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Transportation and Migrant Adjustment in Georgia

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Abstract

Access to transportation is critical for functioning in modern American society, and minorities disproportionately lack access to transportation. Latinos in Georgia—most of whom are newcomers to this country—are considerably less likely than non-Latino whites to drive alone to and from work because they do not live in households with a car available for personal use. We propose that this factor, along with limited access to alternative modes of transportation, impedes the ability of Georgia’s newest Latino residents to adjust to their new environment. In this study, we examine the impact of limited transportation options on the adjustment experience of recent Latino migrants to Georgia. We document how lack of personal transportation lends itself to a number of social problems including inability to obtain different work or to take advantage of opportunities for advancement. For Latinos who are both recent migrants to Georgia and recent immigrants to the United States, lack of transportation creates an adjustment “bottleneck,” whereby various paths to adaptation are simultaneously impeded. We argue that improving access to driver’s licenses, pedestrian infrastructure, and, in some places, public transportation should be a policy priority for states adjusting to recent influxes of Latino migrants.

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Notes

  1. These data are not ideal, as the unit of analysis we use in our study is new Latino migrants, and the Census summary data is for all Latinos. The alternative is to use Public Use data, but we cannot geographically match those data to our rural counties. For example, we could not get PUMS data for Colquitt County except in combination with 10 other counties. However, only 7.6% of all Latinos age 5 and over lived in Georgia in 1995. Therefore, the overview presented here offers a reasonable picture of transportation disparities among recent migrants.

  2. Although lack of participation in schools is also limited by the inability to speak English, in our study sites, schools had programs in place to facilitate English–Spanish translation at parents’ meetings and teachers’ conferences.

  3. We acknowledge that bicycling is another transportation alternative. However, no one in our study mentioned this form of transport, probably because adult bicycle use is uncommon in Georgia, and most Georgia cities have poor infrastructure for safe cycling.

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Acknowledgment

This work was made possible by a grant from the University of Georgia Research Foundation and the Office of Public Service and Outreach at the University of Georgia. Please direct all correspondence to Stephanie A. Bohon, 907 McClung Tower, Department of Sociology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996-0490 or sbohon@utk.edu.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, 37996-0490, USA

    Stephanie A. Bohon

  2. Department of Sociology and the Population Research Institute, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802-6211, USA

    Katherine Stamps

  3. College of Family and Consumer Sciences, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, 30602, USA

    Jorge H. Atiles

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  1. Stephanie A. Bohon
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Correspondence to Stephanie A. Bohon.

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Bohon, S.A., Stamps, K. & Atiles, J.H. Transportation and Migrant Adjustment in Georgia. Popul Res Policy Rev 27, 273–291 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-008-9075-8

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