UC Santa Cruz

This dissertation examines how rural and agricultural contexts shape intersectional formations of racialized girlhood in the United States. The project investigates how Latina girls who grew up in California’s Central Valley (CV) and who have ties to the region’s agricultural job sector form their subjectivities and sense of home in these racialized rural contexts, and how in turn, these rural contexts inform different types of mobility for these girls. More specifically, I explore how rural-to-urban migration shapes their upward economic mobilities, as well as their future aspirations and sense of self. Findings from over 100 hours of interview data and 77 items of visual data via digital ethnography with 46 participants suggest that the social processes that encourage mobility for rural youth create push and pull factors that differ according to race/ethnicity, gender, class, and immigrant background.

Whether or not Latina rural girls become mobile depends on three interrelated elements of rural spatial production—the rural as material, the rural as discourse, and the rural as affect. First, the rural as material emphasizes how the Central Valley’s agricultural political economy creates few pathways for upward economic mobility via work and education, as rural spaces lack diverse market economies and higher education institutions compared to the rest of the state, pushing youth out. Second, the rural as discourse highlights how CV rural youth receive messages that urban cities are places where successful, exciting, and modern adulthood happens, making the CV less desirable. Latina girls, in particular, also associate traditional gender roles and heteronormative relationships with their small rural hometowns, which mark the rural as culturally distinct from their imaginations of and experiences with urban life. Lastly, the rural as affect may mitigate push factors as girls experience the rural as a place of tranquility, slowness, and family connectedness, motivating some young Latinas to return or stay home despite having desires to leave for better futures. (Im)mobile Girls contends with the political-economical, cultural, and affective dimensions of rurality to examine how subjectivity, social inequalities, and life outcomes are shaped by social-spatial production.