Latino immigrants and the renegotiation of place and belonging in small town America

Abstract

This article compares the politics of place and belonging within two non-metropolitan communities-Woodburn, Oregon, and Leadville, Colorado-that have witnessed a significant increase in Latino immigration during the last fifteen to twenty years. Today both communities are approximately 50 per cent Latino, a demographic change that has reworked understandings of place identity and social belonging in each. Through a comparison of the two towns we seek to chart the unique regional political economic dynamics driving these changes, examine their spatial imprint, and interrogate how local context shapes the extent to which new arrivals are able to make effective claims to a sense of place and belonging despite hierarchies of race, class and 'illegality.' Assessing the differences between these two immigrant destinations provides insights into how sociospatial relations are crucial to analyzing immigrant-receiving society interaction, and contributes to scholarship on the uneven geography of immigrant incorporation in the contemporary USA.

‘We want to be there for everyone’: imagined spaces of encounter and the politics of place in a super-diverse neighbourhood

“…The study therefore shows the importance of seeing belonging as a dynamic emotional attachment (Wood & Waite, 2011) which is based not just on (self-identified or ascribed) group membership but also produced through attachments to specific places and the characteristics and meanings attributed to them. An understanding of space as productive of difference (Clayton, 2009) necessitates viewing encounters as 'spatiotemporal experiences' (Valentine & Sadgrove, 2012, p. 2025) that arise out of, among other factors, place-specific residential histories (Nelson & Hiemstra, 2008) and imaginaries (Leitner, 2012;Yeoh & Willis, 2005).…”

“…Ho, 2009;Leitner & Ehrkamp, 2006;Kobayashi, Preston, & Murnaghan, 2011;Yeoh & Willis, 2005) as well as the construction of migrant identities in local places and communities (e.g. Nelson & Hiemstra, 2008;Noble, 2009;Wessendorf, 2013). In contrast, less attention has been paid to dimensions of difference other than ethnicity or migrant status and to the ways in which the intersectionality of belonging generates inclusion and exclusion in particular spaces (Wood & Waite, 2011).…”

“…These and other studies highlight that the politics of place-making can be strongly influenced by discourses and practices of institutional actors (Nelson & Hiemstra, 2008). Unequal support and preferential treatment of resident claims to neighbourhood organizations by institutional actors can accentuate already existing differences between residents, leading residents to regard each other with suspicion (Robinson, Shaw, & Davidson, 2005).…”

“…This study further shows that place-specific residential histories influence who can make effective claims to belong. In neighbourhoods where local history or length of residence is considered important, belonging may be more difficult for newcomers, especially when they are also ethnically 'other' (Nelson & Hiemstra, 2008).…”

The contribution of wild food experiences to sense of place in McBride, British Columbia

“…This includes sense of place (Williams & Stewart, 1998;Jorgensen & Stedman, 2001;Stedman, 2003), place attachment (Brown & Perkins, 1992;Low & Altman, 1992, Vaske & Kobrin, 2001Williams & Vaske, 2003), place dependence (Gibbons & Ruddell, 1995;Pretty, Chipuer & Bramston, 2003;Hunt, 2008), place identity (Proshansky, Fabian & Kaminoff, 1983;Korpela, 1989;Dixon & Durrheim, 2000), topophilia (Tuan, 1974;González, 2005;Oliveira, Roca & Leitão, 2010), community attachment (Kasarda & Janowitz, 1974;Hummon, 1992;McCool & Martin, 1994;Brehm, Eisenhauer & Krannich, 2004), belonging (Jacobson, 2002;Mormon-Robinson, 2003;Trudeau, 2006;Nelson & Hiemstra, 2008), insideness (Relph, 2008;Rowles, 1983;Lim & Barton;2010), and rootedness (Tuan, 1980;McAndrew, 1998;Andreotti, Galès, Fuentes, 2013), among others. Though it is still debated how place concepts relate to one another, many researchers argue that sense of place is a multidimensional concept comprising two, three, or five facets (Stokols & Shumaker, 1981;Williams & Vaske, 2003;Kyle, Graefe & Manning, 2005;Jorgensen & Stedman, 2006;Scopelliti & Tiberio, 2010;Raymond, Brow...…”