Going South, Coming North: Migration and Union Organizing in Morristown, Tennessee

Abstract

Silvia Perez, her husband Alfredo (who works in an assembly plant owned by Sylvania), and their three children in Ciudad Juárez. Courtesy the Perez family. This multimedia essay augments the 2007 Appalshop film Morristown: in the air and sun, a documentary about the migration of industrial capital and the arrival of immigrant labor in and around Morristown, Tennessee. Fran Ansley and Anne Lewis situate the film within the context of workers’ responses to globalization, particularly the effects of NAFTA after 1994. They follow the two-way currents now so evident in many southern towns where industrial plants move south and migrant labor comes north across the international border. As a way to examine the connections between labor rights and immigrant rights, the essay juxtaposes a local labor union campaign with anti-immigrant legislation across the state and the country, through text, still images, and video.

Keywords

• Business and Commerce
• Criminal Justice
• Economics
• Global South
• Industry and Labor
• Latino Studies