White spaces in brown(ing) places: toward the spatialization of critical immigration studies

This article examines how the everyday and organizational uses of public space shape Latinx racialization. We contextualize the maturing migrant destinations of the US South and rural Midwest. Specifically, in Springdale, Arkansas and Marshall, Missouri, where the 1990s settlement of Latinx migrants transformed these from homogenously White to racially diverse communities. Hence, brown(ing) places. As a theory-driven empirical assessment, we model race, space, and immigration. This conceptual framework underlines how Latinxs experience racialized (dis)involvement in public life. Through a comparative ethnography, we illustrate how Latinxs adapt, negotiate, and contest racialized space. Just as much, we reveal the organizational, experiential, and built forms that reproduce community space as whitespace. We juxtapose to theories of whitespace as highly structured and continuous, derived from contested uses, and/or produced by dominant interests. In effect, our spatialized rendering of critical immigration studies addresses issues of racialized inclusion/exclusion across diversifying community-organizational contexts.

Automated summary

This article explores how the everyday and organizational uses of public space affect the racialization of Latinx in different contexts. Through a theoretical and empirical analysis, the study examines the relationship between race, space, and immigration. The findings highlight the experiences of Latinx in racially diverse communities and their adaptation and negotiation in racialized spaces.