Globalization, Latinization, and
the Nuevo New South
RAYMOND A. MOHL
IN 1992 FELLIPE PATINO settled in Russellville, Alabama, along with his
wife Patricia and their children, Juan and Alma. They were among a small
handful of Hispanics living in Russellville at the time. During the previous
four years, Fellipe had traveled back and forth from Mexico to Florida
for work while his family remained behind in Mexico. Still earlier, he
had made numerous annual migrations to work in California agriculture.
Patino was drawn to heavily rural, mostly white, northwest Alabama by
the opportunity to work in the Gold Kist poultry plant in Russellville,
where, he was told by fellow Mexicans, he could almost double the wages
he earned as a migrant farm worker in Florida. The Russellville poultry
plant had opened in 1990, but Gold Kist managers had trouble securing
a stable labor force locally. Like other chicken processors in Alabama
and elsewhere, Gold Kist found in Hispanic workers like Patino the reliable
low-cost labor pool they needed to maintain efficient production. By the
end of the 1990s, population of the Russellville area had become more
than one-third Hispanic, some 3,500 of about 10,000 people. By that time,
the Patino family had bought a home. The children enrolled in local schools
and endured ethnic harassment from American schoolmates, but ultimately
they became fluent in English and adjusted to life in small-town Alabama.
The family missed the Mexican homeland to a degree, but by the end of
the 1990s the Mexican community in Russellville was large enough to provide
many homeland comforts: native foods such as flat tacos, hot peppers,
and goat meat; Mexican movie videos; Spanish-language soap operas on satellite
television; weekend soccer leagues; familiar church services on Sundays;
Spanish-speaking workers in government agencies; and Hispanic clerks in
local retail stores.
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