IMMIGRATION | Nebraska: If Not Immigrants, Who?

Professor Lourdes Gouveia (Ph.D., University of Kansas) examines the role that immigrants have played, and continue to play, in the social, economic and cultural development of Nebraska and its diverse communities. She considers the impacts of immigration policy, and the roles of specific sets of governmental, business and community actors in the shaping and reshaping of immigrant Nebraska, then and now.

Gouveia specializes in Migration and Latin American development. In 2003, she co-founded the Office of Latino/Latin American Studies (OLLAS) at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, which she directed until August of 2015. She is currently Professor Emerita of Sociology at the same university where she teaches for a graduate concentration on Migration, Development and Citizenship, which she created. Her earlier work focused on the global restructuring of the food industry, particularly meat processing, and the importation of Mexican and Central American labor as a critical component of that restructuring process. She is also Visiting Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Kansas in Lawrence.

Among the publications spawned by that research was the edited volume, “From Columbus to ConAgra: The Globalization of Food and Agriculture” (University of Kansas Press). She has authored and co-authored a number of articles aimed at documenting the profound socio-demographic changes and processes of immigrant incorporation occurring in new destination states such as Nebraska. As the OLLAS Director, Professor Gouveia was charged with the task of producing a number of policy-relevant reports, which have often been offered as key evidence by Nebraska state senators opposing the passage of draconian bills seeking to restrict immigrant rights. The latest of those reports, “Latinos Throughout the City: A Snapshot of Socio-Demographic Differences in Omaha, Nebraska,” was released in December of 2015.

Professor Gouveia’s current work focuses on a entirely different migrant stream, the growing exodus of middle-class, highly educated, Venezuelans. The work is situated within the context of increasing global precarity of unskilled and skilled labor alike, and the compounded impacts of Latin America’s failed development and governance models.