the stock story in which being an immigrant or being too Americanized led to an increase or decrease in the likelihood of being hired. Moreover, these contractors suggest that being an immigrant has a direct relationship with a person’s ability to be reliable, a hard worker, and an asset to the company. Here, I present two stock stories these contractors used to explain a spectrum of employee choices that puts the superior abilities of immigrant Latinos against the laziness of Americanized Latinos, Whites, and Blacks. “The Bargain of the Century”: Latino Immigrants

Throughout my interviews, an overwhelming majority of the respondents suggested that Latinos were a better source of “quality” employees for laborers and subcontractors than most any other racial or ethnic group. Based on their experiences, these contractors presented to me a stock story that characterized all Latino workers and subcontractors as hard workers, efficient, and obedient, equaling an ideal work ethic in this industry. But, most of all, these employers preferred Latinos better because they were economically beneficial to them as immigrants, placing them in an old idealized American

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immigrant story in which all immigrants have been hard workers and over-achievers. The contractors presented this story in several key ways. The first part of this idealized immigrant stock story was that Latinos filled a need for labor in the Atlanta construction industry. Mitchell, a Black contractor, identified Latinos as “saviors of the construction industry,” because they are “the bargain of the century,” meaning that Latinos are a new source of cheap labor replacing the Irish, Italians, and African Americans that have also historically filled these roles (see Roediger 1991; Steinberg 1989). Blythe, a White contractor, stated this about Latino's economic benefit: “Mexicans brought the prices down on subcontracting and that has made my profits go up, and I can do more work quicker.” Patterson, a White contractor, also agreed that Latinos are profitable. This industry would have stopped dead in the water if it wasn't for Latinos… There was just not enough man power here willing to do the work necessary to make everyone a success. My business, as well as everyone's, would have stayed relatively small and less profitable because we couldn't do the volume of work we do today.

Randolph, a Black contractor, also suggested that Latinos have been instrumental in making things cheaper, making them an asset to construction. He stated: Do I want to pay someone $20 [an hour] to do something, when I can pay someone else $10 [an hour]? No, I don't have to pay $20 an hour anymore in today's market. If you think about it, material prices have stayed about the same, but labor has went down. You know, the Hispanics drove that. I was paying $22 a board for dry wall hanging and finishing. Now I pay $10. You know, that's a big difference. I don't pay hardly nothing for sheet rock workers. Hispanics in that business brought that change.

A second argument was that Latino workers and subcontractors represented the most efficient and hard-working employees because they were willing to work long hours to get a project done quickly. Richards stated this about Latino workers' efficiency: “ … they work until the job is done. They don't worry about the clock.” Warren stated, “Latinos, during this time of the year [spring], they work from sun up to sun down and they do quality work and they get it done.” Fredrick, a White contractor, stated, “They are hard workers because they get stuff done in a day that would take any other crew two days to do because they have drive that is remarkable and they want to get paid as soon as possible.”

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Matthews, another White contractor, also suggested that Latinos work faster than any other group, and “they work daylight to dark, seven days a week if you let them.” Quinones and Munoz, two Latino contractors, believed that Latinos were more efficient than most other workers. Quinones a Latino contractor, stated: “Latinos do it quickly and do it well at the same time because we are good at construction and we work until the job is done.” Munoz, another Latino contractor, stated this about the Latino work ethic: “All Latinos work around the clock because they want to and see the value in earning money after a good day of work… That's what's expected of everyone but only Latinos deliver it.” The third argument that many of the contractors suggested was that Latinos were more valuable in the industry because they did almost any job and rarely complained. Wilson, a Black contractor, stated: You know, they really will just do anything to get paid. I mean they will shovel shit, crawl up under houses, and work like the devil until they're done… and won't say a damn thing about how hot it is or how they wished they could get off early. Not many other guys would be like that.

Mackey, a White subcontractor, also thought that Latinos would do any job and never heard them complain. He stated, To be honest, I love the little fuckers. I mean, they get into their work and shimmy up and down those frames of a house and jump back and forth. Man they work it. I can also get them to pick up trash, plant grass, mow my yard, and clean my gutters because they want to make money…. And, the whole time they smile and say, 'Need anything else done?' Not, 'It's too fucking hot, I need a break, or any of that other shit.

Fredrick, a White contractor, also saw Latinos as valuable because they would do any type of work. He stated, “They don't care what the work is, just give it to them and they will do it and do it well. No questions asked except for what's the pay like.” Marcus stated, “Latinos don't give you lip like some brothers or white boys will. They respect authority and the employer-employee relationship.” Martin, a Latino contractor, also found his Latino laborers to be the best because they worked as much as they could. He stated, “I never have to ask these guys what they are doing because they always find something to do. They don't sit around and bitch, like some other workers, about how they aren't getting paid enough to do everything. Us Latinos know that you only get paid if the boss sees you working.” But, Rodriguez, a part-

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time Latino contractor, pointed out what most contractors missed when suggesting that Latinos do not complain: Well, we do complain but not in English. We complain all day to one another and most contractors don't understand what we're saying. I think we also do all the jobs they want us to do because we want to show that we're worth the money and maybe they will pay us more. Latinos don't want to crawl under houses, but we do it because we need the money and we will do anything, I guess, right now, so we can get paid.

Consequently, an employee that does not complain, especially in English, represents a quality that these business owners want in their employees. These comments above also suggest that Latinos are grateful for the work they get. As MacGyver, a White contractor stated: They talk in Spanish and I know some but I'm sure they're complaining, but they never complain to me because I'm the one who pays them. They are grateful for what they get. Unless they don't do what I ask them, they don't get paid. I also know that if they complain, all I have to do is say, 'You know, INS?', and they stop complaining and I hire a whole new crew the next day without them.

As suggested by most research on hiring practices, an employee that does not complain or “cause a fuss, or give an attitude” is a characteristic that most employers look for in an employee (Moss and Tilly 2001; Neckerman and Kirschenman 1991; Shih 2001:108; Waldinger and Lichter 2003). Waldinger and Lichter (2003) also suggest that workers who complain less are more likely to stay, which increases profits because of less turnover. Finally, less complaining also allows the employer to be in charge and able to, as MacGyver's comment suggests, exploit or fire any employee that does complain, especially since they may not know their rights to protest like nativeborn Whites and Blacks do. However, what really made Latinos the bargain of the century and the most likely to be hired than any other racial or ethnic group for these contractors was that Latinos were immigrants, which made them “hungry” for work and opportunities. In fact, these Latino immigrants represented the American achievement ideologies because they are eager for work, willing to do any job, and are less likely to complain in laborintensive industries. Alba and Nee (2003) and Waldinger (2004) suggest that characterizing immigrants as eager for work and opportunities is part of the common tale that Americans use to explain their immigrant

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past. However, Waldinger and Lichter (2003) suggest that that employers' identification of immigrants as hungry is based on a need to rationalize their reasons to include or exclude certain racial and ethnic groups. Clearly, many of the contractors in this study viewed all Latinos in the Atlanta construction industry as “hungry” and as immigrants that, as Mackey stated, “worked circles around any White or Black man.” For instance, Wilson, a Black contractor, stated, “Hispanics, you know, are just hungrier and when you're hungry you're going to do what you need to so that you can eat.” Josephs, a White subcontractor, also saw Latinos as hungry for opportunities and work. He stated: “Man, you give them work and they devour it like a pack of dogs… they also come back asking for more and more work, and I and the rest of the industry just can't keep up with their demands.” Lorenz, a Latino contractor, best summarized what most contractors implied as to the importance of this hunger because it reinforced common American achievement ideologies and, most importantly, made sure there was somebody doing the hard labor. He stated, Nobody likes to do hard labor but in my business you have to. You have to pick up bricks or rocks, you have to work out in the sun all day and carry things on your back. So, if Latinos do these jobs, we must really want it or be hungry for opportunities because we know that if we pick up rocks today, we might be telling others to do it in a couple of months because hard work and dedication equal advancement in America.

Some of the contractors suggested that the hunger of Latino immigrants was innate, which echoed Gutierrez's (1996) comment mentioned earlier that Latinos have been historically identified as “built” for hard labor. For instance, MacGyver, a White home remodeler, stated this about the natural abilities Mexican immigrants have to do construction work: Many of the Mexican guys I've seen work look to be physically built to do the work. I mean, the Mexicans from the mountainous areas of Mexico are short but stout workers. They seem to pick up bags of concrete and heavy shit with little effort. They're skin is always tanned from being outside, and they all seem to be hungry for the work. No one of them is going to turn down a job, and they're doing something on the site all the time. It seems cultural in a way, they know hard work is necessary to make it and they’ve been raised to truly embrace [it].

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Walters, a Black contractor, suggested something similar. He stated, “Hispanics love that work and they seem to enjoy it so much I think they must have been doing it since birth or something. They are all usually lean and muscular and they work like the dickens.” Lopez, a Latino contractor, stated this about Latino workers: “We have always done construction, and I believe it is now in our blood to work hard and to know what is the right and wrong thing to do when building something. My papa said that I was born with a hammer in my hand.” Within the quotes, these contractors use some old-fashioned racial ideologies that suggest that racial superiority, or inferiority, is based on “natural” abilities. In addition, as Bonilla-Silva (2001) and Waldinger and Lichter (2003) suggest, these explanations are more often used to reinforce the belief that talent, hard work, and dedication lead to success instead of the idea that it has to do with race or nativity, as was suggested several times during the discussion of a business owners' abilities to be good at self-employment. Other contractors thought that Latino immigrant's hunger for work was due to cultural reasons, such as the dire economic circumstances they faced back home or because their families were poor and uneducated. Baker stated “ … [the Latinos'] purpose, you know, their background, is entirely different than how we were raised in the states.” Richards agreed with this sentiment when he made the following statement: As a rule, [Latinos] work hard, but there's a reason for that. We [American citizens] take the opportunity we have in this country for granted. Lots of people, not all, but a lot of people take it for granted. Latinos know what it is like to have an opportunity to work and as a rule they give their best that they have to give…. I mean they are so grateful. We just take too much for granted.

Charles, a White contractor, also suggested that Latinos worked hard and were hungry for opportunities because of their past. He stated, They love to work and they enjoy it. They seem to be happy and they're not as demanding as laborers in the past. For the typical builder, it's a lot less trouble and aggravation because they're very appreciative of their jobs because in the home towns they would have never had as much success or money as they do here in America. In some cases, you can't make them go home because they know it is better here and they try to earn their keep by being faithful workers.

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In a more sensational way, Fredrick, a White contractor, also suggested that Latinos have it better in the U.S. than back home. He stated, They've never had it so good. Could you imagine not having grocery stores, a house with a floor, or having to walk eight or fifteen miles everyday to work? Not having enough to feed your kids? I mean, that's what a lot of these guys faced and, of course, when you come here, you get fresh milk whenever you want. You can drive or ride the bus, I mean, it’s ten times better here than some third world Central or South American country.

Randolph, a Black contractor, also saw Mexicans as eager to work because the pay is better here than in Mexico. Sarcastically, Josephs, a White subcontractor, suggested that Latino families have something to do with a Latinos' drive. He stated: “Yeah, their family does push them to work because they have to feed like ten kids and all their relatives back in Mexico. You'd work hard too if you had that kind of pressure.” Rodriguez and Ortega felt that Latinos did have a culture that made them better workers and hungrier for work in the construction industry. Rodriguez stated: We, as Hispanics, come this country with a desire; a desire to earn money and do whatever it takes to get it. If that means working 80 hours a week picking crops or hammering nails, then we do it with no questions asked because we were brought up to know that hard work pays off and dedication to one's work leads to more opportunities and chances. Our culture wants us to not sit around and wait for something to happen, we have to go and find it for ourselves.

Finally, Ortega stated this about the opportunities in the U.S. in comparison to Mexico: “Why not come here? There's gold, money, and opportunities here. Back in Mexico, that culture, doesn't want you to have these things… all that is back home is your family and dirt farms and poverty.” Overall, these comments suggest that Latinos are hungry and make great employees because they simply need the work. However, none of the contractors ever suggested that other racial and ethnic groups could have had some of the same problems. For example, none of the contractors suggested that they hired Blacks because of the generational effects of slavery, or because, in 2004, the Black unemployment rate in Atlanta was estimated at about 11% and the family poverty rate was about 21%. However, as Shih (2002) and Waldinger and Lichter (2003)

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suggest, this “it’s better off here than there” narrative that shapes this immigrant stock story allows employers to justify their preferences and choices that constantly seek out an exploitable labor force that is the cheapest, most efficient, and obedient they can find. Moreover, it covers up the possibilities that not selecting other groups may be due to more stereotypical and racist reasons that dominate most hiring assumptions (see Moss and Tilly 2001; Park 1999; Shih 2002). However, the hiring criteria above do not become racialized because these contractors want cheap and exploitable labor. It is because most contractors only identify Latino immigrants as meeting their criteria, and as I show below, all other groups, especially African Americans, are viewed as the least desirable employee. “It's a Damn Shame”: Lazy Americans

Juxtaposed to these contractors' views of Latino immigrants as the best laborers and subcontractors, many contractors viewed Whites, Blacks, and “Americanized” Latinos as the antithesis of a quality employee. As hinted at in the above comments, many even suggested that Whites or Blacks seldom had the right skills, drive, and dedication that Latino immigrants possessed. I found that the term “American” became slang or short-hand for qualities that contractors did not want, including being lazy or insubordinate to authority. It also became a way to validate their negative racial attitudes toward Blacks and some Americanized Latinos. Actually, some contractors suggested that they had little choice but to hire Latino immigrants because the American labor was unable to meet their qualifications and needs. For example, Blythe, a White contractor, stated this about labor issues in Atlanta: “Who else is there to hire? I mean, really? Hispanics do the work and they are good about being the subcontractors and laborers and everyone else is just worthless to some extent. I have to hire Hispanics to get by because even the White guys I've hired were lazy and drunk all the time, it seemed.” Jaeger, a Black home builder, further stated, “You can't find many Blacks or Whites to do the work that you want them to do. If you want someone to put in an honest day's work, then you have to hire Mexicans. There's no way around it.” In short, these contractors believed that they were limited in their hiring choices, however, this was self-imposed; most of them wanted cheap and hard-working labor that American subcontractors and laborers would not provide. As Patterson, a White contractor, stated, “I believe the Atlanta construction scene is spoiled now with Hispanics doing the work proficiently. It will be hard for any contractor to go back to using

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just Black or White Americans.” Thus, in this industry, contractors viewed native-born or “Americanized” employees as an economic disadvantage. The distaste for American employees became apparent when several contractors pointed out that they feared that Latino subcontractors and laborers would become less of a commodity because they would soon become “Americanized.” While the idea of Americanization has long been supported as a positive step of assimilation in the U.S. (for the most recent arguments, see Alba and Nee 2003; Jacoby 2004; Waldinger 2004), many of the contractors in this study said it destroyed the luster of hiring Latinos because they became less reliable, more belligerent, and more likely to ask for higher pay. Thus, Latinos becoming Americans in this industry signaled the end of their economic benefits. As Mackey, a White subcontractor, stated: “It's a damn shame. You get them good and working, and after a few months they start wanting more pay to buy a truck… There goes their work ethic!” Jacobs, a White contractor, also suggested that Latinos lost their value when they became Americanized. He stated, Well, they're not all they're cracked up to be because sometimes, many of the Hispanics have been here for a while and have taken on some of America's worst qualities, such as taking breaks and wanting time off. Sometimes, you need a cattle prod to get them going in the mornings or get them back to work after lunch. The U.S. makes them fat and lazy just like the rest of us.

Ramirez, a Latino contractor, stated this about Americanized Latinos: I'm an American and still work hard because, hey, isn't that one of those values everybody needs to have? But I think some guys are lazy, especially when they see everyone else getting off at 5pm and they're still having to work and they get paid the same money. They probably start thinking, 'Damn, why am I working so hard when everybody else gets to drink a beer?'… But I would rather have a fresh-from-theborder Latino working with me because they do work harder than us fat Gringos.

Finally, Walters, a Black commercial contractor, stated that he thought that the Latinos in Atlanta were becoming less reliable with more Latinos being born and growing up in the U.S.:

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Now, I was joking with a Hispanic friend and contractor of mine. I told him that, and most of them are Mexicans by the way, I told him that we going to have to go back to Mexico and get another generation, because his kids was not going to do what he was doing. They’re not going to put in any kind of work [when] they become Americanized. They’re going to 8 to 4:30, 9 to 5 too. They're not going to want to work like he's working… I am telling you we're going to have to go back to Mexico and get another set and bring those hungry guys over here, because the guys who are Americanized ain't going to work like that.

Some of the White and Black contractors also saw Americanized Latinos as a threat to their businesses and preferred not to hire them. As he sat talking to me in front of his Latino friend, Mitchell, a Black contractor, stated this about Americanized Latinos: When [they're] Americanized, they ain't worth a shit. Because the old adage is now you go and hire you some Mexicans because they work harder. Well, once these Mexicans know the routine and know how to fucking work the industry and make their lives easier and make money, then they ain't no bargain…. Once they get their tools and their own truck, then fuck you! Other contractorsthought they were getting a bargain and a deal. Another Black contractor told me this. He said hewas getting a bargain. 'Oh yeah, got these guys, making them bust their ass,' and they hoodwinked the job from him. They went in there and said they could do it better and for less.

Fredrick, a White contractor, knew of at least two Latino immigrant laborers that worked with him that started their own businesses. He stated, “Boy, they learned quick how to run a business and now I see them getting fixer-upper jobs down the street from where I work.” After being burned a few times by Latino laborers leaving and starting their own businesses, Rogers suggested he would never hire a Latino immigrant and teach them anything again. He stated, “Man, I'll let them carry rocks and shovel dirt, but forget about teaching how to do stuff [so] they can go off and start a business. I mean, once they learn a little English and start thinking they can be entrepreneurs, that's when the shit hits the fan. They're your competition next week.” The distaste for American or native-born workers became even clearer when many of the contractors suggested that Whites and Blacks were the least likely to be hired as laborers and subcontractors. Frequently, contractors suggested their distaste for hiring any Whites or

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Blacks was because they were everything they did not want in an employee: lazy, unappreciative, and disrespectful. Moreover, this laziness and ungrateful attitude was attributed to being spoiled Americans, especially when they compared Whites and Blacks to Latino workers. MacGyver, a White home builder, stated this about why Whites and Blacks were undesirable employees: Lazy bastards! With Latinos here, it's refreshing to see somebody who wants to work. I mean, you go and pick up some [White and Black] day-laborers twenty years ago and you would have 20 guys rush your truck… and once they found out that I was going to pay them $8 dollars an hour and it was going to be dirty work, they would say, 'I couldn't possibly work for $8 an hour and do all that in the hot sun.' I would say, 'It's ten o'clock in the morning. Where the hell else you going to get work?' I mean, these guys were damn lazy but now, I bet they wished they had worked with me because the Latinos are taking their day jobs.

Matthews, a White subcontractor, also saw Americans, which included Blacks and Whites for him, as lazy and unwilling to work as much as was needed in construction. He stated: I don't hire [White and Black] guys to work on my crews. Not because they are slower at the job, but a lot of American people have gotten this mind-set where they want to work 40 hours a week and in a 40 hour week, you're going to have an average life. Like myself, I work 55 to 60 hours a week and Saturdays if I have to. My phone and radio stays on 24/7, I never turn it off, so if something needs to be done, I'm there. As far as Whites and Blacks, they don't want to work that hard, even if I pay them for it, give them overtime and business. Because, as one White guy said to me, 'I'm above all this stuff. I have a college degree. Let me be a project manager for you.' You know what I said? 'No, you need to learn that you had to do the shit work to get ahead in this field and you've got a lot of learning to do.'

Brooks, a White contractor, best summarized why no construction business owner is going to hire lazy Americans: They don't have a strong work ethic anymore. Back when I was growing up, you didn't earn a dime unless you put in a full day's work and smiled the entire time. Today, these kids coming into this industry are spoiled and worse off than any other group. Latinos understand the value of hard work and earning good money.

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These White and Black kids don't get that and they don't understand how we need them to get it, you know? No contractor in his right mind would ever hire an American in this industry because they waste time and money. I've heard them say, 'Oh, I need a break,' or 'Could we have Monday off for the holiday?' and a list of other excuses so they can get out of work, even though I probably pay them over $25 an hour. I wonder how these guys pay their bills. Maybe they need a dose of the Great Depression again to get them on track.

The minority contractors felt the same ways about White and Black Americans. However, they saw them as more disrespectful and more likely to ask for higher wages. Rogers, a Black contractor, said this about American workers: Whites, and for that matter, Blacks are a pain in the ass. They always wanting time off and the White guys are just plain disrespectful because they think they better than everybody on the site. I don't work with White and Black subcontractors much because they are that way… they also want more money than any Latino does but as I tell, 'You get paid for the work you do at the price I set.'

Randolph, another Black contractor, agrees with Rogers when he stated: Whites and Blacks are just lazy workers man. They kind pussy-foot around until about 10am, then want a break at 11, then lunch at 12noon, and by 4 o'clock, their production slows way down. I've almost decided not to hire them anymore because they are so damn lazy…. You have to watch them too. White and Blacks mouth off more frequently than Latinos. I mean, I had one guy say to me, 'You need to pay me more because I apparently know more about Construction than you do.' I was like, ‘Damn, he's my employee and he doesn’t realize that I can fire his ass but, unfortunately, I couldn't because I needed him to finish the job he was doing.

The Latino contractors were more vocal about their aversion to Americans. Quinones stated this about American workers: “They always want more money for the same job I pay Latinos less for and they do half the work.” Gutierrez, a Latino masonry contractor, suggested that the Americans he hired were always disrespectful to him. He stated: “Americans, they’re always talking behind your back and making fun of you, calling you Jose or hey, 'Taco,' so I stop hiring them. They are like too proud to work with a Latino boss and you will never find very many of them working for Latinos for this reason.” Ramirez stated this about American workers:

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Anglos and Blacks are flaky. They show when they want and expect the same pay. Who the hell is going to pay them for being slack-asses? I'm not. I've had some of these guys and they really just don't want to work. I tell them, 'Why don't you see if you can get yourself a corporate job so you can look at porn all day on the Internet?' They always laugh but they know I'm right, and they know they can't get a job in the corporate world because they are too stupid.

Like the White contractors, Ortega saw American employees as lazy because they did not value their choices. He stated, Americans, they don't understand that a good job and a social security are more than what most people around the world strive for. No one wants to be a farmer or sheep herder all their lives. They want money and a comfortable life. Americans have lost sight of this and they are beginning to look like the world's worst example of the American work ethic.

Put simply, these comments above point out that Americans are less profitable and exploitable than Latino immigrants. As Farrell stated, “The American work ethic is shit now and it's really not the American way to sit on your ass and do nothing.” Thus, these contractors viewed American workers as going against the traditional American achievement ideologies, which gave them the right to exclude them from their companies. More importantly, it shows that these employers overwhelmingly choose immigrant labor because they are cheap and exploitable and, for these contractors, these decisions seem completely fair. What made this aversion to native-born employees the clearest was what individuals suggested about potential Black employees. All of the contractors, including the Black contractors, viewed Black employees as the worst type of employee. Many of the contractors suggested that Blacks breeched American values by demanding that they get better treatment even though they did not work hard enough to earn it, which is often cited in racial attitudes research. They also often went back to color-blind justifications, blaming Black culture as the reasons they did so poorly in this industry. For example, Ferry, a White contractor stated, People in the African American community, there is so much use of welfare and that made it easy for them and became a lifestyle that they can't get out of, you know? It was too easy not to work for a long time and that affected several generations…. A lot of them are also drug addicts and alcoholics, can't handle their marriages, been in jail, so it has just destroyed any chances for them to want to work hard.

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Blythe, another White home remodeler, said he did not hire very many Blacks because of his clients’ concern that they were criminals and drug addicts looking to steal things from their home. He stated: “I can't hire someone that clients are afraid of because they will call me and ask me if one of my guys took their wife's necklace and I have to ask all of them, 'Did you take it?' Come to find out, it fell behind a dresser or something, but I just don't hire a lot of Blacks to avoid those calls and ruining my company's reputation.” Mackey, A White contractor, was blunt about why he did not hire Blacks for his framing crews. He stated: “They are simply lazy and mouthly. They always want something for nothing and have never once did great work for me because they half-ass everything.” Several of the Latino contractors saw African American workers and subcontractors as also lazy and rude. Diego, a subcontractor, said this about Blacks: “They don't want to work for nothing or nobody! They come in when they want, they make fun of Latinos. I mean they are just sorry individuals and I don't know how they ever find jobs.” Quinones also saw Blacks as less than desirable. He stated: “Black guys never want to work more than like four or five hours a day and they want 10 more dollars an hour, so I stay away from them.” Lopez suggested that he did not hire Black subcontractors anymore because “they are dumb as shit or play like they are dumb. I had this Black plumber come in and plumb an entire building backwards. The hot was cold, you know? Stupid. And it took him twice as much time as any other plumber. I never called him back, that's for sure.” Finally, Martin, a home builder, stated this about Black workers: “Blacks think they're entitled to get more because they're Black… they ask for too much. They need to earn [it] just like me.” These comments above demonstrate Whites and Latinos continued negative views of Blacks. Again, many of them suggest that Blacks are victim to their own culture or individual effort, taking away any kind of suggestion that these contractors are responsible for discriminating against African Americans. The most important point, though, is that none of the employers viewed Blacks as meeting their hiring criteria previously discussed, making these employers' hiring choices clearly racialized because they never once suggest that African Americans have the abilities to fill the jobs they have to offer. This is even clearer in some of the Black contractors' comments about why they do not hire Blacks; however, only a few suggested they viewed Blacks this way. For example, Rogers stated, “I'm not going to hire anyone that's lazy, and unfortunately, there are a lot of brothers [Blacks] that are.” Richards stated, “Blacks are lazy in some regards and they know if they want to

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work for anybody that they have to give their all and some just don't do it.” Randolph, another Black contractor, also thought that Black employees went too far past the strict employer-employee relationship, ignoring issues of authority. He stated, I think Blacks working for Blacks becomes more of a 'Let's be friends,’ kind of thing. And, you know, I should understand their plight of financial problems and they ask if I could help them out, but it really needs to be just an employer-employee relationship and that's the only kind of relationship I'm trying to establish. More professional, not 'I have child support problems and help me pay them,' but they would never ask a big corporation that, so don't ask me just because I'm black.

Edwards better characterized the problem he had with using Black subcontractors and workers was because they always want something for free, looking for the, as he stated, “hook-up.” He stated, “Black employees they always asking for something extra from me, ‘Hook me up man.’ That's really unprofessional and annoying…. They want something for nothing or more money, I usually say, ‘Yeah, I'll hook you up. You do the work and I will give a paycheck for the amount we agreed. No problem.’” Overall, these stock stories combined with a set of awkward hiring criteria create a very stratified and racialized hierarchy of labor for the bottom positions in the Atlanta construction industry. As Rosenfeld and Tienda (1999) and Waldinger and Lichter (2003) suggest, there are more divisions at the bottom of an occupational or industrial hierarchy than there are at the top. Here, Latino immigrants are at the top of the bottom portion of this industry, filling most of the laborer and subcontractor positions, because these contractors know that they are the cheapest labor available. However, Latinos that are too American get pushed off the top and often replaced by other immigrant or native-born groups that are more docile. On the other hand, Whites and Blacks looking to find employment as a subcontractor or laborer find themselves pushed down to the bottom because these contractors’ stereotypes characterize them as useless and costly. Thus, the possibilities of being hired in this particular industry come down to a set of generalizations or as these employers suggest, efficient and effective hiring criteria that gets the best worker for the lowest price. While this practice is acceptable in free market economies, the problem is that racial and ethnic stereotypes become proxies or a virtual checklist of employability that often only includes those who are newly arriving immigrant that work for less and follow directions without question.

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Conclusion

In this chapter, I have pointed out the racialized hiring practices of some contractors in the Atlanta construction industry. Certainly, on the surface of these discussions, contractors constantly used profitability to discern who the best hire was. However, what becomes apparent is that race, ethnicity, and nativity dictate or at least overshadow what these employers view as profitable. Instead of just a cost-benefit analysis, what appears is a “racialized” cost-benefit analysis that virtually ignores objective hiring criteria such as the employee's skills or experience in construction, and uses skin color and immigrant status as a proxy to discern what a “quality” employee is for each particular job in the company. As the contractors suggested, Latino immigrants were more likely to have the qualities they wanted in an employee and all others, including native-born Blacks, Latinos, and Whites, were too “Americanized,” which meant that they were lazy, belligerent, and especially, too expensive. In a broader sense, these results touch on a broader concern among most Americans today: do Latino immigrants take jobs from native-born workers? Like other researchers (see Adelman, Lippard, Jaret, and Reid 2005; Rosenfeld and Tienda 1999; Waldinger 1996; Waldinger and Lichter 2003), I contend that Latino immigrants are hired in greater numbers for certain jobs because they fit within the employee “type” contractors desire. For instance, as we see in the conversations above, the construction industry wants hard-working, docile, and cheap labor, which they feel they cannot get from certain racial and ethnic groups, especially from native-born Whites and Blacks. Waldinger (1996) found the same trends in which Black immigrants were chosen of native-born Blacks in many industries in New York City. Thus, in a way, Latino immigrants may have more of these jobs and may replace native-born workers who want to work in these jobs based on the contractors’ hiring preferences. However, I want to point out that contractors are not necessarily the direct cause of native-born workers losing jobs either. Rather, employers and employees are victims of the sociohistorical and racialized forces that push American businesses to hire people based on race, ethnicity, and nativity to economically stay ahead. As many contractors stated above, hiring people the way they did was the capitalist way of doing business. But, as many Americans forget, our economic past is marred with racialized hiring decisions in which business owners and employers have learned that there are groups that are the cheapest labor because they are exploitable and hungry for any work available. For instance, as

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Roediger (1991) points out, former White indentured servants and Black slaves in colonial America, as well as Irish immigrants were considered the cheapest labor because the were racially and economically inferior to the affluent White American business owners and employers. In addition, we find time and again that the U.S. government has supported federal programs to recruit immigrant cheap labor to do the work that American workers do not want to do unless more money and benefits are included. For example, the Bracero Program of the early 20th century and the H-2A guest worker program of today recruits temporary, cheap labor from Mexico to do work in agriculture. African Americans have also been labeled as the cheapest source of labor whether it was being a scab in the factories of the North or a share-cropper in the South in the early 20th century. As some of the older black contractors noted during their interviews with me, more Blacks were the cheap labor in Atlanta up until the 1980s. However, as one Black contractor stated, “It's changed in the last ten years, Whites and Blacks have either moved on out of this industry or we’re just out-bid by Latinos.” Therefore, I would like to suggest that the blame of these hiring decisions goes beyond the worker selected or the employer who selects the workers. In other words, it is not the immigrant laborer or the employer’s fault that native-born workers are passed over for these jobs. The blame lies in the structural conditions of American capitalism and racism to decide which group is labeled as cheap and exploitable. It also socializes contractors, business owners, and employers to rely on simplistic but racialized hiring schemes to make ends meet and to even project their own groups from economic ruin. As Bonacich (1972) and others (see Rosenfeld and Tienda 1999; Royster 2003; Waldinger 1996; Waldinger and Lichter 2003) found when studying ethnic composition of labor markets, business owners have to resort to racialized hiring practices and enforcing racial hierarchies to be competitive and successful business owners in the U.S. because cheap labor is coloured. More importantly, while some may suggest that there are still real deficits in education and skills among racial and ethnic minorities in comparison to Whites; when it comes to applying for higher-paying jobs, many forget that many of these deficits are due to racist structures that keep some groups away from even obtaining the best education and skills training to compete. However, what I present here is not about skill mismatch or deficits, it is that contractors like many business owners’ and employers’ views of groups’ employability are clouded by their preconceptions of particular racial and ethnic groups as being economic asset or not. Here, in the construction industry, skin color and immigration status are the quickest ways to assess economic value.

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I would also like to point out, as Bonacich (1972) did, that there are racial and ethnic divisions within the construction industry—from occupation-to-occupation. As suggested above, while Latino immigrants swell the ranks of the dirty, dangerous, and low-paying jobs, they are certainly less Latinos to be found as project managers, subcontractors, and general contractors. These racialized hiring practices not only put more Latino immigrants into the manual labor workforce more often than other racial and ethnic groups but they also exclude solidify who fills upper- and lower-level positions or contracts for any given project a contractor has. As I observed in the larger study I conducted, out of the 84 different construction sites I visited, I counted 534 project managers, subcontractors, and laborers. Over 65% of the workers were Latino immigrants, 25% were Whites, and 10% were Blacks. However, what was surprising was 82% of the skilled subcontractors (e.g., electricians and plumbers) were White and Black Americans (448) but almost 92% of the semi-skilled subcontractors (e.g., drywall installers and landscapers) were Latinos. In addition, over 98% of the project managers for each these companies were native-born Whites and Blacks, even among Latino contractors. Thus, while hiring practices prefer Latino immigrants for labor-intensive jobs, contractors still find themselves, as Bonacich (1972) suggests, created a split labor market in which find themselves hemmed up in jobs that do not directly compete with the job opportunities available to Whites and Blacks in this industry. This becomes particularly clear when one examines how the recent economic downturn and housing market crash has affected the construction industry and who lost jobs since 2006. At first, the Pew Hispanic Center reported that in 2007 Hispanics were the least likely to lose jobs in the construction industry and still saw steady job growth for Hispanics, especially for Latino immigrants who had just arrived to the U.S. (Pew Hispanic Center 2007a). However, a 2008 report released by the Pew Hispanic Center on the same topic found that Hispanics, including native- and foreign-born individuals, had lost several thousand jobs in construction or saw a steady decreases in wages (Kochhar 2008a). In fact, Kochhar (2008b) suggests that almost 90% of the jobs lost during late 2007 and early 2008 in the U.S. construction industry were held by newly-arriving Latinos immigrants. Therefore, even though Latino immigrants were labeled as the hard worker and bargain of the century, these labels did not insulate them from the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression. More important, though, is to note that in 2008 Whites had the lowest unemployment rates in the U.S. and within the construction industry in comparison to

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all racial and ethnic groups identified (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2009). This seems to be in stark contrast to hiring preference comments reported in this chapter in which contractors suggested they would not hire Whites because they possess some of the most undesirable characteristics wanted in a potential employee. But, if we consider the above counts of who has what jobs, it becomes clearer why Whites did not lose as many jobs in 2008—they are in the higher-paid positions that were not cut even though they were labeled as the least reliable and most expensive. For these reasons alone one must consider that there is something more afoot other than profitability and skills in hiring practices in which race, ethnicity, and nativity continue to matter in the 21st century in discerning who is the “best” hire.

11 Organizing Labor in a Right-to-Work State Francesca Coin

Over the past five decades, the industrialization of agriculture and its integration into a capitalist world economy have contributed to the deterioration of labor conditions of farmers around the world. Since the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) first liberalized agricultural trade in 1954, U.S. agribusiness has gained a de facto monopoly on the financing of agriculture and the manufacturing, transporting, wholesaling and distribution of produce, agricultural inputs and packaging materials (Krebs 1992). The introduction of neo-liberal policies in agriculture has gradually decreased the ability of farmers to determine both the prices they pay for inputs and the prices they receive for produce (Qualman 2001; Pollen 2006). In the U.S., the vertical concentration of capital in agriculture and the consolidation of U.S. agribusiness have slowly pushed farmers towards the bottom of the food-chain, forcing traditionally rich land-owners to hire cheaper migrant labor in order to externalize their costs. While U.S. farmers have attempted to lower their costs by increasing production and selling their crops in the market for lower prices, in the global countryside, the below-cost sale of U.S. surplus produce has generated a dramatic “race to the bottom” (Brecher, Costello and Smith 2000; Shiva and Bedi 2002; Shiva 2005; Magdoff, Foster and Buttel 2000; Lappé, Collins and Rosset 1998). Today, farmers worldwide are facing an unprecedented crisis. Al Gore defined it as, “the worst crisis our farmers have ever experienced” (quoted in Weiner 1999:14). In the developing countries, we are witnessing the “emptying” and the “de-peasantization” of the countryside (Araghi 1995:337-368). Between 1955 and 1995, the percentage of the global population residing in rural areas and making a

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living in agriculture steadily decreased from 82 to 55 percent (Araghi 2001:153). The expropriation of resources and capital in the peripheries and the disruption of “traditional work structures” have directly displaced “small farmers who are left without means of subsistence” (Sassen 1998:257), and stimulated peripheral workers to migrate as a result of the unequal distribution of world income and resources (Massey 2002). In Mexico, the liberalization of agricultural trade sanctioned by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has pushed millions of farmers off their lands. Paraphrasing Harvey’s notion of “accumulation by dispossession” (2003), it could be argued that the monopolistic centralization of capital in agriculture has led to a process of “immigration by dispossession,” whereby the impoverishment of the global countryside has forced peripheral farmers to migrate to the core. While these dynamics share a common structural cause in the growing power of U.S. agribusiness and in the polarization of wealth in the global countryside, the situation of international competition fostered by the global economy has exacerbated the antagonism between U.S. farmers and peripheral farmers. On one hand, it has stimulated farmers to sell produce for prices below the cost of production (Shiva 2005; Shiva and Bedi 2002; Sassen 1998) and, on the other, it has led U.S. farmers to reproduce capitalist practices of cost externalization and labor exploitation in their own farms, thus contributing to the deterioration of labor conditions for migrant workers. The results of this process are visible in the H-2A program, a guest-worker program that continued the recruitment of temporary Mexican workers after Congress ended the Bracero program in 1964. The guest-program is largely promoted as an institutional policy meant to meet the needs of farmers from low-wage countries who sought migration to high-wage countries in an attempt to meet basic needs, while also addressing the needs of U.S. farmers. U.S. farmers who are “desperate for workers” (Massey, Durand and Malone 2002:27) can turn to recruitment of migrant workers in order to reduce labor costs and gain higher productivity, and farmers from Mexico can rely on migration to support their families. As a response to both the “supply-side” and the “demand-side” (Krissman 2000, 2005), over the past few years the guest-worker program has been presented as a way to reconcile the need for cheap labor with the migrants’ quest for economic security. The U.S. administration has maintained that the H-2A program allows “a willing worker and a willing employer to mate up,” and is “a sign of openness towards immigrants,” who are finally “given fair rewards” and advantages (G. W. Bush quoted in Gonzales 2006:158). Similarly, the President of the North Carolina Growers Association

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(NCGA), the main employer of temporary workers in the United States, cleverly described the program as a “win-win-win” situation: It's a win for the growers because they get a reliable work force, a win for the workers because they get good jobs and a win for the American public because it helps cure our illegal alien problem (Eury, quoted in Schrader, 1999).

While an expansion of the guest-worker program is increasingly presented as a policy that would benefit the U.S. agricultural industry, Mexican farm-workers and civil society altogether, the program does not resolve the current crisis of the U.S. farm; rather, it externalizes the farm-crisis onto migrant laborers, encourages U.S. farmers to embrace old practices of labor exploitation, and lays the foundations for the reproduction of those very neo-liberal policies that impact farmers and farm-workers across the border. In this chapter, I analyze the working conditions of Mexican farmworkers in North Carolina with a temporary H-2A visa, and the ways in which their courageous labor campaign challenged extant social relations of production in agriculture. Between 2004 and 2007, I conducted ethnographic research in the rural areas of North Carolina and Mexico and administered 26 in-depth, face-to-face interviews in both English and Spanish to Mexican farm-workers and their labor organizers. Since the repressive working conditions of H-2A workers in North Carolina precluded an in-depth, multi-sided representation of migrant workers, I conducted most of my interviews in Mexico, where I had an opportunity to visit several workers in their homes. I also analyzed 441 grievances—about ten thousand pages of documents which chronicle the problems workers encounter in the fields. These materials detail both the deterioration in the conditions of farm-labor in North Carolina and Mexico and the labor campaign organized by the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), the union that represents migrant workers employed in North Carolina agriculture with a temporary H-2A visa. I argue that the current agricultural crisis cannot be resolved by the externalization of the growers’ costs onto migrant workers, but rather by the re-organization of the farm-labor movement at the grassroots level.

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Christmas Gifts and Horror Movies; H-2A Program in North Carolina

When I began my research in 2004, the situation in North Carolina agriculture was slowly deteriorating. Traditionally, North Carolina has been the number one national producer of raw tobacco and sweet potatoes, and the number two producer of Christmas trees, cucumbers and turkey. In July 2004, the U.S. Senator for North Carolina Elisabeth Dole described the living conditions of the rural families with these words: “every week my office continues to receive numerous calls from tobacco farm families in desperation. There is a deep feeling of helplessness” (Dole 2004). Most tobacco farmers are: “Just hanging on a little while longer in hopes of being able to pay off their debts.” The situation is critical, she argued: “Status quo is simply not an option.… These rural families are barely hanging on for their very survival” (Dole 2004). In 2004, the crisis in North Carolina agriculture encompassed all major crops. While it was most visible in the tobacco farms, most rural families were in economic distress. After the introduction of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, with its liberalization of international competition in agricultural trade, the price of produce plummeted. Facing imported “cheap cukes from Mexico and Guatemala,” growers began to rely on undocumented workers in large numbers. “We’re not proud of the fact, but the reality is a lot of our workers are illegal” (Joiner quoted in Steinberg 1998). During the mid 1990s, the North Carolina Growers Association (NCGA) began recruiting migrant farm-workers from Mexico. “I don’t know what we would have done without them,” reported a Moore County farmer, referring to H-2A workers (Harris quoted in Glascock 1999). But while H-2A workers were “a Christmas gift” for the growers (California grower quoted in Gonzales 2006:161), labor organizers described the working conditions in the North Carolina farm as “a horror movie.” In fact, while the employment of migrant labor allowed the growers to gain much higher productivity, the externalization of labor costs onto the workers translated into below-subsistence wages and exploitative labor practices. As a result, in their interviews migrant workers described their life in both Mexico and in North Carolina as “a war”:

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Life is very hard in Mexico. For us, life is very hard.… I had to migrate. Here poverty is a war. It’s a war. It’s a real war. We don't have a national war in Mxico, but we have a daily war: poverty. It’s a war against all of us, and we are struggling. We are all struggling. Everyday we struggle to bring food to our table. It’s a struggle. You have to fight to make it through. There’s no other choice: you have to cross [the border] to eat.”

Upon arrival in the United States, the workers often found similar conditions of deprivation. According to the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), most workers don’t make the minimum wage, and it is not rare that they have to rely on food stamps to eat. While on paper farm-workers should earn 8.06 dollars per hour, according to one union organizer: A lot of workers don’t make even that little. I was talking to a worker yesterday and his complaint was that he woke up at 6 am and worked for 3 hours. Sometimes there’s no demand for labor and they don’t work at all. I talked to some workers today and they all said that they started at 5 and worked until 3. So they worked ten hours. But other times they don’t work for 4 days. So you have both workers that overwork and workers that don’t work at all and make no money.

There are several reasons why farm-worker wages are often below poverty level. As Yeoman (2001) argues, unemployment and underemployment are endemic among farm-workers. Since H-2A workers harvest perishable goods, growers normally hire extra workers in order to have enough labor during the harvesting season. As a result, many workers remain idle for days or even weeks during the summer season. Numerous grievances document the fact that H-2A workers lament the frequent disregard of the Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR), which mandates that the workers should be paid for at least three-quarters of the hours stipulated in the labor contract. At the same time, many workers are not paid for their actual hours of labor. “You know how we cheat them? We fuck ‘em on the hours,” candidly confessed one grower to Yeoman (2001), an independent journalist. According to the grievances I analyzed (denoted as Griev. #, year of grievance), farm-workers are often paid for fewer hours than they deserve. At one farm, “a worker reported that his employer asked him to work for eleven hours every day but paid him only for five” (Griev. 8, 2004). Seventeen workers found that they were missing hours for a total amount of 1,378 dollars in lost wages, but they were being forced to sign a paystub stating that they agreed that their hours and pay were correct

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(Griev. 12, 2004). Five workers reported that their grower owed them a total amount of 600 dollars (Griev. 11, 2004). One worker claimed that he had worked Sundays for a number of weeks but his grower failed to pay him. Another worker reported that his crew leader had threatened him at gunpoint for asking for his paycheck. A similar case involved fourteen workers who reported that their grower was not paying them the correct number of hours: according to the union, in the records for the sweet potato harvest there was a large discrepancy between the hours reported by the grower and the hours reported by the workers. Apparently, the workers were able to prove that the grower owed them payments for a total amount of 600 dollars. When they complained about the missing payments, they were fired and forced to leave camp overnight. On that occasion, union organizers enquired about the large discrepancy in the pay stubs. The grower acknowledged that “somebody could go to jail over this [issue] and that might be me.” A few days later, he paid the workers the difference he owed them (Griev. 5, 2005). The problems that the workers experience in North Carolina are not limited to low wages. The grievances show that the workers experience multiple types of violations both in the fields and in their labor camps. According to FLOC organizers, most camps are unsanitary, unhealthy, and not suitable for workers. One grievance described the labor camps as being: So crowded that two workers are sleeping in the washing area directly adjacent to the bathroom facilities. The only thing that separates these workers' beds from the toilets is a curtain. All workers must walk past these workers' beds to access the bathroom (Griev. 6, 2005).

At this camp, the workers reported that they had to stand in line for the bathroom in the morning. The sewage disposal system located just behind the house was broken, and waste water came up to ground level. The first aid kit required by the housing regulations contained expired medicines; there was a rat problem in the house; the smoke detector did not work; the lighting was very poor; only three light fixtures worked; and there may have been a short circuit in the wiring because the light bulbs would constantly burn out. The workers also repeated that not only were the conditions in the camp hazardous, but there were also health and safety issues in the fields:

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The grower does not provide sufficient cups for all the workers, and they must usually drink out of used cups that have been discarded on the ground. They are also not given enough time to drink water, and must run after the truck in order to reach the thermos. They are not given any time to go to the bathroom while on the field and must wait until they come home for their lunch break or after work to go to the bathroom (Griev. 35, 2005).

Twenty-five workers had a similar situation at a different facility (Griev. 33, 2004). Their electrical socket did not work; the screens were broken; the refrigerator did not work; they had no toilet paper; one of their toilets was clogged; their mattresses were dirty; the kitchen was locked, they were forced to pay 50 dollars a week for food; and they had no phone. Other workers complained that they were forced to withstand temperatures of less then 42 degrees due to low gas supplies. “There has been scarcity of the gas for the heating system in four trailers,” reported their grievance. The two toilets in the camp were not working; they could not regulate the water temperature in the shower; and the two bathrooms in the fields had not been cleaned for an entire month (Griev. 71, 2004). In general, the organizers concluded that: All too often, housing is unsanitary, unhealthy and dangerous. The Wake Forest University School of Medicine has found that 40 percent of farm-worker families live in overcrowded housing. The North Carolina Migrant Housing Act sets standards for farm-worker housing. These standards, however, are minimal. For example, the Act requires one toilet for every 15 residents. This ratio is below what is required in the state's prisons. It is necessary to update housing standards for the twenty-first century (by ensuring clean and sanitary mattresses on all beds, making sure that toilets and showers at least meet NC jail standards, ensuring there is a telephone for emergency use within at least a mile, and guaranteeing access to kitchen and eating areas, providing locks on exterior doors, and clarifying that migrant workers can have visitors (Griev. 12, 2004).

The comparison between the workers’ camps and the North Carolina state prisons is not limited to the housing standards. Many times, farmworkers were kept prisoners in their own camps. As Mary Lee Hall, an attorney at the federally funded Legal Services of North Carolina, explained:

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The fundamental problem underlying the program is the degree of control that the employer has over the workers, which is greater even than over undocumented workers: if you are undocumented and you don’t like your job, you can walk away. These workers are coming out of economic necessity and place a premium on returning [to the United States] and being able to bring back that money again (Lee Hall, quoted in Schrader, 1999).

In fact, guest-workers are bound by the conditions of their contract to work only for the employer who requests their visa. This means that H-2A workers must conclude the season with one employer, because an eventual dismissal, or the early termination of their contract, would result in deportation and compromise that worker’s ability to come back to the United States. The legal bond between the workers and their employers translates into a “constant blackmail” for these workers, as the workers must respect all orders and avoid providing their employer with any potential reason for dismissal: “If you speak up for your rights, that will be the last time” (an H-2A worker quoted in Blanding 2002). As José argued, the grower is “the law,” and “when he doesn’t like something he simply fires you.” For what you are paid… you have no freedom there. You don’t have the same freedom there that you have here. You cannot leave. You cannot move. There’s nothing you can do. If you leave the camps they can catch you. The grower doesn’t want anyone to leave the camp and anybody to come to the camp. The grower is the law.… When he doesn’t like something he simply fires you. He makes you go home and he doesn’t call you back (Josè).

Alejandro and Alfonso point out the same “injustices” below. The injustice is that they try to pay us in such a way that it is not adequate for the work we do. They try to pay us less than the hours we work. They don’t do anything about dehydration in the fields. They don’t give us water in the fields while we are working and the situation in the camps is not adequate either. We don’t have ventilation there, we don’t have telephones or any way to communicate, and then they threaten us (Alejandro).

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So far I've been going to the U.S. for 8 years. It’s been a struggle. It’s hard, it’s hot. In tobacco you have to work a lot, but there’s no drinking water. There are places in which you cannot drink water. You have to drink your own sweat, because you need water. The other thing is the use of pesticides. When I work there I work with pesticides. Always pesticides, but I know that they do something to me because I cannot breathe. I am 45 now, and this work isn't good for me. Sometimes I am so tired and I need to rest. But I can’t rest. Sometimes I have a headache. Sometimes I am sick, but nevertheless I must work. So many things happen, but still you have to work, even if you don’t eat or you don’t drink. So many things happen in those fields: people get injured. So many people get injured. I’ve seen so many people there that get injured and sick. Then they discriminate against us because we are Mexicans. When they know that you are Mexican they think that we are worth nothing. But we are making their country better because we are working for them. And the U.S. is a hard country to live in. It’s hard. We are Mexicans and we are working there, we are struggling there, we are doing our job there. Still they treat us bad. Still they say that they don’t want us there. Still they don’t give us water. Still. Here in Mexico it’s hard, but there [in the United States] it’s worse: we get paid there, but it’s hot, it’s humid, it’s hard (Alfonso).

On top of poverty and poor housing, farm-labor is one of the most dangerous jobs in America. Dangerous machinery, strenuous labor, and exposure to pesticides and other chemicals turn farm-workers into a category of workers with high rates of workplace injuries. The grievances show that many workers are injured in the fields, but despite their health problems they are often not taken to the clinic or reimbursed for their medications. One worker who injured his chest while picking sweet potatoes never received a reimbursement for his visit or for the medications because the grower argued that not only was the worker “lying,” it was not even a workplace injury (Griev. 41, 2005). Another worker caught his thumb in the tobacco press and filed for permanent partial disability. Every time he had an appointment with the doctor he was ordered to work, and was thus not able to receive a partial disability rating during that season (Griev. 18, 2005). In 2005, a worker who had suffered a work-related injury and had been told by the doctor not to work for at least ten days, was ordered by his employer to “return to work or quit” (Griev. 87, 2005). Another worker with a back injury was compelled to leave for Mexico without his treatment or his last paycheck because the grower did not want him there if he was unable to work (Griev. 61, 2004). In another case, for two weeks a worker had been asking to be taken to the clinic because of a pain in his kidney. The

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crew-leader responded that he would take him to the clinic “one day when it is raining.” When the worker asked again to be taken to the doctor, his crew-leader responded that: “you are not my mother; we are not even relatives; for me you can die” (Griev. 65, 2005). Death in the fields is not an isolated phenomenon. Below is an abstract from an interview with a labor organizer who explained to me how “Miguel” died from heat-stroke in 2001. This narrative highlights the fact that lack of drinking water is often the cause of heat-related disorders in North Carolina. Prohibited from selling water for profit, the crew-leaders sell large quantities of beer to the workers. This practice can have lethal consequences in the fields, where the lack of drinking water, the unforgiving sun, and the strenuous job can easily lead to heat stroke and dehydration. Interviewer: How did Miguel die? Respondent: Miguel he was literally worked to death In North Carolina. He was working in late June, in North Carolina, harvesting crops. He was working for 12 to 14 hours a day. Workers didn’t have any access to water. Frequently they had no rest breaks. So Miguel worked until he was physically… until he couldn’t work anymore, until he couldn’t harvest any more cucumbers or tobacco. He suffered a heat-stroke and only after two weeks, two weeks after his death, was he taken to the doctor. Interviewer: What did the doctor say? Respondent: That the cause of the death is unknown. Interviewer: Why is it that they don’t have water? Respondent: Because when the workers ask for water the contratista sells them a beer. Interviewer: So they can’t have water? Respondent: They can’t have water but they can buy beer. Interviewer: Buy beer? Respondent: Right. So when you’re working 14 hours shifts in June in this type of weather… Interviewer: It’s going to kill you.

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Respondent: Right, it did. The Department of Labor withdrew the investigation in December. After Miguel died their files said that that unit was working in late June and didn’t have access to water.… I was talking to a worker yesterday and they have the same problem. Apparently the workers were working and there was a truck in the fields and the truck was moving constantly. The water was in the front of the truck but the truck wouldn’t stop to let them drink, so they had to run in front of the truck and try to move with the drink truck. It’s a very vindictive, humiliating process when they don’t even stop the truck to let them drink water. Interviewer: How hot is it here? Respondent: It’s 90 some degrees with high humidity. It’s hard to imagine being out all day with no shade, completely exposed to the sun when there’s no water. Interviewer: But I’m still not sure I understand why exactly they can’t have water. Respondent: Because water cannot be sold for profit.

The case of Miguel became well known in North Carolina. Miguel exhibited signs of heat stroke in July 2001. His whereabouts were unknown until two weeks after his death, when co-workers discovered his remains in the field. A similar case occurred in 2005, when Carlos died some time during July 19 or 20, 2005. The date is not certain because his body was found on a soybean field some time after his death. Apparently both workers died from heat stroke and dehydration. Carlos was hired on July 11, 2005 to work in the tobacco fields in Person County. He lived in a trailer located at walking distance from the tobacco fields; his path to work led through a soybean field. The grievances contain a lawyer’s report according to which, on July 20, Carlos was feeling sick and was told to return to the residence. He departed in that direction at around ten in the morning. When his coworkers returned to the residence that evening he was not there. On the afternoon of July 22, his co-workers found his corpse, at the time “severely decomposed at the end of a long week of severe heat at the edge of the soybean field,” according to the report. The Medical Examiner declared the cause of death undetermined. The North Carolina Department of Labor began an investigation on July 26. The investigation resulted in citations to the grower for the serious violation of having failed to provide the workers with safe conditions of employment (Griev. D1). The requisites the employer failed to fulfill

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included “permitting workers to drink at liberty” and implementation of a “heat stress program.” The citation indicated that the employer failed to inform the workers of the importance of drinking water frequently on hot days. The workers were in fact discouraged from drinking water frequently, even when temperatures were dangerously high. After examining data from the North Carolina state climate office and the reports of the Medical Examiner's investigation, the Autopsy Examination, and the investigation by the Person County Sheriff's Department, the lawyer concluded that the conditions under which Carlos was working were sufficiently hot to increase the risk of a heatrelated disorder for Carlos and his co-workers; and that it was: More likely than not that the working conditions significantly contributed to [worker’slast name] becoming too ill to continue working in the field on July 20, 2005. That it is more likely than not that [worker’s last name] left the worksite feeling ill due to the hot working conditions, got part way to the residence and collapsed in the field. That it is more likely than not that before, or soon after collapsing in the field, [worker’s last name] suffered from a heat stroke, stopped sweating, had a continuous rise in body temperature, leading directly to death from being overheated.… The normal progression for occupational heat disorders is for the worker to develop symptoms of heat exhaustion initially, followed by the more serious heat stroke. During heat exhaustion, a person continues to benefit from the cooling effect of sweat. Workers can recover from heat exhaustion by resting in a cool place and drinking plenty of fluids. If a worker with heat exhaustion does not stop to rest and re-hydrate, but instead continues walking or working in the warm or hot environment, the body’s thermoregulatory control mechanism can be overwhelmed, resulting in heat stroke.… The progression described here fits very well with the facts in this case and all of my opinions (Griev. D1).

After his death, the autopsy reported that the cause of death was “unknown,” largely because the worker’s body was not found for two days after his disappearance. At the time of death Carlos had two children, both under the age of 18, and his wife was pregnant. FLOC records maintain that, after his death, his widow started working “at a sweatshop in Durango, to provide for herself and her sons. Her baby was born in October of 2005 and then died in December 2005” (Griev. D1). Carlos’ death came only two days after the death of another worker, who died in the University of North Carolina Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill from a heat stroke on July 20, “following a week of record 100-degree temperatures in North Carolina.” Maurice was a 56-year old

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farm-worker from Zacatecas, Mexico, who suffered a heatstroke on Monday, July 18 while working on a tobacco farm in Harnett County. At the time of his death, Maurice had eight children all over the age of 18. FLOC records report that: Maurice had no desire to or interest in returning to work in N.C., and was hoping to be able to remain in Zacatecas with his wife and extended family during the final years of his life. But Maurice’s economic reality, which is currently that of the vast majority of postNAFTA Mexican farm workers, drove him to do something that he himself knew he had no business doing, given his age and health (he was a heavy man): work in tobacco in N.C. in more than 90 degree temperatures, in July. Maurice died of heatstroke, according to his autopsy, though he also died of NAFTA, and inhumane trade policies. He died within two weeks of arriving in N.C., in 2005. His son has never been the same, at least the last time that I saw him, after his father's death. Before Maurice’s death, [son’s name] was one of the strongest union members and leaders in the Triangle region. After his father's death, he resorted to drinking heavily and became increasingly withdrawn and reclusive (Griev. D2).

In 2006, another worker named Juan died from heatstroke while harvesting tobacco. The N.C. Department of Labor investigation found that: The employer did not furnish to each of his employees conditions of employment and a place of employment free from recognized hazards that were causing or likely to cause death or serious physical harm to employees, in that employees were exposed to heat-related hazards without adequate provisions to protect them (Griev. D3).

The investigation also found that: Twelve migrant farm-workers were exposed to heat indices of 105-110 degrees without the opportunity to adequately hydrate or cool down" and that subsequently one worker died of hyperthermia. The grower has contested the findings and the proposed penalty of 2,100 dollars… the apparent worth of the worker’s life and health. The Workers’ Compensation claim is currently denied by the grower's insurance carrier (Griev. D3).

At the time of his death Juan had five children, three of them under the age of eighteen. Two weeks later, on August 15, 2006, another worker died in Johnston County due to a tobacco machinery accident. FLOC records show that the worker left his wife, a daughter in middle school,

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and a son in elementary school. Since his death, the extended family has been helping them economically. According to FLOC records, his cousin commented that the family suffers “when someone goes to Carolina and comes home in a box” (Griev. D4). Down to the Roots

Many factors make the living and working conditions of farm-laborers in the United States dangerous. On a formal level farm-workers are bound by the conditions of their contract to work only for the employer who requests their visa; they are not protected by either the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which specifically excludes agricultural workers from the right to union membership and collective bargaining, or by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which fails to address issues such as overtime pay, days off, and work breaks for agricultural workers employed in small farms. While these institutional mechanisms allow for the production and reproduction of a dual labor market characterized by a subordinated and exploited workforce, the root of the problem for the working conditions of migrant farm-workers lies in the structural needs of the global economy. In the past decades, the introduction of neo-liberal policies of free competition in agriculture has allowed U.S. agribusiness to consolidate its monopoly of agricultural inputs and outputs. This has increased the cost of fertilizers, chemical poisons, seeds, and general agricultural inputs for U.S. farmers, and gradually reduced the market price of produce. While these policies have contributed to the economic decline of the U.S. farm, the guest-worker has provided a tool for U.S. growers to cut their labor costs and remain in the market. In this sense, the H-2A program keeps discontent in the U.S. countryside under control; it transfers onto migrant workers the contradictions of the current agricultural policies and allows U.S. agribusiness to expand, while migrant workers pay the price for the neo-liberal policies of accumulation in both Mexico and the United States. In Mexico, the lower cost of U.S. agribusiness has forced millions of farmers off their lands; in the U.S., the need to reduce prices and cut the cost of labor has gradually translated into low wages and poor housing. Housing “is not cost-efficient,” said one grower, “you need to build labor camps, and building these facilities alone [is] a tremendous cost to get into the sweet potato or cucumber business, and doesn’t even include actual production of a crop” (North Carolina grower, quoted in Bales, 1999). At the same time, one FLOC organizer described the impact of the North American

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Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in the rural areas of Mexico with these words. A couple of years after NAFTA, Baldemar visited two villages close to Michoacán in Southern Mexico. In these two villages where there were hardly any men, said Baldemar: almost no adult men were there, only children. All the men had traveled to Mexico City or the U.S. to find a job. In those same days Baldemar attended the annual convention of farm-workers and farm-workers’ unions in Mexico. Speaking there, the first thing he asked was how many of the 1,500 people that were there had family members working in the U.S. without documents. Every single one of them raised their hand, he said. More than any statistics I’ve ever read this says a lot about NAFTA and its consequences on farmers. In these two villages there were hardly any men, he reported: almost no adult men, only children. All the men had traveled to Mexico City or the U.S. to find a job.

The introduction of neo-liberal policies in agriculture has prompted widespread practices of cost-externalization that have proven to be economically convenient for the growers, but disastrous for the workers. While the growers consider the H-2A program as a “Christmas gift,” the U.S. officials in charge of the program warned that “we see way too many violations, way too many instances of farm workers not being afforded minimally decent standards and wages in the workplace” (Fraser, quoted in Schrader, 1999). Independent journalist Blanding described the living conditions of these workers as “abominable, with filthy bathrooms, rodents, contaminated water, and the nearest fresh water one mile away” (Blanding, 2002). Geraldo described the situation in North Carolina as one of the most difficult that he has ever experienced. In 1997 I had the opportunity to go to North Carolina. I had never been to the U.S. before. I was afraid. My friend used to tell me that they treat people bad there, so I was afraid. When I went there it wasn’t easy. The association and the legal services know that they pay us badly. They treat us with violence… [sighs] threats. Verbal threats! I’ve had several problems there.… Many of my friends went back to Mexico because they were mistreated, and because they couldn’t handle the amount of work. It was not the amount of hours alone; it was the intensity and the speed that they demanded from each of us. They asked us to do more labor than we physically could handle.

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In the heat, in the rain, without water! They asked us to work so much. They kept asking for more. They asked for more production, more tobacco, more production, more in every hour. And at the same time they didn’t give us the possibility to drink water, so we couldn’t drink water. We didn’t have any water, just beer and sodas. They sold us beer because they can sell it for profit, whereas they can’t sell water for profit. So they would sell us beer and soft drinks, but not water. A lot of people ended up drunk. If you work under the sun without water you either get dehydrated or drunk, and if you get drunk it’s very dangerous, because you may injure yourself and everyone else. It’s very dangerous, but nevertheless the crew-leader sold us beer. At the camps we used to have a kitchen but it was locked. It was open only at particular times. If you didn’t eat during those times you could not eat at all. They sold us dinner for 45 dollars a week, but that did not include water or anything to drink. So we asked for the help of the Legal Services.… But at that point we were all blacklisted. I haven’t been back there for two years. They didn’t call me back last year because I was blacklisted. Now with the introduction of the new labor contract and the union they were forced to call me back, but now I am afraid to go.… My wife is afraid too because she thinks that they are going to retaliate against me for what happened in the past, because I called the Legal Services and caused them so much trouble. She thinks that they will take some action against me. That’s what she and my children think. That’s what I think too. But I am going, because I need to. Here in the past few years there have been less and less opportunities. There is more competition, so for one job-opening you have thirty people competing with you. So I have to go. I only hope that they won’t harm me. Harm me with threats… I don’t know what they can do to me (Geraldo).

“Many times it sounds like a horror movie,” one labor organizer concluded. Externalize? Organize!

As economic constraints on the farm fostered the decline of wages, health regulations and safety standards in agriculture, there was just one action that the workers could take to change their labor conditions: organize! In 1998, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) launched a boycott campaign against the Mt. Olive Pickle Company (MOPC), the largest pickle company in the United States after Vlasic Food in Ohio. Unlike past labor campaigns, this one did not merely target the growers: it recognized that not the growers but the foodprocessing corporations controlled the structure of the agricultural

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system, including the benefits available to farm-workers, and it sought to reach a tripartite agreement with the growers and the processing company. On September 16, 2004, farm-workers in North Carolina signed the first tripartite labor contract for guest-workers in U.S. history. Among other important things, the contract established that the processing company that bought cucumbers from the North Carolina Growers Association (NCGA) pay higher prices for their crops, thus allowing the growers to give a 10 percent wage increase to the workers in the three years following the agreement. It required that workers with seniority be given priority in the recruitment process and that union workers be given preference over non-union workers, and it mandated that the workers be compensated for their trip from and to Mexico. The contract was a historic achievement for migrant farm-workers: it marked the first time in U.S. history that guest-workers won union representation; the first time guest-workers won a labor contract; and was the largest contract in the history of North Carolina, the least unionized state in the United States. When the agreement was announced, union officials said that it was the beginning of a new era: farm-workers finally had the right to demand better working conditions without fear of retaliation. At the end of the growing season: Workers gathered at a forum in Raleigh and said their relations with farmers had vastly improved. Many said they had better housing, more breaks and several other new amenities. They recounted stories of asking their employers for concessions—a car for workers to use, the rescheduling of their duties — and, for the first time, getting “yes” for an answer (Collins 2006).

Alejandro declared that “now with the union we are protected; they still threaten us but we are protected.” According to Thomas, “now that we have the union it’s much better. We don’t have to pay 50 dollars each week for our meals. The grower even gave us the cooler for water. It’s better.” By contrast, the growers complained. Already in 1998 one North Carolina grower had declared that if “FLOC is successful with its unionizing drive… that would make it unprofitable to harvest cucumbers” (Joyner, quoted in Steinberg, 1998). For the growers, the labor contract constituted an acceptable increase in labor costs. At the same time, the contract required that the growers give the right to preferential employment to union workers, thus mandating fields full of union workers who would be educated to defend their rights. In North

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Carolina, a state known for being the least unionized state in the U.S., growers “simply [weren’t] willing to abide an organized work force” (Collins 2006). According to the NCGA president, the growers complained that union membership “makes workers less motivated, prompting complaints from farmers” (Eury, quoted in Collins 2006). The president of a labor supply business in Lovingston argued that the right to union representation gave workers the impression that “if they want to sit on their bucket, they’re still going to make 8 dollars 24 cents an hour” (Whitley quoted in Collins 2006). According to a Moore County farmer, many farmers “are adamant that they don’t get as much work out of their employees as they used to. Carter said he’s not sure whether the workers have changed, or if anti-union sentiment has colored farmers’ views” (Carter quoted in Collins 2006). After the introduction of the labor contract, growers began to look for ways to maintain the same levels of profitability despite the higher cost of labor. Since the new standards introduced by the labor contract in terms of wages, recruitment, health and safety regulations translated into higher costs for the growers, many decided to take advantage of a Federal one-time buyout for tobacco growers in 2005. At the same time, about five hundred growers decided to leave the NCGA. Whereas in 2004 the North Carolina Growers Association counted about one thousand members, three years later the number had halved. Many of the growers that did remain inside the association looked for ways to overlook the “union preference” provision which required them to give priority to union members in the recruitment process, and to hire unorganized labor. The structural reason why so many growers left the association resides in a mechanism typical of the capitalist economy, whereby the pursuit of greater profits depends on the ability to limit labor-costs and employ unorganized labor. In this context, during the seasons that followed the introduction of the labor contract there were hundreds of workers who were not called back to work despite (or due to) their union membership, and many growers left the association in order to outsource their production to agencies that could provide them with cheaper workers. A FLOC document dated March 2006 reports that many growers have their own “preferred workers, who practically all are non-union.” On one occasion, 1531 preferred union workers had been classified as ineligible for the 2005 season. On a different grievance, 330 union workers who had completed a satisfactory season during the previous year did not appear in the NCGA seniority list for 2005. The association always denied any relationship between the workers’ association with the union and their eligibility in the recruitment process, but in a few instances such a relationship was clear. In March

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2006, one grower reportedly asked four workers: “¿por qué no renuncian [al sindicato]? Tienen los mismos beneficios [why don’t you give up the union? You will have the same benefits].” In May, another grievance reported that one grower asked one worker if he was “with the union,” and: When [worker’s name] responded that, yes, he is “with the union,” [grower’s name] responded by shouting, “Mexico!,” as in either resign from the union or face termination or not being asked back the following year, based on his union affiliation (Griev. 34, 2006).

The attempt to limit union demands escalated in 2006, when the growers claimed that they would not comply with the labor contract’s mandate to hire union workers because the “Union Preference” provision was a violation of the North Carolina “Right to Work” laws. Right to work laws are statutes enforced in 22 U.S. states that prohibit trade unions from making membership or payment of dues or “fees” a condition of employment. This statute offered legal protection to those growers who intended to continue outsourcing production to agencies that could provide non-union workers. In order to bypass the regulations enforced by the contract and return to traditional exploitative practices, growers used the “Right to Work” laws to create new agencies that would be able to provide non-union H-2A workers to North Carolina farmers in competition with the NCGA. Three years after the previous campaign, the only option for FLOC was to begin a new labor campaign in North Carolina organizing those non-union H-2A workers hired by growers who were not complying with the labor contract. The purpose of the new campaign was to ensure that all farmers respected the conditions mandated in the labor agreement whether or not they were part of the NCGA. The concept behind the new campaign was to counter the mechanism whereby companies must always transfer production to wherever the cost of labor is cheaper. Since the cut-throat competition fostered by the global economy pressures farmers to outsource production wherever the cost of labor is lower (Bercher and Costello 2000), the union is forced to “organize” the workers wherever these companies “externalize” production. For this reason in 2007 FLOC started a new boycott campaign against RJ Reynolds, one of the largest tobacco corporations in the world, in order to prevent non-union growers from having an edge on the union growers and demanding that all growers respect the basic labor and human rights protections mandated by the labor contract. The same principle had driven the union to move its operations to North

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Carolina after signing a labor contract with Campbell Soup, Vlasic Food, Heinz, Green Bay, Aunt Jane corporation and their tomato and pickle growers in the 1980s. Upon signing these labor contracts in Ohio, the cost of labor increased. The union was then forced to expand its operations to North Carolina in order to prevent these pickle producers from buying cucumbers from non-union growers. The FLOC president described the campaign in North Carolina as a “necessary second step in a broader campaign that we see stretching down into Guanajuato and Michoacán, Mexico” (Velasquez, 1998:26). An expansion of the labor contract was necessary in order to prevent these companies from moving their operations to other states with lower costs of labor, thus overriding the rights enforced by many years of pickets and strikes. In this endeavor, FLOC proposes a new model of labor organizing that counters the downwards pressure on prices with an upwards pressure for social reforms in agriculture (Velasquez 1998:25). The goal of FLOC’s movement is not merely a labor contract, but the transformation of the social relations of production throughout the agri-food industry, and the substitution of traditional exploitative practices with an organized and protected labor-force (Velasquez 1998:25). As of April 2010, the boycott-campaign against RJ Reynolds has yet to come to an end. The union holds that farmworkers endure long hours of stoop labor in the fields, harassment, poverty, exposure to pesticides, denial of basic labor rights protections, and deplorable living conditions. It also denounced thousands of yearly cases of Green Tobacco Sickness (GTS), a sickness which is caused by a high level of nicotine absorption through the skin, and nine more deaths of workers from heat-stroke over the past two seasons. On its side RJ Reynolds has deflected criticism and up to date it has refused to meet with the union. Conclusion

At the time of writing in April 2010 it is still unclear whether FLOC's boycott campaign will be successful. While it is likely that RJ Reynolds and most land-owners will not change their attitude towards the union, it is also apparent that the exploitative practices inherent to a guest-worker program that transfers onto migrant workers the contradictions of the global economy does not represent long-term solutions for either party. The recent financial crisis has heightened the difficulties of US agriculture, tightened cash flows for growers, and increased price instability for all major crops. While RJ Reynolds argues that it is not responsible for the labor relations between growers and farm-workers, growers are nervous about raids conducted by the U.S. Immigration and

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Naturalization Service at farms around the state, and concerned with the tendency of undocumented workers to quit in the middle of the season (Schrader 1999). Corporate competition adds to the vulnerability and high indebtedness for growers, thus creating a general situation of insecurity and anxiety. In this context, the most important question is not whether or not the campaign will be successful, but whether or not it can provide a new direction for the labor movement, and thus contribute to a framework which can productively address the contradictions among smaller farmers, large growers, and transnational agribusiness. In terms of innovation, FLOC campaigns were tactically important. FLOC was the first union to recognize that the organization of the foodchain was changing, and that the concentration of capital in agriculture was shifting from the growers to the food-processing corporations. The food-processing corporations control the growers’ activity through the use of contracts, which inhibit the growers' pricing power for farm inputs and labor. After a series of unsuccessful negotiations with the growers, the union shifted its attention to the processing plants, and centered its organizing drive on the need to reach a tripartite agreement among the workers, growers, and processing corporations. The tripartite bargain agreement is one of the most important innovations that FLOC introduced into the labor movement: it not only offsets the ways in which the multinational corporations play growers and workers against each other, but also attempts to negotiate with all actors. Within a global context of antagonism and competition, the creativity of the FLOC strategy lies in its move away from the traditional Marxist belief in the irreconciliability of class interests and its attempt to respond to the needs of famers as well as workers. For example, by the end of the first campaign in North Carolina the FLOC president suggested that the union should “defend” the family farmers who had signed the tripartite agreement, and “express gratitude and encourage them to stand firm” (Griev. 9, 2007). Driven by a belief that the farmers “have a lot more in common with farm-workers than they have with corporate agribusiness giants” (Velasquez, 1998:25), the union has sought an alliance with such growers for several years. Such a perspective still encounters strong resistance among the farmers: once rich land-owners and “masters” to their workers, most North Carolina growers relate to the workers from a position of privilege. Paraphrasing Roediger (1999:95), we could say that the growers still create “a tremendous difference between [their] reformed self and those whom [they] formerly resembled,” in order to “insure that he will not slip back into the old ways or act out halfsuppressed fantasies.” While it is likely that the growers’ response to the union will not change in the near future, it is also true that the union's

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non-antagonistic and inclusive discourse constitutes an interesting change of perspective for the labor movement. FLOC’s non-antagonistic agenda has mobilized different sectors of civil society. Inspired by principles of non-violence, through the years the union was able to gain the trust of not only the workers but also of the community. None of these outcomes was simple: “a work force that has so little to gain and so much to lose from talking about their workplace problems with ‘outsiders’” is very difficult to organize, explained a former FLOC member. It is necessary to establish a relationship of trust with the workers, and such a relationship is hard to achieve due to the high rates of turnover amongst the workers, the workers' reluctance to speak, and the fact that many times the season is over by the time such a relationship is established. Commenting on the many difficulties facing farm-labor organizing, Harvard economist John Dunlop declared in a 2001 interview that helping FLOC to establish Collective Bargaining relationships with cucumber and tomato processors and farmers in 1986 was one of the three major challenges of his career, the other two being dealing with a student strike at Harvard in 1969 as acting dean, and resolving a jurisdictional dispute in the construction industry in the 1950s. (Kaufman 2002:332). As Alexander Morin observed, “dispersion [of employment] is no doubt one of the principal reasons for the failure of hired farm-workers to organize into unions” (Morin 1952:34). Moreover, farm-workers typically identify with farm-owning, rather than farm-working. “Joining a union with fellow farm-workers” is not one of the main “long-term aspirations for farm-workers” (Morin 1952:43). Proud, vulnerable, politically and geographically isolated, and accustomed to being “used by everyone since coming here,” as a labor organizer put it, farm-workers constitute a challenge for unions. “You have to give every ounce of yourself,” commented an organizer. They [the workers] have to see that you are there and that you are not going anywhere. [That] you are committed to them. When the workers don’t trust you, when they don’t trust your intentions or what you are doing, then you’re fighting a lost battle. You have to earn their trust. You have to earn it by being there every day and by giving them every ounce of yourself.

Throughout the years, the union articulated its philosphy around principles of negotiation and solidarity. As Bruce Fireman and William Gamson argued (1979), the importance of non-utilitarian human relationships and non-material incentives is key to the creation of trust

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and reciprocity. In time, the union transformed itself from an institutional actor into a movement: “movement movement movement!,” one organizer said. Although a very small union, it drove thousands of consumers, students, labor, and church groups to identify with its principles. In this context, the element of irrationality that social movement theory recognizes as “outbursts of social hysteria” (Durkheim, quoted in Crossley 2002:26) translated into a rational strategy and an insightful understanding of the global economy, which enabled the union to negotiate with different political partners and to gain public support. Despite the structural weaknesses of the campaign, its limited resources, and the current challenges of the financial crisis, its strengths provide new areas of reflections for the labor movement. First and foremost is FLOC’s dedication to the workers and to non-violent practices of collective bargaining and negotiation. These beliefs supported the union in its attempt to counterpose the current “race to the bottom” with a social movement based on fair labor practices and solidarity. Only by such alternative is it possible for civil society to challenge the existing social relations of production, and only by such alternatives is it possible to create a food-chain that respects the global need for food security and agricultural sustainability. As the workers would say, “Si Se Puede!”

12 Anti-Immigrant Mobilization in a Southern State Paul Luebke

Anti-immigrant public sentiment in North Carolina overwhelmed and quickly defeated a 2005 legislative proposal (House Bill 1183) to provide in-state college tuition rates for North Carolina high school graduates who were the non-U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants. The proposal was nearly identical to bills that had become law in recent years in other states with significant immigrant populations (El Pueblo 2006). This article traces the course of the ill-fated legislation and then examines the underlying factors that fueled the anti-immigrant sentiment in North Carolina. Below is a literature review of relevant social science research, not conducted in North Carolina, on U.S. citizen attitudes toward immigrants. My participation-observer role as a Democratic legislator in the North Carolina State House gave me insight into the legislative process (Luebke 2003). First, pro-immigrant legislators strategized with bill advocate activists, and later activists who opposed the bill were effective in stopping the legislation. As a primary sponsor of HB 1183, I was of course disappointed by the bill’s defeat. More generally between 2000 and 2009, I supported numerous state and local government efforts to provide assistance toward immigrants, especially toward those migrating to North Carolina from Mexico and Central America. In order to prevent research bias in my other role as a sociologist, I took special care, in addition to making my own observations, to study written materials that provided insight into the reasons why many North Carolinians in Spring 2005, opposed HB 1183. The review of previous research conducted outside North Carolina found various, potentially interrelated reasons for opposition to immigration. Among these were:

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Illegal Immigrants as Cultural Outsiders: Using the 1992 American National Election Study and related census data, Hood and Morris found that when native-U.S. whites perceived that significant numbers of immigrants in their community were in the United States illegally, hostility toward ALL immigrants increased (Hood and Morris 1998:7 and 12). Hood and Morris argued that undocumented immigrants, because of fear of deportation, would tend to minimize contact with the indigenous population. This in turn would allow the whites to label the immigrants as outsiders who were uninterested in adopting any part of the mainstream American culture (NBC News 2006). Media Coverage: In a study of whites in California only, Hood and Morris found that mainstream media coverage impacted citizens’ attitudes. California news stories highlighted the social costs of immigration such as education and health care. Such accounts were not balanced by stories focusing on the consumer benefits of immigrants working in low-wage jobs that most U.S. citizens were unwilling to accept. (Los Angeles Times 2007). The authors concluded that, as a consequence of the unbalanced coverage of the immigrants’ impact, the media constituted an intervening variable that increased the anti-immigrant attitudes of the native-born population (Hood and Morris 1997: 313). Unfair Fiscal Burden of Immigrants: Using a 1983 survey of California citizens (a time period when immigration was growing quickly in that state, just as it did after 1995 in North Carolina), Espenshade and Calhoun (1993) found that anti-immigrant attitudes were highest among those who believed that undocumented immigrants received government services that raised citizen taxes. The implication was that undocumented immigrants were paying few or no taxes (Espenshade and Calhoun 1993:209-210). Competition for Jobs: Interestingly, Espenshade and Calhoun (1993) found that lower household income did not increase hostility toward immigrants, leading them to conclude that job competition was NOT a major source of anti-immigrant attitudes. However, in a 1996 Houston survey of African Americans, whose median income is closer to Latinos’ median income and lower than the median income of whites, Mindiola et al. (2003:39) found that many blacks worried that Latinos would take jobs from them.

Sudden Demographic Changes in North Carolina

Until the 1990s, racial and ethnic politics in North Carolina could be equated with the power struggles around black-white relations. In 1990, less than one per cent of the state’s 6.6 million residents identified as

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Hispanic or Latino (Luebke 1998). Yet by 2000, primarily as a consequence of North Carolina’s economic prosperity of the mid to late 1990s, the Latino percentage alone of the state’s population in 2000 (8.05 million) was nearly 5 percent (373,000). By far, the new residents’ country of origin was Mexico. Originally employed in agricultural labor, mostly on the Coastal Plain of eastern North Carolina, Spanish-speaking immigrants began in the late 1990s to settle in the Piedmont Crescent, along Interstate 85. Like a crescent moon, this relatively-dense population strip ranges from the Charlotte Metropolitan area at the South Carolina border to the Research Triangle cities of Chapel Hill, Durham and Raleigh, about 150 miles to the northeast. The landscaping, construction, and hotelrestaurant industries hired the bulk of these newcomers. Some workers were also hired by the furniture and textile industries and by chickenand hog processors (LeDuff 2001). Immigrant networks formed in various towns and cities and when employers showed continued interest in immigrant labor, additional newcomers would most commonly settle where friends or relatives were already living (Massey et al. 2002). According to the Pew Hispanic Center (2006a), North Carolina had the ninth largest number of undocumented immigrants among the fifty states, and most immigrants had migrated from Mexico and Central America. At the same time, North Carolina continued to receive high numbers of in-migrating U.S. citizens from the 49 other states, especially from the northeastern United States, so the overall Latino population in the state remained at about 5 percent. State Government Response to Immigration

Throughout the 20th century, North Carolina had enjoyed a reputation as a good government state (Key 1949; Luebke 1998). In the late 1990s, state administrators recognized and responded to critical immigrant needs, such as ESL (English as a Second Language) programs in the schools and driver education and safety. State administrators and legislators provided new ESL funding for qualifying local school districts, an expenditure that other states with growing immigrant populations were also likely to fund. However, the administrative and legislative response to driver education and safety issues was unusual among the fifty states. Social Security cards were required by most states even before September 11, 2001, and by 2005, all but ten states had added a so-called “legal presence” requirement to their driver license application process, making legal US residency the sine qua non for driver’s license eligibility. North Carolina policy-makers decided

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that public safety would be enhanced if any adult who could document proof of North Carolina residency was allowed to apply for a license, thereby ensuring that those desiring North Carolina driving privileges pass written and road tests as well as secure the proof of insurances needed to register a motor vehicle. North Carolina drivers’ license officials believed that the state’s policy, compared to that of most other states, would lead to fewer uninsured and unlicensed drivers on the state’s highways, as well as lower insurance rates for all drivers (Division of Motor Vehicles 2007). To facilitate passage of the written portion of the driver’s license test, the Division of Motor Vehicles gave applicants the choice of taking the written test in Spanish and published a Spanish-language study guide. In addition, the governor employed a Spanish-speaking North Carolinian as his special liaison for Latino affairs and created a commission on Hispanic affairs. As a consequence of these and other state initiatives, advocates for Latino immigrants by the year 2000 were optimistic about future interactions with the governor and the state legislature. It appeared that the state’s major media also took note of the proimmigrant action by state government. The News and Observer, published in the capital city of Raleigh, is viewed as the state’s most important newspaper for the coverage of state politics. During the late 1990s, that newspaper sent reporters to the poverty-stricken areas of Mexico from which many immigrants had migrated. The coverage, in effect, characterized the emigration from Mexico to North Carolina as a logical choice inasmuch as North Carolina employers were experiencing labor shortages and the families left in Mexico badly needed income that could be sent to them by relatives working in North Carolina (News and Observer 1999; cf. News and Observer 2006). These late-1990s articles highlighted the positives for the state’s economy and for the immigrants themselves. The Beginnings of Public Anti-Immigrant Sentiment after 9/11

The 9/11 attacks inevitably led to a major new national emphasis in public opinion concerns: the fear of foreign-born terrorists (Hannity 2002:54-67). Beginning in September 2001, Arab-Americans and Arab immigrants were singled out most frequently, but “Arab-looking” brown-skinned people such as many Latinos of Mexican or Central American origin also found themselves under greater scrutiny (Barry 2005; Nguyen 2005; Vásquez 2006). In North Carolina, 2003 was the first full legislative session in which anti-immigration activists were visible. The activists, generally

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linked to the national anti-immigrant organization “Federation for American Immigration Reform,” focused on the state’s drivers’ license policy as a source of easy and fraudulent ID cards for potential terrorists. State Senator Fern Shubert, from a Republican district on the outskirts of Charlotte, championed the issue with a bill that required driver’s license applicants to show a valid social security card. But Shubert and other legislators found that the issue had no special appeal in 2003 to the North Carolina public. In addition, the state’s Democratic governor, Mike Easley, and the Democrat-controlled State Senate were lobbied by pro-immigrant advocacy groups such as El Pueblo, Inc. to continue the driver’s license policy for reasons of public safety. El Pueblo reminded these Democrats that public safety was the original reason why North Carolina did not differentiate between documented and undocumented immigrants. Senate Democrats saw no need to consider the bill in committee, and the bill died without a vote at the end of the 2003 session [S 987]. In late 2003, opposition to the driver’s license policy emerged from another source. Governor Easley’s office faced pressure from the Department of Homeland Security. This was linked to Homeland Security’s national strategy to crack down on potential terrorists. Homeland Security wanted North Carolina to stop granting drivers’ licenses to those whose only official proof of personal identification was a Mexican ID card, the “matricula consular” issued locally by the Mexican consulate in Raleigh to Mexican immigrants who could prove their Mexican citizenship. Despite heavy internal lobbying of the Governor by El Pueblo and pro-immigrant state legislators, Easley did not challenge the Homeland Security order. Effective February 1, 2004, by executive order of the governor, the “matrticula consular” became invalid at the state’s driver’s license offices. The honeymoon between immigration advocates and the Democratic governor’s office was over (Vásquez, 2006:79-80). In April 2004, Senator Shubert filed for governor in the Republican primary. Her major campaign issue was the perceived problem of illegal immigrants, primarily those from Mexico, and she highlighted the social costs of immigrants to North Carolina state and local governments. Examples were immigrants’ use of emergency rooms and immigrant children’s use of the state’s public schools. She highlighted her 2003 bill to roll back immigrant access to the driver’s license, and reminded the public how crowded driver’s license offices across North Carolina had become as a result of the large number of immigrants applying for licenses. In marked contrast to three other amply-funded Republican gubernatorial candidates, Shubert’s campaign was run on a shoestring.

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Nevertheless, despite her intense anti-immigrant campaign, she garnered just 4% of the vote in the July 2004 primary. This seemed to suggest to most observers that few Republicans (and other North Carolina voters) considered the increased Latino immigration to the state since the 1990s to be a salient political issue. Shubert’s failed campaign provided the political context that led pro-immigrant activists to believe that 2005 would be a good year to ask sympathetic legislators—mostly Democrats—to introduce a bill that granted in-state UNC-system tuition to the children of undocumented immigrants. Modeled after laws in eight other states, the bill included the proviso that the students had attended a North Carolina high school for four years and had graduated from a North Carolina high school, and would pledge to apply for U.S. citizenship as soon as legally possible. These attendance and graduation requirements were far stricter than for any native-born American. American-born applicants merely had to prove that their parents were North Carolina residents. As an example, students from any other of the fifty states who accompanied their parents to North Carolina would not have had to spend four years in a North Carolina high school in order to be eligible for in-state tuition. Indeed, the student could have graduated from an out-of-state high school and still be considered an in-state student, as long as the student’s parents were North Carolina residents. In fact, 2005 would prove not to be a good year. What motivated the firestorm against the bill is the focus of the remainder of this article. Great Expectations: The Evolution of House Bill 1183

Both chambers of the North Carolina General Assembly have, in most years since 2000, been controlled by Democrats, but the typical Democrat is a pro-corporate moderate- conservative (Luebke 2003). As a result, in this decade, the fifteen or so progressive Democrats (about 25% of the House Democratic Caucus) and their grass-roots activist allies must frame a progressive bill, such as in-state college tuition for undocumented immigrant children, in a manner that wins the support of most Democrats, regardless of ideological stripe, as well as a few of what might be termed “social conscience” Republicans (Lakoff 2004). In 2005, the State House, where the bill was introduced, was held by Democrats by a 63-57 margin, so a “mostly Democrat, some Republican” coalition could in theory generate the necessary 61 votes among the 120 members. El Pueblo, a statewide advocacy group for Latino immigrants that had been formed in 1995, had found sponsors for the “in-state” bill in the 2003 session (SB 987). But without

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strong pressure from advocates outside the General Assembly upon legislative leaders, the bill languished. Learning from that experience, El Pueblo in 2005 decided to build support among opinion leaders for the bill, and to share primary sponsorship for the bill among House Democrats and House Republicans (two from each party). El Pueblo also framed in-state tuition for legislators as “an economic investment in the future of the state" (El Pueblo 2006). The argument was that states with a substantial Spanish-speaking population, and included among these in 2005 was North Carolina, needed bilingual, college educated persons to meet the social and economic needs of the population. Bilingual high school graduates whose parents were undocumented and who met the academic qualifications for college admission were a source of local talent that could over the next few years help to meet the state’s likely labor shortage of bilingual speakers. But since almost all of these students’ families were earning below the median income, the out-of-state tuition costs of the UNC system made college unaffordable for the students. Granting the students in-state status would lower tuition costs drastically and thus allow the students to receive a bachelor’s degree in the UNC system El Pueblo used the affordability argument to convince former Governor Jim Hunt (1993-2001 and 1977-85) to become a public advocate for the bill. Hunt’s state and national reputation as a public education advocate is so strong that in normal circumstances his endorsement would have greatly increased the bill’s chances. Hunt specifically labeled the bill “morally right” and “economically necessary” (News and Observer 2005a). In addition, before HB 1883 was filed, El Pueblo briefed the UNC system officials on how the legislation would work if enacted, and how many students would likely be admitted as “in-state” beneficiaries under the bill (in fact, just a few hundred students a year). So the UNC General Administration was “in the loop,” but did not take a public position on the bill (Vásquez 2006:73). For legislators who were deciding whether to become one of the bill’s four primary sponsors, El Pueblo’s networking with the state’s education elite was critical (Vásquez 2006:58), because most legislators do not want to introduce controversial bills that have no chance of passage, especially bills that can potentially mobilize voters against the legislator in the next primary or general election.

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The Legislative Sponsors of H.B. 1183

The two Democrat and two Republican primary sponsors of the bill represented districts with visible Latino minorities. The Democrats were from the urban districts of Fayetteville and Durham, while the Republicans represented small-town districts (Concord and Sanford) on the periphery of the Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham metropolitan areas. As in the rest of North Carolina, few of the Latino residents in these four districts were citizens and thus Latinos were not a voting bloc that could support the legislators on Election Day. Before the bill was filed, three of the four primary sponsors knew that HB 1183 could generate considerable voter opposition in their districts. As a Democrat from arguably the state’s most Democrat-voting county, I was the only one of the four primary bill sponsors who was not taking a large political risk. Despite the substantial threat to their political futures, the Fayetteville Democrat and the two “social-conscience” Republicans nevertheless became primary sponsors for two reasons. First, they held egalitarian values toward educational opportunity. Second and more pragmatically, they felt that helping the children of undocumented immigrants to continue their public education would be less controversial than proposing government benefits for the undocumented immigrants themselves (Vásquez 2006:80). In the State House, after a bill is filed by its primary sponsors, members have 24 hours to become a bill co-sponsor. H.B. 1183 gained 32 additional sponsors, 28 Democrats and four Republicans. In total, some thirty percent (36 of 120 members) were either primary sponsors or co-sponsors of the bill. El Pueblo brought affected Latino high school students to members’ offices, thus giving the issue a human face and ideally persuading the legislator to co-sponsor. Three of the four additional Republicans and some Democrats signed onto the bill because of both pragmatic reasons (“why waste this talent?”) and a sense of fairness (“it’s not the kids’ fault that their parents moved to North Carolina”). Most of the Democrats were driven by their egalitarian education values. For example, an urban progressive told an interviewer she supported HB 1183 despite constituent opposition because she had to be “true to myself” (Vásquez 2006:65). A small-town moderate similarly stated that he couldn’t give up on his principles, even though he had vocal opponents in his district (Vásquez 2006:65). Ten of the 28 Democratic co-sponsors were African American, suggesting that their sense of fairness prevailed over the fear of economic competition that is sometimes expressed by the African American public (Mindiola et al. 2002).

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When opposition to HB 1183 became intense (see below), nine of the 32 co-sponsors removed their names from the bill. The six Democrats and three Republicans who distanced themselves from the bill acknowledged that they did so because of fear of political retaliation in the 2006 election year, which made the bill a political potato that was too hot to handle. The sole African American who withdrew support was in an urban-suburban competitive two-party district. She told an interviewer that much of her email was “hate mail,” and it convinced her that the bill would not pass. Even though she still agreed with HB 1183’s content, she made a pragmatic decision to disengage (Vásquez 2006:43). The other eight who withdrew support, both Democrats and Republicans, were also worried about the 2006 election. It was not clear whether the vocal opposition changed their beliefs about the value of HB 1183. It is clear that the eight made tactical choices to distance themselves from what had become a highly controversial bill. Pros, Cons, and Better Political Mobilization by the Cons

On April 12, 2005, the primary sponsors of HB 1183 announced the bill’s pending introduction at a press conference in the Legislative Building. The bill supporters, led by former Governor Jim Hunt, stressed that the in-state tuition status would only benefit those whose academic records admitted them to one of the 16 UNC system campuses, and only if the students had completed all four years of high school in North Carolina. According to advocates, the bill first addressed a matter of fairness for youth, providing affordable college for those who were in North Carolina because of their parents’ decision to move here; second, educating these bilingual students would contribute to a more skilled labor force in the state, thereby helping North Carolina’s economy. A high school junior, a legal immigrant from Colombia, underscored that he and other Latino high school students were working hard to be educationally successful in the state they now called home (News and Observer 2005a). But the advocates’ carefully-reasoned argument, outlining the reasons why the bill represented intelligent public policy, and noting that a limited number of youth could benefit each year, was lost in the story’s coverage. (Vásquez 2006). The banner headline, across the top of page one of the April 13 News and Observer, was “Leaders Push In-State Tuition for Undocumented Immigrants,” thereby allowing a reader to infer that every immigrant would be eligible for the program. Similarly, the news story’s lead sentence did not mention that the program would be limited to youth who had graduated from a state high school after four years of

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residency. The coverage disappointed most bill supporters, who felt this important front-page story did not accurately portray the bill. To many bill advocates, the over-simplified account of the bill made it easier for opponents to wage their campaign against HB 1183 (Vásquez 2006:47). Regardless of initial news coverage, the anti-immigrant advocacy group ALIPAC (Americans for Legal Immigration PAC) was ready to take action. Founded in Raleigh in 2004, ALIPAC had by April 2005 developed a 5000-person list-serve to receive email alerts (Vásquez 2006:54). Within hours of the press conference, ALIPAC had sent a message entitled “The Battle of North Carolina” to its list-serve, explaining the importance of sending immediate anti-HB 1183 email messages to legislators (Vásquez 2006:55). ALIPAC’s sole staff person had also alerted North Carolina’s talk-radio stations, including WBT-Charlotte and WPTF-Raleigh in the state’s two largest metropolitan areas. Within 48 hours, the mobilization against HB 1183 was itself frontpage news in the News and Observer. Once again, the bill’s complexities were lost. The banner headline termed HB 1183 a “Tuition Deal;” the sub-headline mentioned not high school graduates as beneficiaries but instead stated that “non citizens” would pay “in-state rates” (News and Observer 2005b). ALIPAC’s stated position was that it simply opposed any government benefits to illegal immigrants (Gheen 2005). But many emails were far more extensive in their criticism of Latino immigrants, arguing for example that immigrants were “diluting… American culture.” One e-mail message claimed that “America was founded for European Americans,” not Third World manual workers (El Pueblo 2006). A caller to my legislative office gave my legislative assistant the following short message for me: “You need to go to Mexico to run for office. They would appreciate you there. We don’t appreciate you here.” Talk radio stations in Charlotte and Raleigh fanned the flames of opposition by describing pro HB 1183 legislators as out-oftouch representatives who needed to hear from the public. While talk radio hosts typically are advocating for or against some issue, HB 1183 was unusual in that it caught the attention of so many listeners. For talk radio’s core listeners of white Republicans who generally are scornful of “government handouts,” a program to benefit illegal immigrants was anathema. To a far greater extent than in any coverage of the Charlotte Observer or Raleigh’s News and Observer, the case FOR the in-state tuition bill was totally absent on talk radio(Vásquez 2006:51-54). Interestingly, the well-orchestrated, vocal campaign against the bill may have overstated North Carolinians’ actual opposition to the in-state

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tuition proposal. One week after the public backlash against HB 1183, a statewide poll conducted by the political science department at Elon University, a small liberal-arts college located 50 miles northwest of Raleigh, asked its respondents about the bill, stating clearly the limited group of immigrant students who could benefit from the bill, but also stating that the beneficiaries of the bill would be illegal immigrants. The poll found that 49% supported or strongly supported the bill, 41% opposed or strongly opposed the bill, and 10% were unsure of their opinion. Women (53%) were more likely than men (45%) to support the bill; non-whites (52%) were more likely than whites (47%) to be bill supporters; and the under-35 age cohort (58%) was more likely than those over 35 (44%) to support the bill (Elon University Poll 2005). These findings allow for alternate explanations. Perhaps, as suggested above, the minority opposed to HB 1183 (disproportionately male, white and over 35) was more effective and more vocal in making contact with legislators. An alternate explanation is that the Elon Poll majority did not generally feel strongly about immigrant issues, while the Elon Poll minority consisted of those who opposed Latino immigration for a variety of reasons. According to this second explanation, HB 1183 simply ended up being the political vehicle with which anti-immigrant North Carolinians drove home their hostility to the state’s sudden demographic changes. The Legislative Reaction

Not surprisingly, it was the talk show conversation and newspaper headlines that shaped the next decision of the bi-partisan group of primary sponsors and the El Pueblo advocates. That decision was to drop the bill, without even requesting a committee hearing from the House Speaker’s office. The merits of a committee hearing were considered by the sponsoring legislators and El Pueblo, but the idea was dropped because of a fear that the hearing could be a forum in which nasty anti-immigrant public testimony was given. Further, even if the hearing was civil, ALIPAC’s mobilization had won the debate. HB 1183 had no chance of passage and House Democratic leaders preferred to end the blood-letting. Twenty-nine of the original bill sponsors remained on the bill, just about one-quarter of all House members. Overall, the two Republican primary sponsors received the most criticism from public opponents and fellow Republicans for, in effect, letting their conscience be their guide. Both Republican primary sponsors were told bluntly by fellow Republicans that their 2006 reelection was in serious jeopardy. (In the

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end, one primary sponsor was reelected easily, and the second chose not to run again). For strong opponents of immigration—who were likely to vote Republican—it was more understandable that two urban Democrats would be primary sponsors of the bill. It was as if these HB 1183 opponents expected Democrats to be “soft on immigration.” Conclusion

Legislators and sociologists differ in that, for legislators, controversy and political risk are sufficient reasons to abandon a policy proposal like “in-state tuition,” but sociologists’ task is to consider WHY the bill faced so much opposition. While ALIPAC’s name implied that its only opposition to the Latino newcomers was the illegal status of many immigrants, Hood and Morris’ analysis of 1992 national data found that Anglos saw undocumented immigrants as a cultural threat to “American “values. Their analysis seems supported in the North Carolina case, because the Americans for Legal Immigration organization (ALIPAC) headlined its campaign against HB 1183 as a “battle for North Carolina,” strongly implying that Latinos, college-educated or otherwise, were attempting to seize control of North Carolina culture. Espenshade and Calhoun (1993) concluded for California in the 1980s that legal California residents perceived undocumented immigrants as paying few to no taxes but receiving substantial government services. This finding appears supported for the HB 1183 debate in two ways. First, even the mainstream media in April 2005 framed the story as “non-citizens” receiving an “in-state” benefit, and talk radio programs were preaching precisely that sermon to its listeners. Second, a November 2006 Elon University Poll found that most nonimmigrant Tar Heels believed that illegal immigrants did not pay their fair share of taxes (Elon University Poll 2006). In short, dominant public opinion held that Mexican immigrants were taking much more in government benefits than they were paying to the government. This argument conveniently ignored the extent to which the immigrants were working low-wage jobs which indigenous North Carolinians found undesirable, either at any wage or at least at the wage employers were offering. The argument against the immigrants also erroneously implied that immigrants paid no taxes. In fact, immigrants paid (and continue to pay) retail sales taxes and gasoline taxes, along with every other North Carolina consumer. In addition, most immigrants had state, federal and social security taxes removed from their paychecks based on their social security card, whether or not the card was valid. In addition, like other renters, immigrants paid their share of

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the property tax that their landlord was remitting to local government. The popular argument that immigrants were receiving considerable government benefits overlooked the reality that undocumented persons could, in accord with U.S. court decisions, receive only emergency room care, and that their children could receive public education through their senior year of high school only. Food stamps and Medicaid are commonly believed by the “native” population to be available to undocumented immigrants, while in fact federal law prohibits them from receiving such government benefits. As a consequence it was arguably true that immigrants, compared to other low-income North Carolinians, received far fewer government benefits than they paid in taxes (News and Observer 2007a, 2007b). Another widely asserted claim was that immigrants were stealing jobs that would otherwise go to indigenous residents. But most of the jobs were either low-wage service work such as hotel housekeeping or restaurant work, or were factory and agricultural jobs whose working conditions and pay combined to make them singularly unattractive to either white or black North Carolinians. It is understandable that the loss of many factory jobs, especially in textiles, apparel and furniture, left North Carolinians with the impression that immigrants were taking their jobs. But in fact, employers eliminated these jobs because the employers were moving work overseas in search of lower labor costs (CBS News Reports 1996). Conceivably, construction jobs were one area in which employers sought out immigrants, believing correctly that they would work for lower wages than legal Tar Heels. One 2004 article in a major North Carolina business magazine skirted the issue of employer preference for Latino construction workers by citing the claims, but then failing to ask that very important question to any of the construction managers whom the writer interviewed (Business North Carolina 2004). Certainly the labor market competition argument had some credibility with legal North Carolinians, inasmuch as immigrants continued to arrive in the state at the same time as manufacturing losses were severe. However, the Pew Hispanic Center reported that multiple national polls conducted during 2006 found that most U.S. citizen respondents believed immigrants were taking “jobs that other people don’t want” (Pew Hispanic Center 2006b). In short, in accord with the earlier findings of Espenshade and Calhoun (1993), and Mindiola et al. (2003), antiimmigrant attitudes in the North Carolina case seemed to be less about job threat than related to two other factors: objections to Latinos’ cultural presence and to Latinos alleged “ripping off” of North Carolina local and state government.

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One aspect of the “cultural threat” to legal North Carolinians argues bears further examination. As Spanish-speaking immigrants became 5% or more of a city’s population, signs (e.g., in a city park or on posted parking regulations) appeared in both Spanish and English. Electronic telephone answering machines asked callers if they preferred English or Spanish (Vásquez 2006:77), and immigrant-oriented grocery stores, meat markets, and taco stands were visible reminders that North Carolina was no longer a state of black and white. “Modern” Prejudice and Discrimination

In the 1970s, John McConahay studied what he termed “modern racism” among whites toward blacks, at a time when Southern legal segregation had ended but many African Americans were advocating public school busing as a way to break down the structured racial inequality of Northern public school systems (McConahay 1986). McConahay found that when many Northern whites objected to busing, they claimed their objections had nothing to do with race, but rather with the fact that blacks were “pushing too hard, too fast, and into places where they were not wanted" (McConahay 1986:93). McConahay’s model of the 1970s seems applicable to indigenous North Carolinians’ objections in 2005 to Latino immigrants, and can, I believe, be termed modern ethnic prejudice. As anti-immigrant North Carolinians might state it, “we are not dismissive of Mexican immigrants as a whole” (that would be exemplary of old-fashioned prejudice). Rather, these immigration opponents are objecting to illegal residents who are sinking roots in multiple North Carolina counties. To use the language that McConahay found whites’ used in their discussion of blacks in the 1970s, many North Carolinians around 2005 began objecting that these “illegals” are “pushing too hard, too fast,” by setting up Spanish-language cultural enclaves that challenged previously allEnglish-speaking North Carolina. But when these long-time Tar Heel immigration opponents see Latino children waiting at a school bus stop, or Latino adults shopping at the Home Depot, they really do not know who’s legal and who’s not. They also do not know how many of the Latinos they’re looking at in fact speak fluent English. Modern ethnic prejudice is alive and well because the immigrants are presumed by “natives” to be illegal and unable to speak English. A final point concerns the impact of the mainstream media. Espenshade and Calhoun (1993) concluded for California that mainstream media contributed to the strengthening of anti-Latino attitudes. In North Carolina, it seems that anti-immigrant political

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action—especially the rapid defeat of HB 1183—led the media to reshape its coverage of Mexican immigrants in North Carolina. A major change was the language itself. Whereas HB 1183 was headlined in the April 13, 2005 News and Observer as a bill about a group known as “undocumented immigrants,” (News and Observer 2005a), by February 2006 the newspaper was featuring a series on the same group, but using new language: “Illegal Immigration: Who Profits, Who Pays”(News and Observer 2006a). While the 1999 article sympathized with the working conditions faced by farm laborers (News and Observer 1999) the 2006 article was framed to suggest that a definition of “taxpayers” did not include undocumented immigrants (News and Observer 2006a). Specifically, the article noted that “taxpayers” would be subsidizing ESL education. The clear assumption was that parents of the children taking ESL were not taxpayers, even though such a supposition was patently false. (Think of illegal immigrants buying jeans and t-shirts for their children at a Wal-Mart; the parents of course will not be granted a “sales tax exemption” at the cash register). In short, the News and Observer had changed usage from “undocumented” to “illegal” in one year, and over a seven-year period had switched from framing the Mexican immigrant as a win-win for all of North Carolina to a new frame, in which the reader was invited to ponder whether “they” (the illegal immigrants) were really worth all the trouble they allegedly caused (Lakoff 2005; Luebke 2003). The Future

During North Carolina’s legislative sessions after 2005, state Republicans, like their federal counterparts, took a hard-line enforcement/ deportation) position toward the state’s undocumented residents. Legislative Democrats responded by enacting mild legal remedies that allowed them to campaign as anti-immigrant, but with a more “humane” approach. From a 2010 perspective, the 2005 bill to improve access to postsecondary education for Latino youth was the last time that immigrant advocates and their legislative allies took the offensive. After HB 1183 went down to defeat, anti-immigrant forces from year to year became a rising voice in North Carolina politics. The number of legislators willing to speak out on behalf of the undocumented declined, as increasing number of Democrats viewed the immigration issue as a potential hammer to be used against them in the 2006 and 2008 elections. Elsewhere in the South, a similar pattern emerged. In 2007 and 2008, South Carolina and Georgia, for example, enacted legislation that

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denied governmental benefits to undocumented students (National Conference of State Legislators, 2007 and 2008). But the most hostile political action toward the undocumented occurred in North Carolina. In May 2008, the state’s Community College System best illustrated the power of the anti-immigrant backlash when it prohibited admission of an undocumented person to any degree program offered by any of the system’s 58 colleges (News and Observer 2008b). The system president’s decision to block admission was taken despite a Department of Homeland Security statement that federal law did not require a community college or university to inquire about an applicant’s immigration status (News and Observer 2008a). By August 2008, the system’s board of trustees appeared ready to rescind the ban that the system president had imposed, on grounds that community colleges should be open to all, and that the required out-ofstate tuition more than covered the actual costs of instruction. But the 2008 Democratic candidate for governor, Beverly Perdue, engaged in last-minute lobbying, persuading a majority of the board to maintain the ban (News and Observer, 2008c). Perdue, herself a board member, was worried that a seemingly pro-immigrant vote would help the campaign of her Republican opponent. Three months later, Perdue was elected governor by a narrow margin. It is questionable whether her antiimmigrant position affected her election. It is clear that Perdue, a moderate Democrat, was the most prominent party leader to refuse to support any post-secondary educational opportunity for the undocumented. In March 2010, the Community College System’s board of trustees, insulated from electoral politics, agreed to restore admission rights, albeit at out-of-state rates and with the proviso that the undocumented could not take a classroom seat away from a legal resident (News and Observer 2010) . But this administrative ruling was subject to legislative review. Senate and House Republican leaders vowed to introduce a bill during the General Assembly’s 2010 session to overturn the board’s decision to allow community college admission to the undocumented. In response to the Republicans’ vow, Senate and House Democratic leaders were noncommittal. In North Carolina and in other Southern states, it was perhaps some comfort to undocumented students, as well as to their parents, that no Southern legislature had passed a bill similar to the draconian Arizona law that drew international attention in April 2010 (Financial Times 2010). North Carolina’s undocumented students could only hope that the Obama administration at some point would make a serious attempt to change federal immigration policy. Without federal immigration reform,

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the strength of North Carolina’s anti-immigration mobilization would, at a minimum, make college virtually unaffordable for undocumented students. At worst, these undocumented North Carolinians could be denied total access to any post-secondary public education. Acknowledgements: I wish to thank Matthew Coagrove, Amy Ernstes, Harrison Gilbert, and Robert Stromberg for their research assistance.

13 The Rise of Latino/a Political Influence Lisa M. Martinez

Beginning in the 1970s, population shifts in the U.S. created unprecedented internal migration, particularly to the South and West. Today, those patterns continue unabated as evidenced by the growth and expansion of cities in the southern and southwestern tiers of the United States, the portion of the country know as the Sunbelt (Vásquez, Seales, and Marquardt 2007). These population shifts have occurred at a time when international migration, particularly from Latin American countries, has risen as well (Bean and Stevens 2003). These migration trends, both internal and international, will shape labor market dynamics, social relations between dominant and minority group members, and the existing spheres of political influence for years to come. Given that much of these changes are taking place as a result of Latino migration, it is worth exploring the relationship between population shifts and, consequently, the implications for political representation and incorporation. In light of these trends, this chapter offers insights into possible future trends with emphasis on the South, particularly Texas and Florida. Mention of these demographic trends are often accompanied by projections that the Latina/o population will outpace all others and will outnumber other racial and ethnic minority groups by as early as 2025 (Guzman and Diaz McConnell 2001). In some states, they are already a near majority. Table 13.1 illustrates some of these population shifts from 1980 to 2000 in three states with the largest Latino populations: California, Florida, and Texas.

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Table 13.1: Percentage of Total Populations in California, Florida, and Texas by Race/Ethnicity and Year 1980 States

1990

2000

White

Black

Hisp.

White

Black

Hisp.

White

Black

Hisp.

Calif.

62

8

19

57

7

25

47

7

32

Florida

84

14

9

73

13

12

65

15

17

Texas

79

12

22

61

12

25

52

12

32

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 1980, 1990, 2000 Notes: All numbers are percentages and “Hisp.” is an abbreviation for Hispanic.

All three states have historically been key sites of Latino migration and settlement since the mid twentieth century (and, in the cases of California and Texas, before they were part of the U.S.). The latter part of the 20th century was no exception as all three states experienced a dramatic increase in the Latino-origin population. Together, these population shifts have fueled speculation about what the influence of migration from Latin American, coupled with a young, native-born Latino population, will mean for the future of American politics. Both Democrats and Republicans, for example, contend that growth and the awakening of this so-called “sleeping giant” will serve their political purposes well and, as evidenced by the 2004 and, especially, 2008 presidential elections, have begun to woo potential Latino voters in earnest. Political elites have increasingly acknowledged the potential impact of mobilizing Latino voters, especially in Southern states including Texas and Florida where Latinos already comprise a sizeable proportion of the population (Guzman and Diaz McConnell 2001). One of the key challenges of mobilizing Latinos, however, stems from the fact that a significant proportion of the population is ineligible to vote because of citizenship status. De la Garza (2004) estimates that close to 40 percent of Latinos are ineligible to vote because they are not U.S. citizens. Even among those that are U.S. citizens, Latinos are less likely than non-Latino whites and Blacks to participate in electoral politics. Tables 13.2 and 13.3 show, respectively, the proportion of whites, Blacks, and Latinos who were registered to vote and the proportion who actually voted in the presidential elections of 1996, 2000, and 2004. And according to unofficial data, the Census Bureau notes that while turnout rates were higher for whites, Blacks, and Latinos, there was only a modest increase (1.6 percentage points) from 2004 to 2008 (U.S. Census Bureau 2008a). On the whole, the data suggest that, even in states with

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large Latino populations, the electoral participation rates for Latinos are considerably lower relative to other race and ethnic groups. Additionally, some analysts have asserted that Latinos have not had a decisive impact on electoral outcomes at the state or national levels. Still others argue that even though Latino turnout is considerably low, their full political impact has yet to be felt. Latinos are a relatively youthful population that has yet to reach adulthood. According to estimates from Voto Latino, a non-partisan organization, approximately 50,000 Latinos turn 18 every month in the United States; of those, 87 percent are eligible to vote (Voto Latino 2006). Table 13.2: Registration Rates by State, Race/Ethnicity and Year 1996

2000

2004

States

Whites

Blacks

Hisp.

Whites

Blacks

Hisp.

Whites

Blacks

Hisp.

Calif.

58.9

66.3

28.7

67.2

62.5

29.5

72.7

68.0

30.2

Florida

63.7

53.1

36.7

69.2

54.1

37.1

71.8

52.6

38.2

Texas 62.7 63.2 42.7 71.8 69.4 43.2 73.6 68.4 41.5 Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 1996, 2000,2004 Notes: All numbers are percentages and “Hisp.” is an abbreviation for Hispanic.

Table 13.3: Percentages Voting in Presidential Elections by State, Race/Ethnicity and Year 1996 States

2000

2004

Whites

Blacks

Hisp.

Whites

Blacks

Hisp.

Whites

Blacks

Hisp.

Calif.

51.1

56.7

22.6

60.4

52.5

24.5

67.3

61.7

25.6

Florida

52.7

40.5

29.0

59.8

43.2

22.4

64.9

44.5

34.0

Texas

46.7

47.1

27.9

57.9

57.8

29.5

63.4

55.8

29.3

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 1996, 2000, 2004 Notes: All numbers are percentages and “Hisp.” is an abbreviation for Hispanic.

Though electoral participation may not be an option for non-citizen Latinos, there are other opportunities to participate in the political process. In the spring of 2006, the country saw a surge of Latino protest activity denouncing efforts to criminalize immigration. Proponents argued that the language of the proposed legislation did not specifically target Latino immigrants and, instead, sought to protect America’s borders by curbing illegal immigration from all parts of the world. Opponents of the legislation disagreed and argued that Latinos would be unduly affected and directly targeted. In response, Latinos took to the

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streets in marches and protests in cities from coast to coast including New York, Atlanta, Milwaukee, Denver, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, and Los Angeles. In Nashville, for example, 9,000-15,000 protestors took to the streets on March 29, 2006 (Cano 2009). In Dallas, estimates suggest 350,000-500,000 marched to City Hall on April 10, 2006; Houston, Atlanta, and Fort Myers, FL, witnessed approximately 50,000 protestors that day (Cano 2009). On May 1, 2006, 20,000 people rallied in Orlando, FL. In so doing, Latinos demonstrated that they are willing and capable of taking part in the political process. They also showed willingness to become active in political issues, particularly if the issues are salient to them. Some critics predicted that the string of protests would cause a backlash against Latinos and there is ample evidence to suggest as much given the rise in apprehensions, deportations, hate crimes, racial profiling, anti-immigrant legislation at the state level, and anti-Latino discourse in the public and in the media (SPLC 2009). Given the character of the current political sphere, coupled with widespread demographic shifts, social scientists have raised several questions with regard to Latinos’ potential political impact. For example, will the growing presence of Latinos in the American south and southwest have a significant impact on electoral and non-electoral politics in the region? Can sustained migration and population growth result in significant political clout for Latinos or will they, despite their numbers, be relegated to the margins for some time to come? Using Census data, this chapter examines Latino population change from 1980 to 2000 in selected Sunbelt states and documents overall trends in electoral and non-electoral politics among Latinos. I also discuss the demographic characteristics of the three largest Latino subgroups— Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans—using data from the National Survey on Latinos in America (Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard University 1999). Together, the data reveal the diversity of the Latino population and highlight some of the potential challenges for political elites to mobilize them. Nonetheless, the political spotlight is increasingly being focused on Latinos, raising an important question: Are the southern and western tiers new spheres of Latino political influence? A Closer Look at U.S. Latinos

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Latino population increased by 57.9 percent, from 22.4 million in 1990 to 35.3 million in 2000, compared to an increase of 13.2 percent for the total U.S. population (Guzman 2001:2). Of the over 280 million residents counted in the 2000

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Census, 35.3 million (or 12.5 percent) were Latino (U.S. Census Bureau 2001). Of those 35 million Latinos, Mexicans represented 58.5 percent of the total, Puerto Ricans 9.6 percent, Cubans 3.5 percent and other Latinos 28.4 percent (U.S. Census Bureau 2001). Though population growth remains strong in cities where Latinos have historically been located, such as Los Angeles, Houston, New York, Chicago and Miami, demographers note the dramatic increase in the number of Latinos in new destination cities. For example, between 1980 and 2000, cities such as Atlanta, Raleigh, Charlotte, Greensboro and Orlando saw as much as an 800 percent increase in their Latino populations (Hong 2002; Suro and Singer 2002). Increasingly, cities in the south are emerging as new Latino cities (Saenz et al. 2003). Thus, demographic changes, coupled with a greater emphasis on diversity in the political arena, put Latinos in a unique position to “wield the power that has remained elusive thus far” (Coleman 1995:28). Others anticipate that pressure to incorporate Latinos will threaten the nonLatino majority, resulting in heightened political conflict (Leighley 2001:3). According to Martinez-Ebers et al. (2000:547), though Latinos and Latino culture have become quite visible in the U.S., few Americans understand how the growth in the size and influence of the Latino population will potentially influence important political decisions. Moreover, it is not well understood how Latinos will be politically incorporated given differences in their citizenship status, Englishlanguage proficiency and levels of educational attainment, all significant predictors of political participation (Verba et al. 1995). To politically incorporate U.S. Latinos will also prove challenging given their heterogeneity (de la Garza et al. 1992; Pachón and DeSipio 1994). Differences in citizenship status, mode of incorporation into U.S. society, homeland experiences, educational attainment, and income translate into diverse political orientations within the Latino community (Uhlaner, Cain, and Kiewiet 1991). Table 13.4 highlights the diversity of the Latino population using data from the 1999 National Survey on Latinos in America (NSLA), a nationally representative, random sample of 4,614 adults 18 years of age and older. The survey also includes respondents from the three largest Latino sub-groups: Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans. In all, there are 2,417 Latino and 2,197 non-Latino respondents in the NSLA. U.S. Latinos of Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban origin differ considerably along various dimensions including age, educational attainment, income, language preference, citizenship, political interest, and party affiliation. They are more similar along the dimensions of political efficacy and

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ideology. It is also worth noting that Latinos of Mexican and Puerto Rican origin have more similar demographic profiles relative to their Cuban origin counterparts. As documented elsewhere (see Portes and Bach 1985; Portes and Mozo 1985; Portes and Truelove 1987), Latinos of Cuban origin tend to have higher levels of education and income and are more likely to align themselves with the Republican party than either Mexicans or Puerto Ricans. However, given the changing profile of Cuban migrants, their politics might be expected to change over time as well. Latinos also differ in their preference for particular ethnic labels. While some may prefer to identify in terms of their national origin, such as Cuban or Cuban American, others tend to embrace panethnic labels such as ‘Latino,’ ‘Hispanic,’ or ‘Chicano.’ Not surprisingly, panethnic labels are highly contested (Oboler 1995; Jones-Correa and Leal 1996). The use of panethnic labels is not insignificant; prior research in the social sciences shows a strong connection between group identity and political involvement (de la Garza et al. 1992; Hardy-Fanta 1993). Knowing this, many of the organizers of the immigration rallies this past spring relied on panethnic frames to appeal to Latino constituents (Martinez 2008). Ethnic politics cannot be understood without considering the role of acculturation, length of residence in the U.S., and generational status in shaping political behavior. While prior theories of acculturation and assimilation assumed a linear process, which would result in eventual political incorporation, more recent research suggests that the process for Latinos is a segmented rather than linear one. As a result, Latinos often move back and forth between different stages of acculturation and assimilation rather than following a step-wise pattern (Portes and Zhou 1993). Thus, the segmented assimilation model proposes that Latinos will eventually acculturate and assimilate into mainstream society and participate in its institutions. In terms of politics, the segmented model suggests that Latino political incorporation will increase due to changes in the identity and ethnic mobilization of Latinos across generations (Garcia Bedolla 2000:108).

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Table 13.4: Descriptive Statistics for Non-Latinos and Latinos by Ethnic Origin (all NSLA states) Non-LatinosMexicans Puerto RicansCubans

Socio-demographic Variables Age Education: High School or Less Some College College Graduate Language Spoken: Mostly English Mostly Spanish Both Income: Less than $20,000/year $20,000-$49,000/year $50,000 or more/year U.S. Citizen

46.31

34.94

39.26

45.81

31.04 29.63 39.05

62.96 20.90 15.53

50.63 27.04 22.01

47.44 24.04 28.21

-------

29.71 48.04 22.00

38.99 27.99 33.02

22.76 56.41 20.83

10.07 32.82 35.82 97.68

29.95 41.44 18.58 59.17

26.10 40.88 22.96 99.69

27.56 32.05 23.40 71.15

82.11

49.27

61.64

58.65

57.31 40.01 11.03

52.44 55.16 17.08

60.69 56.51 16.35

58.47 50.17 17.26

23.92 42.13 31.20

25.03 36.69 33.62

32.81 31.23 30.91

31.92 34.53 27.36

32.02 27.98 30.23 8.58 52.44 50.00

35.02 17.02 32.18 10.60 41.90 23.19

52.22 13.92 20.89 8.86 42.42 22.73

31.05 36.27 23.20 4.58 44.21 37.84

Political Participation Variables Registered to vote 83.25 Voted in ‘96 President election 78.71 Participated in protest/rally/demo. --2146 N (Eligible Voters)

43.28 32.13 27.14 484

72.64 56.05 31.76 317

58.33 49.19 26.60 222

Political Engagement Variables Follows Current Affairs Efficacy Political Leaders Don't Care Politics is Too Complicated Voting is a Waste of Time Political Ideology Variables Ideology: Liberal Moderate Conservative Partisanship: Democrat Republican Independent Something Else or None Strong Democrat Strong Republican

Source: National Survey on Latinos in America (1999)

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The segmented assimilation model has proven useful for understanding generational patterns of participation across different racial/ethnic groups, particularly considering the heterogeneity of race/ethnic populations such as U.S. Latinos (see Espiritu 1992). For example, scholars have noted the difficulty of incorporating Latinos into the political mainstream given the strength and maintenance of social ties to sending communities once in the U.S. (see Hondagneu-Sotelo 1994; Menjivar 2000; Singer and Massey 1998; Massey, Durand, and Malone 2002; Curran and Rivero-Fuentes 2003). Fuchs (1990) notes Latinos’ willingness to participate in American politics may be deterred if they are hesitant to sever social ties in favor of culturally assimilating. Still, Ramakrishnan and Espenshade (2001) note that the duration of stay in the U.S., political socialization in the sending community and ethnic residential concentration create greater contact with and stronger commitments to the mainstream political system of the receiving society. Given the myriad layers of Latinos’ experiences, it is perhaps not surprising that political elites have been slow to mobilize Latinos or have relied upon antiquated cultural frames to appeal to the Latino base (such as speaking a few words in Spanish or consuming ethnic food at rallies and public gatherings). Instead, there might be more to the idea of using a Latino panethnic identity as a basis for mobilization. On the one hand, a panethnic Latino identity could be used for purposes of collective action and, on the other, still allow Latinos to maintain historically distinct and separate ethnic identities (Padilla 1984; Calderon 1992). So while Latinos may be heterogeneous and not necessarily share common cultural traits or historical experiences, national coalitions of leaders and grassroots organizations could, as Jones-Correa and Leal (1996) suggest, use panethnic terms to symbolize commonalities on issues and collective action. Given the level of Latinos’ involvement in the protests last spring, it seems appeals to panethnic identities could go far in encouraging Latinos to partake in electoral and non-electoral politics. Electoral and Non-Electoral Participation

Given the fact that close to 40 percent of Latinos cannot vote because they are not U.S. citizens, one must consider alternative forms of political participation that go beyond the realm of voting. A distinction is important because, as Dalton (2000:41) notes, people tend to specialize in activities that match their motivation and goals and, because separate modes of participation place different requirements on

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participants, it matters how citizens take part (Verba et al. 1995). For these reasons, the definition of political participation should be broadened to include non-electoral forms of participation such as demonstrating, attending rallies or public speeches, and engaging in protest activities such as boycotts and marches. Figures 1 and 2 show some trends with regard to Latinos’ non-electoral involvement using NSLA data. Figure 13.1: Participation in Non-Electoral, Latino-Oriented Activities by Generation 45 % 40 35 30

First Second Third Fourth

25 20 15 10 5 0

Volunteer

Gave Money Demonstration Type of Non-Electoral Activity

Protest

Source: National Survey on Latinos in America (1999)

Turning first to Figure 13.1, one can see four types of non-electoral activities by generation. Latinos were more likely to indicate that they participated in a demonstration rather than volunteering or contributing money to a political cause or candidate. Figure 13.1 also shows that nonelectoral activity is highest among second and third generation Latinos than among first and fourth generation Latinos. The fourth set of bars in Figure 13.1 shows that likelihood of participating in at least nonelectoral activity by generation. The data presented in Figure 13.2 represent patterns in non-electoral participation by ethnicity. These data reveal that at least 30 percent of Latinos of Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban origin participated in some form of non-electoral activities.

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Figure 13.2: Participation in Non-Electoral, Latino-Oriented Activities

40 % 35 30 25

Mexican Puerto Rican Cuban

20 15 10 5 0 %

Gave Money Volunteer

Demonstrated

Protest

Type of Non-Electoral Participationn=1448 Source: National Survey on Latinos in America (1999)

Together, these findings show that Latino political participation depends upon a host of factors ranging from socioeconomic status to collective identity, acculturation, generational status and national origin. Whereas standard models of political participation tend to focus on the impact of these factors on electoral and non-electoral outcomes, social scientists must also consider factors unique to immigrant and heterogeneous communities. So why would marginal groups and ethnic minorities, who are usually on the fringes of the political system, also be less likely to participate in non-electoral politics? Possible explanations are twofold. First, members of marginal groups may have lower levels of political efficacy than dominant group members. However, Table 13.4 on p. 350 indicates that, despite the fact that non-Latinos in the NSLA survey were more likely to follow current affairs than Mexicans, Cubans, or Puerto Ricans, they were not dramatically different on some of the efficacy measures. Alternatively, members of marginal groups may perceive a tremendous disconnect between electoral politics and their personal

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well-being, which in turn, affects their political efficacy. The second explanation may hold more weight as evidenced by political efficacy summary statistics in Table 13.4. Cubans and especially Puerto Ricans were more likely to say the political leaders don’t care and, overall, Latinos were more likely to say that politics is too complicated. The latter responses most likely capture language barriers of more recent immigrants. If marginal individuals are less likely to participate in electoral politics for these reasons then, theoretically, they may adopt less conventional political strategies and engage in extra-institutional activities more so than dominant group members (Piven and Cloward 1979). Consequently, members of race/ethnic minority groups such as U.S. Latinos, may actually be more likely to engage in extra-institutional activities particularly if they are ineligible to vote. However, resources are a pathway to participation (Schlozman et al. 1994). High status individuals—those who have more resources in the form of education, occupational status, and income—are more likely to engage in political activity because resources give citizens access to information about important political issues and facilitate the development of social ties that compel them to participate (McAdam and Paulsen 1993). From this perspective, Latinos should be less likely to engage in electoral activities because they have less human capital (resources) to draw upon relative to non-Latinos with the exception of Cubans (Perez and De La RosaSalazar 1993; Marcelli and Heer 1997; Valenzuela and Gonzalez 2000). Consequently, limited resources should also make them less inclined to take part in non-electoral political activities. Although prior research in sociology finds traditionally underrepresented groups are more likely to turn to non-electoral activities as a way of exercising their voice, particularly when more traditional, conventional channels of challenging the political arena are closed off (Piven and Cloward 1979; Morris 2002), prior work shows the opposite with regard to U.S. Latinos (Martinez 2005). Latinos are significantly less likely to engage in protest than their non-Latino counterparts, a trend that closely mirrors differences in the likelihood of participating in electoral activities (Verba et al. 1995). Also, though the literature would suggest that individuals with more resources—in the form of time, money, political skills, and social networks—are more likely to protest, the reverse is true of Latinos. Though Cubans were about as likely to report volunteering and giving money as Mexicans and Puerto Ricans, they were least likely to participate in a demonstration or participate in a protest activity of any kind. In analyses not shown here, I further demonstrate that Cubans are less likely to participate in non-electoral

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politics despite their higher socioeconomic resources relative to Mexicans and Puerto Ricans despite what some models of participation would predict (Martinez 2005). Piven and Cloward (1979) argue disfranchised minorities often seek out extra-institutional tactics to challenge the political system when they are formally barred from conventional politics, perhaps explaining why Cubans are less likely to participate in protest: they do not need to protest because they have the social capital and interpersonal networks which facilitate participation in electoral politics. These relationships have not been fully teased out given the unexpected turnout at the immigration rallies in 2006. Though media coverage of the events suggested that the protests were purely spontaneous, ongoing research suggests quite in the contrary. In fact, while grassroots organizers relied heavily upon modern technology such as the internet and text messaging to mobilize Latinos, many of the frames, tactics, and strategies were the same as those used in the 1960s and 1970s. Since then, analysts have argued that the immigration rallies energized the Latinos base and brought about a renewed emphasis on political and civil rights for traditionally underrepresented groups. For these reasons, it may be only a matter of time before existing models of non-electoral participation will need to be expanded upon to account for the new surge in Latino protest activity. The Significance of Structural Factors

Extant research examining the relationship between mobilization and political involvement reveals just how important structural and contextual determinants are (Rosenstone and Hansen 1993; Leighley 2001:34; Martinez 2008). For example, during the 1996, 2000, and 2004 presidential campaigns, political leaders, especially Democrats, made a more concerted effort to recruit Latino voters resulting in a larger number of Latinos who registered and voted than ever before (SuberviVelez and Connaughton 1999). While action taken by political elites encourages and increases political involvement, particularly among minority constituents who tend to have the lowest participation rates, organizational affiliation is an equally important determinant of participation. Hardy-Fanta’s (1993) study of political participation in Boston indicates Latinos who participated in group activities established social ties and personal connections that increased their propensity to be politically active. Hardy-Fanta (1993) also found that Boston Latinos were more likely to participate if community leaders encouraged their involvement and were integral in facilitating the formation of social ties among them. Similarly, encouragement by community organizations to

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engage in political activities has been shown to increase Latinos’ likelihood of voting (Sierra 1992). Advocates at the Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project (SVREP) and the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) also realize that the political incorporation of Latinos is closely linked to the active role organizations take in mobilizing them. In the 1990s, SVREP conducted more than 1,000 voter registration education campaigns in over 200 cities and Native American reservations in the Southwest resulting in an increase in voter registration throughout the Southwest (Pedraza and Rumbaut 1996). SVREP and IAF recognize that political self-determination in communities that have historically been poor and economically impoverished begins with participation in organizations such as theirs as well as with the development of social ties among members of the community (Southwest Voter Research Institute 1991). Not surprisingly, citizens tend to be more politically active if leaders encourage them; issues, interests, or initiatives are particularly salient; and/or the political sphere is an accessible forum for meeting their needs and concerns (Rosenstone and Hansen 1993; Martinez 2008). Though ethnic civic organizations and elected officials may have stepped up efforts to mobilize Latinos, other structural factors have had a more negative impact on Latino participation rates. There has been quite a bit of debate surrounding the drawing and redrawing of congressional boundaries in states with significant Latino and African American populations. Redistricting is intended to be a practice of arranging electoral divisions so that one political party has more power than the other by diluting the other’s voting strength and constituent base. Redistricting is fundamentally shaped by party concerns, particularly in a winner-take-all system; the drawing of boundaries affects elections at the congressional level. Still, it is difficult to deny that the racial and ethnic composition plays into how and where lines are redrawn. Motivated by demographic shifts, states with growing minority populations are and have been thinking of ways to deal with the growing presence of minority voters. Redrawing congressional boundaries, in effect, serves as a way to manage minority constituents’ potential impact on electoral outcomes, while stopping short of disenfranchising them. Much of this has been accomplished through redistricting. In states such as Texas and Colorado, for instance, political struggles over boundaries have been submitted to the Justice Department for further review as critics argue the redrawn districts serve to politically disenfranchise members of traditionally underrepresented groups. Not unlike electoral reforms of the late 1800s and early 1900s, opponents of redistricting

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argue that redrawn boundaries curtail the voice of poor and minority constituents though in a less formal manner than historical electoral reforms. This is achieved by drawing districts in such as way as to either; (1) concentrate their impact in a few minority districts (packing in), resulting in a higher likelihood of a minority representative or (2) diluting their impact by drawing districts in such a way as to make sure that minority influence is kept within manageable levels. As can been seen in Figures 13.3, 13.4, and 13.5, districts in California, Florida, and Texas are either heavily Latino or are a manageable minority; there are very few districts with between 40 and 60 percent Latino because these would be very competitive districts (based on data from the 106th congress). Appendix A also shows a break down of congressional districts for each state by percent Latino. In California, for example, of the 52 congressional districts, 11 are over 50 percent Latino; 24 of the 52 districts are over 30 percent Latino. Only 18 congressional districts are less than 20 percent Latino. Data for Florida suggest similar patterns. Twenty one of the 23 congressional districts are less than 20 percent Latino while two districts are over 70 percent Latino. Evidence of packing and dilution are more evident in the Texas data. In 2000, 19 of the 30 districts were less than 30 percent Latino, 7 districts were more than 60 percent Latino, and no districts were between 40 and 60 percent Latino. Figure 13.3: Distribution of Latinos in California

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Figure 4: Distribution of Latinos in Florida

Figure 5: Distribution of Latinos in Texas

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In sum, political elites have employed contemporary strategies in order to manage the minority vote. Although there is some geographic basis to how districts are drawn, there is also an underlying interest in shaping the contextual factors that influence minority political participation. If population trends continue as they have, Latinos would be the most adversely affected by congressional redistricting where they represent a sizeable portion of the population. Conclusion: The Future of Latino Politics in the Southern Tier

Given the complexities of population shifts, demographic growth among Latinos, and the rise of new destination cities in the Sunbelt, what can be said with regard to the future of Latino electoral and non-electoral politics? An optimistic view would suggest that, if population trends continue as they do, Latinos will soon become a more integral part of mainstream U.S. politics. A more critical view suggests that, unless more attention is paid to the structural barriers that prevent Latinos from currently participating in politics, registration and voter turnout rates will remain stagnant relative to non-Latino whites and African Americans. And despite a strong tendency to embrace panethnic labels and ethnic solidarity, especially during times of hostility from dominant group member (Martinez 2008), the reality is that Latinos are increasingly key swing voters as they were in the 2008 presidential election. Political elites will need to be more attuned to Latinos’ issues and concerns, which are not entirely unlike the concerns of non-Latino citizens (Lopez 2009). By relying on dated frames and appeals, these leaders will lose out on the potential to mobilize a large and growing constituent base. Small but significant increases in Latino voter turnout in the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections suggest there is reason to be optimistic. As well, given Latinos’ overwhelmingly support of President Obama during his presidential campaign (Lopez 2008), Latinos may emerge from the election as the beneficiaries of an administration more willing to tap into their potential political energy. And while a significant proportion of the Latino population is ineligible to vote (de la Garza 2004), there are other outlets to voice concerns and to challenge the existing political system. Social scientists are still in the process of unpacking the significance and implications of the immigration rallies, but there is little doubt that comprehensive immigration reform is a burning issue among many Latinos, immigrant and non-immigrant alike. While only time will tell if the country will move any closer towards immigration reform that most can agree on, as of this writing, there are indications that the issue has been reignited

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(Preston 2010) despite the anti-Latino and anti-immigrant backlash of the last few years Latinos in the South still face many barriers, which will ultimately affect their opportunities for political incorporation. According to a report by the Pew Hispanic Center (Kochhar, Suro, and Tafoya 2005), the southern U.S. witnessed the most dramatic Latino-origin population growth in 2000, especially in Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Sparked by economic growth and the spread of jobs in manufacturing and construction, the Latino population doubled and in some cases tripled in number (in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, which includes Charlotte, the Latino-origin population grew by 500 percent) (Kochhar et al. 2005). The majority of Latinos in these new southern destinations were young, male, had low levels of education, were highly transient, and lacked legal status, factors which make them less likely to be able to vote or be invested in politics (Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1995). The study also found that the majority were settling in rural areas, which also makes extra-institutional participation more difficult given the lack of a critical mass of Latinos in any one area and the challenges of mobilizing a more dispersed population. These factors, combined with the growing backlash against Latinos and immigrants, make the possibility of Latino political incorporation seem more uncertain in the South. If non-electoral politics are part of a larger repertoire of participation, as the political landscape continues to diversify, additional research about Latinos’ electoral and non-electoral behavior in new destinations will become necessary. As such, future research ought to consider how the distribution of resources (human and social capital) within the Latino community affects their political behavior in nonelectoral activities as well as understand the relationship between grassroots organizations and elected officials in shaping and constructing a Latino electorate. Optimally, this line of research will result in a more robust understanding of Latino political dynamics. Only by moving the discussion forward can Latinos be fully incorporated into the political sphere and participate in the decisions that affect society as a whole. Should grassroots organizations, partisan groups, and elected officials wish to make the southern tier a new sphere of political influence, they will need to pay better attention to the communities that reside there.

14 Success Stories: Proactive Community Responses to Immigration William E. Baker and Paul A. Harris

The last twenty years have been an era of high growth in the south with part of this growth attributed to a new immigrant population, especially Latinos. With a tradition of conservatism and resistance to cultural change, the growth of immigration has been a new and contentious issue in many southern communities. The experience in Dalton, Georgia, a relatively small city, however, is a story of a community’s balanced approach to the demands of the new immigrant population and the conservative tradition and culture. While Dalton’s proactive response maybe an unexpected exception, it maybe also be an example for other like-communities who are just discovering their community is changing in many ways. Since the early 1990s, Georgia has become an increasingly important destination for new immigrants. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, between 1990 and 2000 Atlanta was the fourth fastest growing metropolitan area in the country. Much of this growth can be directly attributed to immigration. This trend is projected to continue as more than one-third of the total United States population is expected to reside in the South during the period 1995 to 2025 (Campbell 1996). In the decade of the 1990s, the Latino population in the Southeast almost tripled from 670,000 to 1.9 million. Cruz Torres, a sociologist from Texas A&M University notes that the growth can be attributed to economic growth coupled with strong employer recruitment which, in turn, has encouraged the internal and international immigration of Latinos to the region (Tallman and Flemming 2003). To which Schmid (2003:130) adds:

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Since 1978, nearly 4 of every 10 jobs gained in the United States were in the South. The number of jobs increased by 54 percent in the South and 38 percent in the rest of the Nation. Between 1978 and 1997 metropolitan areas [in the South] grew 64 percent and nonmetropolitan areas by 29 percent.

In the decade of the 1990s, Georgia's foreign-born population increased over 300% with an estimated 400,000 documented immigrants. Added to this figure is a dramatic upswing in undocumented migrants. Among all the states, Georgia has the greatest number of counties (25) that saw a fifty percent or greater number increase in the number of immigrants in the 1990s (Neal and Bohon 2003). Although many of these counties are clustered in and around the Atlanta metropolitan region, other metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas have experienced significant immigrant increases. For example, according to the 2000 U.S. Census the Whitfield County metropolitan area in north Georgia Latinos make up roughly 22% of the population or over 18,000 persons up from only just over 2,300 Latinos counted in 1990 (Hernandez-Leon and Zúñiga 2005). According to a recent report by the Pew Hispanic Center, the U.S. now has some 11 million undocumented migrants. Furthermore, undocumented immigrants continue to outpace the number of legal immigrants. While the undocumented continue to concentrate in places with existing large communities of Latinos, they are also increasingly settling throughout the rest of the country (Passel 2005). In the State of Georgia, the U. S. Census Bureau’s estimate is between 225,000 and 300,000. Adding the two figures, the total immigration (Latino, Asian, African, etc.) population in the state is approaching 800,000 persons, or 8% of the state’s population. Most recently, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office of Immigration Statistics (2006) estimated that among the ten leading states of residence of unauthorized immigrants in 2005, Georgia experienced one of the largest increases since 2000 with an estimated 50,000 unauthorized entries per year—a 114% increase in undocumented migrants since 2000. Doug Bachtel, a demographer at The University of Georgia adds “ … the real Hispanic population at least doubles the census estimate because many immigrants are either in the country illegally or shy away from government counts” (quoted in Feagans 2005). Prior to 1990, international immigration to Georgia was minimal. Georgia, unlike New York, California, and Florida, is not a traditional immigration receiving state. However, all of that changed in the decade of the 1990s when Georgia became a preferred destination for large

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numbers of immigrants—legal and undocumented—especially Latino and Asian. Key industries in Georgia—carpet manufacturing, poultry processing, construction, agriculture, landscaping, and hotel services— all experienced labor shortfalls throughout the decade. Georgia’s economic and corporate expansion throughout the decade created great demand for a large supply of low-skilled, affordable labor. In the case of Dalton, the major city in the Whitfield County metro area, Zúñiga and Hernandez-Leon (2001:134) find “. . . that local immigrant employment is segmented—particularly in terms of wages . . . even though the Latino community is relatively new, it already displays some economic heterogeneity.” Clearly, macro-economic changes in the form of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and global trade, coupled with an expanding housing and service sector in Metropolitan Atlanta, the relative low costs associated with hiring undocumented labor and the poor economic conditions of sending countries such as Mexico have all contributed to the economic boom in the State. In Northwest Georgia the most important labor market trend came about as a result of the consolidation of the carpet industry and the demand for Latino workers to help the local carpet mills solve their labor shortages. According to Patton (2002:176): Mill owners had long complained of a labor shortage, no doubt partially due to the high degree of concentration of the industry in Northwest Georgia. . . Mill owners, for their part, complained about the difficulty they encountered in finding reliable workers . . . A few manufacturers wondered aloud, and more did so in private, about the future health of the carpet industry in Northwest Georgia in the face of the mounting “labor problem” in the 1980s and early 1990s. . . Immigration proved the answer to the dilemma.

The relatively new, sudden, and large influx of migration to Georgia and other areas beyond the traditional Border States in the U.S. has forced the issue up the national political and social agenda. Both the broadcast and print media have consistently covered the issue recently locally and nationally. On the national level, immigration reform rises and falls and has yet to reach enactment. Socially, organized demonstrations on both sides of the issue occur periodically in many major cities. The Devolution Revolution: "Fend for Yourself"

The United States system of Federalism is once again being challenged by an issue needing an institutional home. The lack of major immigration reform is a direct result of a broken system of national-state

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responsibility. National polls show the general public understands immigration as a national government concern. Yet national subgovernments by default are being forced to deal with the problem without clear direction or decisive policy from the federal government. The era of Devolution-the pushing down policies to sub-governmentscurrently in full swing, has caused this national problem to be localized and lends credence to a corollary of the oft quoted Tip O’Neil. It is not just “all politics is local” but increasingly, all policies are local too. Unfortunately, state and local governments are ill-equipped to handle the issue in any effective way. Yet to conclude that immigration is a national government problem, thus relieving states and local governments from acting can only make the matter worse. As the Congressman from north Georgia, Nathan Deal (R-GA) said, “People tend to view immigration as a national issue only and fail to ask what they can do at a local level” (Collins 1995). Regardless of the debate of the locus of where immigration policy resides, many states and local governments across the nation have responded to this contentious phenomenon without the aid of national guidance. State immigration laws have been an increasing in recent years. In 2005, 300 bills were introduced and 38 were enacted. This level more than doubled in 2006 with 570 bills introduced and 84 enacted. In 2007, 1,562 bills were introduced and 240 laws were enacted. The increased continued in 2008 with 1,305 bills introduced and 206 were enacted. In April 2006, the Georgia Assembly adopted SB 529, The Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act, one of the Nation’s most wide ranging pieces of legislation designed to curb the flow of undocumented migrants to the State. Ann Morse, Director of Immigration Policy for the National Conference of State Legislatures, said at the time no other state had gone so far as Georgia in trying to restrict immigration benefits and rights since Proposition 187 in California (passed in 1994 and ruled unconstitutional four years later) and Proposition 280 in Arizona (passed in 2004). Both measures denied many social services to people without proper documentation. “There are other bills around the country that are somewhat comprehensive, but nothing as comprehensive as Georgia’s” (quoted in Preston 2006:12). American cities are also responding to immigration including the issue of undocumented workers, who while gainfully employed and filling needed work, are sometimes viewed with anger, fear, and trepidation. Local governments as the closest government to the issue have been forced to respond. Within the constrained context of “laboratories of democracy” many cities, have reacted in with a wide range of responses or experiments. Major interest groups for local

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governments have long been on record urging the national government to address the issue. The U.S. Conference of Mayors is on record urging comprehensive reform on the national level. NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the United States Conference of Mayors urges the President of the United States and the United States Congress to approve and sign comprehensive immigration reform legislation that strengthens our nation’s border security, includes a fair and efficient guest worker program, and provides a path to citizenship for the millions of undocumented people who live and work in the United States; and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the United States Conference of Mayors opposes efforts to criminalize undocumented workers for their presence in the United States; and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that The United States Conference of Mayors restates our opposition to efforts in the United States Congress to impose an unfunded federal mandate on local governments by requiring local governments, without reimbursement or training, to enforce immigration violations that are by their nature a Federal responsibility or by reducing local government’s Federal grants in an attempt to coerce them into enforcing Federal immigration laws (U. S. Conference of Mayors 2006).

The national interest group of mayors’ position and lack of effective response by the federal government notwithstanding, individual cities and their elected officials have initiated official and unofficial responses to the issue. In Hazelton, PA, for example, Mayor Lou Barletta spearheaded an ordinance denying business licenses and fining landlords who rented properties to undocumented persons. “The illegal citizens, I would recommend they leave” Barletta said shortly after passage of the city law (Scolforo 2006). In Hamilton Ohio, the Butler County Sheriff has a very aggressive warning and execution policy. It includes large billboards and half page newspaper ads, proclaiming, “Hire an Illegal: BREAK THE LAW!” He has also set up a tip line and a blog to promote a boycott of local businesses that employ undocumented workers. Outside his office there appears a large sign pointing to the county jail, “Illegal Aliens Here.” “I wanted to let the federal government know that if they couldn’t find any illegals, I’ve got some right here in my jail,” said Sheriff Richard K. Jones (Preston 2006:14). In Georgia, a county in metro Atlanta seriously contemplated a Hazelton-like approach until a Pennsylvania judge ruled the ordinance unconstitutional.

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Other city leaders take an entirely different view, especially when it comes to enforcing the legality issue of a person’s citizenship. “Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak objected to federal regulators for help in seizing undocumented people in his city. The Mayor explained, “Vulnerable people have always needed to see the police as being there to protect and serve, and that can’t happen when the first words out of a cop’s mouth are, “I need to see your papers”(quoted in Keen 2006). Regardless of how various communities react to the new city issue, the fact is they are being forced to with little help from the federal government. In the early years of the twenty-first century, cities have seen the national response to rising immigration with a decrease in involvement, not an increase. Strategies for enforcement were refocused and management restructured to address other priorities. For example, from 1999 to 2003, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) work site enforcement operations were scaled back 95% resulting in the number of employers prosecuted for unlawfully employing immigrants from 182 to 4, and corresponding fines collected declined from $3.6 million to $212 thousand. In 1999, the INS initiated fines against 417 companies but issued only three fine notices in 2004. “In 2003, a memo by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) required field offices to request approval before opening work-site cases not related to protecting ‘critical infrastructure’, such as nuclear plants” (Hsu and Lydersen 2006:A.1). ICE also faced a $500 million budget shortfall, and resources were shifted from traditional enforcement to investigations related to national security. Farms, restaurants, and the nation’s food supply chain ‘did not make the cut’, said Mark Reed, then Director of Operations of the INS. “We were pushed away from doing enforcement” (Hsu and Lyndersen 2006:A.1). In the latter half of the decade, ICE funding increased with more emphasis on Border Patrol and efforts to solicit local law enforcement agencies to partner with ICE in deportation efforts. With declining funds, federal enforcers of immigration laws attempt to collaborate and utilize the resources of the city. Police departments are being asked to assist by taking a more active role in immigration control. Some of the biggest cities are reluctant and refuse to cooperate with ICE efforts. The Major Cities Chiefs Association, representing fifty-seven big city police chiefs warn the President and Congress that local enforcement of federal immigration laws would undermine trust and cooperation between immigrants and police. Many cities have spent years trying to build trust with new populations. Houston Police Chief Harold Hunt said, “If we stop individuals (to ask about immigration status), we would lose all that” (Keen 2006).

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Dalton's Approach to Immigration

Immigrants to Georgia are not something new to many areas of the state. Temporary workers from other countries, primarily Latin America, have worked the rural fields of South Georgia for many years. Manufacturing centers in the northern part of the state also have experience with large immigration populations. Dalton is an industrial city that has dealt with immigration issues-both documented and undocumented-for over twenty years. Dalton and the surrounding metropolitan area have coped with the relatively sudden and unexpected rise of a new race in their respective communities, including their cultural, social needs and demands. With this sudden but relatively long history the way Dalton has responded to immigration could be instructive for other areas that may experience large scale immigration populations in the south. The demand for workers in the carpet industry in Dalton became a major attraction for Latinos looking for work. The Dalton community took a proactive approach to adjusting to the major changes occurring in their area. Positive action began in 1995 when the Dalton Leadership Alumni group identified the urgent need for bilingual teachers for the public schools. Also former Congressman and City Attorney Erwin Mitchell worked tirelessly advocating action and kept the issue on the front burner. In July 1995, the City of Dalton held an organizational meeting of the Task Force On Inter-Cultural Relations. According to James Sanders, City Administrator, the city wanted to “create an organized, controlled forum whereby open lines of communication could be found between local government and the Hispanic Community” (Sanders interview 2006). The task force divided itself into five sub committee assignments each consisting of 12-18 members. The city was successful in identifying leaders within the new Latino community willing to serve and each subcommittee had Latino representation. The subcommittees included: Education/Communication, Human Resources/Industrial Relations, Housing, Public Relations, and Law Enforcement. The linchpin to ensure positive results came, however, when the city provided $750,000 over three years to provide the necessary resources. Shortly thereafter the Georgia Project was born with education as its first priority with the following Mission: The Georgia Project is a community based nonprofit organization which seeks to support the academic needs of Latino students, their teachers, and their families through the collaboration with local school districts, the University of Monterrey, and other institutions of higher learning, and the Center for Applied Linguistics (Georgia Project).

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The Georgia Project began with four initiatives: 1. A bilingual teacher program to bring graduates from the university to Dalton. 2. The design of a bilingual education curriculum. 3. A Latino adult education and leadership initiative. 4. A summer institute for local Georgia teachers to learn Spanish and Mexican history and culture in Monterrey (Zúñiga and Hernandez-Leon 2005:256). The connection with the University of Monterrey was developed by Erwin Mitchell’s contacts with the local carpet industry that had the important contacts in Monterrey. Beginning in summer of 1998, approximately fifteen Dalton public school teachers volunteered to spend at least three weeks at the University of Monterrey to learn the Spanish language, history of Mexico, and Mexican culture. Also, the University connection served as a reservoir for Latino teachers who were bilingual to come to Dalton to teach in the public schools. From 1998 to 2006, sixty teachers recruited from the Monterrey connection have taught in Dalton and over 125 Dalton teachers have taken the opportunity to gain from the Summer Institute at the University of Monterrey (Schick interview 2006). The attitude of celebrating diversity did not stand alone in city policy making. Resistance from long term residents of Dalton was both strong and widespread especially with the perceived large number of undocumented or illegal immigrants. In anticipation of the issue becoming increasingly contentious the new police chief began a letter writing campaign to initiate a collaborative effort with federal immigration officials. He wanted a federal presence in the small city with big immigration problems. “The Police Department wants to accomplish three objectives by establishing an INS office in Dalton”, said Chief Chadwick. “First we want to increase the community’s ability to identify illegal aliens and deal with them appropriately. We’d also like to have an INS expert available locally to help identify forged documents and lastly we’d like some assistance tackling the language barrier immigrants present” (Douthat 1995). By the end of the year the Chief’s vision culminated with an INS office established in Dalton. The city assigned two police officers and a secretary to combine with two federal officers with an initial plan to work the Dalton area 2-3 days per week. This approach was the first of its kind in the United States and was known as the Joint Immigration

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Task Force (JITF). In an open meeting the INS district officer outlined the goals and objectives : 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

What the JITF is, its make-up and responsibilities. What assistance the JITF can offer employers. How to properly prepare I-9 forms. What type of documents employers should expect to see. How to detect bad alien cards. Employers responsibilities to their employees with regard to immigration laws. 7. How to avoid immigration audits through lawful cooperation (Staff Reports 2006). Law enforcement, however, was a primary objective, at least from the police chief’s stanpoint. In the first year, the JITF claimed success with “260 deportations of illegal aliens, the execution of four search warrants and two employers have been raided and more than 150 illegal workers arrested, according to a report from that office”(Rehyanksy 1996). The city and county governments were certainly not the only organizations to take pro active action. Community and religious governmental organizations also responded. In 1996 the DaltonWhitfield Chamber of Commerce took the lead in planning for the future by hosting a community stakeholder’s summit attended by more than 200 people. The summit yielded a document for setting forth a vision, strategies, and benchmarks for achievement. The document includes, “Consider the ethnic diversity in our community to be a competitive advantage and celebrate our diversities” (Dalton-Whitfield Community Development Corporation 2004). The Chamber of Commerce developed several programs and specific efforts to foster the growth of acculturation and assimilation of the Latino community into north Georgia living. Working with the Latin American Community Alliance (Allianza Comunitaria Latino Americana) known as ACLA, the Chamber cultivated leadership and the spirit of volunteerism in the new population. One of the problems cited by Phyllis Stephens, Senior Vice President of the Chamber was finding leaders within the Latino community. This has been an increasing problem as original Latino leaders have grown tired and ready to let others take these leadership roles. The issue of finding and developing leaders does not stop with the established whites in the community but extends into the Latino community. “They (identified Latino leaders) are

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having a hard time finding replacements in a group not used to being volunteers” (Stephens interview 2006). As a way to bridge this gap the Chamber has sponsored several informal meetings (cookouts and dinners), organized cultural tours of Latino owned businesses, assisted in a census count in the Latino community, utilize the Spanish media sources, and exhibited in cultural expositions in the area. The Chamber has attempted to build cultural awareness by offering Spanish classes for business and industry, cultural workshops, and how to market to the Latino community. Dalton State Community College has also played an important role by creating the Center for Continuing Education Latino Advisory Council in 1998. The Center offers a wide but relevant range of programs including; citizenship classes, defensive driving, seminars on how to start your own business, customized programs for businesses in conversational Spanish, among others. All of these efforts accumulated to increase the chances of a more successful cohesive community. The common point reiterated in the interviews with the City Administrator, the Georgia Project Director, and the Chamber of Commerce executive was the importance of building trust and developing relationships with newly arrived persons. In this context the issue of legitimacy was not the only priority. The community leaders sought to set a tone of respect and responsibility for persons residing in Dalton in order to contribute to a better community. Community organizations have also played an important part in a social welfare role. Challenges such as language barriers, housing, education, and access to health care are acutely felt at the local level. Most Latino migrants are faced with an alien environment and foreign society. In Dalton, faith-based organizations (FBOs) provided integration assistance in several areas such as, additional language training, support groups, explaining laws, religious socialization, counseling, immigration assistance, emergency food, clothing and housing, and medical and dental aid. Numerous local churches and congregations have established Latino/outreach ministries and charitable organizations. Of particular note is St. Joseph’s Catholic Church and Dalton’s First Baptist Church. As a member of the Georgia Baptist Convention (GBC) the First Baptist Church of Dalton along with four other GBC member churches provides assistance to the community’s immigrant population. Because of Latino immigrant’s historical association with the Catholic Church, the largest faith-based social service provider is Catholic Charities which is housed at the newly built St. Joseph’s Church. An arm of the Catholic Archdiocese, Catholic Charities has been providing social services to

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Dalton’s immigrant population since 1998. At present, Catholic Charities provides a part-time paid staff member who spends 20 hours a week assisting clients in a range of social, psychological, and legal services. For example, an immigration attorney employed by Catholic Charities has regular meetings with clients to assist with legal issues surrounding immigration. In addition, other faith based communities such as the United Methodist Churches, The Church of God, and the Episcopal Church have begun to actively reach out to Dalton’s large immigrant population as well. Complimenting the work of the churches, ACLA provides a link between the native born and immigrant population. Established by Erwin Mitchell in 1997, ACLA began to identify and organize leaders within the migrant community in an effort to bridge linguistic and cultural differences between the two groups. Working in concert with the Dalton / Whitfield Chamber of Commerce, ACLA promoted an active young leaders program among the immigrant population with some success. According to Aaron Moore, a board member of ACLA “we would like to become an institutional part of the community, meeting on a permanent basis, self sustaining and working directly with the city government and the Latino community.” At present, ACLA meets once a month in a store front purchased with $5,000.00 grant money awarded by The National Council of La Raza (NCLR) the nation’s largest Latino advocacy and civil rights organization. Currently, the NCLR has provided an additional grant of $10,000.00 designed to help employ a professional staff to work the storefront on a daily basis. Membership in ACLA is drawn from both the English speaking and Spanish speaking community. At present, ACLA’s president is Mr. Norberto Reyes, founder and owner of the city’s largest and most popular Mexican restaurant in Dalton, Los Reyes. In an effort to ease transition into the host society, local communal organizations and FBOs sponsored activities geared toward incorporating migrants into their new environment. Further, the professional staff members are sensitive to the historical, social, and psychological needs of the migrants to retain their cultural heritage as a means of self-preservation in the face of a sometimes unwelcoming climate. Among the most pressing challenges facing Latino immigrants in North Georgia is their social exclusion. For Latino immigrants with little or insufficient command of English, the first step toward societal integration is learning English. One obvious obstacle to learning English is those who work full-time and raising children who have little time or material resources to devote to learning English. At best, learning

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English through informal means can be expected and the ability to learn another language declines with age. Resettling in a new environment with different value systems requires the migrant to adapt to the existing societal norms. In this regard, volunteer organizations, rather than local government play a more central role. These organizations provide linkages between the host society and migrant community in two ways: (1) by overlapping leadership—immigrant leaders are also members of the host communal organizations; and (2) by attempts of the host communal organizations to represent specific or diffuse immigrant interests in the larger political community. According to Schmitter (1980:184), there are four types of organizations that provide access to socio-political participation and therefore promoting linkages between the host and immigrant communities: 1. Host country organizations such as local churches, the United Way and The Salvation Army. 2. Informal organizations of the host country such as ACLA in its early inception as an ad-hoc advocacy organization. Typically, these organizations come about in response to the prolonged presence of migrants and consist of groups of concerned citizens. 3. Formal organizations of the country of immigrant origin to include consular and embassy services. 4. Informal immigrant associations to include all immigrant groups founded in the host community. At present, there are numerous social and soccer clubs in Dalton and surrounding Whitfield County that have been established in the past decade in response to the large influx of Latino migrants. These organizations promote social capital formation (see Putnam 2000) among the Latino immigrant population and attempt to help assimilate the newcomers. To which Siranni and Friedland (1995:1) add: Perhaps the fastest growing form of community organizing today, congregation-based organizing mobilizes existing stocks of social capital in church networks, and generates new stocks across denominations and (sometimes) across ethnic and racial lines. It relies on one-on-one relationship building as the foundation stone for locating and developing community leaders and building trust through a mutual understanding of self interest and values.

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As noted above, there is a growing presence of host country organizations which are directly involved in issue advocacy in support of Latino immigrant rights. Organizations such as the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials (GALEO), The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), and The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) are taking an active role in educating and advocating on behalf of Georgia’s Latino immigrant population. Statewide we are seeing a growing sense of what Breton (1964) terms “institutional completeness” among host country and immigrant organization via efforts to build civic capacity where greater reliability on one another is taking precedence. The role of social networks and ethnic communities in protecting the interests of immigrant communities in the U.S. is well established. It has often been argued that the creation of ethnic communities has helped to retard class consciousness among ethnic minority groups but has also had positive features in facilitating the immigrants' transition from one society to another. In other words, the ethnic ghetto acted as a cushion between the immigrant and his new environment (Schmitter 1983:314; see also Schmitter 1980:1). Putnam’s (2000) earlier work on social capital formation emphasized the contributions made by grassroots civil associations and their social relations among group members. To which Schoeneberg (1985:432) notes: … participation in ethnic organizations can not simply be seen as an indicator of social segregation and cultural distance among immigrants. The connections between organizational participation, direct contacts to majority group members, and cultural assimilation are more complex and depend in part on the goals and activities of the ethnic organization. The majority of ethnic organizations can be safely assumed to have positive effects on the social integration of their members within the host society and at least not to hinder their assimilation.

Paradoxically, the function of social networks within immigrant groups could, in fact reinforce the tendency toward the segregation of immigrant families. Further, many national and ethnic minorities may be unaware of these associations or they may not wish to participate in them. Nevertheless, we should look at these efforts within the Latino community to join together and improve the lives of their members as, in the words of Jane Addams, founder of Chicago’s Hull House cooperative immigrant settlement a “civic machinery for democratic expression” (quoted in Stivers 2002). In this instance the civic machinery is the willingness of immigrants to engage one another and

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participate in the larger body politic in an effort to address issues of importance to their community. Therefore, we should view immigrant civic associations as essential building blocks in our pluralist democracy allowing members voice and representation, rather than as an expression of an unwillingness to assimilate. Conclusion

The exponential rise in Latino immigration to Georgia in recent years presents both challenges and opportunities. Just as earlier waves of European immigrants who fully assimilated over time into the American body politic, it is apparent that for many of Georgia’s Latino migrants, assimilation and societal integration will not come overnight. Much of this, argues Massey (1995, 1999), has to do with the long hiatus between the classic era and the new regime (forty years), which provided “breathing space” whereby the nation absorbed and accommodated the large immigrant cohorts from Southern and Eastern Europe. A second obstacle leading to the successful integration and assimilation of Latino migrants in Georgia is their geographic density. As noted earlier, of Georgia’s 159 counties, only a small number are home to the State’s burgeoning Latino community. As a result of this spatial concentration, it is unlikely that, at least in the near future, that Georgia’s Latino population will adopt the traits of its native born citizens. However, there are signs that assimilation is taking place. According to the study, “Hispanics: A People in Motion” conducted by The Pew Hispanic Center (2005:19), “there is a clear trend in which ‘American’ becomes a more favored identity among Latinos who speak more English and less Spanish and who trace their roots in the United States back a generation or more.” The continued demand for low-skill labor coupled with the search for improved economic conditions, and network factors may continue to draw large number of Latinos to Dalton. According to Martin (2002:5), “[t]he factors that encourage a migrant to actually move are grouped into three categories: demand-pull, supply-push, and network factors.” Regarding network factors, Bachtel notes that migrants are, “spurred by a still sound economy and family members already in town the stream from across the border and other cities is a steady one . . . once it starts it continues” (cited in Lavender 2005). All three factors contribute to the large-scale migration into the State of Georgia. When we combine the demand-pull factors of an expanding State economy with the supplypush factors of a large number of low-skilled labor with little chance at success in the stagnant Mexican economy and couple that with an

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established network of family and friends, it is apparent that the drive for more immigration from south of the U.S. border is not likely to end despite the passage of Georgia’s restrictive immigration law. To be certain, the citizens of Georgia should petition their elected representatives to address the issue of undocumented immigration. However, they should not be too naïve as to believe that immigration can be controlled solely through state legislation. What is needed is a comprehensive approach to curbing undocumented flows into the State and the U.S., and this can only be accomplished when we take into consideration all the actors involved—the sending country, employers, governmental institutions, non-governmental organizations, native-born citizens, and the migrants themselves. Until we honestly address the differences between the economies of the U.S. and the sending country, we will continue to experience large-scale immigration to the state and nation. To which Martin (2002:7) adds, “[m]igration is a result of differences—in demographic growth, in incomes, and in security and human rights. These differences are increasing, so international migration is likely to increase in the 21st century.” The Dalton response indicates acknowledgment of these “differences.” The cumulative effect of the two-pronged strategy—law enforcement and needs response—points to a successful balanced approach. The city funded initiatives for the Inter-Cultural Task Force, the Georgia Project, and the JITF can be positively assessed by its sustainability and outcomes. Our assertion is Dalton is an example of a balanced policy approach addressing the needs and demands of the whole community—an example of a proactive policy decision. The approach matched the intent to act with a sizable appropriation ($750,000) to ensure the policies had adequate resources. “As has been demonstrated in the past, without adequate funding an idea and its successful implementation are problematic at best” (Baker and Harris 2007). The Georgia Project sets the tone on its web site as “Celebrating Diversity In Georgia.” It further describes its attitude: “Really though the Georgia Project is about people coming together to learn, to live, and to prosper in a culturally diverse Georgia” (Georgia Project website 2006). The success of the Georgia Project has developed the organization beyond a focus of education and now, according to its Executive Director, Jo-Ann Schick, it serves as a general clearinghouse for a myriad of questions from the community. This marks the building of trust the Georgia Project has earned. Viewed from the perspective of local government, community leaders should continue to demonstrate their interest in the cultural and historical backgrounds—as well as current needs—of their Latino

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immigrant neighbors. To do otherwise could have serious portents. Summing up this reality, Jerry Gonzalez, Executive Director, Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials asks: “Where would Dalton be without the immigrants who have come here to provide much needed labor? . . . Dalton would not be as prosperous as they are without the immigrant population” (Gonzalez cited in Blackwood 2006).

15 Conclusion: Southern Location, National Implications Cameron D. Lippard and Charles A. Gallagher

Over the past 25 years, the dramatic influx of Latino immigrants to the American South has certainly altered the racial and ethnic make-up of this region. While the South has not traditionally been the first choice for immigrants migrating to the U.S., the economic booms in specific industries (i.e., manufacturing, construction, and agriculture) and the relatively inviting atmosphere of the “New” South has particularly made it appealing to many Latino immigrants. Within a blink of an eye, Black and White southerners began to see tiendas and Mexican restaurants popping up and an increased the prevalence of Latinos working as servers, gardeners, and burger-flippers in almost every corner of Dixie. Some southerners also found themselves working alongside many Latinos on the line cutting chicken, harvesting cucumbers, or building new homes. Even southern children now have a glimpse into diversity with the introduction Latino classmates in many southern schools that have been primarily Black and White for years. The goal of this volume, however, was not to merely document the demographic shifts in the South. Unlike previous collections, the original writings and research in this book considered how the influx of Latino immigrants has challenged or changed the southern lexicon of race and ethnic relations. More specifically, the authors tackled three essential questions: (1) how will Latinos arriving to the South transform the conceptions of race, ethnicity, and racism, (2) how will these newcomers test southern institutions, and (3) are the social, political, and economic experiences (i.e., prejudice and discrimination) of Latinos living and working in this region qualitatively different than Blacks or Whites? While all of the authors engage these questions differently, all of them provide one clear and resounding answer: Dixie, historically

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characterized by its black-white dichotomy, has developed a neuvo way of looking at race and racism in which being “brown” matters as much as being “Black” or “White” in understanding one’s racialized social position in the 21st century. While the discussions in this text are clearly located in the American South, we argue that there are broader theoretical and empirical implications to explaining coming changes to the American racial hierarchy caused by the recent infusion of Latinos into this country. Of course, the South is relatively new to the discussion of understanding the intermixing of immigration and American race relations. In addition, the South is still not the primary destination for most immigrants or other racial and ethnic minorities, as still significant numbers go to more traditional immigrant destinations in New York, California, Illinois, and Texas. We also understand that being “brown” and the prejudice and discrimination Hispanics have faced in the South recently is not wholly new. Certainly, Hispanics in the U.S. have a rarely acknowledged past of dealing with racism in the South (namely, Texas and Florida), as well as in the American Midwest and West. However, unlike any other U.S. regions, the South has and continues to be seen in America and around the world as the social barometer for understanding race relations in the United States. More importantly, because of its contemptuous struggle with race, the South has also been the test case in understanding and enforcing ideological and structural shifts in how Americans will view race and racism. With this newest challenge, we believe that the American South is again a place that serves as a benchmark for the rest of America, and can once again provide important insights into how the U.S. will change and approach the future issues of racialization. Therefore, the rest of this chapter elaborates on how this volume provides larger implications for understanding the future of race and racism in American society. Race, Racism, and the Neuvo Racial Order

We contend that there are three broader implications that can be gleaned from this volume to understand issues of race and ethnicity in the United States for the 21st century. First, as several chapters point out, race and racism are still salient concepts and structures that shape the life experiences of various groups across the South and the United States. More importantly, we believe that the presence of Latinos in the South, and across America, have helped to illuminate the continuing issues of racism that promote and sustain White dominance in America.

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Second, this volume calls for America to consider a fundamental shift in its views of the American racial order. Even though the South and the rest of the United States still view, define, and interpret race relations and discrimination through a “lens of black and white racism” (Galindo and Vigil 2006:421), this limited mindset does not often recognize the long history of racialization and racism that many other groups, including Asians and Latinos, have endured. With Latinos now being the largest minority group in the country, Americans will soon have to deviate from their traditional understandings of race and ethnicity and consider how Latinos will shape the racialized systems of power and privilege in the U.S. Third, we highlight that collaborative efforts between Latinos and other racial and ethnic groups may be the way to address both the rising fears Americans have about immigration and the issues Latinos face while trying to work and live in the U.S. We argue that Latinos are not necessarily the root cause of many of the problems communities face today. On the contrary, the arrival of Latinos may have only magnified problems that already existed across America. For instance, public education has struggled to provide adequate educations to all groups, not just Spanish-speaking individuals in the last few decades. Thus, efforts and solutions should address the systematic issues that impact all individuals in the most appropriate ways to benefit all parties. We recognize, however, that what we are suggesting in this conclusion goes against strong public opinion that race and racism are dead. For instance, Gallup polls and racial attitudes research using national samples since the 1990s have reported that a majority of Whites, as well as an increasing percentage of racial minorities, agree that the Civil Rights Movement and affirmative action policies have effectively turned the tide of racial prejudice and discrimination for all minorities, especially African Americans (Bonilla-Silva 2006; Gallagher 2008; Schuman, Steeh, and Bobo 1997; Wise 2009). Or, as some scholars note (see Bonilla-Silva 2006; Feagin 2001; Gallagher 2008), the majority of the American public whole-heartedly believes that all individuals stand on a level playing field and race has little to do with determining anyone’s life chances. It also helps that widely-read conservative publications about race and racism including, The End of Racism by Dinesh D’Souza and The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, have helped to foster and solidify opinions that the archaic notions of race and racism that brought about American slavery and Jim Crow segregation were effectively dispatched after the 1960s. Public opinion has also been swayed by the limited but noticeable success of some African

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Americans in America. Certainly, the successful election of the firstever African American President of the United States, Barack Obama, and the relative social and economic success seen every day in the media with Oprah, Tiger Woods, or Jay-Z have helped to reinforce American’s sense of racial equality and equity (see Gallagher 2008; Wingfield and Feagin 2010; Wise 2008). The same is true when discussing the prejudice and discrimination that immigrants face in America (or any other group not Black or White). As Steinberg (1989) suggests, Americans commonly view the hardships and struggles immigrants endure as part of being an immigrant in America. Steinberg (1989) also suggests that many Americans view immigrant struggles as their right-of-passage to being accepted as “true” Americans. Or, as Gallagher (2003) finds when interviewing Whites, they often play the ethnic card or suggest that their White immigrant ancestors equally suffered to be accepted in America just like Blacks and other immigrant minorities. Gallagher further suggest that not only do Whites do this to deemphasize any racialized problems left in America but to also suggests that any prejudice and discrimination that these groups face is the norm and simply a part of the process of becoming an American. Scholars who study nativism also find that throughout American history politicians and the public justify any policies that target or harass immigrants, especially illegal immigrants who are “brown,” as necessary steps to protect national interests (Galindo and Vigil 2006). As defined by Higham (1955), nativism is an “intense opposition to an internal minority on the grounds of its foreign (i.e., ‘un-American’) connections…a zeal to destroy the enemies of a distinctively American way of life.” However, it becomes more than nativism when these attacks target certain groups, particularly ones that are distinctively noticeable due to their skin color or cultural qualities (i.e., language differences). For example, the Mexican Repatriation movement of the 1930s, the Zoot Suit Riots and Operation Wetback of the 1940s and 1950s, and Proposition 187 in California in the 1990s all targeted Hispanics, immigrants and citizens, and were not seen as racist attacks. However, these violent responses were seen by the American public and the government as dealing with an “immigrant problem” in the American West that happens to focus on anyone who looked like a Mexican immigrant, including those who were native-born U.S. citizens. More recently, several states in the South and across the West have attempted or passed their own immigration laws to address issues of illegal immigration, particularly from Mexico. In fact, many of these laws have used language that specifically target Mexican immigrants.

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For instance, the recent Arizona Immigration Law (SB 1070) uses language in which law enforcement officers can stop anyone suspicious of being an illegal alien. As American Civil Liberties Union (2010) suggests, the only way to determine if a person is an illegal alien will require law enforcement to use racial profiling; thus, if you are brown or speak Spanish, then you are suspicious. Interestingly, the Pew Research Center’s (2010) poll of whether Americans supported the Arizona law found that 59% surveyed were in favor of the law. Moreover, as the Gallup (2010) poll suggests, most Americans support this law as well as other attempts to reform current immigration because they particularly deal with illegal Mexican immigration. Despite public opinion that wants to believe and assert that America has shed its racist tendencies, we argue that this collection of works resurrects the supposedly post-mortem ideology by pointing out the racial discrimination and isolation Latinos have faced in the South. More important, we believe that the writings and research presented here call for America to view race and racism through a different lens that sees beyond the traditional notions that these terms describe only an antiblack ideology. Americans must also move past the notions that racism has to be as blatant and obvious as legalized apartheid and lynchings to be noticed. In fact, as several scholars on racism suggest (e.g., Bobo, Kluegel, and Smith 1997; Bonilla-Silva 2006; Feagin 2001; Gallagher 2008; Omi and Winant 1994), while “old” racism may seem to be over because legalized racism (i.e., Jim Crow laws) were abolished, we must consider that racism continues to plague the U.S. in more subtle and covert ways, which continues to negatively impact those that are not White on almost every institutional front. More important, as Coates (2007) suggests, American racism is not a fixed ideology but one that has morphed to make sure White dominance continues in America. Race and Racism Still Matter

The first implication we want to stress is that this volume provides examples in understanding how race and racism are alive and well across America. We base this proposition on the information presented throughout this text that support the critical race theories presented in the introduction of this volume. Particularly, we propose that the findings in this volume support Omi and Winant’s (1994) arguments of how racism has persisted in America after the 1960s. As suggested by Omi and Winant’s (1994:162) racial formation theory, American racism is a socio-historical and structuralized ideology that encourages social actions that “create or reproduce structures of domination based on

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essentialist categories of race” to continue to put Whites at the top of the racial hierarchy. Thus, racism is about perpetuating “White” superiority by using and infusing racial categories into American social institutions and policies to promote, sustain, and protect Whites. Omi and Winant (1994) also point out that there are mechanisms social scientists should identify when locating racism today. One mechanism Omi and Winant (1994) propose for researchers to consider is whether “racialization” is still afoot. Racialization is the process of assigning racial meaning or identity to social groups that are not previously classified based on race. For instance, in recent years, the U.S. Census has created an almost new racial category in America for all Spanish-speaking individuals—“Hispanic” or “Latino” (see Rodriguez 2000). The process of attaching value to subjective racial assumptions has happened for all groups, and these categories are constantly rearticulated and made fluid to ensure “Whites” stay on top. As the authors suggest throughout this book, Hispanics or Latino newcomers to the South find themselves collectively racialized as a cohesive group and a threat to the South’s well-being in many instances. However, this racialized identity is different than what the South and the rest of the United States is used to when examining issues of race and racism. As suggested throughout this volume, Latinos face prejudice and discrimination because of two identities that are interlocked. The first identity makes them a racialized subordinate in the American racial hierarchy. As Marrow suggested in her chapter, Latinos are first seen as racial subordinates in the South because many southerners, especially in rural areas, view race and racism as an issue in which color equals social rank. The second identity is one that labels all Latinos as “undeserving outsiders” to the southern and American way of life. Not only are they brown but they are all “illegal Mexican immigrants” who threaten the social, economic, and political stability of native-born Whites and Blacks. Or, as suggested by some chapters, these brown immigrants threaten what is perceived as unstable and a limited set of resources (i.e., good jobs, housing, and public services). This second qualifier of the Latino identity in the South is present despite the fact that at least 25% of the total Latino population in the South came from other Central and Latin American countries and a majority are here legally (Kochhar, Suro, and Tafoya 2005). Nonetheless, as several chapters suggest, Latinos find this bifurcated identity as a precarious social position in the South in which they are socially inferior to Whites and other native-born individuals but, in some limited cases, superior to native-born Blacks. Thus, they face a double-threat of racial and non-racial prejudice and discrimination.

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However, Omi and Winant (1994) suggest that racialization is inert if it is not linked to a racial state of structural agents that encourage dominance based on race. Therefore, the second mechanism that social scientists should identify to demonstrate that race and racism are salient concepts is “racial projects” that “reorganize and redistribute resources along particular racial lines” (Omi and Winant 1994:56). For example, indigenous American tribes were clumped together as “Indians” or “Native Americans” to rationalize Manifest Destiny policies to procure more territories for the U.S. that went mainly to White settlers. A current example is when lending agencies use the categories of “White,” “Black,” and now “Hispanic,” as a proxy to determine “creditworthiness” to receive a home loan. Omi and Winant (1994) suggest that the racial projects often reside in American institutions that use the classifications to distribute power, privilege and wealth and situate all racialized groups into the American racial hierarchy. Thus, the problem with racialization is that it becomes infused within the very social institutions that are necessary to succeed in America, rewarding and punishing certain groups based on their categorizations. This edited volume provides several examples in which Latinos’ racialized identity is a serious hindrance across several institutions and situations in the South. In fact, these issues reported here mimic several social issues that face Latinos across the United States. For example, as Wainer’s chapter suggests, Latino students face serious barriers in obtaining an adequate public education in southern schools. The biggest barrier identified was that school systems were inadequately prepared to handle Spanish-speaking students. More important, Latino students entering southern public schools were wholly viewed by principals and teachers as incapable of excelling academically because of perceived cultural differences. However, the trends reported by Wainer seem to be a problem for Latinos across America. For instance, nationally, Latino students have the lowest graduation rates (52%) and the highest dropout rates (24%) of any other racial or ethnic group in America (U.S. Census 2004). Latinos are also second least likely (Native Americans are first) to go to college or to receive any sort of college degree awarded in the U.S. (U.S. Department of Education 2003). Pachon et al. (2003) suggest that Latino children in the U.S. face an overwhelming set of barriers concerning their education including being enrolled in overcrowded school systems with ill-equipped teachers, economic hardships, language fluency issues, and the challenges of socially integrating into the American way of life. We also see the damaging effects of being racialized in the South among Latinos who are employed. As reported in this edited volume,

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while Latinos are preferred in several labor-intensive jobs, they also face serious obstacles in advancing past these low-paying positions. Nationally, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (2009) finds that Latinos are largely employed in four occupations: service, sales, construction and maintenance, and production. As suggested by researchers (e.g., Rosenfeld and Tienda 1999; Waldinger and Lichter 2003), most of these occupations are labor-intensive and offer low wages. These types of occupations may offer higher employment rates for Latinos in comparison to other racial and ethnic groups (Kochhar 2006) but, in 2007, Latinos represented the highest rate (10.5%) of the “working poor,” individuals who have steady work but whose incomes still place them below the official poverty level in comparison to all other racial and ethnic groups (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2009). In addition, the average yearly income for Latino individuals is around $12,000 and the median family income of Latinos is around $33,000 a year, which is $20,000 dollars less than Whites (U.S. Census 2010). Put simply, while Latinos seem to have little problem finding work, much of this work is low-paying and can do little to give Latino families any economic advantages in comparison to other American families. The same parallels between the South and the nation concerning housing can also be drawn. As Sills and Blake’s chapter pointed out, Latinos faced rates of discrimination by real estate agents, landlords, and mortgage lenders that were equal to what African Americans faced in Greensboro, North Carolina. Nationally, the same trends hold true. In a sample of metropolitan areas across the U.S., Ross and Turner (2005) found that while the magnitude of disparate treatment and discrimination in rental and owner-occupied housing marketing has declined in recent decades, these issues do persist for Hispanics and Blacks in comparison to Whites. The National Fair Housing Alliance has consistently found and reported research results that suggest continuing issues of residential segregation and discrimination for almost all racial and ethnic minorities across the United States (see http://www.nationalfairhousing.org/). Issues of steering minorities away from White neighborhoods and predatory lending practices continue to keep minorities from affordable and adequate housing options. For instance, Jakabovics and Chapman (2009) found that while many minorities across the nation have been able to access and obtain more home loans in recent years, they were more likely than Whites to end up with “higher-priced” loans (i.e., high interest rates and fees). In 2006, only 17.8% of Whites received highcost loans but 30.9% of Hispanics and 41.5% of Blacks received higherpriced loans. Certainly, when we couple these issues with the relatively low income levels of Hispanics, it is not a surprise as to why Latinos

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have the lowest rates of home ownership (about 48%) in comparison to all other racial and ethnic groups (U.S. Census 2003). The same is true concerning the criminal justice system. For example, as Rodigruez’s chapter suggests, even though Latino immigrant juveniles are not necessarily committing as many crimes as native-born juveniles across the South, they are often sent through this system based on the notion that they have to be more "criminallyminded." Certainly, national statistics suggest some harsh realities for Latinos in the American criminal justice system. For instance, in a recent study of traffic stop data in North Carolina, Lippard and Page (2010) find that Hispanics are almost 3 times more likely to be stopped in comparison to Whites across the state. This likelihood also increased dramatically in counties and cities in which there was a higher Latino population concentration. As Mucchetti (2005:10) states, “Unfortunately, [the] ‘hypergrowth’ [of the Latino population] has too often been accompanied by a hyperactivity in discriminatory practices such as racial profiling.” Nationally, Latinos are more likely than Blacks or Whites to be searched during a traffic stop (U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics 2002), and Latinos have a 10% chance of going to prison, which is higher than Whites at 3% and lower than Blacks at 19% (U.S. Bureau of Statistics 2001). This is despite the fact that nationally, Latino immigrants and other immigrant groups, have the lowest crime rates of all groups in the U.S. population on any given indicator (e.g., Chavez and Provine 2009; Hagan and Palloni 1999; Martinez and Lee 2009; Reid, Weiss, Adelman, and Jaret 2005). However, as Aguirre (2004) suggests, being a Latino means being associated with an identity that is seen automatically by police, and the American public, as a potential drug smuggler, gang member, or illegal alien. Finally, we see the same issues of racialization for Latinos in the actions of state governments and political organizations across the South and the rest of America. As mentioned in the introduction, many new immigrant destination states have created immigration laws and statutes that would cut off access to public services and encourage racial profiling among law enforcement officials to close state borders and run Latinos out of town. The National Immigration Law Center (2010) reports that over 20 different states have attempted to pass state legislation to deal with what they viewed as serious immigration issues that the federal government has failed to address. As Chavez and Provine (2009) find in an analysis of recent state legislation tackling immigration, most legislators are ignoring the fact that Latinos are not necessarily an economic, political, or even criminal threat and are creating anti-immigrant legislation as a reaction to conservative citizen

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worries. The recent immigration law passed in Arizona (SB1070) undoubtedly targets “brown” immigrants as suspicious of being in the U.S. illegally. Sadly, since this law has been passed, 17 other states have drafted similar legislation that mimic Arizona’s legislation, including four southern states: Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas (ALIPAC 2010). We also cannot ignore that the Klu Klux Klan and many White nationalist groups have identified Latinos as the new threat to White America (see http://www.kkk.bz/). In addition, several hundred U.S. citizens have volunteered to protect the border from the “immigrant invasion” (Chavez 2008). In fact, such organizations as the Minuteman Project founded by Jim Gilchrist have recruited thousands of native-born U.S. citizens, mainly residents in border states, to stem the tide of illegal immigration from Mexico. However, like other nativist and racist agendas of the past, these organizations couch their missions as anything but racism or nativism. As Chavez (2008) points out, many of these organizations view their targeting of Mexican immigrants and Latinos, in general, as an obligatory part of addressing serious national concerns of increasing problems with illegal drug trafficking, gang violence, and international terrorism (see also Jacoby 2004). While the issues of racialization and systematic discrimination emphasized in this book are specific to the South, the hardships Latinos face in the South undoubtedly reflect national trends. More important, these difficulties demonstrate that race and racism matter in America because, as Coates (2007) notes, a key way to recognize racism in the 21st century is to examine the different social indicators, locally and nationally, that signify the continued victimization of racial and ethnic minorities. Certainly, based on the social indicators examined throughout this chapter and text, we believe it is apparent that these once presumed dead concepts continue to be powerful in shaping at least the life outcomes of Latinos in America. More important, we contend that Latinos in the South, and across America, will continue to face a racialized future that will change the racial order of America forever. Changing the Racial Order

The second important lesson to take away from this collection is that the American racial order is changing and the ways in which America thinks about race and ethnic relations can no longer be framed, literally and figuratively, in Black and White. As suggested throughout this text, the U.S. cannot ignore that Latinos are the largest racial and ethnic minority group in the United States to date (15% of the total U.S. population) and

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will only continue to grow. As Johnson (2009) points out, there are two population shifts that will dramatically change the United States. One will be the “graying” of the American population as the baby boomer generation reaches retirement. The second will be the “browning” of the American population in which Asians and Latinos will make up at least 8.2% and 24.5%, respectively, of the U.S. population by 2050. Moreover, Johnson (2009) suggests that based on 2006 estimates, Latinos will become a significant part of the U.S. population because they have the largest population that is under 26 years old and have a birth rate of 2.3 children, which is higher than any other racial or ethnic groups’ birth rates. Americans must also sit up and take notice that Latinos are also becoming major players in the social spaces of America. For instance, as suggested by Martinez’s chapter, Latinos have begun to get more involved with American politics. Although DeSipio and de la Garza (2002) point out that only one in six Latinos vote because they are a younger and less-educated crowd, they do see that this population has become more involved in civic organizations and voting as more Latinocentered issues have arisen. In addition, they note that the Latino immigrants who become citizens vote more and, agreeing with Martinez’s findings concerning the South, Latinos vote more often when they live within a geographical concentration. However, as Taylor and Fry (2007) point out, just recently Hispanics were seen as the "swing vote" for democratic candidates in the recent 2008 elections in several states across the U.S. George W. Bush and John McCain both suggested they got elected because of the Latino vote (DeSipio and de la Garza 2002). And, as mentioned in the introduction, more and more Latinos are taking to the streets to speak out against recent public policy decisions targeting Latino immigrants and citizens in 2006 and 2010. The U.S. has also seen growth in Latinos participating in political campaigns as advisors and joining new political action committees and organizations. Latinos are also a significant part of the workforce in the U.S. As of 2006, Latinos represented around 13.6% of the total workforce in the U.S. (Kochhar 2006). In particular, Hispanics represent 19.4%, 25.1%, and 25.1% of the agricultural, construction, and hospitality workforces, respectively. In addition, Hispanics represent about 13% of the professional workforce which is higher than African Americans and Asians who only represent about 5.7% and 9.8%, respectively. Also, from 1997 to 2002, the number of Hispanic-owned businesses increased by 31%, which was triple the national rate of entrepreneurship at 10% (cited by Humphreys 2006 from the 2002 Survey of Business Owners).

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Kochhar (2006) also estimates that about 36.7% of U.S. job growth consisted of Hispanic applicants and this percentage will continue to grow steadily even during the recent economic downturn. Interestingly, researchers have estimated that due to these employment and selfemployment rates, Latino buying power in 2006 was over $800 billion and would increase to $1.1 trillion by 2011 (Humphreys 2006). Though not fully discussed in this book, Latinos have particularly become visible to America because of the media. While Latinos have always existed in the public eye through television and movies, it is only recently that their presence existed outside of negative stereotypes or limited to Spanish-only broadcasts through Univision or Telemundo. However, since 2002, television shows such as The George Lopez Show and Ugly Betty have introduced the American public to the Latino community as a “legitimate” ethnic group participating in American culture much like the Cosby Show did for African Americans. In addition, as a recent PBS documentary, Brown Is the New Green, points out, “Latino” is a new demographic for companies and marketers to sell products and services to across the nation. However, it has also helped to solidify stereotypes about Hispanics as a group that is largely Mexican, Spanish-speaking, materialistic, and family-oriented. More important, Latinos are a homogeneous group that think and act in one accord (see http://www.latinosandmedia.org/). For alarmists like Samuel Huntington, Jim Gilchrist, and other antiimmigrant proponents, this dramatic shift in population demographics and social involvement of Latinos in America has signaled the end of the American way of life. Many believe that Latinos will represent a complete upheaval of American culture. As if channeling Benjamin Franklin’s rage against German immigrants in the 1700s, Huntington (2004:1) predicted the following concerning how Latinos would change the United States: The persistent inflow of Hispanic immigrants threatens to divide the United States into two peoples, two cultures, and two languages. Unlike past immigrant groups, Mexicans and other Latinos have not assimilated into mainstream U.S. culture, forming instead their own political and linguistic enclaves—from Los Angeles to Miami—and rejecting the Anglo-Protestant values that built the American dream. The United States ignores this challenge at its peril.

Still, other individuals and groups suggest that Latinos will destroy White America. This message is clear on the Klu Klux Klan’s official website in an article entitled, “Alien Invasion!” It states:

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The 1965 Immigration Act drove the nail into the coffin—at least that was their plan. In state after state white people are nearing minority status. In a few states they already do. Non-white immigrant families work to have large numbers of children knowing that the more ties they have to the U.S. the harder it is for the INS to send them back to their native country. In fact the U.S. isn’t the only country with nonwhite aliens flooding in. White nations around the world are being overrun with non-whites. These non-whites affect education, government, the courts, culture, and religion, etc. There is nothing in society that will remain untainted by the hordes of non-white immigrants coming into white nations. Non-white nations historically have no notion of freedom, individual rights, Christianity, etc. If our people become the minority our liberty will cease to exist.

To be sure, Latinos will change America in both positive and negative ways. However, as American history has demonstrated, American culture will not completely change nor will Whites and White power disappear or even go quietly into the night. We argue, as do other scholars, that it is more likely that the American cultural landscape and its racial hierarchy will do what it has previously done with any new group entering the United States in large numbers: it will incorporate select pieces of culture that it can commercialize (i.e., St. Patrick’s Day and Cinco de Mayo) and it will make room for any group that insures that race matters and Whites (whoever that is in 2050) prevail. However, we also understand that this transformation will have to work within the confines of what America understands about race and racism and will ultimately lead to the same overarching results—non-Hispanic Whites on top and everyone else below. Based on recent scholarship, there a couple of ways to explain the future of the American racial order. The first way to explain the coming changes to the American racial order is to suggest that that the categories of Black and White will only broaden to include more than just European- and African Americans. As Yancey (2003) suggests, the racial hierarchy has historically found ways to incorporate a variety of immigrant minorities into the realm of whiteness. Yancey points out the successful integration of several once shunned immigrants into whiteness including the Irish, Germans, and Italians because they met two important criteria in building the racial hierarchy in America. First, these groups phenotypically looked like many European Americans of

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the era. Second, these groups assimilated into the American way of life, taking on the language, customs, and ideals of White Americans already in the U.S. In light of the increased rates of “brown” immigration into the U.S. since 1965, Yancey (2003) postulates that the racial hierarchy will shift into a biracial, “nonblack” and “black” system. He suggests that the traditional “White” category that has included mostly Americans of European descent will ultimately include Latino and Asian immigrants and citizens to create a new “nonblack” category. While this transition will take time, Yancey suggests that it is already occurring because, like the Italian immigrant who became White, Latino and Asian immigrants and citizens are doing their best to assimilate into White America. As Alba and Nee (2003) find, Latino and Asian immigrants that have arrived since 1965 are learning and speaking English in the home at the same speed as past immigrant waves (by second generation). And, as Rodriguez (2004) and Yancey (2003) suggest, particularly because many Latino immigrants come from some sort of European ancestry they already possess many of the American customs and beliefs, making them a natural fit into American society. In addition, as Rodriguez (2004) and Macias (2006) points out, there have already been generations of Mexican-Americans living the “White” life. For instance, no one has ever questioned the White identity of George P. Bush who is the son of former Florida Governor, Jeb Bush, and whose mother was a Mexican immigrant. In addition, Yancey (2003) suggests that Latinos will have an easier time assimilating because they do possess some phenotypic characteristics that make them look more like European Americans. Moreover, he suggests that despite the fact that Asian immigrants and citizens “act” more American and have higher socioeconomic successes, they will have a harder time being accepted by Whites than Latinos because they have more phenotypic differences from European Americans. However, principally, Yancey (2003) identifies this group as nonblack instead of White because it will eventually include people who are not phenotypically the same as European Americans. Yancey (2003) suggests that the “black” category will only consist of African Americans. He puts this group into its own separate category for several reasons. First and most important, Blacks or African Americans are the only group that has been completely subjugated and alienated throughout the group’s entire existence in the United States. In fact, there is no other racial or ethnic group in America that can compare to the racial hardships Blacks have faced. Second, White America has time and again rejected African Americans as a group that will

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assimilate into the mainstream culture even though Blacks have been instrumental in creating the very culture that rejects them. Finally, the American racial hierarchy needs a psycho-social antithesis to even bolster up some groups as superior to others based on racial classifications. Or, as Yancey (2003:143) states, “ … the lower status of blacks is a core staple of American culture.” Moreover, Blacks represent a common enemy or scapegoat that the dominant group can use to unite the masses. Certainly, as some chapters suggested in this volume, Latino immigrants understand and work to distance themselves from a Black racial status due to its overwhelming stigma. Some chapters also demonstrate that Latino immigrants are more likely to create allegiances with their White bosses than with their Black coworkers. As suggested by the recent works of understanding the new racial order (e.g., Doane and Bonilla-Silva 2003; Dyer 1997; Roediger 1991; Yancey 2003), the very notion of becoming “White” requires a group to break ties with any minority coalitions and assimilate into the mainstream. Some of the authors in this volume find that Latinos do not want to be associated with Blacks within the workforce and politics. Even more telling is the fact that more Hispanics identify as either White or "Latino," as they assimilate into American culture; meaning, that they do not necessarily seem themselves as equals to Whites but they surely do not want to be viewed as or aligned with Blacks in America (see Michael and Timberlake 2008; Tafoya 2004). Research in this book also finds that even though White southerners do not see Latinos as equals, they still seem to prefer Latinos over Blacks as employers, neighbors, and political constituents. There are some problems, however, with Yancey’s suggestions. As he theorized about his version of the new racial order, there are six assumptions that should be met in order for it to turn into the nonblack/black society he forecasts. Here, we point out that at least three of these assumptions have not been met, which challenges Yancey’s theory. First, there has to be “normal immigration” rates that will not dramatically increase in the next 50 to 100 years. While immigration rates have not overcome projections, they have been abnormal in the sense that they have been constant and only dropped slightly over the last few years (see Passel and Cohn 2009). Unlike past waves of immigration, there were years of federal law reform that effectively cut off the flows of immigrants from other countries, which provided some time for the newcomers to settle, assimilate, and ultimately, prove themselves as Americans. However, the flow of first-generation

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Mexican and other Latin American immigrants has yet to stop since 1965. In fact, it has only increased, especially if we include the number of undocumented immigrants. As Rodriguez (2004) points out, it is difficult for Americans to even accept Mexican Americans as assimilated if they are constantly reminded of the first generation newcomer that cannot speak English and still has pride in being a Mexican. Second, Yancey (2003) suggests his nonblack/black society will exist as long as European Americans are okay with taking in some cultural qualities of Latino (and Asian) immigrants. We agree that this may occur with Americans embracing foods and holidays that they see as mutually beneficial. Certainly, we see “burritos” and “tacos” on fast food menus (which are Tex-Mex at best), and Cinco de Mayo as a new drinking holiday for many Americans today. However, we also agree with Bonilla-Silva (2004) that Latinos and Asians are not new immigrants and the process of being accepted as White should have started a long time ago. Moreover, the cultural customs and ideals embraced by Asians and Latinos should have already been incorporated into the American way of life, but that has yet to be seen. We believe that this cultural incorporation has stalled several times in American history for Latinos and Asians because of several social events that have subjugated the groups over time. We cannot forget the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War II, and all of the repatriation movements that have sent Mexican Americans and immigrants back to Mexico because of racist nativist fears. In addition, recent events surrounding 9/11 (i.e.,issues of border security), the crippling economic downturn since 2001, and the uptick in fights over state immigration, have again made Americans closed off to accepting new cultural customs and beliefs in the most fervent ways. In fact, as Jacoby (2004) suggests, what it means to be American today harkens back to a 1950s American pride that is about Anglo-conformity. Finally, Yancey (2003) points out that racial conflict cannot escalate between European Americans and Latino and Asian groups attempting to be accepted. Again, based on recent events surrounding the immigration debate, we feel that the conflict has escalated between White America and “Immigrant” America; namely, a clear attack on anyone who looks and acts like a “brown” immigrant. As suggested above, hate groups, state legislation, and even social institutions mandated to provide equal opportunity in accessing work, education, and housing have turned on Latinos in the South and across the nation. However, as Bohon and MacPherson Parrott’s chapter suggest, with the

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current tensions and anti-immigrant fervor sweeping the United States, anyone viewed as a Latino immigrant, here legally or illegally, has become a racialized target, which mirrors reactions toward Hispanics in the past across several different regions and eras. On the contrary, we argue that the U.S. has always had a vacillating relationship with Hispanics in which during any given social circumstance (i.e., economic downturns or wars), we have given and taken away racialized privileges associated with being “White.” At this moment and based on local and national trends, we do not see Latinos joining the non-black category. Moreover, while we understand that Yancey suggested this transition will take time, there are no signs of reform in the near future, especially with the U.S. solely fixed on economic and environmental meltdowns. A second way to look at this coming change to the American racial order is to consider a "Latinization" of the racial hierarchy. Like Yancey, Bonilla-Silva (2004) points out that skin color and rates of assimilation matter in determining the new racial order. They also add some consideration of how economic and political clout can push a group up or down in their hierarchy. This creates three racialized categories: “White,” "honorary Whites," and “collective Blacks.” In this theoretical model, Bonilla-Silva (2004) makes room for various subsections of a racialized group to enter into different strata. For instance, certainly Bill Richardson who ran for President in the most recent election was more than a Mexican American. He was “White” in the sense that he had a lighter skin color, his family had assimilated generations ago, and he had economic and political clout. However, a 1st generation Mexican illegal immigrant harvesting peanuts and onions in South Georgia who has no economic or political clout because of his immigration status and because he is darker than Bill Richardson finds himself in the “collective black” category. Thus, depending on the perceived social status of various sub-groups of Latinos and Asians, these groups will find themselves flung among three different possibilities of racial ranking in America. Although this theory brings up some valid points, it has flaws as well. As suggested in this book and based on national trends, a majority of Latinos often fair worse than Blacks in average incomes and high school graduation rates. More important, as suggested by Yancey’s (2003) argument but not necessarily clear in Bonilla-Silva’s argument, Whites have to make Latinos and Asians insiders. Regardless of how much money or political favor they may possess, White America continues to reject these groups for various reaons, including seeing these groups as collective threats. In fact, based on the racial projects

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(e.g., ICE raids, restrictive state legislation, discrimination in housing and the public schools) and the recent economic downturn that has subjugated most Latinos to second-class status, at best, Latinos may find themselves being pushed back into a category certainly less than “honorary.” We would like to suggest a third and a more simple way to characterize the future of race and ethnic relations. We agree with both Yancey (2003) and Bonilla-Silva (2004) that the racial order will change; however, the ultimate result is that it will secure the racial status quo that will continue to place “Whites” at the top, no matter how one slices it. We also agree that African Americans will continue to be an “alienated” group in America and stall in a collective black category. We also support the notion that the American racial hierarchy will continue to find ways to privilege Whites and incorporate “new” groups to prop up the relative political and economic success of Whites in America. As suggested by Omi and Winant (1994), the American racial system will find was to rearticulate White dominance by either creating social policies and institutions to reinforce it or by subsuming a once rejected and stigmatized group into the White identity to buffer against losing power and privilege in face growing minority opposition. In addition, as Jackson’s chapter points out, whether it is vertical (blackwhite issues) or horizontal racism (black-brown issues) that occur, the results are the same—White dominance and social success continues while other racial and ethnic groups squabble over the leftovers. We also agree with their assertions that Latinos and Asians will enter into different racialized categories within the hierarchy based on skin color, rates of assimilation, and their relative accumulations of economic and political clout. In addition, we concur with Bonilla-Silva (2004) that the future of race and ethnic relations will be encapsulated in a tripartite system in which there will be a wavering middle category between the top racial status of being “White” and being “Black.” Also, like Yancey (2003), we agree that African Americans will continue to serve as the racial antithesis in the future of American racism. However, where we diverge in the above arguments is to suggest that the racial pecking order will rely on three straightforward but intersecting factors to determine racial rank and order: race (skin color), ethnicity (are you American enough), and nativity (immigrant vs. citizen). While the others mention these briefly to divvy up Latinos into essentially White and Black categories, we view the Latino identity as being ultimately solidified as a rank that exists somewhere between “Whites” and “Blacks” in the near future. From here, we will call it the new “ethnoracial” order in which skin color will be the predominant

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factor in determining rank but Americans will be keen in evaluating ethnicity and nativity to assign overall placement. Of course, we suggest this notion focusing on Latinos because of the context of this book and the fact that Latinos are the largest minority group in the U.S., which excludes other racial and ethnic minorities. However, we exclude other groups in this discussion because they have also somewhat faded into the background in recent years and represent “forgotten” or “model” minorities, which should be discussed further in future research. More important to note is that this racial hierarchy theory is not fully explained here because it is in its infancy of formulation. However, it does give some other ways of examining the Latino identity as something that has existed longer than just within the last twenty years of recent attention, and provides mutual dimensions as to how Latinos will find themselves between Black and White identities. We suggest this birth of an ethnoracial order based on several important factors that show how skin color, ethnicity, and nativity place Latinos in their own separate category regardless of looking White, being socially successful, or even their efforts to assimilate. We first recognize as most scholars have the fact that skin color matters in the United States as the first designator of racialized privilege. Unfortunately, most of the heterogeneous groups thrown into this category do not look White enough for American public. While we recognize that there are Latinos that have been passing as “white” for many decades, there are plenty that do not. More important, however, many southerners and Americans nationwide push those light-skinned Latinos into the same categories as the “browner” 1st generation Mexicans cutting Christmas trees in North Carolina—they are all foreigners, which brings us to the second point. Despite generations of Mexicans, Cubans, and other Latino groups living, working, and dying in the United States, they all find themselves lumped together. Despite the fact, as Lippard (2008a) found when interviewing various Latino entrepreneurs, Cubans and Mexicans do not see each other as allies or even as having the same social attitudes and opinions, Americans lump them together as Hispanics. As suggested by Lee et al. (2003), Latinos and Asians will always been seen as foreigners because they do not look like European Americans and they continue to carry “ethnic” qualities that cause them to stand out in a crowd. Certainly, speaking Spanish in a public place labels you as not American since Americans see speaking English as an essential piece of assimilating into the American culture (see Steinberg 2004). In addition, we cannot ignore that having a Spanish surname also labels a person as

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less than American in the past and today (see Macias 2006; Tafoya 2004). Of course, Yancey (2003) was right in suggesting that eventually even the Lippards and Gallaghers, who were initially seen as foreigners, have been accepted into whiteness. But, this leads to another point that in the past, present, and future, Americans have ultimately rejected Latinos and their culture, especially when we consider that Latinos have existed in the U.S. for decades and have faced racial projects (i.e., state legislation, Operation Wetback) that have kept them on the fringe as eternally immigrants. Also, as Yancey (2003) suggests, to be American for immigrant minorities is to assimilate fully and become American, which is really to become “White.” This may require, as Gordon (1964) suggested, Latinos marrying Whites to take on more European American surnames and customs like Jeb Bush’s son or Bill Richardson did. Certainly, Latinos have also faced rejection as both racial subordinates and foreign outsiders for decades and from all angles. For instance, many of the authors in this volume emphasize that Hispanics in the South face both racial and nonracial issues of prejudice and discrimination both by native-born Whites and Blacks. In addition, some Latino immigrants were valued because they were immigrants and thus, cheap labor, but were never seen as racial equals to Whites or Blacks because of skin color and the perception they would not assimilate into American culture (i.e., speak English). Even Latino legalized citizens and native-born individuals find that they are lumped into the stigmatized status of illegal immigrants because they look the part. Obviously, this is why so many Mexican Americans have protested against the recent state laws that targets “brown” immigrants because they have also become targets as well. Therefore, being “brown” in the new racial order is more than just being the “right” race but also being an “outsider,” whose ethnicity or nativity do not match what White America wants. We also agree with Rodriguez (2000), who points out that the U.S. Census has already done considerable work to racialize Hispanics and create a new ethnoracial hierarchy. As indicated on the 2000 and 2010 U.S. decennial Census forms, respondents have to discern their “race” and “ethnicity.” Of course, there is only one choice for ethnicity because the U.S. now wants to make a qualitative distinction between being a White or Black non-Hispanic from a White or Black Hispanic. Tafoya (2004), as well as other scholars, have pointed out that certainly Latino immigrants understand that they cannot call themselves White or Black. In fact, as Chavez (2008) and Macias (2006) suggest, being even

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mestizo, a mix of both Mexican and American backgrounds, has not helped most who carry this identity to be seen as just American or White but as a foreigner looking to reconquer the American southwest. We have to also realize that the social identity of “Hispanic” or “Latino” has already become an economic and political identity. As suggested above, business firms already collectively push Spanishspeaking groups into a cohesive marketing demographic, making them seem to most Americans and Hispanics as having a homogeneous set of beliefs, values, and behaviors. Also, as mentioned above, Latinos represent a voting bloc necessary for politicians to persuade. We can only see Latinos becoming more important in political processes as their population continues to grow. Moreover, we cannot ignore that Hispanics have and are presently creating political coalitions and organizations to address their concerns. For instance, the Chicano Movement of the 1960s, as well as national organizations like the National Council of La Raza and local political coalitions such as the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials (GALEO) have worked to unify Hispanic or Latino concerns and interests. In a way, because of America’s labeling and persecution of Latinos, America has made its worse fear come true as Huttington (2004) alludes to; a racialized group with visibility and voice. Finally, we see Latinos falling into a separate category because of their historical and persistent racialized mistreatment in America. As suggested earlier, rarely do we recognize the racialized history that Latinos have faced in the United States through legalized apartheid created by federal and state legislation and the cruel deportation of many Hispanics across the twentieth century because they were viewed as brown immigrants who threatened American stability. These actions continue today as reported here in this volume within the South, as well as across America in which the very social institutions that are supposed to help “Americanize” Hispanics (i.e., public schools, neighborhoods, and the criminal justice system) are failing miserably. As suggested by Lovato (2008), the actions taken in the contemporary South and around the nation continue to mirror the same racial persecution African American faced that led to the Civil Rights Movement. As Yancey (2003) argued, we cannot ignore that Jim Crow had lasting affects in alienating African Americans to the bottom of the racial hierarchy for generations. Why would we not expect the same of Juan Crow? In short, we argue that the future of race relations will be a system determined by skin color, ethnicity, and nativity. While we recognize that time may change this prediction in which Hispanics will find their way into whiteness or be pushed into the collective Black, right now and

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in the near future, the American public and its social institutions have worked hard to socially construct a separate rank for Hispanics or Latinos in the United States. Accomodation and Assimilation Around the Nation

There is some good news presented in this volume and represents our final lesson for America. While it seems that the South's racialized kneejerk reaction to Latino immigrants has been all but harsh, some chapters tell another story. This story is about accommodation and cooperation between native-born southerners and their new immigrant and racialized neighbors. Interestingly enough, many southern communities have found that cooperation is a necessity to at least address a dramatic population boom in which the individuals arriving are some of the poorest and undereducated immigrants to arrive in America in several decades who need basic services to survive (e.g., Alba and Nee 2003; Borjas 2004; Portes and Rumbaut 2006; Massey 2008). Thus, many southern communities had to respond rapidly to provide basic social services, including through public schools and in health care. Many southerners also realized that legislative threats and Immigration and Custom Enforcement raids were not effectively closing the state borders or scaring off Latino families who are well-established in the South. The Pew Hispanic Center (2007) found that across the U.S. and in new immigrant destinations in the South, that even with more hostility and legislative efforts to push out Latino immigrants, Latinos polled suggested that the benefits of living in a hostile territory outweighs the costs of returning to the substandard living conditions they left at home. As we find in some of the chapters, the relatively high wages and low cost of living in the South encourages Latino workers to overstay their work visas, risking arrest and deportation. In addition, the South also views the population influx as a necessary component that adds significant economic benefits. As the chapters examining labor markets suggest, farmers and factory owners report that their very profits are due to the cheap labor Latino immigrants provide. More importantly, keeping these individuals happy and healthy will keep them repatriating. A recent study on the economic benefits of Latinos on the North Carolina economy found that Latinos make up most of the labor force in several key North Carolina industries, accounting for $8.3 billion to the economy and paying $756 million in state taxes (Kasadra and Johnson 2006). Latino immigrants have also created new jobs in the South and across America for native-born citizens. In many instances, the need for

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public and private services has created positions in hospitals, schools, and the criminal justice system to deal specifically with the needs of Latinos. Kasadra and Johnson (2006) suggest that over 89,000 "spin-off" jobs were created in North Carolina in 2004 due to the arrival of Latinos to the state. In Georgia and North Carolina, the number of English as a Second Language (ESL) certification programs and teachers tripled in less than five years to meet the demand from the influx of Latino children into the public education system (Anrig and Wang 2006). Also, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee saw significant job growth directly related to the Latino population growth in both private (i.e., manufacturing, construction, healthcare) and public (i.e., schools and health departments) industries (see Massey 2008; Smith and Furuseth 2006). The most important lesson some southern communities have realized and should be realized across America is that being proactive in creating positive relationships helps native-born citizens address their concerns with an outsider immigrant population, as well as encourages Latino immigrants to assimilate quicker and receive the services necessary to be productive citizens. As suggested by some nativist cynics (see Huntington 2004), the most recent waves of Latino immigrants are not willing to learn English, follow American law, or become a part of the American mainstream. However, the process of learning English and even shedding "foreign" customs and beliefs takes time—generations. Alba and Nee (2003) and the Pew Hispanic Center (2004) find that this is still true for Latino immigrants; they are learning English and becoming more American the longer they stay. And, while Latinos, foreign- and native-born, are known to hold on to their cultural views of placing family first and having strict gender roles, these views have been documented to change within two or three generations (Pew Hispanic Center 2004). A recent study of acculturation in Georgia found that the longer Latino immigrants stay in the area, the more likely they identify themselves as Americans and know English (Mikhail, Harris, Baker, and Lippard 2009). However, they also find that acculturation (i.e., speaking English, identifying as an American) is significantly slowed when: 1) ESL courses and other public services are limited or not offered, and 2) when Latino immigrants report facing high rates of discrimination when attempting to access public services in Georgia. As the last chapter finds in this volume, native-born communities have to consider how they can assist Latino immigrants in becoming better integrated into the community to understand their needs. More important, Southern communities, as well as other American

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communities have to consider whether immigrants are the cause of their problems or if the problems were only exacerbated by their arrival. Obviously, our public schools and health care services across the nation are failing to provide adequate services to everyone, not just Latino immigrants. Southern communities have also just begun to realize that kindness encourages Latino immigrants to speak English, pay taxes, and be contributors to the community. In a recent study of rural Appalachia, Lippard (2010) found that most Latino immigrants surveyed moved to the Appalachian Mountains because they felt it was friendlier. Moreover, this view of the area highly correlated with Latino participation in ESL courses and community events. Communities need to also realize that they cannot wait for federal intervention to create parameters and policies to work with group relationships that have to be addressed now. At the present moment, the United States is preoccupied with the American economy and an the Gulf Coast oil spill to really address federal immigration policy reform. Southerners, as well as many Americans across the nation, need to recognize that Latinos are indispensable in making sure their future is secure economically and politically and that Latinos intend to stay even when the U.S. has had serious economic problems (Passel and Cohn 2009). We also cannot ignore that future generations of Latinos will be the future of America. Right now, the continued oppression of Latinos is only creating a second class group of people who are undereducated, under paid, and has no constitutional rights. Thus, Huntington (2004) was right, ironically, when he claimed that if America does not change its ways, it is damning its future. We must change, but for reasons opposite of his. We must consider changing our views of intergroup relations as well as work harder to find resolutions in which all parties’ issues are addressed. In short, America must plan for a multiracial future.

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Contributors

William E. Baker is assistant professor of Public Administration at Kennesaw State University where he teaches city management, and program evaluation in the MPA program. His most recent research focus has been the local government response to immigration in the southeast and has co-authored several articles on the subject. Elizabeth Blake is a graduate student in Sociology at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. Her research focuses on urban sociology, immigration, and race relations. Stephanie A. Bohon is associate professor of Sociology at the University of Tennessee and the founder and co-director of the Center for the Study of Social Justice. She is the author of Latinos in Ethnic Enclaves: Immigration and the Competition for Jobs as well as many articles about Latino migration. Her work focuses immigration to the US Southeast, with a special emphasis on differences between new and traditional immigrant destinations. Francesca Coin is assistant professor of Sociology at Cà Foscari University of Venice, Italy. Her research focuses mainly on dispossession, migration and new social movements in Central and South America. Her recent publications include her book Il Produttore Consumato and several articles in Italian, which examine how social imagination and multicultural contamination create new possibilities for social change.

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Charles A. Gallagher is professor of Sociology and chair of the department of Sociology, Social Work and Criminal Justice at La Salle University. Professor Gallagher has published over 40 articles, reviews and books on racial and social inequality, immigration, urban sociology and the ways in which the media, the state and popular culture construct, shape and disseminate ideas of race. As a nationally recognized expert on race and social inequality, Professor Gallagher has given over fifty talks on these topics around the country and has been interviewed on the television and radio over seventy-five times. Paul A. Harris is associate professor of Political Science and associate director of The University Honors College at Auburn University. In addition to his work on Latin American immigration to the Southeast, he has written on Russian-speaking Jewish immigrants and ethnic German repatriates who have immigrated to Germany since the end of the Cold War. Regine O. Jackson is assistant professor of American Studies at Emory University. She specializes in race, ethnicity and American immigration. Substantively, her research concerns the impact of place on race relations, inequality and racial and ethnic identity. Jackson is editor of Geographies of the Haitian Diaspora (forthcoming, Routledge) and she is currently completing her first book, Strategies of Belonging: Haitian Immigrants in ‘Post-Racial’ Boston. Elaine C. Lacy is professor of History and Assistant Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the University of South Carolina Aiken. Her research interests include Latino immigration to the U.S. South and the cultural politics of modern Mexico. Her recently released, co-edited volume (with Mary Odem), Latino Immigrants and the Transformation of the U.S. South, examines the bi-national implications of Mexican migration to and settlement in this new receiving area. Cameron D. Lippard is assistant professor of Sociology at Appalachian State University. His research and teaching focuses mainly on the social problems Latino immigrants face in the American South. A recent publication includes his book, Building Inequality: Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration in the Atlanta Construction Industry, which examines how race, ethnicity, and nativity determine the relative success of Black, Latino, and White entrepreneurs.

Contributors

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Paul Luebke is associate professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. He also represents Durham in the North Carolina State House, where he serves as senior chair of the House Finance Committee. His research centers on social change, immigration, and politics; he is the author of Tar Heel Politics 2000.

Helen B. Marrow is assistant professor of Sociology at Tufts University. She is author of New Destination Dreaming: Immigration, Race, and Legal Status in the Rural American South (forthcoming 2011, Stanford University Press), co-editor of The New Americans: A Guide to Immigration since 1965 (Harvard University Press, 2007), and recipient of the 2008 Best Dissertation Award from the American Sociological Association. Lisa M. Martinez is associate professor of Sociology at the University of Denver and faculty affiliate of the DU Latina/o Center for Community Engagement and Scholarship (DULCCES). Her areas of expertise are political sociology, Latina/o sociology, immigration, and race, class, and gender. She is the author of “Yes We Can: Latino Participation in Unconventional Politics,” (Social Forces 2005), “Flowers from the Same Soil: Latino Solidarity in the Wake of the 2006 Immigrant Mobilizations” (Mobilization 2008), and “Mobilization Matters: Moving Immigrant and Latina Women into the Public Sphere” (in Contours of Citizenship: Women, Diversity, and the Practices of Citizenship, 2010). Eileen Diaz McConnell is associate professor in the Department of Transborder Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies at Arizona State University. Her research interests include Latino migration to non-traditional destinations in the U.S.; racial, ethnic and nativity differences in homeownership and housing wealth accumulation, and media representations of U.S. population change. Her scholarship has been published in academic journals such as International Migration Review, Population Research and Policy Review, Rural Sociology, and Social Science Quarterly.

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Heather Macpherson Parrott is assistant professor at Long Island University, C.W. Post. Her research and teaching broadly address social stratification, with a focus on three overlapping issues: Latino immigration, educational stratification, and gender stratification. Orlando Rodriguez is professor of Sociology at Fordham University. His research and teaching focuses on crime and criminal justice, with special emphasis on the Latino experience. Among recent publications are “Immigration, Gangs and Suburban Policing" Law Enforcement Executive Forum Journal and “The Criminal Justice System as an Assimilation Milieu for the Hispanic Immigrant” in Immigration in the United States and Spain: Considerations for Educational Leaders. Stephen J. Sills is assistant professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. His research focuses on the impact of globalization on everyday lives both in the US and in developing countries. He has authored articles on the feminization of labor migration, immigrant access to health and social services, and social support networks among marginalized populations. Andrew Wainer is an Immigration Policy Analyst with the Bread for the World Institute in Washington, DC. His research and writing focuses both on the factors causing immigration from Latin America and on the socioeconomic issues facing Latin American immigrants in the United States. His reporting and analysis has appeared in publications such as the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times and in the academic journal International Migration.

Index

Immigration (ALIPAC), 19, 270, 272; Immigration Counters, 104; Know Nothing campaign, 12; Minuteman Project, 21, 322; Minutemen Civil Defense Corps, 19; NumbersUSA, 104 Anti-immigrant legislation, 9, 14-15, 18, 95, 126, 174, 275-276, 281, 300, 333; in Arizona, 113, 300, 317, 322; in Beaufort County, SC, 123; in Georgia, 6, 18, 110112, 300, 321; in North Carolina, 261-266; in South Carolina, 121, 124-126, 129; Proposition 187 in California, 300, 316; Official English enactments, 42; Anti-immigrant sentiment, 7-8, 16, 37, 100, 105, 123-128, 261-262, 273, 304; cultural challenges, 12, 16, 94, 129, 270-274, 324; due to economic downturns, 126; "illegals", 9, 15, 105-109, 125126, 301; job competition, 38, 58, 125, 232; not paying taxes, 272; using public services, 16, 100, 110, 126-127, 262-265, 273 Arkansas Latino population in, 2; public schools in, 158, 166 Assimilation, 7, 11, 74, 133, 186, 194, 225, 284, 305, 310, 329-331, 335; assimilation theory, 193; segmented assimilation, 194-196, 284-286; spatial assimilation model, 137 Atlanta, GA, 78, 87, 91 "too busy to hate", 5; African American activists in, 45, 86; anti-immigrant ordinance in, 81, 301; construction industry in, 5, 15-16, 22, 203, 218, 232; Latino

Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR), 241 African Americans, 10, 20, 29, 39, 42-43, 49, 53, 56, 67, 72, 78, 80, 86- 88, 90-99, 116, 120, 135, 148, 165, 177, 195, 216-218, 224, 230, 274, 294, 315-316, 320, 324, 325326; alienation of, 326, 330; antagonistic role, 25; "collective Blacks", 11, 329, 342, 347; compared to Latinos, 8, 15, 33, 59, 166, 323, 329; ethnic chauvinism, 45; hiring practices, 201, 229;housing discrimination, 145, 320; in sundown towns, 80, 83;incarceration rates, 321 migration to the South, 29, 78, 139; "On the Backs of Blacks”, 26; political participation, 280; residential segregration, 143; stereotypes, 13, 34, 37; traffic stops, 321 Agreements of Cooperation in Communities to Enhance Safety and Security program (ACCESS), 18 Aiken County, SC, 125-127 Alabama; Latino population in, 2 Albertville, AL; Latino demonstrations in, 1; Latino population in, 3 ALIPAC. See Americans for Legal Immigration Americanization, 13, 203, 224 Anti-immigrant activist groups; Federation for American Immigration Reform, 39, 110, 126, 265; American Freedom Riders, 19; American Resistance, 19, 104; Americans for Legal

383

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demonstrations in, 1, 282; Latino population in, 4, 80, 297-298; public schools in, 157; unauthorized immigrants in, 100 Atlanta Journal Constitution, 44, 101 Blacks, 11, 13, 330; see also African Americans. Bracero Program, 9, 233, 238 Brown Is the New Green, 324 Brown: The Last Discovery of America, 11 Buried in the Bitter Waters, 78 Bush, George W., 323 Charlotte, NC, 270; anti-immigrant legislation in, 265; construction industry in, 5; Latino demonstrations in, 1; Latino population in, 4, 263, 283, 295; political representation in, 268 Civil Rights Movement, 1, 29-30, 38, 42, 72, 103, 315, 333 Color blind ideology, 35, 215-216, 229 Columbia; Latino demonstrations in, 1; Latino population in, 4; poultry industry in, 128 Crash, 33 Dalton, GA; "Carpet Capitol of the World", 89; carpet industry in, 5, 299; City of, 303; Dalton State Community College, 306; Dalton-Whitfield Chamber of Commerce, 305; Klu Klux Klan in, 90; Latino political participation in, 286; Latino population in, 3, 84, 89; proactive approach to Latinos, 23, 299, 303; public schools in, 165, 304 Deal, Nathan-Georgia State Respresentative, 300 Discrimination, 130, 274, 316; "horizontal (non)citizenship axis", 64, 66-68; housing, 137, 150, 320; in mortgage lending, 13, 320; in loan approval rates, 151; in public schools, 177; nonracial, 63, 68; paired-testing, 147; racial, 59, 63; steering, 137, 144, 149; substandard living

conditions, 155; "vertical skin color axis", 66-67 "Driving while Hispanic", 67, 321 Dole, Elisabeth-U.S. Senator, 240 Duke, David, 19, 48 Easley, Mike-NC State Governor, 265 Education issues; achievement scores, 158, 164-167; attending college, 174, 266-267, 276; barriers, 164, 319; graduation and drop out rates, 165-167, 174, 180, 266, 319, 329; immigration status, 173; inadequate resources, 164; parental involvement, 168; poor school climate, 177; shortage of trained teachers, 170171; underclass of immigrant student dropouts, 180 El Pueblo, 267 Employment, 4, 299, 313, 319, 323; "3-D jobs", 5, 43, 202, 234; grievances, 241; in agriculture, 117, 240, 250, 263; in the carpet industry, 5, 18, 107, 299, 303; in Christmas trees, 5, 240, 331; in construction, 4, 139, 273;; in meatpacking, 4, 39; in poultry industry, 5, 17-18, 48, 72, 87-89, 121, 139; floating work crews, 204; labor campaigns, 252 English as a Second Language (ESL), 263, 275; adult education, 175, 336; in public schools, 170 English-language learners (ELL), 170 Era of Devolution, 300 ESL, see English as a Second Language Ex-Combatientes Cubanos de Ft. Jackson, 118 FAIR, see Federation for American Immigration Reform Fair Housing Act, 134, 136; the Fair Housing Amendments of 1988, 136 Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 250 Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), 64, 239-241, 252

Index 385

Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC), 149 Federal Housing Administration (FHA), 13, 136 FHA, see Federal Housing Administration FLOC, see Farm Labor Organizing Committee Forsyth County, GA, 78, 84 Franklin, Benjamin, 7, 324 Gainesville, GA; Latino population in, 3 General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT), 237 Georgia; Latino population in, 2, 298; public schools in, 158; Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, 309, 312, 333 Greensboro, NC, 135; Greensboro City Planning Department, 140; Greensboro Fair Housing Audit Study, 146; Greensboro Housing Coalition, 133; housing patterns, 138; Strategic Study of the State of Human Relations in Greensboro, 133 Gilchrist, Jim, 19, 315, 333 H2-A program, 23, 106, 238-239, 240 Hall County, GA, 78, 87 Harrell, Bobby-SC State Representative 126 Hart-Cellar Act, 9 Health problems, 134, 137, 195, 245; accessing health care, 6, 20, 123124, 306, 334-336; unsafe work conditions, 248, 252, 259 Herbert Blumer, 14, 16 see also prejudice theory Hiring practices; hard and soft skills, 206-207; "statistical discrimination”, 201; “quality” employees, 205; preferring cheap and docile workers, 13, 202-203, 207, 231-232; profitability, 212, 229; racialized proxies, 202-203, 217, 224 "Hispanics", see Latinos "Hispanic hypergrowth", 3, 321

Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) of 1975, 149 Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC), 135 "Honorary Whites", 11, 329 Huckabee, Mike, 180 Hunt, Jim-NC State Governor, 267 Huntington, Samuel, 7, 12, 324, 336 ICE, see U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Illegal immigrants, 10, 22, 110-111, 134, 329 see also Undocumented immigrants Immigrant Assistance Center of Faith Action International House, 133 Immigration; emerging destinations of, 2, 99, 115, 184, 262, 297; push factors of, 4, 116, 237, 334; pull factors of, 3-5, 117, 299; September 11th's impact on immigration, 9, 102, 125, 263264, 328; traditional destinations of, 4, 79, 184, 187, 279-280, 297 Immigration Policy for the National Conference of State Legislatures, 300 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), 117 Industrial Areas Foundation, 291 Intergroup relations, 59-60, 335, 342, 348; Black-Latino, 36, 41, 61, 108, 128, 144, 327; North Carolina Coalition on Black and Brown Civic Participation, 66; “rainbow coalition of color”, 62; Black-White, 62, 262, 275; White-Latino, 49 Jim Crow, 15, 315, 324 Johnson, Eric-Georgia State Senator, 110, 112 Joint Immigration Task Force, 305 Juan Crow, 14, 15, 333 Juvenile justice system, 183; culture conflict effect, 193-196; Latino juvenile custody patterns, 196; juvenile custody policy, 196-197; juvenile residential custody, 189190; juvenile violent crime index, 189-192; Office of Juvenile

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Being Brown in Dixie

Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), 189 Klu Klux Klan, 6, 19, 48, 72, 90, 322, 324 KKK, see Klu Klux Klan Latin American Community Alliance, 305 Latin Americanization, see "Latinization" "Latinization", 6, 329 Latino; demographics, 2, 282; demonstrations by, 1, 6, 125, 281, 282, 287; economic value of, 164, 324, 334; incarceration rates, 321; home ownership, 321; socially constructed identities, 15-16, 54, 61, 63, 318-319, 329, 332; stereotypes, 7-8, 12, 107, 129, 202, 216-217, 221, 223, 321 Loan Application Register (LAR), 149 Lovato, Robert, 15 Lynchings, 8, 30, 80, 85, 93, 317 McCain, John 323 McConnell, Tempore G.-SC State Senator, 126 Media Coverage, 101, 262, 264, 275, 324; claims-makers and effective rhetoric, 101; unauthorized immigration in the media, 102111 Melting pot, 8, 11, 44, 193 Mestizo, 333 Mexican Repatriation Movement, 13, 316 Mississippi Masala, 34 Mt. Olive Pickle Company, 252 Morrison, Toni, 26 Nashville, TN; construction industry in, 17; Latino demonstrations in, 1, 282; Latino population in, 4, 84; police harassment in, 50 National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, 136 National Council of La Raza, 307, 333 National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), 250 Nativism, 14, 124, 131, 316, 322, 328, 335

New Orleans, LA; construction industry in, 5; Latino population in, 3 New South, 5-6, 28-30, 43-44, 48, 84, 91; Deep South, 9, 17; New Latino South, 159 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 238, 240, 251 North Carolina; educational policy, 163; housing issues in, 133; Latino population in, 2, 56, 115, 139, 262; NC Community College System, 276; public schools in, 158, 165 Research Triangle Park, 165; The North Carolina Department of Labor, 254; UNC General Administration, 267; University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 143; North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NCA&T), 143 North Carolina Growers Association (NCGA), 245, 259 Operation Wetback, 316 Pigmentocracy, 11 Pluralism, 7, 35, 193 Political influence, 308, 333; electoral and non-electoral participation, 284-286; redistricting, 290-291; "swing vote", 323; voting, 280-281 Prejudice theory, 14-16 Race and the Shaping of TwentiethCentury Atlanta, 43 Racetalk, 26-27, 50-51 Racial formation theory, 12, 317 Racial projects, 13, 17, 319, 329 Racial subordinates, 54, 318, 332 Racialization, 68, 74, 130, 315, 318, 319, 321; definition of, 14; racialized backlash, 5; racialized communities, 78, 95; racialized hiring practices, 203, 232-233; racialized histories, 92-95, 333; racialized identities, 41, 48, 329; racialized labor markets, 201-203 Racism, 8, 25, 164, 208, 314-322; black and white, 315;

Index 387

contemporary racism, 31-33; horizontal racism, 25-28, 32-36, 40-41, 48; identifying, 322; modern racism, 274; old racism, 317; public opinion about, 315; vertical racism, 27-32, 330; weak racism, 32 Racial Order, 11, 53, 56; neuvo racial order, 314; ethnoracial order, 326, 330-334; nonblack/black hierarchy, 74, 326, 332; tri-racial hierarchy, 33, 329 “Right-to-Work” laws, 255 Richardson, Bill, 329 RJ Reynolds, 255 Rock, Chris 9 Rogers, Chip-GA State Senator, 18, 110-112 Segregation; Black-White, 57, 96, 140; city trends of, 140; contemporary patterns, 95; de facto segregation, 138; de jure segregation, 8; in Greensboro, 140-143; in schools, 61; index of dissimilarity, 95, 140; index of isolation, 140; Latino and Asian, 140; Latino-White, 79, 96; Racial Residential Segregation Measurement Project, 81: residential, 81, 98, 99, 138, 139, 327 Shubert, Fern, 265 Siler City, NC; Latino population in, 3 Siloam Springs, AK, 82 “¡Si se puede!”, 1, 259 Social incorporation, 116, 132-135, 157, see also Assimilation South Carolina; Charleston, SC and Saluda, SC public hearings, 129; Colombian population in, 118; economic activities in, 118; Latino population in, 2, 115-119, 129 Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project, 291 Stock story, 217 Substandard housing, 137-138, 155, 195

Sundown places, 80-84, 93, 96; definition of, 80; Riverbend, 83 Sundown Towns, 78 The American Dream, 1, 7 The Bell Curve, 315 The End of Racism, 315 The George Lopez Show, 324 The Georgia Project, 303 The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), 309 The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, 309 The Nashville Scene, 50 The National Fair Housing Alliance, 320 The News and Observer, 264 Tifton, GA; Latino demonstration in, 1 U.S. Conference of Mayors, 301 U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 18, 265 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 18, 302, 330; raids, 6, 18, 130, 256, 334 Unauthorized immigration, 101-107, 124, 311; defining,109; population counts, 103 Undocumented immigrants, 8, 17-18, 55, 109, 118, 126-127, 130, 173174, 261-268, 272-275, 298, 328 "Undeserving outsiders", 54, 318 Wallace, George, 30 White, 55, 93, 318, 329-330 see also "whiteness" White Supremacy and Racism in the Post-Civil Rights Era, 26 "Whiteness", 10, 12, 49, 55, 78, 325, 332-333 Whitfield County, GA, 78-89 Winston-Salem, NC; anti-immigrant ordinance in, 81; Latino demonstrations in, 1 Working poor, 320 Zoot Suit Riots, 31

About the Book

How has the dramatic influx of Latino populations in the US South challenged and changed traditional conceptions of race? Are barriers facing Latinos the same as those confronted by African Americans? The authors of Being Brown in Dixie use the Latino experience of living and working in the South to explore the shifting complexities of race relations. Systematically considering such central issues as hiring, housing, education, and law enforcement, they emphasize the critical social and policy implications for new gateway communities and for our society as a whole. Cameron D. Lippard is assistant professor of sociology at Appalachian State University. Charles A. Gallagher is professor of sociology at La Salle University.

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