The exotic other: Latinos and the remaking of community identity in Perry, Iowa

Abstract

Latino immigration, often resulting from the restructuring of the meatpacking industry, is reshaping the cultural identity of rural small town America. We explore how local institutions in Perry, Iowa, deal with the emerging cultural diversity in their town. The key findings of the research support the proposition that Perry's adopted cultural pluralism in fact is a case of Eurocentric values reconstructed to accommodate an appreciation of cultural diversity and of recent immigrants' contributions to local growth and town revitalization. The town's civic organizations' formal focus on myth making and multiculturalism leaves class, race, gender, privilege, and local power relations essentially unchallenged. We argue that the new multicultural praxis emerging in Perry reconstructs a model of local culture which maintains, and potentially reinforces, societal power disparities and leaves the town and its residents still grappling with questions and challenges of ethnic diversification. Assimilation through exoticization of the immigrant is a policy that is not conducive of equal treatment and leads to further marginalization of the immigrants. Community development multicultural policies should appreciate cultural diversity but not transform it into a museum curiosity for the locals. Indeed planners should valorize diversity to address issues of class, race, gender, privilege, and local power relations.