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Inaccessible: How Structural Inequalities, Isolation, and Neglect Impact a Rural Minority-Majority County in Northern New Mexico

Inaccessible: How Structural Inequalities, Isolation, and Neglect Impact a Rural Minority-Majority County in Northern New Mexico

Morgan Rachelle Montanez
Washington State University
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
2023
:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000006313

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pdf
Montanez_Dissertation_123231.03 MB
Embargoed Access, 12/31/2028
Disaster Response Gentrification Hispanic Latine Rural poverty Southwestern United States Taos County, New Mexico
Inaccessible illustrates the impact of structural inequality, isolation, and neglect on Taos County, New Mexico, in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. This work explores the ways in which structural inequalities work against a racialized minority, impacting this community’s ability to react to modern threats. From gentrification to COVID-19, this dissertation highlights the ways in which the Hispanic and Latine people in Taos County, New Mexico are being displaced while a growing and wealthier white community grapples with the barriers to modern life that people who consider the Sangre de Christos as ancestral land say is a way of life. Additionally, this dissertation presents a strong challenge to existing ideas around rural disaster preparedness, examining an over reliance on social capital while focusing on the real impact that a lack of infrastructure has during a disaster. Zeroing in on access to aid programs, healthcare, information, and transportation this dissertation illustrates a community severely underserved in numerous ways. As a whole the work is a challenge to the assimilation literature, showing that that racialization of Hispanic and Latine people is what leads to the kinds of experiences discussed throughout this body of work and therefore bigger barriers than language need to be addressed.
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