Latino Orlando: Suburban Transformation and Racial Conflict - Hardcover

by Simone Delerme (Author)

Inside the
experiences of immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean

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.

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.

A volume in the series Southern Dissent, edited by Stanley Harrold and Randall M. Miller