Global Lives, Local Struggles: Latin American Immigrants in Atlanta
Mary Odem, Emory University
Overview:
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Over the past two decades, hundreds of thousands
of men and a growing number of women and children from Mexico and
other parts of Latin America have migrated to the Atlanta, Georgia
metropolitan region to find work in its thriving economy. According
to the Census,
Atlanta has experienced the most rapid Hispanic growth rate of all
major U.S. metro areas during these years. As a new immigrant destination,
Atlanta has presented distinct opportunities and constraints to
Mexicans and Central Americans seeking to live and work there. Immigrants
have been drawn by the huge demand for labor in the construction,
landscaping, restaurant, and service industries, and by the availability
of cheap housing in form of numerous low-rent apartment buildings.
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But they have also faced serious restrictions
and discrimination as low-wage immigrant laborers, particularly
the large number of undocumented workers. Despite these constraints,
Latino immigrants have created cultural spaces for themselves. One
of these is a Latino-Catholic mission where immigrants can practice
their faith in a familiar and welcoming environment and find the
social and spiritual resources to deal with the hardships of migration
and adaptation to life in the U.S. |
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Presentation Sections:
Video:
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Global Lives, Local Struggles:
Latin American Immigrants in Atlanta (Documentary footage used in this essay was provided
by William Brown, Director, Living Across Borders.) Left: Photograph of Rosa, Miguel and their son. |
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Part 1 (4:35 min.)
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Rosa and Miguel: Immigrants from the town
of Ejido Modelo
Emiliano Zapata in Jalisco, Mexico |
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Part 2 (3:49 min.)
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Patterns of Latin American immigration to the Atlanta metropolitan area.
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Part 3 (3:20 min.)
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Transnational migrant circuits between Atlanta and localities in Mexico and Central America.
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Part 4 (2:34 min.)
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Chamblee and Doraville: immigrant settlement in suburban Atlanta.
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Part 5 (2:53 min.)
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Surveillance and control of immigrant workers.
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Part 6 (7:32 min.)
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Constructing Latino spaces and communities. Our Lady of Guadalupe and Latin American Catholicism in the Protestant South.
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Part 7 (4:25 min.)
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A Latino Catholic mission: fostering integration and homeland ties.
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Part 8 (1:53 min.)
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Conclusion: Transformation of the religious landscape
in the U.S. South. |
*Global Lives, Local Struggles: Latin American Immigrants
in Atlanta was sponsored by a grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts
and the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Religion at Emory University.
About Mary Odem:
Mary Odem received her Ph.D. in History from the University
of California, Berkeley in 1989. Her areas of specialization within the
field of U.S. history include women and gender, family, migration, and ethnicity.
Her research has focused on the ways in which capitalist development,
urbanization, migration, and the expansion of state power have shaped
and transformed gender, family, and race/ethnic relations. Odem's first
book, Delinquent Daughters: Protecting and Policing Adolescent Female
Sexuality in the United States (1995), examines the gender, class,
and racial tensions that fueled campaigns to control female sexuality
in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This book won the
President's Book Award for the best new book manuscript from the Social
Science History Association and was named a Choice Outstanding Academic
Book of 1996. She has also co-edited a collection of essays, Confronting
Rape and Sexual Assault (1998), which brings together leading scholarship
in the social sciences on the subject of sexual violence.
Her current research project addresses the socio-cultural contexts, processes, and transformations of Latin American migration to the U.S. South since 1965. The project examines how diverse groups of migrants from Mexico and Central America have reconstructed community life and collective identity in urban and suburban South, focusing on the gender and family dimensions of this process.
Video of Prof. Odem was taken at "The End of Southern Exceptionalism" conference held at Emory University in March of 2006, an event organized by Prof. Joseph Crespino of the Emory University History Department and Prof. Matt Lassiter of the Department of History at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
Her current research project addresses the socio-cultural contexts, processes, and transformations of Latin American migration to the U.S. South since 1965. The project examines how diverse groups of migrants from Mexico and Central America have reconstructed community life and collective identity in urban and suburban South, focusing on the gender and family dimensions of this process.
Video of Prof. Odem was taken at "The End of Southern Exceptionalism" conference held at Emory University in March of 2006, an event organized by Prof. Joseph Crespino of the Emory University History Department and Prof. Matt Lassiter of the Department of History at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
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