Immigrants In Rural America

This insightful work on rural health in the United States examines the ways immigrants, mainly from Latin America and the Caribbean, navigate the health care system in the United States. Since 1990, immigration to the United States has risen sharply, and rural areas have seen the highest increases. Thurka Sangaramoorthy reveals that that the corporatization of health care delivery and immigration policies are deeply connected in rural America. Drawing from fieldwork that centers on Maryland's sparsely populated Eastern Shore, Sangaramoorthy shows how longstanding issues of precarity among rural health systems along with the exclusionary logics of immigration have mutually fashioned a "landscape of care" in which shared conditions of physical suffering and emotional anxiety among immigrants and rural residents generate powerful forms of regional vitality and social inclusion. Sangaramoorthy connects the Eastern Shore and its immigrant populations to many other places around the world that are struggling with the challenges of global migration, rural precarity, and health governance. Her extensive ethnographic and policy research shows the personal stories behind health inequity data and helps to give readers a human entry point into the enormous challenges of immigration and rural health.

American agriculture employs some 2.5 million workers during a typical year. Three fourths of these farm workers are immigrants, half are unauthorized, and most will leave seasonal farm work within a decade. This book looks at what these statistics mean for farmers, labourers, and rural America.

The American experience has been one of constant and accelerating change. Against this background, American cities have exerted a magnetic pull attracting streams of migration from rural to urban areas transforming a predominantly rural society into one in which 75 percent of the people live in urban areas. Population and Community in Rural America focuses on migration as the primary force for population change in rural America. Within smaller, more dispersed rural populations, any changes in the number of births or deaths, or movement in or out of the area impact community and family structures. In the last half-century, migration studies have been the single largest area of rural population research because the consequences of migration on both community population and socioeconomic structure are usually much greater than shifts in mortality and fertility. Garkovich argues that migration streams exert a cohesive force, binding American communities together and that such in/out migrations have contributed to a national character based on intermingled rural and urban perspectives. She presents a thorough investigation of the nature of migration and its effect on other population processes and characteristics, and explains why particular patterns of migration and population change have occurred at certain points in the historical development of rural America. The first two chapters describe various theoretical and methodological issues; review major social, economic, and political events of the three historical eras of rural population change; and consider the social environment within which the changes occurred. Chapters three through six detail rural population changes including major migration streams and the factors and outcomes associated with, or attributable to, these movements. Chapter seven analyses institutional forces that have effected both the study and interpretation of rural population change and offers provocative suggestions. A final chapter summarizes major changes in rural America, explains how migration continues to shape current rural populations, and identifies critical issues for future migration research. An important tool for students and scholars, this volume will also be of particular interest to those readers studying population migration and rural communities.

New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles have long been shaped by immigration. These gateway cities have traditionally been assumed to be the major flashpoints in American debates over immigration policy—but the reality on the ground is proving different. Since the 1980s, new immigrants have increasingly settled in rural and suburban areas, particularly within the South. Couple this demographic change with an increase in unauthorized immigrants, and the rural South, once perhaps the most culturally and racially "settled" part of the country, now offers a window into the changing dynamics of immigration and, more generally, the changing face of America. New Destination Dreaming explores how the rural context impacts the immigrant experience, how rapid Hispanic immigration influences southern race relations, and how institutions like schools and law enforcement agencies deal with unauthorized residents. Though the South is assumed to be an economically depressed region, low-wage food processing jobs are offering Hispanic newcomers the opportunity to carve out a living and join the rural working class, though this is not without its problems. Inattention from politicians to this growing population and rising black-brown tensions are both factors in contemporary rural southern life. Ultimately, Marrow presents a cautiously optimistic view of Hispanic newcomers' opportunities for upward mobility in the rural South, while underscoring the threat of anti-immigrant sentiment and restrictive policymaking that has gripped the region in recent years. Lack of citizenship and legal status still threatens many Hispanic newcomers' opportunities. This book uncovers what more we can do to ensure that America's newest residents become productive and integrated members of rural southern society rather than a newly excluded underclass.

Reimagining the Immigrant examines integrative practices by residents towards Mexican immigrants in a small farm town in America. This groundbreaking book sheds light on the coexisting practices of discrimination and accommodation and the ways in which immigrants and established residents reimagine ethnic identity in a more positive light.