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

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

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

| Cover Title Page Copyright Contents Preface Acknowledgments Introduction: Heartland North, Heartland South Part I: Geographies in Historical Perspective Chapter 1. Mexicans in the United States: A Longer View Chapter 2. Betabeleros and the Western Nebraska Sugar Industry: An Early-Twentieth-Century History Chapter 3. Latinos and the Churches in Idaho, 1950–2000 Part II: Contesting Policy and Legal Boundaries Chapter 4. Seeing No Evil: The H2A Guest-Worker Program and State-Mediated Labor Exploitation Chapter 5. On Removing Migrant Labor in a Right-to-Work State: The Failure of Employer Sanctions Part III: Transnational Identities and New Landscapes of Home Chapter 6. Rooted/Uprooted: Place, Policy, and Salvadoran Transnational Identities in Rural Arkansas Chapter 7. Contesting Diversity and Community within Postville, Iowa: "Hometown to the World" Part IV: Media and Reimagined Sites of Accommodation and Contestation Chapter 8. Humanizing Latino Newcomers in the "No Coast" Region Chapter 9. Immigrant Integration and the Changing Public Discourse: The Case of Emporia, Kansas Part V: Religion and Migrant Communities Chapter 10. "They Cling to Guns or Religion": Pennsylvania Towns Put Faith in Anti-immigrant Part VI: Demographics Chapter 11. Latin American Migrations to the U.S. Heartland: Demographic and Economic Activity Conclusion: Latin American Migrations to the U.S. Heartland: Reshaping Communities, Redrawing Contributors Index |"Allegro and Wood have organized a volume that provides a more humane depiction of Latin American immigrants by carefully documenting the challenges and possibilities they present in the region. . . . They also do an excellent job of positioning the Midwest as a dynamic region where complex and often contradictory politics coexist."—The Annals of Iowa
"Allegro and Wood have assembled an interesting and informative set of essays useful to any scholar interested in the history of immigration to the United States and its regional, local, and national implications for the present and the future. A welcome assessment of what can happen when globalization disrupts rural communities on both sides of the border."—The Journal of Southern History
"An important contribution to our understanding of Latin American migration beyond the coast and borderlands. The contributors, ranging from historians to anthropologists to political scientists and sociologists, rethink and reconceptualize our traditional understanding of Latin American migration as well as the Heartland."—Kathleen Mapes, author of Sweet...

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