/
Chicago s Little Village, one of the neighborhoods at the center of Barrio America: How Latino Immigrants Saved the American City.
Michael T. Davis Photography
A.K. Sandoval-Strausz director of the Latino/a studies program and associate professor of history at Penn State University is the author of “Barrio America: How Latino Immigrants Saved the American City.”
President Ronald Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act into law in 1986, providing a path to citizenship for around 3 million immigrants living undocumented in the U.S.
Cities across the U.S. were already being transformed by Latin American immigrants. They brought cities back from the brink of urban decline that began in the 1950s, according to historian A.K. Sandoval-Strausz.
2 of 4 Shotgun homes line the streets of Chicago’s Little Village. | Credit: A.K. Sandoval-Strausz 3 of 4 Jefferson Boulevard, 1957. Oak Cliff’s main shopping street was prosperous around midcentury, lined with scores of small local businesses and a few national chains. | Courtesy: Texas/Dallas History and Archives Division, Dallas Public Library 4 of 4 A.K. Sandoval-Strausz director of the Latino/a studies program and associate professor of history at Penn State University is the author of “Barrio America: How Latino Immigrants Saved the American City.” | Credit: Michael T. Davis Photography
A.K. Sandoval-Strausz s Barrio America explores how Latino immigrants revitalized the nation’s cities after decades of disinvestment and white flight.