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South Central Dreams: Finding Home and Building Community in South L.A.

Online ISBN:
9781479804054
Print ISBN:
9781479804023
Publisher:
NYU Press
Book

South Central Dreams: Finding Home and Building Community in South L.A.

Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo,
Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo
University of Southern California
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Manuel Pastor
Manuel Pastor
University of Southern California
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Published online:
20 January 2022
Published in print:
13 July 2021
Online ISBN:
9781479804054
Print ISBN:
9781479804023
Publisher:
NYU Press

Abstract

This book examines the complex ways in which Latino immigrants root themselves in new places while navigating the terrain of US social hierarchies and relationships with African American neighbors. In particular, the study looks at neighborhood change in South Los Angeles, which has shifted from predominantly African American to Latino. The authors ask the following questions: How did Latino immigrants and their children make a new home for themselves in South L.A.? What kinds of relations did they develop with African Americans, and how did this change over time? And what are the consequences for civic engagement and for cross-racial community organizing? The book draws on a multiyear, mixed-method project conducted by a team of ten researchers, and it is based on nearly two hundred audio-recorded, transcribed interviews, which were conducted in homes, garages, parks, offices, and urban gardens (one hundred with Latino residents, twenty-five with Black residents, twenty-nine interviews with civic leaders, and another forty-four with Latino and Black men at public parks and community gardens), as well as new databases charting historical demographic change. Taken together, this book provides both an intimate, close-up window into how people experience urban life and race on the streets, in schools, and in homes, and it scopes out to consider change over time, providing a broader view of new civic collaborations and political projects, race and place identities. The picture that emerges challenges traditional views of assimilation, identity formation, and urban politics and emphasizes a perspective highlighting immigrant homemaking, racial-identity transformation, and the production of Black/Brown collaborations in politics and placemaking.

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