Immigrants Outside Megalopolis Ethnic Transformation in the Heartland

by Jones, Richard C.; Airriess, Christopher A.; Broadway, Michael; Byrand, Karl; Chaichian, Mohammad; Dhingra, Pawan; Hardwick, Susan; Hiemstra, Nancy A.; Kraly, Ellen Percy; Smith, Heather A.; Skop, Emily; Stull, Donald

• ISBN13: 9780739119198
• ISBN10: 0739119192
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-03-07
• Publisher: Lexington Books

Summary

The booming 1990s saw a new demographic pattern emerging in the United States_the shift of immigrants toward smaller towns and metropolitan areas in ethnically homogenous (or traditionally bicultural) areas. These places offer growing, specialized economies in need of unskilled or semi-skilled (and occasionally skilled) labor; they also offer, for some immigrants, a favorable physical and social climate. Immigrants Outside Megalopolis documents this trend with case studies including Hmong in Wisconsin, Iranians in Iowa, Mexicans in Kansas and Colorado, Vietnamese in coastal Louisiana, Mexicans in North Carolina and south Texas, Cubans in Arizona, Bosnians in upstate New York, Asian Indians in north Texas, and Ukranians and Russians in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. Truly, this process is resulting in a cultural transformation of the U.S. heartland. The implantation of new features on the cultural landscape (businesses, homes, churches, schools, possessions, and the peoples themselves) is giving many Americans a world geography lesson_at a time when increased world understanding is something the country cannot do without. This geography lesson comes at a cost, however: the difficult process of social adjustment, playing out on a daily basis between immigrant and host populations, which remains largely unresolved. This process is an important focus of Jones's book.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. vii
Introduction
Immigrants Transform and Are Transformed by the U.S. Heartland	p. 3
Western United States
Slavic Dreams: Post-Soviet Refugee Identity and Adaptation in Portland, Oregon	p. 25
Emigres Outside Miami: The Cuban Experience in Metropolitan Phoenix	p. 43
Trying to Be Authentic, But Not Too Authentic: Second Generation Hindu Americans in Dallas, Texas	p. 65
Spatial Disjunctures and Division in the New West: Latino Immigration to Leadville, Colorado	p. 89
Meatpacking and Mexicans on the High Plains: From Minority to Majority in Garden City, Kansas	p. 115
Cultural Retrenchment and Economic Marginality: Mexican Immigrants in San Antonio	p. 135
Eastern United States
Spaces and Places of Adaptation in an Ethnic Vietnamese Cluster in New Orleans, Louisiana	p. 163
The Quest for Home: Sheboygan's Hmong Population	p. 189
Getting Settled in the Heartland: Community Formation among First- and Second-Generation Iranians in Iowa City, Iowa	p. 213
The Untraditional Geography of Hispanic Settlement in a New South City: Charlotte, North Carolina	p. 237
"An Anchor of Hope": Refugees in Uitca, New York	p. 263
Epilogue
The Contributions of Immigrants: From Megalopolis to Mainstream	p. 291
Index	p. 315
About the Contributors	p. 321
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