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Chapter 2 traces the long-term impact of Latino migration and the Latinization of communities. The chapter highlights the economic, cultural, and political influence of these newcomers by focusing on both the landscape and soundscape in the suburbs of Osceola County. The different ways that the demographic changes were talked about, understood, and sometimes contested are documented. Chapter 2 reveals how transformations to the landscape and soundscape and language ideologies impact racial identities, migrant incorporation, and the response to Latino migrants. These ideas or language ideologies reveal how linguistic practices are racialized along with other practices, physical characteristics, and signifiers of identity. Thus, this chapter begins to grapple with the complexity of race relations in the region by drawing attention to the circulation of racial anger, feelings of white exclusion, and the move to confine linguistic differences to the home.

Chapter 1 sets the scene in Osceola County, Florida. The chapter goes back to the 1970s, to the formation of an international consortium of real estate developers—“the Mexican Millionaires”—who used real estate marketing strategies and the visceral imagery of luxurious country club living to attract Puerto Ricans to the Buenaventura Lakes suburb. This historical chapter shows how instrumental these corporate partners were in fostering an awareness of Greater Orlando’s real estate opportunities on the island of Puerto Rico and in the Puerto Rican concentrated communities of New York and Chicago, and directing the flow of mainland and island Puerto Ricans towards Greater Orlando instead of the traditional gateway cities. As a result, they created one of the largest Puerto Rican-concentrated suburbs in Central Florida.

This chapter surveys a variety of creationism-related events in the mid-1990s, starting with a conflict between Stetson University in Volusia County and its benefactor, the Florida Baptist Convention. Manatee County yet again faced citizens trying to introduce creationism into classrooms by doing things like donating the creationist textbook Of Pandas and People to schools. Famous creationist debater Duane Gish, from the Institute for Creation Research in California, participated in a debate with Florida anthropologist Lorena Madrigal in Manatee County. After the debate, further conflict erupted when local school districts granted credit to teachers for attending. The creationism argument next popped up in Osceola County while a creationism bill was being filed in the state legislature. Creationism was an issue during several local elections across the state. The Business, Civic, and Ministry Coalition of St. Lucie County and Schools’ Superintendent David Mosrie had talks about creationism without the school board's knowledge. New state science standards neglected to mention evolution so as to avoid controversy. Finally, this chapter discusses a few Florida-based creationist organizations and personalities, especially creation-science evangelist Kent Hovind.