For a general overview about rural life and rural poverty:
Sociologist Nina Eliasoph’s review of non-fiction books about rural America and cultural divides
To read about the history of the agrarian myth, check out Richard Hofstadter’s “The Myth of the Happy Yeoman”
Sociologist Gwen Sharp’s reporting on Census data about rural poverty
For survey data about American attitudes and experiences:
A Pew Research Center report about American attitudes toward immigrants
A Pew Research Center report about experiences of discrimination among Latinx-Americans
On the relationship between immigration policy and labor:
Los Angeles Times research on the reluctance of American born workers to do the kinds of jobs often held by immigrant workers
Sociology References
Crowley, Martha, Daniel Lichter & Zhenchao Qian. 2006. “Beyond Gateway Cities: Economic Restructuring and Poverty among Mexican Immigrant Families and Children.” Family Relations, 55 (July): 345-360.
Lichter, Daniel T. & David L. Brown. 2011. “Rural America in an Urban Society: Changing Spatial and Social Boundaries.” Annual Review of Sociology, 37: 565-592.
Lichter, Daniel & Kenneth Johnson. 2006. “Emerging Rural Settlement Patterns and the Geographic Redistribution of American’s New Immigrants.” Rural Sociology, 71(1): 109-131.
Lichter, Daniel, Domenico Parisi, Steven Michael Grice & Michael C. Taquino. 2007. “National Estimates of Racial Segregation in Rural and Small-town America.” Demography, 44(3): 563-581.
Schwalbe, Michael. 2014. Rigging the Game: How Inequality Is Reproduced in Everyday Life. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
This episode was written, produced and edited by Jennifer R. Myhre, with editing assistance from Lea Li and Deven Sutaria. The music that opens and closes each 1500 Stories episode was composed and produced by Benjamin Henderson, who also composed the additional music. The 1500 Stories podcast was launched thanks to generous financial assistance from the Mellon Foundation and American Council of Learned Societies community college faculty fellowship program. However, any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed here are our own and do not necessarily represent those of Mellon or ACLS. Thanks to Lea Li and Melinda Poley for their ears in early stages of drafting this episode.
