The Nuestro South Loud & Proud series focuses on the Poder y Cultura that Nuestra Gente in the South can possess. From the comida que cocinamos, the music we play, and our labor which plants, cleans, and builds-- Nuestra Gente has grown deep roots in the south.
In this episode- Why did Latinos in Texas pack their bags and move to Georgia in the 1980's and 1990's? How did new immigrant communities navigate a space donde no habia ni chiles, ni tortillas? How did "Mustache Mike's" come to be known as "El Mustacho" and what is the significance of a second generation Chicano Atlanta rapper?
Unlike most traditional Latin American immigrant destination cities and states, the journey into the south can involve a larger need to build your own sense of home and community. For the early Latinx immigrants arriving in cities like Atlanta, finding food and entertainment was a necessary plight to feel comfortable. Future generations, those who arrived as children or those born in the south, now push for a greater sense of belonging and ownership of the place they call home through their Poder y Cultura.
Yami Rodriguez is a historian of Latinx communities whose interdisciplinary research engages questions of race, ethnicity, labor, and migration. With a regional focus on the U.S. South, Rodriguez’s scholarship examines Latinx political, economic, and cultural place-making practices in the twentieth and twenty first centuries. Her current book project, “Mexican Atlanta: Migrant Place-Making in the Latinx South,” traces the history of Metro Atlanta’s ethnic Mexican community formation with attention to the region’s longer Latinx histories beginning in the mid-twentieth century. She is currently a post-doc at Emory University.
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The Nuestro South Loud & Proud Interview Series is produced by Axel Herrera, Julie Weise, and Erik Valera with generous sponsorship from the Whiting Foundation, the University of Oregon College of Arts and Sciences, and LatinxEd.