the Nuevo South with Dr. Perla M. Guerrero (ep 2b, 45).

Send us a text

In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Perla Guerrero, Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland and author of Nuevo South, to explore one of the most significant transformations in Northwest Arkansas history: what happens when a place that was overwhelmingly white through most of the 20th century experiences rapid demographic diversification. Dr. Guerrero shares her own journey as an undocumented immigrant who moved from California to Fort Smith at age 16, drawn by her father's search for work in the poultry industry, and how that experience shaped her understanding of racialization, belonging, and public space in the American South.

Through her research and lived experience, Dr. Guerrero helps us understand how Northwest Arkansas responded to the arrival of Vietnamese refugees, Cuban refugees, and Mexican immigrants from the 1970s forward. We explore concepts like acts of spatial illegality, how immigrant communities were tolerated when hidden in factories but criminalized when they became visible in public spaces, and the plantation bloc, the enduring power structures that have controlled racialized labor from slavery through Jim Crow to contemporary immigration enforcement. This conversation bridges historical patterns to the urgent present, examining how regional legacies of racial violence shape who feels welcomed today and asking what community wholeness might look like in a place still reckoning with its past.

https://www.theunderview.com/episodes/the-underview-nuevo-south-dr-perla-m-guerrero

About the underview:

The underview is an exploration of the development of our Communal Theology of Place viewed through the medium of bikes, land, and people to discover community wholeness.

Website: ⁠⁠theunderview.com⁠⁠
Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠@underviewthe
Host: @mikerusch

Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theunderview/message