Suchergebnisse

Although U.S. Latinos continue to be concentrated in particular places, many have shifted to "new" locations around the country. This study employs data from the Mexican Migration Project (MMP107) to examine the relationship between individual-level characteristics and diverse U.S. destinations chosen by post-1965 Mexican immigrants. Multinomial logistic regression analyses confirm the importance of human capital, social networks, and temporal context in directing immigrants to particular U.S. sites. The findings also suggest that employing a typology of U.S. destinations is useful for understanding the spatial distributions of contemporary Mexican immigrants.

Abstract  For more than a century, communities across the United States legally employed strategies to create and maintain racial divides. One particularly widespread and effective practice was that of "sundown towns," which signaled to African Americans and others that they were not welcome within the city limits after dark. Though nearly 1,000 small towns, larger communities, and suburbs across the country may have engaged in these practices, until recently there has been little scholarship on the topic. Drawing from qualitative and quantitative sources, this article presents a case study of a midwestern rural community with a sundown history. Since 1990 large numbers of Mexican migrants have arrived there to work at the local meat‐processing plant, earning the town the nickname "Little Mexico." The study identifies a substantial decline in Hispanic‐white residential segregation in the community between 1990 and 2000. We consider possible explanations for the increased spatial integration of Latino and white residents, including local housing characteristics and the weak enforcement of preexisting housing policies. We also describe the racialized history of this former sundown town and whether, paradoxically, its history of excluding nonwhites may have played a role in the spatial configurations of Latinos and non‐Hispanic whites in 2000. Scholars investigating the contemporary processes of Latino population growth in "new" destinations, both in metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas, may want to explore the importance of sociohistorical considerations, particularly localities' racialized historical contexts before the arrival of Mexican and other Latino immigrants.

Objectives. Contemporary patterns of homeownership reflect the continuing racial and ethnic stratification that exists in nearly all areas of American society. Of particular interest, especially within the context of recent immigration legislation, are the homeownership experiences of Mexican immigrants in the United States.Methods. The current study employs unique data from the 2001 Los Angeles County Mexican Immigrant Residency Status Survey (LAC‐MIRSS) to examine the association between diverse forms of legal status and homeownership for Mexican immigrants.Results. Analyses indicate that the relationship between legal status and housing tenure is not statistically significant, after accounting for economic, life‐course/life‐cycle, and assimilation/social capital characteristics.Conclusions. The lack of a significant relationship is contrary to past research, perhaps explained by the explosive growth of the subprime mortgage market in the United States; the increasing recognition by financial institutions of Latino immigrants as a largely untapped, yet emerging, market in the mortgage industry; the availability of alternative forms of identification; and the institutionalization of unauthorized immigration in Los Angeles.

Housing in the U.S. is a substantial expenditure, but possessing equity in a home also represents an important source of wealth. This study employs 2003 data from the New Immigrant Survey to examine the home equity of legal immigrants who have come to the U.S. from around the world. We empirically test the relevance of three key theoretical frameworks for predicting immigrants' home equity and evaluate each framework's ability to account for differences in home equity among origin groups. We find strong support for the assimilation and the segmented assimilation frameworks, and little support for the place stratification perspective, net of other factors. Substantial differences in the home equity between origin groups persist even in the presence of multiple controls, with implications for legal immigrants' current economic position and future well-being in the U.S.

Immigrants represent an increasingly vital component of the U.S. housing market, though there is a substantial and growing gap in homeownership rates between natives and the foreign born. We employ the New Immigrant Survey-2003 to examine the housing tenure of immigrants recently adjusted to new legal permanent resident status. The results reveal important cross-national differences in the linkages between transfers to the origin country relationships with U.S. mainstream financial institutions, previous unauthorized experience, and housing tenure. Analyses also document that immigrants occupy three distinct housing outcomes in America; renting, owning, and living for free.