Doctoral Dissertation Research: Latinos and African Americans in the New South
This project examines the incorporation of Latino/a migrants in the U.S. South, focusing on workplace intergroup dynamics at a meatpacking plant. It includes participant observation of the interactions of Latinos/as and African American workers as well as interviews with workers. The project seeks to understand the dynamics of economic competition theories and to see how intergroup relations figure into the incorporation of migrants, and racial and ethnic relations. It will bridge and extend important theoretical traditions that have so far developed in isolation.
Findings will be of interest to a diverse audience including local and national organizations working to facilitate Latino/a migrant incorporation and address grievances between Latinos/as and African Americans at the community level. Findings will also aid efforts to improve the working conditions of all workers, given insights into the sources of conflict and opportunities for cooperation between Latinos and African Americans.
The dramatic demographic transformation of the U.S. South is a topic of much interest to scholars and public commentators across a diversity of fields.The research examines the social and economic incorporation of Latino/a migrants in the U.S. South, focusing on how Latinos develop a sense of their group position through boundary-making processes structured in key domains, in this case, at the workplace. The study involved extensive participant observation at a Southern meatpacking plant between August 2009 and December 2010. I also conducted in-depth interviews with Latina/o and African American workers. NSF funds were used to facilitate the collection and transcription of a select number of interviews with workers. Results of this study show that, in addition to preconditioning factors such as ethnoracial panoramas in origin countries, features of the social organization of labor crucially account for how Latinos/migrants carve out their place in the New American South. In contrast to the conclusions from recent research on the topic of intergroup relations in the U.S. South, African American workers do not talk or behave as if they are especially threatened by Latinos/migrants. On the other hand, Latina/os deploy an elaborate array of action that is substantially inflected negatively towards African Americans. My research shows that Latina/os’ views about American blacks reflects on the one hand the near-universal devaluation of blackness and, on the other hand, their perception that being Black is an advantaged position at the micro level of an American workplace. The great sense of oppression felt by Latina/os who perceive they are the most relentlessly exploited workers is refracted in the view that African Americans occupy a privileged position at work. Rather than examining Black-Latino relations in a vacuum, however, I show how ideas about white dominance mediate these groups’ relations with one another. This project advances the study of migrant incorporation, racial/ethnic relations, and work by bridging and extending important theoretical traditions that have so far developed in relative isolation. The main methodological contribution of this project - studying social relations through embedded participant observation in the critical context of the workplace - demonstrates the limitations of studies that rely exclusively on interview data. Findings from this research suggest that improving the working conditions of all workers has the potential to enhance cooperation and solidarity between Latino/a and African American workers.
