Research Collaborations
Title
International Memphis: Migration and Urban Transformation
Files
Description
This research documents the history and transformation of Summer Avenue—a commercial district in Memphis, Tennessee — due to changing residential patterns and the influx of migrants and their families. Memphis is a city with a history of segregation and a historic black-white racial binary; however, migrants are challenging the binary as they settle in Memphis and transform residential and commercial spaces. In 2019, the Summer Avenue Merchant’s Association (SAMA) began an effort to brand Summer Avenue as Memphis’ first official international district in an attempt to embrace the area’s cultural diversity, particularly the restaurants that are owned by individuals that migrated from different parts of the world.
This project focuses on the experiences of business owners that contributed to the international place-identity of the avenue and the revitalization of the community. Through participant observation, oral history interviews, archival research, and analysis of new media, this research examines how migrants are incorporated into the social, political, and economic life of communities that were non-traditional destinations of migration. The growing number of immigrant-owned businesses in Memphis represents gradual incorporation into the local economic market. These businesses are the visual markers in the landscape that signal the internationalization of Summer Avenue. In Memphis, newspapers, radio stations, magazines, festivals, folkloric groups, non-profit organizations, churches, and other institutions have also been created to provide services to the immigrant community, preserve and celebrate diverse cultures, and incorporate the incoming population of migrants into the region. Still, there are challenges to incorporation that continue in the current anti-immigrant political climate.
This research highlights the economic impact that immigrants have on receiving communities, but also reveals the obstacles that entrepreneurs face when trying to start and formalize their businesses. Access to information and linguistic barriers, for example, have hindered the advancement of some business owners, but formal and informal strategies have enabled others to remain viable.
Related Resources:
“Reflections from the Field: Discovering International Memphis” https://southernstudies.olemiss.edu/reflections-from-the-field-discovering-international-memphis/
Latino Memphis and Oxford https://www.southernfoodways.org/oral-history/latino-memphis-and-oxford/
El Sur Latino https://www.digital-ethnography.org/el-sur-latino
Publication Date
2021
Relational Format
image
Disciplines
Linguistics | Migration Studies | Place and Environment | Race and Ethnicity | Regional Sociology
Recommended Citation
Delerme, Simone, "International Memphis: Migration and Urban Transformation" (2021). Research Collaborations. 4.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/secspanish_collaborations/4
Comments
More information about Simone Delerme.