Selling the International City: Latinx Businesses and Migrant Geographies on Atlanta’s Buford Highway

Stretching across Fulton, DeKalb, and Gwinnett Counties, Buford Highway has represented Atlanta’s “international” communities since the late twentieth century. Dotted by Latinx, Asian, African, and other migrant-owned businesses, the story of Buford Highway is often one that celebrates migrant resiliency and entrepreneurial spirit in the region. What is often missing from the celebratory narrative is the history of how city officials, and some residents, attempted to contain, and profit from, Atlanta’s diversifying population by dubbing it the “International Village” by the close of the twentieth century. This paper traces the history of Buford Highway since the last decades of the twentieth century to show how city politicians, boosters, and residents attempted to understand and, at times, control migrant community formations. In particular, the paper follows the establishment of Latinx restaurants, stores, and sites of leisure to illustrate the parallel processes of Atlanta’s embrace and rejection of migrant belonging in an era of increasing anti-immigrant sentiment. Through archival and oral historical sources, this paper centers Latinx business owners as key players in the (re)imagining of Buford Highway as a figurative and literal symbol of Atlanta’s rhetorical move towards embracing internationalism since the 1970s.