I was immediately intrigued at the idea of participating in COPLACDigital Voices of Migration, as I’ve been quite interested in exploring the human impact of the Savannah River Site and its influence on migration patterns of my hometown and surrounding areas. Local demographics and identity in the deep south are subjects that have fascinated me throughout my academic career. As a sociology major, I’m deeply interested in conducting geographical analysis of social problems and studying the forces that contribute to migration, such as industrialization, urbanization, political conflict, access to labor force participation, and resource scarcity. I believe that COPLACDigital Voices of Migration has provided an outlet and means to shed a humanizing light on the migrant community in and around my hometown of Aiken, South Carolina.
Voices of Migration
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While reading your post, I became intrigued with your fascination of identity in the deep south and geographical-specific social conflicts; relating both to migration will prove to be an enlightening topic of research. Since COPLAC draws together students from all over the United States, it will be interesting to see how regional differences shape the experiences of migrant communities across the country. During my current preplanning stages of this oral history project, I hyper-focused only on Western Massachusetts; thank you for reminding me that there are migrant communities in all 50 states, and that broad regional ideologies and histories influence the forces surrounding migration (i.e. policy decisions, assimilation v. multiculturalism, inner-community violence, etc.)