The browning of the new South /

Jones's recent book offers a compelling analysis of the current reconfiguration of the racial landscape in the American South. Formally known as a welcoming destination, the "southern distinctiveness" has quickly evaporated in the wake of recent demographic and economic transformations. Attentively exploring patterns of change within the Winston-Salem (North Carolina) community, Jones shows how institutional closure and demographic panics have not only impacted everyday life but the racial identities of the local Latino population. Race is not a fixed ontological marker, the author reminds us, but a locally made, deeply contextual, and contingent political category. By linking the literature of race and immigration studies, Jones also highlights how this closure has enabled unexpected yet strategic intergroup relations and political alignments between the Latino and the African American communities. The book has eight chapters, organized chronologically as well as analytically. The author resorts to extensive archival research, interviews, and ethnographic reports to present her argument clearly and concisely. Overall, this book is a substantial contribution to the growing body of "new migration studies" in the US. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. --Alejandro Ponce de Leon, University of California, Davis