The Role of Immigrant Enclaves for Latino Residential Inequalities

Abstract

We investigate the difference that immigrant enclaves make for the residential contexts of Latino families in the U.S. We argue that enclaves may no longer function simply as temporary way stations, the classic depiction of them, because of the compromised legal status of many Latinos. We examine this role with an innovative method that uses publicly available census tabulations (from the 2000 Census in our case) to develop HLM models, in which race/ethnicity and income are controlled at the family level, along with neighbourhood context and metropolitan characteristics. Comparing Latino residential patterns to those of whites and blacks reveals the large neighbourhood disadvantages of Latinos, which except for greater exposure to whites are on the order of those suffered by African Americans. We find that Hispanic families improve their residential situations as their incomes go up and usually also when they live in suburbs. But residence outside of immigrant enclaves produces the largest positive changes. The enclaves are a fundamentally different kind of residential space, in which the potential for neighbourhood improvement is modest.

Drinking, Alcohol Use Disorder, and Treatment Access and Utilization Among U.S. Racial/Ethnic Groups

“…In contrast to research showing that racial residential segregation results in health disparities, especially for African Americans, other research findings indicate that there may be an “ethnic density effect” whereby racial/ethnic minorities are healthier when they live in areas with high concentrations of people of the same ethnicity and this appears to be particularly evident among Hispanics: notably, older Mexican Americans (Bécares et al, 2012; Alvarez and Levy, 2012; Alba et al, 2014; Lee et al, 2007; Ostir, et al, 2003; Patel et al, 2003). With regard to alcohol use/misuse, research indicates that for Hispanics, as the neighborhood composition of co-ethnics increases, the risk of heavy/problem drinking and AUD decreases (Stroope et al, 2015; Molina et al, 2012; Markides et al, 2012).…”

New faces in new spaces in new places: Residential attainment among newly legalized immigrants in established, new, and minor destinations

“…But high concentrations of immigrants or low levels of non-Hispanic Whites do not necessarily indicate undesirable neighborhood conditions such as high poverty (Iceland, 2009). Research in the locational attainment tradition has long acknowledged the importance of evaluating neighborhood characteristics beyond exposure to whites, such as median income (Cort, 2011, Logan, et al, 1996, Pais, et al, 2012, Sampson and Sharkey, 2008), violent crime (Krivo, et al, 2009), percent in professional/managerial jobs (Alba et al 2014), and poverty (Swisher, et al, 2013). In addition to measures capturing foreign-born and non-Hispanic white tract representation, we also assess tract-level percent in poverty to assess the quality of the neighborhoods in which immigrants reside.…”

“…As noted by Alba et al (2014), “segregation research offers a limited window on residential situations: knowing how segregated a group is does not necessarily tell us what kinds of neighborhoods its members typically live in” (2). This latter concern, i.e.…”

“…One recent analysis comes closest to our approach. In a study that focused exclusively on Latinos, Alba et al (2014) attempted a novel strategy that used 2000 census data but approximated a household family income variable via tract-level tables, enabling the use of multilevel models to assess non-Hispanic white tract representation. Important for our interests, they distinguished metros by Latino growth patterns and found that, while there were no significant differences between new and established destinations, Latinos residing in fast Latino growth metros had a smaller average percentage of whites within their residential tracts.…”

“…Utilizing the New Immigrant Survey (NIS) geocoded data with information on individual-level residential locations and a much broader set of individual-level covariates, we are able to expand on the efforts of Alba et al (2014) and conduct a more comprehensive assessment of immigrant residential attainment by destination type. The multilevel geocoded NIS data allows us to explicitly model individual-level residential outcomes and assess whether there is actual variation in the types of neighborhoods immigrants are accessing in different immigrant receiving communities.…”