Nuevo South

Perla M. Guerrero is an assistant professor of American studies and US Latina/o studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. She has published research on relational and comparative race and ethnicity, space and place, immigration, labor, and US history in numerous book chapters and articles.

• PrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroductionChapter 1. New South to Nuevo South: Region, Labor, and RaceChapter 2. Yellow Peril in Arkansas: War, Christianity, and the Regional Racialization of Vietnamese RefugeesChapter 3. Mariel Cubans as an “Objectionable Burden” and “Illegal Aliens”Chapter 4. Latinas/os and Polleras: Social Networks, Multisite Migration, Raids, and Upward MobilityChapter 5. “Northwest Arkansas’s No. 1 Societal Concern”: “Illegal Aliens,” Acts of Spatial Illegality, and Political MobilizationsConclusion: Race, Plantation Bloc, and Nuevo SouthNotesBibliographyIndex

This is the first comparative book on the transformation of race and place between Latina/os and Asians in the South. Guerrero challenges future scholars to broaden their understanding of the racial binary to explore and document the region's Latina/o and Asian history. A key contribution to Latina/o studies, Asian American studies, and American studies. (Choice Reviews) I recommend this book to any student examining [immigrant incorporation and race and ethnic relations in the South], especially in new destinations, or the Nuevo South. (Ethnic and Racial Studies) [A]n essential historical view into the longevity of racialization and anti-immigrant hostility...[Guerrero's] larger point is both clear and timely: whether for Vietnamese refugees in Fort Smith, Black students in Little Rock, or Latinx immigrants in Springdale and Rogers, place matters, and the legacies of racialized exclusions persist in uniquely place-based ways. (Great Plains Research) This is a timely publication for Arkansans and historians alike to understand the contemporary role the region plays in the local and national debates on immigration...Nuevo South succeeds in revealing the complexity of race and ethnic relations as Arkansas continues to be a frontier space within which brave new pioneers continue to forge a homeplace. (Fort Smith Historical Society Journal) Nuevo South demonstrates the power of place in defining race...While Guerrero's study calls us to study race in local and place-specific ways, her analysis of the interconnected and historically situated ways race has evolved offers much broader insight into the dynamic process of race-making. (Pacific Historical Review) [A] suggestive look into the fitful ethnoracial transformation of an important southern place. (Journal of Southern History) Perla M. Guerrero's insightful book Nuevo South is important. She explores the immigration and migration of Vietnamese, Cubans, and Mexicans to northwest Arkansas and the local, state, and federal governments' different, and often conflicted, responses to these people...This is a good book. (Latino Studies) Comparing the experiences of Vietnamese, Cuban, and Mexican refugees and migrants, Guerrero demonstrates why we need a more nuanced understanding of how these groups, and others, changed the face of the South and its many regional racial thinking. (New Books Network: History) For those interested in studies on comparative immigration, whiteness, and labor and class, Nuevo South opens a window onto the shifting contours of a lesser-known part of the South. (Southwestern Historical Quarterly) As the first book to interweave Latina/o studies, Asian American studies, and Southern history, Nuevo South greatly advances all three fields. With its complex coverage of one of the South's most important cultural and economic areas, it is a must read for any scholar interested in the US South, the rural United States, and migration...Guerrero has produced a groundbreaking work that will be cited for years to come and will likely inspire others to study the many regions of the United States that are changing with, and benefiting from, refugee and immigrant communities. (Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies)