"Eight years ago, Los Angeles-based writer Mike Davis proclaimed that Latina/os were "turning the lights back on" in cities and towns across the U.S., in Magical Urbanism: Latinos Reinvent the U.S. City, just one of the many publications concerning the arrival of Latina/os as the nation's new largest minority. This wave of media also noted the redistribution of Latina/os into areas perceived as having little ethnic or racial diversity, such as Midwestern towns with new meatpackers or light manufacturing. However, scholarship concerning these towns has focused on the social and economic ramifications of their rapid Latina/o population growth, while ignoring the interaction of these new, mostly Mexican-American, communities with the built environment. My work posits that the built environment inhabited by newly-formed Mexican-American communities in the non-metro Midwest contains key data about the relationship between ethnic groups within these towns, the current situation of the newcomers, and the economic and social future of these often blighted cities.

Dieterlen situates these new findings within the literature, its context within landscape architecture, and its larger significance. Then presents three distinct types of new Mexican-American landscapes within Midwestern small cities, and close with a series of future directions for this exciting new research area. 

Dissertation committee is co-chairs Bob Grese (SNRE) and Maria Cotera (LSA – Latina/o Studies), Ivette Perfecto (SNRE) and Jonathan Levine (Urban Planning). "