Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Architecture, Planning & Design / John W. Keller / Some parts of rural America are experiencing unprecedented demographic and cultural changes as immigrant settlement patterns shift from traditional gateway cities to rural regions that have enticing economic opportunities. In particular, southwest Kansas has become a magnet for immigrant workers and their families. Between 2007 and 2008, Finney County became a majority-minority county (Callebs, 2009). However, lack of affordable housing and limited housing stock has strained communities and become an obstacle for newly settling immigrants (Stull, 2011). This study aims to redress the limited research on immigrants in rural regions and focuses specifically on the cultural experiences of Finney County Hispanic immigrants regarding integration into the local housing community. This qualitative case study is designed using the housing career framework (Murdie, 2002) to capture the factors that influence the housing experience of Hispanic immigrants. The 25 participants were recruited using snowball sampling and convenience sampling techniques. Based on the participant’s language preference, the in-depth interviews were conducted in English or Spanish. This study has found that the mission of community planning has to be a multifaceted process to address the varied needs of immigrant families. Community planners and policy makers can use the information this study provides to better serve the immigrant Hispanic community, which is expected to grow over the coming years.

xiv, 141 p. ： ill. / This study examines how health care administrators perceive Spanish-speaking immigrant growth in a city with little to no history of attracting immigrants but recently experiencing tremendous growth. Different communities are finding a need to adjust various institutions, organizations, and policies to meet the needs of newer groups, which often arrive in communities ill-equipped to deal with the structural and social changes necessary to serve them. This study investigates the ways one health care system's administrators frame the institution's role and response as the surrounding city is transformed into a new destination city. Their responses complicate existing understandings of how people discuss newly settled immigrant groups in an era of racial colorblindness, as this colorblindness often cloaks underlying racial prejudice. Administrators who expressed egalitarian understandings professionally often shifted to rigid racial boundaries in their private lives. Moving the color line based on the arena of conversation challenges existing theories, which mark racial hierarchies as static lines demarcating divisions between two or three groups. Finally, administrators link the needs of Spanish-speaking patients to the health system's Mission Department, reinforcing cultural representations of this particular group as indigent and outside the mainstream services offered by the health care system. / Committee in charge: Dr. Mia Tuan， Co-Chair； Dr. Jocelyn Hollander， Co-Chair； Dr. Aliya Saperstein， Member； Dr. Susan Hardwick， Member