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Introduction: The Social Ecology of Disadvantage for Mexican Immigrant Entrepreneurs

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Neighborhood Poverty and Segregation in the (Re-)Production of Disadvantage

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Abstract

Focusing on shopkeepers in Latino/a neighborhoods in Los Angeles, Dolores Trevizo and Mary Lopez reveal how neighborhood poverty relative to other stratification variables (including racial segregation and gender) affects the business performance of Mexican immigrant entrepreneurs. Their survey of Mexican shopkeepers in 20 immigrant neighborhoods demonstrates that less poor and more multiethnic communities offer better business opportunities than do the highly impoverished and racially segregated Mexican neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Their findings not only contribute to the scholarship of concentrated disadvantage that emphasizes the long-term consequences of neighborhood deprivation, but reveal previously overlooked aspects of microclass, as well as “legal capital,” advantages. The authors argue that even poor Mexican immigrants whose class backgrounds in Mexico imparted an entrepreneurial disposition can achieve a modicum of business success in the right (US) neighborhood context, and the more quickly they build legal capital, the better their outcomes. While they show that the local place characteristics of neighborhoods both reflect and reproduce class and racial inequalities, they also demonstrate that the diversity of experiences among Mexican immigrants living within the spatial boundaries of these communities also matters to their economic mobility. In sum, race, gender, legal status, and poverty affect individuals, but do so according to the ways that they are nested in space and time.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Our focus on small business owners is consistent with Waldinger, Aldrich, and Ward’s definition of entrepreneurs (1990: 17).

  2. 2.

    In the pre-Colonial era, California was home to a network of Native settlements. Founded as a Spanish pueblo (called El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles) in 1781, Los Angeles became a part of Mexico after Mexican independence (in 1821). Many of the migrants to Los Angeles since 1781 have been from Mexico, a pattern that continues to date.

  3. 3.

    According to the Pew Research Center. See http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/09/15/hispanics-of-mexican-origin-in-the-united-states-2013/

  4. 4.

    These data are from the Pew Research Center. See http://www.pewhispanic.org/2017/05/03/facts-on-u-s-immigrants-current-data/. Also see http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/09/15/hispanics-of-mexican-origin-in-the-united-states-2013/

  5. 5.

    For a recent argument about how deindustrialization has affected the UK, see Andrew G. Haldane (2017).

  6. 6.

    See Rogers Brubaker (1985).

  7. 7.

    See Neil Fligstein and Doug McAdam (2011) and Rodney Benson (1999) for a discussion of Bourdieu’s theory of fields.

  8. 8.

    Weber’s notion of life chances (or lebenschancen) is comparable to Bourdieu’s idea of trajectory over time. Weber clearly emphasized that early access to material and educational resources structures people’s long-term odds of landing in specific places within a stratification system.

  9. 9.

    For exceptions, see Hernández-León (2008) on skilled and semi-skilled workers. Also, see Hagan et al. (2011). On the “new migration” patterns comprising indigenous people moving from Mexico to the US, see Cornelius et al. (2007), Malpica (2005), and Rivera-Salgado (2016).

  10. 10.

    On these variables, see Borjas (1999), Doms et al. (2010), Mora and Davila (2014), Robb and Fairlie (2009).

  11. 11.

    Their ambivalent standing is determined both because they are “othered” by natives and because they themselves have mixed or uncertain feelings about their host society.

  12. 12.

    On the regional dispersion of Mexicans and Mexican Americans, see the Pew 2013 report on Mexican-Origin Hispanics in the United States. http://www.pewhispanic.org/2013/05/01/a-demographic-portrait-of-mexican-origin-hispanics-in-the-united-states/

  13. 13.

    The source for this statistic is: http://dornsife.usc.edu/assets/sites/731/docs/LOSANGELES_web.pdf

  14. 14.

    We used 40% as the cutoff since the percentage of Hispanics or Latinos in Los Angeles County was 44% in 2000, the most recent Census year available at the time we administered the survey (see Table 3.4 for the list of 20 neighborhoods).

  15. 15.

    For a full discussion, see Haynes et al. (2016).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sociology Department, Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Dolores Trevizo

  2. Economics Department, Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Mary Lopez

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  1. Dolores Trevizo
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  2. Mary Lopez
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Trevizo, D., Lopez, M. (2018). Introduction: The Social Ecology of Disadvantage for Mexican Immigrant Entrepreneurs. In: Neighborhood Poverty and Segregation in the (Re-)Production of Disadvantage. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73715-7_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73715-7_1

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