Latino Incorporation and Racialized Border Politics in the Heartland: Interior Enforcement and Policeability in an English-Only State. (December 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Maldonado, Marta Maria
• Other Names: Vaquera Elizabeth guest-editor.; Aranda Elizabeth guest-editor.; Gonzales Roberto G. guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: American behavioral scientist. Volume 58:Number 14(2014)
• Page Start: 1927
• Page End: 1945
• Publication Date: 2014-12
• Subjects: incorporation -- rural new destinations -- race -- hypervisibility -- policeability -- English-only; Social sciences -- Periodicals; Political science -- Periodicals; United States -- Social conditions -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- Periodicals; 300
• DOI: 10.1177/0002764214550292
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0002-7642

Abstract

This article examines how the interplay among context of reception and interior enforcement and policeability policies and practices shapes Latino incorporation into Perry, a rural new destination community in Iowa. Analysis, based on ethnographic observation and in-depth interviews with a diverse sample of Latinos, foregrounds how the racialized dimensions of place affect incorporation, social interaction, and the ability of new populations to develop a sense of belonging. The stories Latinos share about everyday life in Perry reveal that Latinos and non-Latinos tend to live in "separate worlds" within community, differing in how and when they circulate in local space, with few instances of sustained and meaningful interaction. A climate of fear, competition, and distrust discourages the formation of networks and relations of solidarity within and across ethnoracial groups. Latinos report a sense of being welcome as laborers, but rejected as neighbors with their particular sociohistorical and cultural manifestations.