Illegality in the Heartland
Regular price
€31.99
A01=Andrea Gomez Cervantes
anti-immigrant policies
Author_Andrea Gomez Cervantes
Category=JBFH
Category=JBSL1
Category=JPVH
community resilience
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
ethnographic fieldwork
gendered migration
immigrant adaptation
immigration enforcement
Indigenous identity politics
intersectional discrimination
Latin American diversity
migrant lived experiences
racialized immigration
rural resettlement patterns
social stratification
structural inequality
systemic exclusion
Product details
- ISBN 9780520393899
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 02 Dec 2025
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
Drawing on in-depth interviews and ethnographic participant observation, Illegality in the Heartland interrogates existing understandings of illegality and Latinidad by centering the voices and experiences of Indigenous and mestizo Latino immigrants in the American heartland during the first Trump administration, a distinct era of political uncertainty. Immigration policies and political narratives have long tied those suspected of being "illegal" to perceptions of Mexican origin and stereotypes associated with Hispanics more broadly. Likewise, Latin American immigrants in the United States have been positioned as a single group, thereby collapsing ethnoracial distinctions under the umbrella identities of Hispanic, Latina/o, or Latinx/e. Andrea Gómez Cervantes examines these ethnoracial divides among Latino immigrants as they seek to navigate life and make Kansas their home while undocumented. This work shines a crucial light on how immigration laws, racialization, and gender mechanisms intersect in spaces where immigrants are not yet an established part of the public imaginary—even as they make essential contributions to their communities and mobilize as increasingly influential constituents in their own right.
Andrea Gómez Cervantes is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Wake Forest University.
