PLANTATION NOSTALGIA: IMMIGRATION, LABOR, CASINO INDUSTRY, AND HISTORICAL TRAUMA IN CYNTHIA SHEARER’S THE CELESTIAL JUKEBOX

Abstract

Recently, scholars have devoted considerable attention to the study of labor in literature, and specifically in the literature of the U.S. South due to the region’s global connections and complicated history. These studies have given insights into material conditions and exploitation of labor in southern spaces. The South has been an exception to the American experience with its exceptional history of labor, as the region has attracted many immigrants to a labor force that shaped and continues to shape the racial, social, and economic relations in the region. Immigration and immigrant labor are some of the most controversial and popular discussion topics among mass media, politicians, and scholars today. These discussions are not region specific; yet due to its historical background, geographical location, and reconstructing plantation as a living memory, the U.S. South has a profound role in labor and immigration debates as one of the most prominent regions with deep-rooted global connections. Cynthia Shearer in her novel The Celestial Jukebox (2005) problematizes and challenges the idea of labor exploitation through historical contexts and tends to portray immigrants within the framework of cultural diversity and richness with liberal ideas of multiculturalism that acknowledge cultural differences contributing to the cultural diversity of the region. In this vein, this paper attempts to discuss the current condition of global capitalism, casino industry, immigrant labor, the role of historically rooted labor exploitation, and labor trauma in Cynthia Shearer’s The Celestial Jukebox.

Keywords

• Plantation
• nostalgia
• exploitation
• capitalism
• slavery economy