Latino Landscapes: A Transnational History of Urban America, 1945-2000

FAIN: HR-50517-10

Andrew K. Sandoval-Strausz
Regents of the University of New Mexico (Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001)

The history of postwar urban America cannot explain the state of the nation's cities until it becomes both a Latino and a transnational history. I propose to study how Latin American immigrants have transformed urban America by analyzing their use of architectural and social space. This research will test three hypotheses: that Latinos have been essential to the urban renaissance of the past fifteen years; that they have led the way in the urbanization of suburbia; and that U.S. suburbanization has been a merely temporary exception to the larger process of urbanization throughout the Americas.

Media Coverage

Oak Cliff Becomes Cool Embracing What Other Parts Of Dallas Have Fought: Builders, Bikes And Immigrants (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Jim Schutze
Publication: Dallas Observer
Date: 2/25/2010
Abstract: Newspaper article about the ongoing transformation of the Oak Cliff neighborhood in Dallas by its large Latino immigrant population. Quotes Sandoval-Strausz.
URL: http://www.dallasobserver.com/content/printVersion/1694923/

CNBC Television Interview (Media Coverage)
Publication: Street Signs
Date: 11/19/2014
Abstract: An interview about the Journal of American History article and what it says about the expected effects of President Obama's executive action on immigration
URL: http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000332026

Mexicans Saved Oak Cliff While They Saved American Cities. Bikos Came Later. (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Jim Schutze
Publication: Dallas Observer
Date: 3/17/2015
Abstract: A discussion of the Journal of the American History by a longtime observer of the Dallas neighborhood that was the article's subject
URL: http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2015/03/mexicans_saved_oak_cliff_while_they_saved_american_cities_bikos_came_later.php

Associated Products

LATINO LANDSCAPES: TRANSNATIONAL URBANISM IN DALLAS AND THE NEXT URBAN HISTORY (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: LATINO LANDSCAPES: TRANSNATIONAL URBANISM IN DALLAS AND THE NEXT URBAN HISTORY
Author: A. K. Sandoval-Strausz
Abstract: The renewal of the Oak Cliff neighborhood in Dallas by its new, predominantly Latino population suggests that we need to reinterpret the urban history of the postwar United States to account for the influence of immigration from Latin America.
Date: 10/21/2010
Conference Name: Urban History Association

Latino Vernaculars and the Emerging National Landscape (Article)
Title: Latino Vernaculars and the Emerging National Landscape
Author: A. K. Sandoval-Strausz
Abstract: The purpose of this essay is to build upon earlier findings about the distinctive landscapes of Hispanic settlement in North America and suggest some key directions and future possibilities for research into the ways that Latinos are transforming the United States. I also want to suggest how methodologies and conceptual approaches long since mastered by Vernacular Architecture Forum participants can put us in a strong position to intervene in current scholarly discussions and public debates across a number of fields.
Year: 2013
Primary URL: http://www.vernaculararchitectureforum.org/Buildings-and-Landscapes-Backlist
Primary URL Description: Link to issue of the journal.
Access Model: Subscription only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Buildings & Landscapes: The Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum

Latino Landscapes: Postwar Cities and the Transnational Origins of a New Urban America (Article)
Title: Latino Landscapes: Postwar Cities and the Transnational Origins of a New Urban America
Author: A. K. Sandoval-Strausz
Abstract: THE EXISTING HISTORIOGRAPHY of cities in the postwar United States is superb, but the time has come to rethink U.S. urban areas by placing them in a pan-American context. This article does so by exploring the complex racial history of the Oak Cliff neighborhood in Dallas, Texas. There are two main reasons for undertaking this historical revision. The first is that the current historiography has reached a chronological and conceptual impasse: the “urban crisis” paradigm is no longer adequate to explain the current condition of American cities; their history is still bounded by the nation-state even after forty years in which the most important forces acting on cities have operated transnationally. The second is that it offers the opportunity to recast the national narrative by moving Latino history to the center of one of the most important debates in the field of U.S. history.
Year: 2014
Primary URL: http://www.journalofamericanhistory.org/issues/1013/
Primary URL Description: The website of the issue of the journal
Access Model: Subscription only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Journal of American History
Publisher: Organization of American Historians

Transnational Architecture & Visual Culture in the Americas, 1960-1980 (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Transnational Architecture & Visual Culture in the Americas, 1960-1980
Abstract: There are a lot of reasons for the changed condition and prognosis of the nation’s cities, but today I want to focus on one in particular: Latin American immigration and the way that 25,000,000 predominantly working-class Latino migrants have moved to U.S. cities—and in the process created a transnational urban system—one that has transformed the built and visual environments of cities not just in the U.S., but also across Latin America.
Author: A. K. Sandoval-Strausz
Date: 04/09/2015
Location: Princeton University
Primary URL: http://artmuseum.princeton.edu/visit/calendar/2015-03/city-lost-and-found-symposium
Primary URL Description: The symposium website

Migrantes, Negocios, and Infraestructura: Transnational Urban Revitalization in Chicago since 1945 (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Migrantes, Negocios, and Infraestructura: Transnational Urban Revitalization in Chicago since 1945
Abstract: I want to make three points in particular. The first is that we really have to study urban revitalization from the bottom up to see how and why it has worked. My second point is that we therefore need to rethink the rather top-down way that we often imagine how and why things work in our global system of cities. This includes trying to decenter the United States and thus seeing revitalization in a hemispheric context in which migrants’ motivations, efforts, and actions have been conditioned by decisionmaking by governments, a considerable amount of it by foreign governments; and in which revitalization has both depended upon and influenced urban areas far from the cities of the United States. My third point involves both the realm of theory and the realm of policy: at the theoretical level, this means taking a different approach than that indicated by the global cities paradigm; at the level of policy, it means not tailoring municipal initiaties to the “creative class,” yuppies, or hipsters, but to immigrants and migrants—and in particular, immigrants of all classes, not just the much discussed and sought-after globetrotting techno-wizards.
Author: A. K. Sandoval-Strausz
Date: 04/02/2015
Location: University of Chicago

Latino Landscapes: Postwar Cities and the Transnational Origins of a New Urban America (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Latino Landscapes: Postwar Cities and the Transnational Origins of a New Urban America
Abstract: Now, there are a lot of reasons for the improved condition and prognosis of the nation’s cities—the management needs of global capitalism, the proximity benefits to knowledge-intensive sectors of the economy, and the rise of the historic preservation movement, among others—but today I want to focus on one in particular: Latin American immigration and the way that 25,000,000 predominantly working-class Latino migrants have moved to U.S. cities—and in the process created a transnational urban system—one that exists not just in the U.S., but also in the built environment of cities and towns across Latin America. So today, I’m going to talk about how that has worked Oak Cliff, a neighborhood in Dallas that over the course of forty years has gone from 95% white Anglo to 85% Latino.
Author: A. K. Sandoval-Strausz
Date: 02/05/2015
Location: Columbia University
Primary URL: http://universityseminars.columbia.edu/seminars/the-city/

Migrantes, Negocios, and Infraestructura: Transnational Processes of Urban Revitalization in the Americas (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Migrantes, Negocios, and Infraestructura: Transnational Processes of Urban Revitalization in the Americas
Abstract: What I would like to do today is to address the theme of “Immigration and Metropolitan Revitalization” by suggesting that we should understand it as a case of transnationalism from below—and that if we do, we can both see the entire phenomenon more clearly and also foster the kinds of policies most likely to expand existing examples of revitalization. I’m going to talk about this in three parts, one at each of three geographic levels, in order to offer a sort of nested account of the big picture. I am going to argue that metropolitan revitalization has been part of the formation of a broader urban system, one that is transnational—but that doesn’t simply follow the dictates of “big capital”; rather, it is created by migrants and immigrants with particular features of its own that are best understood at the local, grassroots level.
Author: A. K. Sandoval-Strausz
Date: 05/02/2014
Location: University of Pennsylvania
Primary URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcG39ZrE9Dc
Primary URL Description: The University of Pennsylvania's webpage for the conference.

Latin American Migrants and the Creation of a Hemispheric Urban System (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Latin American Migrants and the Creation of a Hemispheric Urban System
Abstract: Today, I’m going to talk about how the Latinization of cities has worked in Oak Cliff, a neighborhood in Dallas that over the course of forty years has gone from 95% white Anglo to 85% Latino. This might seem like a slim reed to support some big claims. But this is just one example of a broader trend. After all, there are plenty more examples of Latinization in urban America. Taken together, these areas represent a transnational transformation of American cities that forces us to rethink the way we talk about urban history.
Author: A. K. Sandoval-Strausz
Date: 10/20/2014
Location: University of Massachusetts-Amherst
Primary URL: http://www.umass.edu/history/about/feinbergseries.html
Primary URL Description: The website for the Feinberg Family lecture series.

Transnational Neighborhoods in Chicago and Dallas and the Next Urban History (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Transnational Neighborhoods in Chicago and Dallas and the Next Urban History
Abstract: Momentous demographic shifts have yet to be incorporated into existing paradigms of urban history, in part because the field is still bounded by the nation-state. The postwar historiography has remained resolutely domestic even as other areas of U.S. history have been challenged and in some cases transformed by the transnational turn in historical writing. Moreover, in related fields like urban sociology, geography, and anthropology, much influential research has analyzed cities according to their role in globalization. After forty years in which some of the most important demographic and economic forces acting on cities have operated across borders, urban historians need to reconsider some of the basic assumptions and explanatory frameworks in the field. It stands to reason to begin with the nation’s largest transnational population.
Author: A. K. Sandoval-Strausz
Date: 05/01/2013
Location: Rutgers University
Primary URL: http://raceethnicity.rutgers.edu/documents/event-archive/event-archive-2012-1013/178-sawyer-seminar-spring-schedule-2013/file
Primary URL Description: The Sawyer Seminar program

Latino Landscapes in Chicago: Transnational History, Architecture, and the Origins of a New Urban America (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Latino Landscapes in Chicago: Transnational History, Architecture, and the Origins of a New Urban America
Abstract: THE EXISTING HISTORIOGRAPHY OF CITIES in the postwar United States is superb, but the time has come for the next urban history: one that analyzes U.S. cities in their transnational context, particularly as they relate to the Americas. There are two main reasons for undertaking this historical revision. First, the current historiography has reached a chronological and conceptual impasse; second and equally importantly, this approach demonstrates how Latino history can transnationalize the field.
Author: A. K. Sandoval-Strausz
Date: 01/25/2013
Location: Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois
Primary URL: http://www.newberry.org/2012-2013-newberry-seminar-borderlands-and-latino-studies
Primary URL Description: The seminar's website

TRANSNATIONAL CITIES: PAST INTO PRESENT (Conference/Institute/Seminar)
Title: TRANSNATIONAL CITIES: PAST INTO PRESENT
Author: Nancy H. Kwak
Author: A. K. Sandoval-Strausz
Abstract: The purpose of this conference is to bring together scholars who are well situated to think through the practice and direction of transnational urban history and planning at an early point in their development. Drawing upon our own research, we will exchange ideas about methodology and theory; and in light of the way that other fields have been transformed by the transnational turn, we will consider how best to frame our own contributions.
Date Range: 03/28/2014-03/29/2014
Location: University of New Mexico
Primary URL: http://history.unm.edu/news-events/events/Transnational%20Cities%20Schedule.pdf
Primary URL Description: The program, from the UNM website.

---