Landscapes of luxury in the rural US depend on the recruitment of low-wage and often undocumented Latino workers

The last two decades have witnessed a dramatic growth in low-wage Latino and Latina immigrants, both documented and undocumented, finding employment and settling permanently in the United States. This process represents a key example of how globalization is transforming the U.S. economy and society. Of particular interest to scholars has been the diversification of Latino immigrant destinations, as a growing number of communities with no recent history of immigrant presence have witnessed rapid growth in immigrant residents. In new research, Lise Nelson, Laurie Trautman, and Peter B. Nelson argue that rural gentrification represents an important but overlooked ‘pull factor’ in the expansion of new Latino immigrant destinations in the rural United States. Their research reveals the process through which employers’ recruited workers to these geographically isolated locales, and how the gentrification boom witnessed in these places is supported by highly flexible immigrant labor regimes.