Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T14:23:51.296Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

FADE TO BLACK

Multiple Symbolic Boundaries in “Black/Brown” Contact

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 July 2016

Tomás R. Jiménez
Tomás R. Jiménez*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Stanford University
*
*Corresponding author: Tomás Jiménez, Department of Sociology, MC 2047, Stanford University, 450 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305. E-mail: tjimenez@stanford.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Increasingly, African Americans find themselves living side-by-side with immigrant newcomers from Latin America, the largest source of today’s immigrant population. Research on “Black/Brown” relations tends to a priori define groupness in ethnoracial terms and gloss over potential nuance in inter-group relations. Taking an inductive approach to understanding how African Americans interpret the boundaries that result from immigration-driven change, this paper draws on fieldwork among African Americans in East Palo Alto, California, a Black-majority-turned-Latino-majority city, to examine how African Americans construct multiple symbolic boundaries in the context of a Latino-immigrant settlement. Blacks’ rendering of these boundaries at the communal level invokes ethnoracial boundaries as a source of significant division. They see Latinos as having overwhelmed Black material and symbolic prowess. However, accounts of inter-personal interactions evince symbolic boundaries defined by language and neighborhood tenure that render ethnoracial boundaries porous. Respondents note intra-group differences among Latinos, pointing out how the ability to speak English and long-time residence in the neighborhood are important factors facilitating ties and cooperation across ethnoracial boundaries. The findings point to the importance of intra-ethnoracial-group differences for inter-ethnoracial-group attitudes and relations. Adopting ethnographic and survey research practices that treat boundaries as multiplex will better capture how growing intra-ethnoracial-group diversity shapes inter-ethnoracial-group relations.

Keywords

RaceLatinosBlacksImmigrationBoundaries
Type
State of the Art
Information
Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , Spring 2016 , pp. 159 - 180
Copyright
Copyright © Hutchins Center for African and African American Research 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alba, Richard, and Nee, Victor (2003). Remaking the American Mainstream: Assimilation and Contemporary Immigration. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Alba, Richard, Jiménez, Tomás R., and Marrow, Helen B. (2014). Mexican Americans as a Paradigm for Contemporary Intra-Group Heterogeneity. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 37(3): 446–466.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alesina, Alberto, and La Ferrara, Eliana (2002). Who Trusts Others? Journal of Public Economics, 85(2): 207–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allport, Gordon W. (1954). The Nature of Prejudice. Cambridge, MA: Addison-Wesley Pub. Co.Google Scholar
Barth, Frederik (1969). Ethnic Groups and Boundaries. Boston, MA: Little Brown.Google Scholar
Bergesen, Albert, and Herman, Max (1998). Immigration, Race, and Riot: The 1992 Los Angeles Uprising. American Sociological Review, 63(1): 39–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berman, Michael (2002). Race, Ethnicity, and Inter Minority Suburban Politics: East Palo Alto, 1950–2002. Unpublished Manuscript, Stanford University, CA.Google Scholar
Blau, Peter M., and Schwartz, Joseph E. (1984). Crosscutting Social Circles: Testing a Macrostructural Theory of Intergroup Relations. Orlando, FL: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Blumer, Herbert (1958). Race Prejudice as a Sense of Group Position. Pacific Sociological Review, 1(1): 3–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bobo, Lawrence D., and Johnson, Devon (2000). Racial Attitudes in a Prismatic Metropolis: Mapping Identity, Stereotypes, Competition, and Views on Affirmative Action. In Bobo, Lawrence D., Oliver, Melvin L., Johnson, James H. Jr., and Valenzuela, Abel Jr. (Eds.), Prismatic Metropolis: Inequality in Los Angeles, pp. 81–163. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Bobo, Lawrence, Oliver, Melvin, Johnson, J. H. Jr., and Valenzuela, Abel J. (2000). Prismatic Metropolis: Inequality in Los Angeles. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Bobo, Lawrence, and Smith, Ryan A. (1998). From Jim Crow Racism to Laissez-Faire Racism: The Transformation of Racial Attitudes. In Katkin, Wendy Freedman, Landsman, Ned C., and Tyree, Andrea (Eds.), Beyond Pluralism: The Conception of Groups and Group Identities in America, pp. 182–220. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Bobo, Lawrence and Tuan, Mia (2007). Prejudice in Politics: Group Position, Public Opinion, and the Wisconsin Treaty Rights Dispute. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Borjas, George J. (1999). Heaven’s Door: Immigration Policy and the American Economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers (2004). Ethnicity without Groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers, Feinschmidt, Margit, Fox, Jon and Grancea, Liana (2007). Nationalist Politics and Everyday Ethnicity in a Transylvanian Town. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Camarillo, Albert M. (2007). “Cities of Color: The New Racial Frontier in California’s Minority-Majority Cities.” Pacific Historical Review, 76: 1–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Card, David (2005). “Is the New Immigration really so Bad?” The Economic Journal, 115 (November): 300–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carter, Prudence L. (2005). Keepin’ It Real: School Success beyond Black and White. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chavez, Leo R. (2008). The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Erdmans, Mary Patrice (1998). Opposite Poles: Immigrants and Ethnics in Polish Chicago, 1976-1990. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Foner, Nancy (2012). The Oxford Handbook of the Politics of International Migration. In Rosenblum, Marc R. and Tichenor, Daniel J. (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Politics of International Migration, pp. 190–214. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fox, Cybelle (2012). Three Worlds of Relief: Race, Immigration, and the American Welfare State from the Progressive Era to the New Deal. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Fox, Jon E. and Jones, Demelza (2013). Migration, Everyday Life and the Ethnicity Bias. Ethnicities, 13(4): 385–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gay, Claudine (2006). Seeing Difference: The Effect of Economic Disparity on Black Attitudes Toward Latinos. American Journal of Political Science, 50(4): 982–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Golash-Boza, Tanya Maria (2012). Immigration Nation: Raids, Detentions, and Deportations in Post-9/11 America. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers.Google Scholar
Gonzales, Roberto G. (2011). Learning to be Illegal: Undocumented Youth and Shifting Legal Contexts in the Transition to Adulthood. American Sociological Review, 76(4): 602–619.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, Milton M. (1964). Assimilation in American Life: The Role of Race, Religion, and National Origins. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hannah, Seth D. (2011). Clinical Care in Environments of Hyperdiversity. In Good, Mary-Jo D., Willen, Sarah S., Hannah, Seth D., Vickery, Ken and Park, Lawrence Taeseng (Eds.). Shattering Culture: American Medicine Responds to Cultural Diversity, pp. 35–69. New York: Russell Sage Foundation Publications.Google Scholar
Hoover, Mary E. R. (1992). The Nairobi Day School: An African American Independent School, 1966-1984. The Journal of Negro Education, 61(2): 201–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horton, John (1995). The Politics of Diversity: Immigration, Resistance, and Change in Monterey Park, California. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Hutchinson, Earl O. (2007). The Latino Challenge to Black America: Towards a Conversation between African Americans and Hispanics. Chicago, IL: Middle Passage Press.Google Scholar
Hutchings, Vincent L., and Wong, Cara (2014). Racism, Group Position, and Attitudes about Immigration among Blacks and Whites. Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, 11(2): 419–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, John L Jr.. (2005). Real Black: Adventures in Racial Sincerity. Chicago, IL: University Of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Jiménez, Tomás R. (2010). Replenished Ethnicity: Mexican Americans, Immigration, and Identity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Jiménez, Tomás R., and Horowitz, Adam L. (2013). When White is just Alright: How Immigrants Redefine Achievement and Reconfigure the Ethnoracial Hierarchy. American Sociological Review, 78(5): 849–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jiménez, Tomás R., Fields, Corey, and Schachter, Ariela (2015). How Ethnoraciality Matters: Looking Insider Ethnoracial Groups. Social Currents, 2(2): 107–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kasinitz, Phillip, Mollenkopf, John H., Waters, Mary C., and Holdaway, Jennifer (2008). Inheriting the City: The Second Generation Comes of Age. Cambridge, MA & New York: Harvard University Press & Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Katznelson, Ira (2005). When Affirmative Action was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America. New York: WW Norton & Company.Google Scholar
Lamont, Michèle (2000). The Dignity of Working Men: Morality and the Boundaries of Race, Class, and Immigration. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lamont, Michèle, and Molnár, Virág (2002). The Study of Boundaries in the Social Sciences. Annual Review of Sociology, 28: 167–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lawrence, Sarah, and Shapiro, Gregory (2010). Crime Trends in the City of East Palo Alto . Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice.Google Scholar
Lee, Jennifer, and Bean, Frank D. (2010). The Diversity Paradox: Immigration and the Color Line in Twenty-First Century America. New York: Russell Sage Foundation Publications.Google Scholar
Logan, John, R., and Zhang, Wenquan (2011). Global Neighborhoods: New Evidence from Census 2010. US2010: Discover America in a New Century. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Martinez, Cid, and Rios, Victor M. (2011). Conflict, Cooperation, and Avoidance. In Telles, Edward E., Sawyer, Mark Q., and Rivera-Salgado, Gaspar (Eds.), Just Neighbors?: Research on African American and Latino Relations in the United States, pp. 343–62. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Massey, Douglas S. and Denton, Nancy A. (1993). American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Massey, Douglas S. (2007). Categorically Unequal: The American Stratification System. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
McClain, Paula D., Carter, Nimbi M., DeFrancesco Soto, Victoria M., Lyle, Monique L., Grynaviski, Jeffrey D., Nunnally, Shayla C., Scotto, Thomas J., Kendrick, J. A., Lackey, Gerald F., and Cotton, Kendra D. (2006). Racial Distancing in a Southern City: Latino Immigrants’ Views of Black Americans. Journal of Politics, 68(3): 571–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDermott, Monica (2011). Black Attitudes and Hispanic Immigrants in South Carolina. In Telles, Edward E., Sawyer, Mark Q., and Rivera-Salgado, Gaspar (Eds.), Just Neighbors?: Research on African American and Latino Relations in the United States, pp. 242–63. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Menjívar, C., and Abrego, L. J. (2012). Legal Violence: Immigration Law and the Lives of Central American Immigrants. American Journal of Sociology, 117(5): 1380–1421.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mindiola, Tatcho, Niemann, Yolanda F., and Rodriguez, Néstor (2002). Black-Brown Relations and Stereotypes. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Neckerman, Kathryn, Lee, Jennifer, and Carter, Prudence (1999). Segmented Assimilation and Minority Cultures of Mobility. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 22(6): 945–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olzak, Susan (1992). The Dynamics of Ethnic Competition and Conflict. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Orum, Anthony M. (2005). Circles of Influence and Chains of Command: The Social Processes Whereby Ethnic Communities Influence Host Societies. Social Forces, 84(2): 921–939.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pager, Devah (2003). The Mark of a Criminal Record. American Journal of Sociology, 108(5): 937–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pattillo, Mary (2008). Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Pettigrew, Thomas F. (1998). Intergroup Contact Theory. Annual Review of Psychology, 49: 65–85.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Portes, Alejandro, and Bach, Robert L. (1985). Latin Journey: Cuban and Mexican Immigrants in the United States. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Portes, Alejandro, and Zhou, Min (1993). The New Second Generation: Segmented Assimilation and its Variants. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 530: 74–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Portes, Alejandro (1998). Social Capital: Its Origins and Applications in Modern Sociology. Annual Review of Sociology, 24: 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Portes, Alejandro, and Rumbaut, Rubén G. (2001). Legacies: The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation. Berkeley and New York: University of California Press; Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Portes, Alejandro, and Rumbaut, Rubén G. (2006). Immigrant America: A Portrait. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Portes, Alejandro, and Vickstrom, Erik (2011). Diversity, Social Capital, and Cohesion. Annual Review of Sociology, 37: 461–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putnam, Robert D. (2000). Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Putnam, Robert D. (2007). E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-First Century; the 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture. Scandinavian Political Studies, 30(2): 137–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rieder, Jonathan (1987). Canarsie: The Jews and Italians of Brooklyn Against Liberalism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rodríguez, Néstor (2012). New Southern Neighbors: Latino Immigration and Prospects for Intergroup Relations between African-Americans and Latinos in the South. Latino Studies, 10(1-2): 18–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rugh, Jacob S., and Massey, Douglas S. (2013). Segregation in Post-Civil Rights America: Stalled Integration Or End of the Segregated Century? Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, 11(2): 205–232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rumbaut, Ruben G., Massey, Douglas S., and Bean, Frank D. (2006). Linguistic Life Expectancies: Immigrant Language Retention in Southern California. Population and Development Review, 32(3): 447–460.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sanders, Jimy M. (2002). Ethnic Boundaries and Identity in Plural Societies. Annual Review of Sociology, 28: 327–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saxenian, AnnLee (1999). Silicon Valley’s New Immigrant Entrepreneurs. San Francisco, CA: Public Policy Institute of California.Google Scholar
Schachter, Ariela (2014). Racial Prejudice in an Age of Immigration. Paper presented at the First Annual Stanford/Berkeley Immigration Conference, Stanford, CA, February 7.Google Scholar
Schildkraut, Deborah (2005). Press one for English: Language Policy, Public Opinion, and American Identity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Sharkey, Patrick (2014). Spatial Segmentation and the Black Middle Class. American Journal of Sociology, 119(4): 903–954.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Simmel, Georg ([1922] 1955). Conflict and Web of Group Affiliations. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.Google Scholar
Singer, Audrey, Hardwick, Susan Wiley, and Brettell, Caroline B. (2008). Twenty-First-Century Gateways: Immigrant Incorporation in Suburban America. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Small, Mario L. (2004). Villa Victoria: The Transformation of Social Capital in a Boston Barrio. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Small, Mario L. (2009). ‘How many cases do I need?’: On Science and the Logic of Case Selection in Field-based Research. Ethnography, 10(1): 5–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Robert C. (2014). Black Mexicans and Beyond: Long Term Ethnographic Analysis of Evolving Ethnic and Racial Identities in Contemporary America. American Sociological Review, 79: 517–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sugrue, Thomas J. (1996). The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Taub, Richard P., and Wilson, William J. (2007). There Goes the Neighborhood: Racial, Ethnic, and Class Tensions in Four Chicago Neighborhoods and their Meaning for America. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
Telles, Edward E., Sawyer, Mark Q., and Rivera-Salgado, Gaspar (Eds.) (2011). Just Neighbors?: Research on African American and Latino Relations in the United States. New York: Russell Sage Foundation Publications.Google Scholar
Tyson, Karolyn, Darity, William, and Castellino, Domini R. (2005). It’s Not ‘A Black Thing’: Understanding the Burden of Acting White and Other Dilemmas of High Achievement. American Sociological Review, 70(4): 582–605.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vaca, Nicolás C. (2004). The Presumed Alliance: The Unspoken Conflict between Latinos and Blacks and What it Means for America. New York: Rayo.Google Scholar
Vasquez, Jessica (2014). Race Cognizance and Color-blindness: Effects of Latino/Non-Hispanic-White Intermarriage. Du Bois Review:Social Science Research on Race, 11(2): 273–293.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Verkuyten, Maykel (2003). Discourses about Ethnic Group (De-)Essentialism: Oppressive and Progressive Aspects. British Journal of Social Psychology, 42(3): 371–391.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vertovec, Steven (2007). Super-Diversity and its Implications. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 30(6): 1024–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waldinger, Roger, and Lichter, Michael I. (2003). How the Other Half Works: Immigration and the Social Organization of Labor. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Wang, Wendy (2012). The Rise of Intermarriage Rates, Characteristics vary by Race and Gender. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Waters, Mary C. (1999). Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities. New York and Cambridge, MA: Russell Sage Foundation; Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watson, Sophie, and Saha, Anamik (2013). Suburban Drifts: Mundane Multiculturalism in Outer London. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 36(12): 2016–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wimmer, Andreas (2004). Does Ethnicity Matter?: Everyday Group Formation in Three Swiss Immigrant Neighbourhoods. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 27(1): 1–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wimmer, Andreas (2008). The Making and Unmaking of Ethnic Boundaries: A Multilevel Process Theory. American Journal of Sociology, 113(4): 970–1022.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wimmer, Andreas (2013). Ethnic Boundary Making: Institutions, Power, Networks. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wise, Amanda, and Velayutham, Selvaraj (Eds.) (2009). Everyday Multiculturalism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woldoff, Rachael A. (2011). White Flight/Black Flight: The Dynamics of Racial Change in an American Neighborhood. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar