April 15: Immigration and Inter-ethnic Relations
Workshop: Ally Smith
Theory:
Kathleen Neils Conzen, 1979. “Immigrants, Immigrant Neighborhoods, and Ethnic Identity: Historical Issues,” Journal of American History (December) 66(3):603-615
Paula Lupkin, 2018. “The Wainwright Building: Monument of St. Louis’s Lager Landscape,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 77: 4 (December):428-447.
John Mollenkopf and Manuel Pastor, eds., 2016. Unsettled Americans: Metropolitan Context and Civic Leadership for Immigrant Integration. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, chapter 1, “The Ethnic Mosaic: Immigrant Integration at the Metropolitan Scale,” and chapter 2, “The Cases in Context: Data an Destinies in Seven Metropolitan Areas,” 1-48.
Approaches to the Case Study: Immigration, Race, and Class in New York City
Angelo Falcon, 1988. “Black and Latino Politics in New York City: Race and Ethnicity in a Changing Urban Context,” in F. Chris Garcia, ed, Latinos in the Political System. Indianapolis: University of Notre Dame Press, pp. 171-194.
Arun Peter Lobo, Ronald J. O. Flores, and Joseph J. Salvo, 2018. “Racial Differentials in the Components of Population Change and Neighborhood Transitions in New York City, 1980–2010: The Distinct Role of Asian Net Inflows in the Age of Net Outflows of Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics,” Urban Affairs Review (February):1-31.
Workshop
Examine how changing patterns of immigrant and native-born minority groups have affected your study site (and more broadly patterns of racial and ethnic change in New York City, Queens, and LIC/Hunters Point).
New York City is particular in that, despite being a so-called “majority minority” city, white people accounting for under 50% of its population since the 1980s, it has not achieved durable, non-white government. It is not in this respect unique, but the political history of New York City does in this way contrast with more sustained minority-group successes in the South, California, the Midwest, and indeed in some cities in the Northeast.
John Mollenkopf (1986) identified the relevant explanatory puzzle in the 1980s (see also his 1994). Angelo Falcón, who got me on to this life of enquiry, and who is cited by Mollenkopf, contributed to its resolution.
Unlike some other cities, such as Baltimore, Atlanta, and Jackson, which had black majorities, New York City had a majority of both black and Hispanic minorities. A durable non-white government would require a durable biracial coalition between these. Black and Hispanic populations, however, for a range of historical and sociological reasons, exhibited different attitudes toward their minority status, race, and identification with the American scene. Their differences extended to policy concerns such as bilingualism in education and the proper role of government in society, they involved social distinctions having to do with differential levels of access to public resources and economic occupation. New York City, moreover, rendered simplistic the very categories of black and Hispanic, these eliding a diverse array of quite distinctive ethnicities and nationalities with quite different interests and political cultures.
Biracial coalitions, however, were durable features of the history of cities in California. Unlike these, cities in the Northeast and the near Midwest traditionally operated more extensive city machines, which worked to coopt minority activists without conceding political office. Chicago and New York City both had extensive city machines. The former had earlier and more durable minority government because in the 1980s its white elite was divided and its liberal tradition was relatively strong. Liberal politics in New York City, on the other hand, had been delegitimated by the crises of the 1970s. Its white elite was united behind Ed Koch and better able to use the city machine to manipulate the city’s complex ethnic cleavages in a divide and rule fashion.
David Dinkins, of course, won the mayoral election in 1989. His coalition fragmented along racial lines within a single term.
The dynamic between South Africa’s black African and coloured (an accepted South African term for persons of mixed race, roughly equivalent to both mestizo and mulatto in the Latin American racial order) populations is analogous to that between African-Americans and Latinos. Tracing Falcón, black Africans are accused of using the more general designation “black,” after Steve Biko referring to all racially oppressed, to build broader coalitions while excluding coloureds from the benefits that derive from this strategy. There are black Africans who see the inclusion of coloureds and Indians in this category as diluting their particular claims as the most oppressed under apartheid. Coloureds and Indians are accused of identifying themselves rather with white people, their interests and culture. What these divisions mean is that despite building a deep coalition in the struggle against apartheid, after 1994 black Africans and coloureds have quite thoroughly divided electorally. Because of a certain coloured preponderance across the south-western seaboard, this has meant a failure to establish durable black rule there. The implication is continued local white dominance.
There is, aside from difference between urban and rural municipalities, remarkably little variation in coloured voting patterns across localities. Rather, the dynamics are set by national policy, in particular affirmative action preferences which reverse apartheid’s racial hierarchy and therefore give, in theory, advantage to black Africans.
– Ryan Brunette
Reading these pieces this week was a striking coincidence with the news! Mollenkopf’s metric of “warmth of welcome” to assess both immigrant assimilation and policy responses at the federal, regional, and local levels is certainly being tested by Trump’s unvetted proposal to bus migrants to sanctuary cities.
A map of the municipalities and counties that have informal and formal “Sanctuary” policies shows a coastal concentration, a concentration in the largest cities (New York, Chicago, Los Angeles), and a smattering across politically liberal districts, like Denver, Austin, and New Orleans. There are also 13 counties in Iowa alone, which I’d venture to guess has to do with the need for agricultural labor.
“Unsettled Americans” was published only three years ago, and couldn’t have anticipated the incoherence of federal leadership that has characterized the last three years. Mollenkopf et al do, however, pay heed to the tensions arising from a political structure that privileges federal policy as an immigration valve while forcing local governments to administrate policies to actually integrate and manage new populations. Trump’s proposal, probably illegal and also practically impossible to administer, could have the effect of undermining his goal. The racist, anti-immigrant rhetoric he espouses and encourages among his base supporters means that the migrants seeking asylum, residency, and/or naturalization are both dangerous and a drain on welfare resources. Sending them to Democratic strongholds is, under this rationale, a form of punishment. However, increased populations in these regions prior to the Census count next summer could reapportion more political representation for these same areas. His provocation is so unrealistic that it’s probably a fruitless point to make, but it does relate, in many ways, to the projections and analyses Mollenkopf et al make.
Depending on where migrants settle, they may face vastly different futures. Regions or metropolises that are “warmer” towards immigrants, like New York or San José, also correlate to higher income levels and a “cultural generation gap.” Regions with less of a legacy of immigration, smaller institutional support for immigrants, and a smaller economy and/or lower median incomes are less equipped for and perhaps more hostile to receiving immigrants on cultural and political levels.
The outsized influence of federal policy on the makeup and flows of immigrants is especially visible in the last few years, but nativist and anti-immigrant rhetoric is not a new phenomenon: it ebbs and flows over history depending on geopolitical events, economic conditions, and the political orientation of the government. It would be interesting to compare the spatial distribution of immigrants across urban areas against public discourse on immigration over time.
One thing I hope to bring to the workshop this week is a connection between enforcement of space, labor, and mobility through immigration enforcement. This specifically came up for me in making connections between this week’s readings and some of my recent thoughts coming out of my migration policy course. In Mollenkopf’s “Ethnic Mosaic,” the tension between federal policy and local enforcement of migration policy comes up in a way that directly connects the past and present in the evolution of our messy and chaotic immigration policy in terms of on the ground realities. To borrow from our colleague Monica Varsanyi’s term “multilayered jurisdictional patchwork” to think about the devolution of enforcement, I see a direct connection between the contemporary devolution of immigration enforcement at the local level and the tension between community’s responses to shifts in migration patterns. In tomorrow’s presentation, I’ll hope to connect the development of Queens with its history of sites of labor and manufacturing yet highly contested in terms of access, for residential and employment status, using a case study of news reports on community enforcement of the Chinese Exclusion Act.
– Ali
Coming from Europe, this week’s readings have made me think and rethink of the immigration integration in comparison to here in the US.
One of the main concepts that have been applied across EU migration policies is mainstreaming which has also been rooted across several fields from gender studies to environment and disability. The key aspect being is to incorporation of a wider perspective into general policy making in order to involve a multiplicity of stakeholders in the governance at all levels.
Mainstreaming governance efforts in Europe is explained (by Scholten et al, 2017) as the horizontal allocation of policy responsibilities for the coordination of integration policies which means responsibility is distributed across various relevant departments. This differs from more state-centric governance structures. Indeed mainstreaming does pose a challenge in terms of maintaining policy coherence, but the core idea is to promote the integration (like gender and disability) is experienced like a general responsibility rather than that of a single minister or organization (And sure there is still a long way to go at some countries than others in Europe- more about north/south divide). Another aim of the mainstreaming is to change the meaning (or fight the negative changes of meaning) around the word “immigrant”. For example in France, immigrants are identified as new arrivals stricto sensu. However, Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands identify an individual’s immigrant heritage (whether one or both parents, or even a grandparent is an immigrant). In the United Kingdom, discourse—and thus policy—focuses on ethnic minority status and ensuring the equality of British citizens, rather than focusing on migrant status or background (The future of immigrant integration in Europe Report, 2014).
Whilst all this sounds nice, this doesn’t eliminate the immigration issues in Europe at all giving some under-explained groups a mistaken justification – hence the infamous Brexit and other micro-nationalist movements (the close presidential run of Le Pen in France, Wilders in the Netherlands and the Catalan crisis). I would have hoped to say maybe some pragmatic and useful perspectives from Europe, but the bigger picture of the current situation also seems far from it, at least in the UK since Brexit.
Scholten, et al, (2017) “Mainstreaming migrant integration? A critical analysis of a new trend in integration governance” International Review of Administrative Sciences, 83 (2), pp 283-302
The future of immigrant integration in Europe Report can be found at: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/future-immigrant-integration-europe-mainstreaming-approaches-inclusion
As a first generation (German)-American via my mother’s side, I found the articles dealing with German ethnic identity and community in the U.S. to be of interest. Compared with other modern immigrant groups, the community for German immigrants in the U.S. is certainly subdued, especially in contrast to the 19th century. Conzen (1979) notes that by 1910, with new immigration ended and the cessation of German language usage, assimilation had mostly taken place. Lupkin (2018) describes the German brewery culture in St. Louis and Chicago with the Wainwright building as a centerpiece to the article. Despite the enduring legacy of these American beer companies, the strong German roots do seem to be largely forgotten. There is a level of assimilation, or integration, into larger American culture.
The articles also presented an important distinction regarding the concept of minorities. Falcon (1988) emphasizes the different histories and experiences of blacks and Latinos in the U.S. and how minority as a blanket-term is inappropriate as it implies a shared experience and negates the differences that exist between these populations in the U.S. Lobo et al. (2018) adds to this narrative by describing how Asian and Hispanic groups practice the same neighborhood segregation against blacks that white people do. One of the key themes outlined in Mollenlopf and Pastor (2016) emphasizes the way that anti-immigration sentiment taps into the fears of native whites that their dominant position may be at risk, but I wonder how this builds on the argument made by Lobo et al. (2018) in which there is a call for “a reconceptualization of race and the racial hierarchy that is emerging.”
-Christopher Ryan
I agree with Emily that the Unsettled Americans book edited by Mollenkopf & Pastor is timely; it helps make sense of the way different specific places (cities or regions) respond to the immigration issues.
Against a backdrop of the many readings this semester that emphasize the importance of historical patterns and other longer-term processes, one takeway from the Unsettled Americans excerpt is how particular aspects of that history can make a much greater difference in current responses. For example, the importance of a prior history of significant immigrant reception (and attendant development of locally active govt and non-govt institutions and organizations that promote and facilitate integration of new immigrants) in predisposing a place to meet current immigrant flows. Another that is referred to in the excerpt is the potentially dispositive (“positive”) role of the business elite in Charlotte – I had that in mind when reading the Lupkin piece on the Wainwright Bldg and the attention she devoted to the beer brewer-real estate barons of St Louis and Milwaukee in the 4Q of the 19th into the 1Q of the 20th centuries.
The Falcon piece on the Black-Latino coalition suffers, I think, from some omissions. I may be unfair in using information about NYC since the late 1980s against a work published in 1988, but here goes:
(a) As I am a member of a demographic group that is more than 13% of current NYC residents but a much lower percentage of registered/likely/actual NYC voters (due to a high percentage of non-citizens, and, due to the significant dumbbell-shaped* socioeconomic profile of the community, a large percentage of very poor, relatively uneducated, non-English-speaking persons who may also suffer from other factors discouraging or reducing political and electoral participation), I am always wary of them who translate purely demographic percentages into political results! While NYC did change from a “white-majority” city to a “majority minority” sometime in the late ’80s, if the article is going to make an argument about how that affects electoral results, I really think Falcon should carefully distinguish demographics from actual electorate, and from that to actual/likely voters. it was only 2 decades later, in the latter 2000s, that an actual majority of the NYC voters in mayoral and national elections was “majority minority” – well after the “white” percentage of the city dipped below 50% (it was down to 36% in 2000).
(b) The article provides some reasons for the Black-Latino differences, including the “role of the black church” and “cultural factors” (Falcon, pp 184 and 185). Perhaps it was not as visible in 1988, but several decades of significant Latino electoral participation nationally and locally have highlighted that the role of the “Latino” church(es!) and related cultural factors play a role. Just one example would be the significant impact of the relatively high percentage of Latinos who are active Catholics and, even more significantly, members of Protestant evangelical (as opposed to mainline) churches. Sometimes that is shorthanded as the “pro-life” vote (and that is important given the high percentage — almost 20%! – of US voters who prioritize that single issue) but I mean to refer to a larger constellation of moral/religious issues that may impact the Latino vote overall.
The great data-rich piece by Lobo et al highlighted the role of Asians in the transformation of NY neighborhoods, and in a way that caused me to pause – the “not well understood … gatekeeper role played by Asians and Hispanics, who along with Whites, have negative views regarding Blacks as co-residents” (Lobo, p24) — wait a minute!
I am not completely unsympathetic to the thesis that Asians, overall, are also problematically racist in their residential choices (I am much less sympathetic to the thesis as applied to the much more racially diverse, “more black” and poorer Latino community), but I would prefer that there be some additional nuances and reflection before throwing in such a morally-loaded grenade. One alternative thesis would be the greater importance placed on socioeconomic gains (for the family) and educational advancement (for the school age children) by immigrants and perhaps especially Asian immigrants. This thesis would be characterized less as “gatekeeper” and more as “follower” and less explained by racial animus and more by desire for better housing economics and local school quality. (I am also NOT making a argument about Asians’ cultural values regarding education as a mode of personal/familial/social advancement, but simply one of Asian immigrants going down a path that has demonstrably shown positive results in the past several decades)
* from personal experience, I would observe that not infrequently the “dumbbell” profile fits many Asian immigrant families – the older generation extremely undereducated and and low-skilled, working-poor manual laborers, their children/the next generation about to lift off, after graduating from college and grad/professional school)
Our readings this week all addressed the relationship between immigration, ethnicity, and space in different ways. One aspect of this discussion that I am not clear on, as I am generally unfamiliar with the literature on immigration, is the distinction between immigration and assimilation. The great breadth of Conzen’s article shows us that there is variation to how necessary and sufficient residential clustering is to the tenacity of an ethnic identity. And the Crononian architectural history of the Wainwright building gives us perhaps an example of assimilation through integration, as the aspects of German-American that were intertwined with economic production are disembedded from their agricultural and manufacturing roots into symbols of capital and gradually lost their significance in collective memory. Of course, a specter hanging over all of this is the whitening of German-Americans over the early 20th century, and the role of the world wars in shaping how useful or safe a German-ethnic identity was at the time. Mollenkopf and Pastor’s book is helpful in understanding how these processes of integration and racialization happen in temporal and spatial contexts that have salient effects despite nation-level policies and events. I’m looking forward to today’s discussion!
The readings for this week provide different perspectives on the way that immigrants help to shape cities demographically, economically, politically, and architecturally. I was taken by Lupkin’s article about the Wainwright building in Saint Louis. I found it interesting how the beer industry, a German transplant, helped to shape the architecture and real estate of downtown Saint Louis. It reminded me of the A. K. Sandoval-Strausz article looking at the influence of the cultural and economic customs of Latin American communities on the landscape of postwar American cities. It also makes me think of iconic architecture in San Francisco’s Chinatown. I was trying to think of similar instances where immigrant communities influence architectural changes in Paris, my native city, but I don’t think that immigrants in Paris have the political or social capital to break the standard Haussmannian architecture in the same way they do in US cities. In many ways, these differences are symbolic of America’s history of immigrant integration and assimilation versus France’s resistance to integration and assimilation of its immigrant populations.
I’m also curious about the impact of suburbanization on the political power of immigrant populations described in Professor Mollenkopf’s The Ethnic Mosaic. Last week, I wrote about a parallel story by Kimberley Johnson entitled “‘Black’ Suburbanization: American Dream or the New Banlieue?” where she describes the disenfranchisement of Black communities pushed out of cities into suburbs. It seems like these suburbs are ripe for political patronage where politicians court and service these unrepresented populations in exchange for votes. Could we see a resurgence of nineteenth century-style machine politics in these suburban areas?
– Rebecca Krisel
Regarding Falcón’s piece, I had a hard time reconciling his acknowledgment of the “tendency to uncritically collapse the experiences of black ad Latinos into one global category” and his later point about “black-Latino political divisiveness at a point when…they should instead be poised to spearhead a new period of minority politics in the city.” In what aspect should it be assumed that a black-Latino coalition would be the natural state of things? Recent years have seen gains for both minority groups in NYC politics (currently 26 out of 51 city council seats, multiple borough presidencies, and several strong mayoral candidates for 2021) but it seems foolhardy to assume a coalition should be a normal occurrence. Depending on the issues of the day the two groups may not find a coalition advantageous. Merely being non-white isn’t enough especially when studies like Lobo et al.’s piece identifies the conflicts that still be found between racial minority groups.
Mayor de Blasio’s surprise election in 2013 offers a compelling case-study showing how a white liberal/black/Latino coalition could be formed around a set of issues that appealed to a multitude of ethnicities. Yes, de Blasio is white, but his focus on income inequality resonated with Democratic voters in New York and his wife’s Caribbean heritage and his strategic use of his son Dante in television ads promising to end stop-and-frisk tactics by the NYPD particularly connected his candidacy with black voters in a primary in which he was running against a prominent African American and Latina candidate (Bill Thompson and Christine Quinn).
The fact that de Blasio won a plurality of votes from white, Hispanic, and black neighborhoods surprised many in a city rooted in racial politics (there is a link to 2013 Primary results below). I wrote in a paper for a previous class with John that I believe de Blasio was able to reignite the coalition first assembled by Dinkins in 1989. That it took a white candidate to reunite such a coalition was somewhat surprising—and certainly his whiteness did not hurt his standing with white voters—but nonetheless it does show the viability of a black-Latino consensus as described by Falcón. Where I disagree with Falcón is in assuming it could be the norm. As is usually the case with politics, it requires the right candidate and issues to create such alignments. The 2013 win by de Blasio should not suggest we’ve finally arrived at a “New Minority Politics.” It could merely be the exception.
-Adam Sachs
NYC 2013 Democratic Mayoral Primary Results: http://www.nytimes.com/projects/elections/2013/nyc-primary/mayor/map.html
Well, it appears that I read the wrong material for the week, so I will catch up before class. But for now, I read the essays on childhood and women. From reading these blog posts so far, there is a thematic connection regarding the exchange of influence between people and space. But at the center of my mind is school structures, now with a little more context for the Lobo, et al piece which came up in class last week. Marta’s piece on the simultaneous physical construction of dedicated space for children with the social construction of childhood itself does a wonderful job of explaining the seamlessness between the spacial and the social. By introducing immigrant populations, particularly in urban spaces, I now am strongly considering the additional purpose that schools serve to populations: vehicles for assimilation and economic mobility. Schools have been constructed in concert with our evolving understandings and beliefs about childhood, but they also have been constructed in the context of evolving concepts of nationhood. I am thinking about the boarding schools of the 19th century that where Native Americans were sent to learn how to assimilate, which were sights of mass cultural erasure. It is no mistake that these activities didn’t take place in cities. It reflects beliefs about the people: that Native Americans needed such complete transformation that it must be done outside society, even though the goal of these schools were integration. These schools were sites for totalizing change, not just the labor of childhood that is schooling.
Dolores Hayden’s piece on the gendered division of space and accompanying division of labor also can provide an interesting context for discussing immigrant populations in cities. She proposes that suburban space was constructed in a way that maintains women’s marginalization from the labor market and ensures their isolation in domestic work. What does it mean that there are, now, immigrants who move directly to these suburban spaces? Many immigrant women, in particular, rely on domestic labor as paid labor. I am interested, for long-term research, in looking at how domestic labor moves within the city: who does what? For whom? For free? For pay?
The continual American politics of highly exclusive white communities encouraging (or even demanding) the assimilation of immigrants seems to be paradoxical at best. As Conzen points out, the Chicago school model of immigrants starting out their American lives in inner-city ghettoes, only to move out to the suburbs with increasing economic stability and secure assimilation into the mainstream (American white) culture is, in her words, “comforting” for white Americans concerned about the impact of ethnic diversity on American culture. But she argues that this model no longer holds up, for a multitude of reasons. While Conzen’s article focuses on the real estate and cultural factors that affected German-American community formation, I kept thinking about both economic and racial factors that impact the seeming mobility of the German-American immigrants. Both in Conzen’s article and the excellent article on the Wainswright building in St. Louis focus on a group—the Germans—who are highly encouraged to come to America as white, European, Christian immigrants. This (highly racialized) encouragement took the form of legal codes pointed out by Prof. Mollenkopf that highly privileged immigration from ethnically white European countries until 1965. I find this caveat on immigration cultural assimilation particularly relevant, as Conzen focuses on an ethnic population that, once assimilated, is essentially indistinguishable from any other American; the difference between the descendants of colonizing Americans and those of newly imported Europeans is negligible in terms of social stratification and hierarchization which, as we discussed last week, is essentially founded upon capital and the black-white racial binary in the United States, leading to xenophobia and fear of upsetting a precarious balance to begin with.
What I found very interesting was that “white flight” in these articles is replaced by flight of capital-holding peoples from laboring, or capital-producing peoples. And, indeed, in Conzen’s article the Wainswright building is (perhaps unwittingly) portrayed as a physical manifestation of capital and control over nature and the working class fueled by immigrants, both in its physical resemblance to brewery storehouses and the decorative scheme. I am reminded of a news article that I saw this week about avocados “disappearing” in America 3 weeks after a hypothetical border shutdown; the “American” value of St. Louis immigrants is seen to lie in a cultural product that can be monetized.
-Caroline House