UC San Diego

As day laborers continue to seek work in suburban communities throughout Southern California, the reaction of cities and communities to presence of this new immigrant labor group is varied and complicated. Reactionary policies representing a nativist backlash to the presence of poor Latino male immigrants within traditionally upper and middle class native populations underscore the sense of fear and loss that demographic changes create within native populations In the absence of national policy outlining the role of local government agents in the policing of immigrants, hyper-visible day laborers operating within the races spaces of Southern California bear the brunt of anti-immigrant sentiment at the local level, witnessed through the rising levels of restrictionist day labor ordinances.