Ethnoracial Capitalism and the Limits of Ethnic Solidarity

Abstract

Based on qualitative data drawn from Latino elites, Latino entrepreneurs, and two Latino banks in Los Angeles, we theorize the concept of ethnoracial capitalism, which occurs within racialized groups when group members commodify ethnicity through the sale of culturally-specific goods or when institutions and services are imbued with ethnicity and assumed to form the basis of profitable financial exchanges. We investigate why Latino elites establish Latino-centric banks, and we draw on the perspectives of Latino-elites and middle- and upper-class entrepreneurs to examine whether shared ethnoracial and class resources breed solidarity between Latino elite-owned and -operated banks and the Latino entrepreneurs they target. We find that structural constraints, the state, and class conflict thwarts the possibility of sustaining banking practices rooted in ethnoracial solidarity. Our research provides insights into the fraught intra-ethnic relationships that can occur within ethnoracial capitalistic endeavors that are situated within racist racial projects, such as the U.S. banking system. Ultimately, the sole presence of capital and ethnic financial institutions in minoritized communities does not remedy economic inequalities born of White supremacist racial projects and racially stratified systems, such as U.S. financial markets.

Global Appeal: Colorblindness, Neoliberalism, and Neighborhood Branding

“…This phenomenon manifests in cities that rely on immigration as a revitalization strategy. This is often the case because multicultural neighborhood branding is a tourism strategy (Vallejo and Canizales, 2021;Zavattaro, 2019;Zukin et al, 2016). Research shows that the foreign-born contribute to neighborhood change by reducing crime, settling in neighborhoods, and establishing businesses (Adelman et al, 2017(Adelman et al, , 2019Gostjev, 2018;Hum, 2002;Hyra, 2017;Lin, 1998;MacDonald et al, 2013).…”

Feminist ethnoracial entrepreneurship among Latina elite and middle‐class entrepreneurs

“…Latinxs often engage in a pattern of ethnoracial capitalism where they leverage ethnicity-shared cultural practices, connections to coethnics, and ethnoracial identity-to target coethnics for profit (Muñiz, 2023;Orozco, 2022;Vallejo & Canizales, 2021). Most research on this practice has been conducted among the immigrant generation.…”

“…and "How do we give back in ways that empower our community?" Many feel that entrepreneurship is the lynchpin that will help to grow the Latinx middle class, create intergenerational wealth, and foster community development (Vallejo & Canizales, 2021). Latina elites-the majority who are the socially mobile children of immigrants and are "self-made"-acknowledge their own experiences of discrimination and sexism, as well as a lack of access to parental wealth have shaped their entrepreneurial activities with the primary barrier being access to capital.…”

“…Feminist analyses in entrepreneurship address the absence of gender in the theorization of the facets of entrepreneurship and investigate if and to what extent entrepreneurship and related ventures can mitigate gender inequality (Calás et al., 2009; Clark Muntean & Ozkazanc‐Pan, 2016; Mirchandani, 1999). We answer this call by adding class and ethnoracial context to these debates by centering women within an ethnoracial group that is often portrayed in research as class homogenous and lacking in resources, and that, in the U.S. context, is also racialized in policy, institutions, and everyday life as low‐income, criminal, and overwhelmingly undocumented (Vallejo & Canizales, 2021). The Latina entrepreneurs in this study are engaged in some form of ethnoracial capitalism, a specific form of capitalism that is practiced by members of racialized groups who commodify ethnicity through the sale of ethnic and culturally‐specific goods or when “ethnicity is infused in institutions and in services and assumed to form the basis of profitable financial exchanges” (Vallejo & Canizales, 2021, p. 2).…”

Working‐class Latina/o youth navigating stratification and inequality: A review of literature

“…Latina/o social mobility over the life course and intergenerationally is a central inquiry in the sociology of stratification, migration, and family. Scholars of Latin American immigration and Latina/o immigrant families and the life course argue that today's poor and working‐class immigrant families are marginalized within educational (Telles & Ortiz, 2008), financial (Vallejo et al., 2021), housing (Agius et al., 2021; Hondagneu‐Sotelo et al., 2021), legal (Menjívar, 2021), and health systems (Van Natta et al., 2019) with profound effects on immigrants' lives both across an individual's life course and intergenerationally to affect children (Enriquez, 2020; Kasinitz et al., 2009; Zhou, et al., 2008) and grandchildren (Bean et al., 2015).…”