Latino Orlando: Suburban Transformation and Racial Conflict (Southern Dissent) - Softcover

Delerme, Simone

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0813080258 ISBN 13: 9780813080253

Publisher: University Press of Florida, 2023

Synopsis

Inside the experiences of immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean

Latino Orlando portrays the experiences of first- and second-generation immigrants who have come to the Orlando metropolitan area from Puerto Rico, Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and other Latin American countries. While much research on immigration focuses on urban destinations, Simone Delerme delves into a middle- and upper-class suburban context, highlighting the profound demographic and cultural transformation of an overlooked immigrant hub.

Drawing on interviews, observations, fieldwork, census data, and traditional and new media, Delerme reveals the important role of real estate developers in attracting Puerto Ricans—some of the first Spanish-speaking immigrants in the region—to Central Florida in the 1970s. She traces how language became a way of racializing and segregating Latino communities, leading to the growth of suburban ethnic enclaves. She documents not only the tensions between Latinos and non-Latinos, but also the class-based distinctions that cause dissent within the Latino population.

Arguing that Latino migrants are complicating racial categorizations and challenging the deep-rooted Black-white binary that has long prevailed in the American South, Latino Orlando breaks down stereotypes of neighborhood decline and urban poverty and illustrates the diversity of Latinos in the region.

About this title

About the Author

Simone Delerme is the McMullan Associate Professor of Southern Studies and associate professor of anthropology at the University of Mississippi.

Edition details

• Publisher: University Press of Florida
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0813080258
• ISBN 13: 9780813080253
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 210