Barbara Ellen Smith

Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and Director of Women's Studies

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Latino immigrants now work in some of the same industries and occupations as African American workers in the U.S. South. This paper explores their workplace interactions in Memphis, Tennessee, and concludes that the common economic defenses of immigrants (e.g., "They take jobs that nobody else wants") are misplaced; a focus on employer interests and behaviors would better serve a multi-racial/ethnic labor movement.

Heather Smith

Assistant Professor

Department of Geography and Earth Sciences

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Jamie Winders

Assistant Professor of Geography

Syracuse University

In my talk, I plan to discuss my next research project (which will start in May 2006) on the impacts of Latino migration on social relations, racial formations/politics, etc. within public schools, residential neighborhoods, and labor organizations in southern cities. My presentation will build on my previous research (which focused on Latino migration's framings in public discourse and low-wage worksites in Nashville) for context but will mainly focus on this new project. I will draw on existing studies of Latino migration's effects on different social institutions/spaces in southern communities to point to current trends in understandings of this migration and to highlight the emerging sense that 'ambivalence' often characterizes immigrant reception in new destination communities in the South. In doing so, though, I will stress the need to think about how complex urban geographies are implicated and - in fact - mobilized to create this 'ambivalent' picture of Latino reception that many scholars are beginning to sketch in the most recent studies (i.e., that HOW Latino migration has been understood in new gateway cities is inseparable from the spaces in which that understanding has taken place - whether in workplaces, schools, neighborhoods, etc.). In reference to labor organizations in particular, I'd also like to raise the issue (hopefully, this is something other scholars can speak to) of emerging rural-urban differences.