Hispanic and Latino New Orleans: Immigration and Identity Since the Eighteenth Century

The city of New Orleans holds a special place in peoples' imaginations. Its history extends well into the past and includes a diverse and ever-changing collection of residents, workers, and visitors from various places. Hispanic and Latino New Orleans is an important contribution to those who are interested in its sometimes overlooked Latino/a residents or the impacts of Latino/a and Hispanic peoples in shaping the character and trajectories of the city. The authors are mostly geographers, and the chapters include a welcome engagement with diverse disciplines and methods that produce considerable demographic analyses, interviews that contribute on-the-ground perspectives, and historical descriptions of the past few turbulent centuries.

Through eight chapters, the book methodically considers six 'groups' of Latinos and/or Hispanics: Isleños (those from the Canary Islands), Cubans, Hondurans, Mexicans, and Brazilians. Overall, the book adopts a fairly rigid structure wherein a particular group, Hondurans for example, are each treated in a stand-alone chapter. Each substantive chapter begins with an absorbing historical treatment that engages a particular group's first arrivals to New Orleans and then moves on to discuss the qualities, impacts, and anecdotal stories of the group in the 18^th, 19^th, and/or 20^th centuries. It then gives a detailed analysis of the census data available for each group and critically analyzes the results of relevant censuses as well as the limitations and impacts of the census process. Regarding this latter point, in many chapters the book often engages with how the decadal censuses were altered to provide space for write-in responses that provide more detailed information about national origin and how this impacts our understanding (and fiscal allocations) to minority communities. Each chapter concludes with an analysis of a 'post-Katrina' world detailing, for example, how Mexican and Honduran communities have grown in decidedly different ways, in different neighborhoods, with different subnational and transnational connections after Katrina. A final chapter on "Other Communities" discusses groups with fewer members such as Nicaraguan, Guatemalan, or Salvadoran communities. This last substantive chapter also provides compelling insight into the experience of the Garínagu, or mixed African and indigenous peoples who were expelled from the British colony of St. Vincent in the Caribbean to later settle mostly in Belize.

In the introductory chapter, the authors place New Orleans and surrounding parishes into the national immigration context. Though there are fewer Latinos in New Orleans than many other destinations, the authors present a compelling history of this diverse group. They begin with interesting information from the 2010 census that indicates a much deeper history of Latinos in the area than often discussed which begins with the migration of Isleños to the city New Spain in the late 1700s. The combined implementation of historical narrative, analysis, and discussion continues in each chapter and winds its way through fascinating moments in history. For example, they discuss the impacts of the Louisiana Purchase and its impact on the geopolitical alignment of the city increasingly towards the Caribbean rather than toward Spain. They also consider the ascendance of Cuban expatriates in the city that helped solidify socio- economic ties with the island nation's sugar industry and promoted the influence of Cuban culture in New Orleans. The chapter 'Hondurans' briefly discusses the relocation of the United Fruit Company to New Orleans in the 1900s by Samuel

Zemurray (whose family also funded the Zemurray Stone Center, Tulane's Center for Latin American Studies) and its funding of the violent army repression of labor strikes in Honduras which was concurrent with Honduran migration to the area. Similarly, The authors also discuss New Orleans' relation to the politics of the Mexican state, as it was twice the location from which rebellions were plotted and funded, first by Benito Juarez, then by Porfirio Diaz, both of whom would later serve as president.

Despite these compelling instances, the...