Institute for Social Science Research

In the introduction to this volume, Johnson and Oliver (1988) discuss the importance of exploring questions of ethnicity and ethnic group behavior in a comparative context and highlight a specific set of "ethnic dilemmas" requiring immediate attention and remediation. Answers to the types of comparative ethnic questions they raised would ideally require the collection of primary data via large scale social surveys. Because the design and conduct of a social survey is a time consuming and costly undertaking, especially for the lone researcher, social scientists have traditionally attempted to circumvent the problem by undertaking secondary analysis of previously conducted surveys. Given this longstanding research tradition, Stephenson (1988) has compiled an INDEX OF MACHINE-READABLE DATA FILES FOR USE IN COMPARATIVE ETHNIC RESEARCH. The index contains references to UCLA's holdings of surveys, public opinion polls, and both historical and current enumerative data. It will be significantly useful in comparative ethnic research on such topics as: Ethnic assimilation, segregation, and neighborhood change; Labor markets and entrepreneurship; Political and electoral behavior; Health and well-being; Crime; and, Education.

The purpose of this essay is to encourage future comparative ethnic research by highlighting potential uses and limitations of machine-readable data files, such as those referenced in the INDEX (Stephenson 1988). Toward this end, background details are provided on the organizations and agencies that collect or archive publicly available data and describe in detail selected data files. A second section will focus on data collection policies, sampling deficiencies and inherent limitations for research on comparative aspects of ethnicity and ethnic group behavior. In the concluding section the discussion focuses on, among other salient issues, the social scientist's role in future government decisions regarding the collection of data on ethnic groups in America.

The exponential growth in selected Sunbelt cities since 1960 is now well documented, and metropolitan Miami is recognized as one of the acknowledged targets of Sunbelt growth and development. What is less often acknowledged, is the impact of the transformation of such places on segments of the residential population. In this paper, primary attention will be directed at two subpopulations -- Blacks and Cubans residing in metropolitan Miami just prior to the takeoff era. At the time of takeoff, Blacks represented a quasi-caste population whose role in the Miami economy was typical of that of Blacks in the economy of the urban South, a peripheral one. Cubans, on the other hand, were just beginning to enter the metropolitan economy in substantial numbers and the first wave of migrants from Cuba had yet to make its impact felt. After the passage of almost a generation it is fitting to examine how well metropolitan miami's two primary ethnic minorities have fared in penetrating, and/or altering the metropolitan economy.

This paper examines the assimilation of American Indians, specifically in relation to the role that economic discrimination has played in making American Indians one of the poorest groups in American society. The relationship between assimilation and discrimination is particularly important in this context. As assimilation increases, discrimination should decrease and the economic position of the assimilated group, American Indians, should improve. Conversely, those groups least assimilated into American society bear the brunt of racial and ethnic discrimination, and their economic position should be correspondingly lower than more assimilated minorities.

American Indians are a particularly interesting group among whom to examine these ideas. This is because it is possible to identify, in empirical data,distinct groups of persons with American Indian background that are more or less assimilated into American society. In studying the ways in which assimilation and discrimination affect the economic standing of American Indians, this research will address two closely related questions: 1) to what extent are American Indians assimilated into mainstream culture, and to what extent are different levels of assimilation manifest in different types of American Indian ethnic identities; and 2) what are the economic "penalties" assessed on persons who decline to assimilate into the mainstream culture?

Accounts of the economic circumstances of various population subgroups since 1960 indicate increased inequality between majority and selected minority populations, and increased polarization within these minority populations (see Wilson 1987; Farley 1984; Allen and Farley 1986; Hirschman 1988; Hernandez 1983). Specifically, recent studies reveal that the Black-White gap in unemployment (in both absolute and relative terms) has increased, and levels of labor force nonparticipation rose, with the latter appearing to be almost entirely a minority phenomenon (Hirschman 1988; Allen and Farley 1986; Lichter 1988). This paper continues this line of research via analyses of trends in employment and an assessment of the effect of migration on employment among Blacks, Cubans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and non-Hispanic White Americans. Specifically, the questions we wish to address are whether the level of employment of these groups changed since 1965 and whether migrating between 1975 and 1980 affected the likelihood of being employed in 1980.

In focusing on the association of employment with migration, our objective is to determine whether the opportunity enhancement function of migration apply equally to each of the ethnic groups included in the analysis. Results from previous works suggest that migration might possibly offer a solution to the chronic joblessness observed among some ethnic populations concentrated in the nation's largest cities. In the analysis presented below, this assertion is subjected to an empirical test.

This paper will focus on two elements of the expanded version of the assimilation model: acculturation and residential segregation. If, as Gordon has postulated, acculturation is a precursor to other forms of assimilation, there should be a statistically significant association between acculturation and segregation. Specifically, minority groups that measure high on acculturation should be less segregated from the dominant population than groups that score low on acculturation

If we consider Marx an economist, then Weber and Simmel were the first major sociologists to devote considerable attention to the causes and consequences of the economic behavior of religious and ethnic groups. As is known, one of Weber's major interests was the part played by different religious groups in the development of rational capitalism in the West (Weber 1958). Weber concluded that adherents of Calvinism and other Protestant sects were possessed of a worldly asceticism which was highly consonant with the requirements of modern capitalism. Elsewhere, Weber pondered a related issue, to wit, why "no modern and distinctively industrial bourgeoisie of any significance emerged among the Jews" (1964, p. 249). Weber's answer adduced, among other things, that a serious study of Jewish law was more compatible with such pursuits as moneylending and that the institution of the dowry "favored the establishing of the Jewish groom at marriage as a small merchant" (1964, p. 255). Another reason why, in Weber's view, industrial production was not a favored activity among Jews was the dual ethic: "what is prohibited in relation to one's brothers is permitted in relation to strangers" (1964, p. 250). As a result of the dual ethic, the Jew, unlike the Calvinist, found it "difficult... to demonstrate his ethical merit by means of characteristically modern business behavior" (1964, p. 252).

As for Simmel, he saw the European Jews' tendency to engage in trade as being inextricably related to their status as "strangers" in society. As he put it (1964, p. 403): Throughout the history of economics the stranger everywhere appears as the trader, or the trader as stranger... Trade can always absorb more people than primary production; it is, therefore, the sphere indicated for the stranger, who intrudes as a supernumerary, so to speak, into a group in which the economic positions are actually occupied -- the classical example is the history of European Jews.

The impact of Weber's and, especially, Simmel's pioneering ideas regarding ethnicity and economic behavior is discernible early in U.S. sociology. The notion of the "trader as a stranger" is found in the work of Park (1950a, 1950b), Wirth (1928), and Stonequist (1937). Becker's book (1956) devoted an entire chapter to "middleman trading peoples," in which he discusses, among other things, the concept of the "dual ethic." For reasons not entirely clear, interest in the sociology of ethnic economic behavior remained dormant for a while, but reappeared in the 1950's (Cahnman 1957; Rinder 1958; Stryker 1959; Blalock 1967). This interest persists today under the leadership of Bonacich, Light, and Portes, among others. As a result, a considerable body of writings has emerged. Although this literature has added to our knowledge, it suffers from some problems. There are issues which have not been explored sufficiently, discrepancies regarding important concepts, contradictions, and dubious assumptions. In brief, the field of study seems to be in need of careful reexamination. The purpose of this paper is to stimulate such a reasses- sment.

The papers which comprise this volume were produced by a group of these nationally known scholars who are engaged in research on comparative aspects of ethnicity and ethnic group behavior. Organized around a series of themes which run through the extant comparative ethnicity literature and which reflect the expertise and current research foci of the conference presenters, the volume is divided into five parts

Part I addresses issues related to "Ethnic Assimilation, Segregation, and Neighborhood Change."

Part II of the volume addresses issues related to labor markets and entrepreneurship.

Part III of this volume addresses issues related to ethnic political and electoral behavior.

Part IV of this volume focuses on racial/ethnic issues in higher education.

Part V of the book, which we've entitled "Comparative Ethnicity in Society," addresses a number of pertinent dilemmas which have received considerable attention in both the local and national news media.

In the past decade there has been a growing literature focused on explaining the patterns of residential separation in U.S. metropolitan areas. The research of two decades ago which focused on the locational structure of the mono-centric city represented by studies by Alonso (1964), Mills (1967), Muth (1969) and Wingo (1961) was mostly concerned with the way in which land uses as a whole are structured in the city. There was much less attention directed to the issues of residential separation, especially the separation of ethnic areas within metropolitan areas.

In the last dozen years at least three research streams have developed to explore the issue of residential patterning and neighborhood change. One of these streams considers neighborhood change as the outcome of a set of exogenous factors such as income, population growth, changing job locations and housing change.

A second research stream also includes exogenous economic factors additionally includes the role of racially biased household preferences, racial discrimination in the functioning of the housing market and by extension in the transition of neighborhoods.

The third research stream specifically examines the way in which discrimination affects the patterns of separation.

Paralleling the debates about the factors which influence the nature of residential change and residential separation are empirical studies of residential change itself. An important aspect of understanding residential change is residential behavior and the resulting changes in residential separation. Much of the emphasis has been on the role of tipping and explanations of tipping.

This paper offers one small but dramatic example of grassroots responses to urban restructuring. It is a case study of the politics of ethnicity and growth in Monterey Park, North America's first suburban Chinatown. Evolving after World War II from a predominantly white, middle class suburb into a multi-ethnic city, today Monterey Park has the highest concentration of Asians of any city in the United States.

Our research addresses two issues: (1) the development of the politics of growth and ethnicity in a multi-ethnic,middle class suburb undergoing rapid demographic and economic change as a result of the rapid influx of Asian people and capital; (2) the role and stands taken by new Asian immigrants and established residents -- Latinos, Asian-Americans, and Anglos --in the struggle for ethnic representation and local control over land use, space, language,and the very definition of community.

This paper focuses specifically on the ethnic actors and political currents surrounding the City Council election of April 1988. We used a wide variety of qualitative and quantitative methods appropriate to a community study: demographic analysis,ethnographic observation of the City Council and political campaigns, content analysis of English and Chinese newspapers, interviews with candidates and community leaders, interviews conducted during precinct walking with the leading candidates, and finally, participation in an exit poll and statistical analysis of results.

To understand the patterns and possible consequences of Latino suburbanization, it is necessary to comprehend the historical demographic processes which have resulted in this centralization (urbanization) and decentralization (intra-metropolitan dispersion). This paper will describe these processes, discuss their distinctiveness, and finally, consider the implications which point to a concurrent process for Latinos in Los Angeles of "traditional" suburbanization and new barrio formation.