Recent issr_volume2 items

Ethnic Officeholders and Party Activists in Los Angeles County

Wed, 24 Jul 2002 00:00:00 +0000

This inquiry into ethnic participation in Los Angeles party politics starts with a look at the comparative success in gaining public office that representatives of five minority status groups have had since 1960. Specifically, the success in winning significant political office by candidates who are Latino, Black, Jewish, Asian and/or women has been quite different. It has been much more rapid for Jews than for Blacks, who in turn have outpaced Latinos, while Asians have had little success throughout the 27-year period. Further, women not linked to these ethnic communities have not done as well as women from ethnic communities in gaining public office.

In 1960, ethnic minorities held 5 percent of the most significant elective positions in Los Angeles County. By 1986, the ethnic communities of Los Angeles (Latino, Black, Jewish and Asian) provided 54 percent of the individuals holding the most significant elective positions. What developments in Los Angeles have led to...

The UCLA Asian Pacific American Voter Registration Study

Wed, 24 Jul 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Asian Pacific American political involvement is not a new phenomenon, but it has clearly become a significant focus of attention for the Asian Pacific American population. Perhaps at no other period in Asian Pacific American history have so many individuals and organizations of different issue orientations participated in a wide array of political activities, especially in relation to American electoral politics, but also in the affairs of the Pacific Rim. At the same time, what has come to be taken as a quite expected occurrence in Hawaii, namely the election of Asian Pacific Americans to public office, has suddenly become a less than surprising novelty in the Mainland states with the election and appointment of Asian Pacific Americans to federal, state, and local positions in California and elsewhere. Most importantly, perhaps, Asian Pacific Americans have demonstrated that they, too, have resources and talents--financial, organizational, and otherwise--to advance their specific...

The Social Coalition Character of the Democratic and Republican Precinct Cadres in Detroit, 1956-1984

Tue, 23 Jul 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Political parties are alliances of socio-economic interest groups. One cannot understand party organizational dynamics in any community without identifying the critical coalitional subgroups of the organization, assessing their relative strengths, and analyzing their ideologies and behaviors. This is a position we elaborated long ago in our 1956 Detroit study of the Republican and Democratic hierarchies (Eldersveld 1964). The effectiveness of party structures in electoral democracies depends on their linkages to the significant socio-economic interest sectors of the electorates whose support they seek to exploit and mobilize in order to acquire, and to remain in, power. Hence, the viability of local party cadres depends greatly on their capacity for adaptation to the changing character of their electorates. By adaptation we mean not only their response in terms of the numerical representation of social interests in precinct cadres, but also the qualitative performance of precinct...

Sources of Stress in Latino Women Experiencing Unemployment After a Plant Closure

Tue, 23 Jul 2002 00:00:00 +0000

A common assumption about women as laborers made in past unemployment research has been that their participation in the labor force is optional (Schlozman 1979). This assumption suggests that when unemployed, such women should be less susceptible than are males to personal, familial or social sources of stress (Rundquist and Sletto 1938). Additionally, this view suggests that women, especially Latino women, who are accustomed to the role of homemaker, should not object to job loss nor to a return to this role, particularly since they are supported by their husbands (Rundquist and Sletto 1936). However, current demographic data indicate that the number of Latino families headed and maintained by women have continued to increase since 1970. In 1983, women maintained 23 percent of Latino families (U.S. Department of Commerce 1984). Thus, the assumption must be questioned that participation in the labor force is entirely optional for Latino women, and that these women are not...

Learning About Bilingual, Multicultural Organizing

Fri, 19 Jul 2002 00:00:00 +0000

This paper is a reflection on several years' struggle to establish a federation of housing cooperatives in a low-income, multi-ethnic, bilingual community in Los Angeles. The history of this organization has significant implications for the study of multicultural organization in general, and for the modeling of multicultural, as opposed to assimilative or pluralistic, society. The concept of multiculturalism has grown in importance as the melting pot myths of the past and shortcomings of pluralism are fully exposed.

Are the Characterisitcs of Exiles Different from Immigrants? The Case of Iranians in Los Angeles

Fri, 19 Jul 2002 00:00:00 +0000

The main objective of this paper is to use the Iranian case to test three hypotheses about the demographic, religious, and socioeconomic differences between immigrants and political refugees or exiles, which are commonly found in the literature. These hypotheses are tested by using data from the 1980 U.S. Census Public Use Microdata Sample for the 1975-80 and the pre-1975 Iranian immigrant cohorts. Our first hypothesis is that the 1975-80 immigrants include a higher proportion of religious minorities than the pre-1975 immigrants. Our second hypothesis is that the 1975-1980 cohort, composed of a large number of refugees, is much more balanced with respect to age and sex distribution than the pre-1975 cohort. The third hypothesis is that Iranians who arrived in 1975-80 had a higher socioeconomic achievement than those who came before that date. The analysis of data from the 1980 U.S. Census on immigration cohorts is preceded by a brief review of trends and types of Iranian immigration...

Sex Ratio Imbalance Among Los Angeles Afro-Americans

Fri, 19 Jul 2002 00:00:00 +0000

This paper explores the social structural implications of a male shortage among Afro-Americans living in Los Angeles County, California from two perspectives: (1) the relationship between the sex ratio and selected hypothesized consequences of sex ratio imbalance and (2) the economic cost of non-marriage for women.

Post-Industrialization and the Social Organization of Afro-Trinidadian Immigrants in Los Angeles

Fri, 19 Jul 2002 00:00:00 +0000

In this paper, the author examines the relationship between "post-industrialism" and patterns of social organization that may be observed among international migrants at the micro-level; more specifically, the connection between certain aspects of post-industrial technology such as innovations in telecommunications and transportation and the social organization of Caribbean immigrants, a subset of the New Immigrants to the United States. The intent is to draw attention to the idea of non-territorial social systems as an emerging social form in the post-industrial era. This paper focuses on the New Immigrants largely because the New Immigration has coincided with the development of the computerization and automation of information, communication and transportation infrastructures, which is to say, at a post-industrial moment in history.

Beyond the Neighborhood: The Spatial Distribution of Social Ties in Three Urban Black Communities

Thu, 18 Jul 2002 00:00:00 +0000

This paper explores the distribution of social ties within three black communities. We take seriously the notion that in order to study the personal communities of urbanites we must explore ties both inside and outside neighborhood boundaries. Using data on the interpersonal ties of 352 blacks residing in three contrasting study areas, we explore several questions. First, to what degree are ties neighborhood based or what we term, beyond the neighborhood? Second, are there sub-group differences in spatial location in these study areas; are differences for age, sex, education, and occupational status present? Third, we ask whether differences in the degree of neighborhood embeddedness occur for various attributes of ties; are they equally close, as frequently contacted, or contacted in different ways (i.e., personally or by phone)? Fourth, to what extent are kin, co-workers and co-members spatially dispersed? And finally, in what ways do ties beyond the neighborhood differ...

Occupational Status Attainment Among Ethnic Groups in Los Angeles

Thu, 11 Jul 2002 00:00:00 +0000

In a nation of immigrants Los Angeles is increasingly a city of new immigrants. As of 1980,which is the most recent date for which good data are available, 20 percent of the population of the Los Angeles metropolitan area had been born abroad, mostly in Latin America and various Asian countries. Whereas New York historically has been the major port of entry for those immigrating to the U.S. from Europe, Los Angeles has been, and increasingly is, the major point of entry or those immigrating from Latin America and Asia. The result is a multi-ethnic, polyglot metropolis, with 142 languages spoken at home out of the 200 languages tabulated by the 1980 Census. As a consequence of this new immigration, Los Angeles has a more diverse ethnic mix than virtually any other city in the nation, and perhaps the world.

The pace of immigration, to Los Angeles as to the remainder of the country, has increased dramatically in recent years, starting ...

Party Coalitions and Ethnic Divisions in a Multi-Ethnic City

Thu, 11 Jul 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Historically, the emergence of mass politics has depended upon a minimum of social heterogeneity (LaPalombara and Weiner 1966; Dahl 1966; Lipset and Rokkan 1967). Religious, economic, ethnic, linguistic, and regional differences provided social cleavages along which organizations, especially political ones, developed. The number, salience and centrality, and political significance of the cleavages varied among societies but the existence of differences, their expression as groups within the larger society, and their politicization are virtual constants. In all mass democracies, not excluding the United States, parties are instruments of collective action through which groups promote and protect interests which are not satisfied by the usual operation of the social structure and markets.

As a result, groups provide the working politician with a guide to the elec- torate, and...