Drawing on a long-term ethnographic investigation of the economic and social restructuring in the rural Midwestern United States, I demonstrate the value of an intersectional analysis to explore the social regulation of community in a rural context. This intersectional analysis bridges scholarship on (1) the political economy of immigration, (2) racial formation, and (3) materialist feminism in order to provide a powerful framework through which I explore the community-based processes and practices that shape the possibilities for the incorporation of residents of color into a historically white community. Through this intersectional lens, I highlight the unspoken rules of behavior and assessment of deservingness required for community membership and acceptance in the context of broader social and economic change in one rural town in Iowa.