Race-ing Fargo: Refugees, Citizenship, and the Transformation of Small Cities (2020, Cornell University Press)
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Tracing the history of refugee settlement in Fargo, North Dakota, from the 1980s to the present day, Race-ing Fargo focuses on the role that gender, religion, and sociality play in everyday interactions between refugees from South Sudan and Bosnia-Herzegovina and the dominant white Euro-American population of the city. I outline the ways in which refugees have impacted this small city over the last thirty years, showing how culture, political economy, and institutional transformations collectively contribute to the racialization of white cities like Fargo in ways that complicate their demographics.
Race-ing Fargo shows that race, religion, and decorum prove to be powerful forces determining worthiness and belonging in the city and draws attention to the different roles that state and private sectors played in shaping ideas about race and citizenship on a local level. Through the comparative study of white secular Muslim Bosnians and Black Christian Southern Sudanese, Race-ing Fargo demonstrates how cross-cultural and transnational understandings of race, ethnicity, class, and religion shape daily citizenship practices and belonging.
Race-ing Fargo is the culmination of more than 15 years of research and work in refugee resettlement in the Dakotas. The book outlines different ways that refugee resettlement served as a change agent in Fargo, North Dakota. In 1990, more than 97 percent of Fargo’s population was white. In 2010, 90 percent of Fargo was white and six percent of citizens were foreign-born, most of whom were refugees. Though refugees were not the only foreign-born members of Fargo’s increasingly racially and ethnically diverse population, they were the most visible; in other words, they were given the most public attention. My book traces the history of refugee resettlement to Fargo focusing on institutional transformations and changing ideas about citizenship, race, and ethnicity. It has two central aims: The first is to analyze the role and relationship of public and private institutions in small and mid-sized cities, particularly the role that race plays in shaping everyday practices. Part of this is to give people working towards social justice and inclusivity in small Midwestern cities more visibility. The second aim is to challenge narrow, stereotypical perceptions of refugees as mere victims or recipients of aid and instead portray New Americans as shapers of their own destinies and the future of cities.
Though the book focuses on Fargo, North Dakota, the text draws upon my experiences as a case manager with refugees Sioux Falls, South Dakota, from 2001-2002.
If you would like me to speak about my book or my work with refugees in your class or organization, please contact me by email at jlerickson@bsu.edu.
Jennifer Erickson 