Latino Orlando
Latino Orlando
Suburban Transformation and Racial Conflict
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.
A volume in the series Southern Dissent, edited by Stanley Harrold and Randall M. Miller
“A must read for any person interested in understanding and researching the complexities of Latino/a/x migration to the U.S.”—Centro Journal
“Expands our understanding of the Puerto Rican and Latino experience in Greater Orlando, as well as the effects of migration on both incoming and outgoing communities.”—Space and Culture
Delerme has conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork with Puerto Ricans and other Latinos in Orlando to provide a full-fledged picture of a complex and heterogenous community that has become central to the economic, cultural, and political life of the ‘New South.’’—Jorge Duany, editor of Picturing Cuba: Art, Culture, and Identity on the Island and in the Diaspora ‘A compelling ethnographic history of the rise and fall of Florida suburbs, places of great linguistic, cultural, and ethnic diversity. Delerme chronicles the stories of residents who have built communities in the face of growing national inequalities and poverty, anti-migrant sentiment, and class divides.’—Hannah Gill, author of The Latino Migration Experience in North Carolina: New Roots in the Old North State
Simone Delerme is the McMullan Associate Professor of Southern Studies and associate professor of anthropology at the University of Mississippi.
CONTENTS List of Figures 000 List of Tables 000 Foreword 000 Prologue 000 Acknowledgments 000 Introduction: New Destinations 000 1. Buenaventura Lakes 000 2. Latinization, Landscapes, and Soundscapes 000 3. The Fractured American Dream 000 4. Social Class Distinctions and the Latino Elite 000 5. The Encargado System 000 Conclusion 000 Notes 000 Bibliography 000 Index 000
