Trailer Park America

LEONTINA HORMEL is a professor of sociology at the University of Idaho. Her research interests include political economy, environmental sociology, international development, community action, and gender and class inequalities. She has conducted ethnographic and survey work in Ukraine, in the Russian Federation, and throughout the state of Idaho.

"Trailer Park America explores three critical crises of our day – economic inequality, ecological disaster, and housing insecurity – through deeply-engaged, collaborative research with impacted communities in one of our nation’s most overlooked, and most important, sources of affordable housing." - Esther Sullivan (author of Manufactured Insecurity: Mobile Home Parks and Americans' Tenuous Right to Place) “Trailer Park America is exceptionally well written, in clear, direct language, making vivid the real, human dramas at the heart of broad social systems, relationships and institutions. One of the best books I have read in decades.” - Elaine Coburn (editor of More Will Sing Their Way to Freedom) “Immersing herself in Syringa, Idaho, for more than five years, Leontina Hormel is clearly passionate about both the issue of housing and this community itself. Trailer Park America is a welcome contribution to the existing literature on low-income housing and mobile home residents in particular.” - Daisy Rooks (University of Montana)

• FOREWORD BY DAWN TACHELLCHRONOLOGY INTRODUCTIONCrisis  1 WHO BELONGS ON THE PALOUSE? 2 INVENTING WORKING-CLASS COMMUNITIES 3 MAKING A FUNCTIONAL COMMUNITY AMID DISORDER 4 VOLUNTARY COMPLIANCEFlushing the Public Good 5 RED TAGSThe Letter of the Law Kills 6 SYRINGA REFUGEES 7 DEATH OF A COMMUNITY 8 TRAILER PARK POLITICSRecognizing Working-Class People’s Knowledgeand Mobilization 9 TRAILER PARK AMERICASyringa Residents’ Lessons to the Public APPENDIX: METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHACKNOWLEDGMENTSNOTESREFERENCESINDEX