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"Migrants from the Mexican states of Zacatecas, Guanajuato, Jalisco, and Michoacâan have become an important presence in Chicago and the Midwest. Many hold jobs as yarderos gardening, caring for lawns, and doing other landscaping work. Sergio Lemus explores the lives of these migrants and looks at the struggles they face as they work to make the city their home. Drawing on fieldwork in South Chicago, Lemus tells the stories of first and second-generation yarderos and discusses the historical, economic, cultural, and political ramifications they face as they acquire their working-class identity. Lemus's compassionate portrait places them within America's ongoing tradition as a nation of immigrants while analyzing their place within today's transborder cultural moment. Perceptive and humane, Los Yarderos reveals how a group of Mexican immigrants navigates the crossings of the borders that divide class, color hierarchies, gender, and belonging"--
List of contents
Preface: Inspecting Borders
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1. Becoming Yarderos: Migration, Capitalism, and Culture
Chapter 2. Dispossessed Masculinity: The Market and the Cultural Production of Migrant Mexican Men
Chapter 3. Performing Power: The Body, Capitalist Discipline, and Laughing Hard
Chapter 4. Color Inspections: Alternative Imaginings of Racial Landscapes among Yarderos/as
Chapter 5.
Los Morenos y Los Mejicanos: On Colorism, Mugging, and Lateral Race-Making in South Chicago
Chapter 6. On Mexican
Sacer: Anti-Immigrant Discourse, Deportability, and Working-Class Criminalization
Conclusion: Yardero Lives Matter
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Sergio Lemus
