ABSTRACT
At first glance, Mexican-American landscapes in small Midwestern cities seems a highly specialized topic, perhaps of interest to only a select group of readers. It sits, however, at the intersection of several national and international trends and topics. This chapter sets the stage for later discussions of the landscape transformation of small Midwestern cities with Mexican-American communities by examining these larger trends and topics, providing a foundation of statistics and literature. These topics include an introduction to Mexican-Americans and their history in the Midwest, leading to a discussion about immigration then and now, including the continuing impact of the recession that began in 2008. Several economic trends are intertwined with both immigration and the context of the small cities depicted within this book. Here we focus on deindustrialization, and changes in agriculture, meatpacking, and food processing. The chapter ends with other demographic shifts and the shrinking cities they produce.
