Scratching out a living : Latinos, race, and work in the Deep South / Angela Stuesse.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 275-301) and index.

Southern fried: globalization and immigrant transformations -- Dixie chicken: racial segregation, poultry integration, and the making of the "new" South in central Mississippi -- The caged bird sings for freedom: black struggles for civil and labor rights, 1950-1980 -- .?.?. to get to the other side: the Hispanic project and the rise of the Nuevo South -- Pecking order: Latino newcomers, receptions, and racial hierarchies -- A bone to pick: labor control and the painful work of chicken processing -- Sticking our necks out: challenges to union and workers' center organizing -- Walking on eggshells: illegality, employer sanctions, and disposable workers -- Plucked: labor contractors and immigrant exclusion -- Flying upwind: toward a new Southern solidarity -- Postscript: home to roost: reflections on activist research.

"What does globalization look like in the rural South? Scratching Out a Living takes readers deep into Mississippi's chicken processing communities and workplaces, where large numbers of Latin American migrants began arriving in the mid-1990s to labor alongside an established African American workforce in some of the most dangerous and lowest paid jobs in the country. Based on six years of collaboration with a local workers' center, activist anthropologist Angela Stuesse explores how Black, white, and new Latino residents have experienced and understood these transformations. Illuminating connections between the area's long history of racial inequality, the poultry industry's growth, immigrants' contested place in contemporary social relations, and workers' prospects for political mobilization, Scratching Out a Living calls for organizing strategies that bring diverse working communities together in mutual construction of a more just future"--Provided by publisher.