New People in the New South An Overview of Southern Immigration

• Published in: Southern cultures Vol. 13; no. 4; pp. 24 - 44
• Main Author: Bankston, Carl L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chapel Hill University of North Carolina Press 22-12-2007; The University of North Carolina Press
• Subjects: American history; Asians; Carpet industry; Censuses; Economic aspects; Emigration and immigration; Essays; Evaluation; Hispanics; Human migration; Immigrant populations; Immigrants; Immigration; Irish immigration; Livestock industries; Migrant communities; Opportunity; Population growth; Social aspects; Statistical data; United States
• ISSN: 1068-8218; 1534-1488; 1534-1488
• DOI: 10.1353/scu.2007.a224058

New York, Chicago, San Francisco are fixed in our imaginations as the great American immigrant settlements. [...]recendy, most people rarely considered the U.S. South when they thought of new arrivals from other countries. [...]ethnic networks and edinic communities helped to create the early southern pockets of immigrant settlement. The number of Hispanic immigrants entering the state from Texas increased during the 1990s in response to a demand for labor in oil-related construction, particularly in shipbuilding and ship repair, in the southwestern part of the state, with companies in the areas of Morgan City and Houma-Thibodeaux recruiting the abundant skilled and semi-skilled construction labor available in south Texas.36 In 1990s Mississippi and Alabama, Hispanic workers moved into the Gulf Coast area to work in jobs in casino construction and forestry. Again, however, opportunity has been a key issue, since immigrants seek access because of relative disadvantages in their original homelands and relative advantages in their destinations. [...]these access states would not have retained immigrants if jobs had not been available.