Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo

2017-2018

Weatherhead Fellow

Affiliation at time of award:
Professor,
Dept. of Sociology,
University of Southern California

Roots and Raices: Latina/o Immigrant Integration in Black Spaces

Dr. Hondagneu-Sotelo plans to complete a book analyzing Latino immigrant integration in the historically African American mega-neighborhood of South Los Angeles. The book will be co-authored from a rich empirical base: 100 in-depth interviews with Latina/o residents of three South L.A. neighborhoods; interviews with 19 civic leaders; Census data from 1970 to the present; and, interviews with African American residents, and with public park and community garden users. Hondagneu-Sotelo challenges assimilation and transnational theories with a new paradigm, immigrant homemaking in multiracial contexts. Rather than ethnic succession, ethnic sedimentation is occurring, with Latino immigrants actively building on African American traditions and legacies. Rather than simple race identity, a strong place-based identity and pride is emerging, especially among the Latina/o second generation. Latina/o immigrant social and economic integration has progressed, while civic participation lags, but quotidian gatherings in parks and gardens encourage community civic engagement.

Generous funding for this Fellowship provided by the Weatherhead Endowment.

COLLOQUIUM

Reconceptualizing Immigration as a Home-making Process: The Latinos in South Los Angeles Research Projects

Wednesday, September 27, 2017, 12:00–1:00 pm, Free

There is no grand theory of immigration, but in American sociology, three paradigms have prevailed: assimilation, transnationalism and racialization/criminalization. Each one has its own merit, yet misses important dynamics. In this lecture, Dr. Hondagneu-Sotelo presents empirical findings from a study of Latinos in South Los Angeles to help build a new framework of immigration as a home-making process. The Latinos in South LA study (LiSLA) includes 100 in-depth interviews with first and second-generation Latina/o immigrants, 19 interviews with civic leaders, and census and demographic mapping of Watts, Vermont Square and the historic South Central Avenue neighborhoods. The presentation focuses attention on the significance of race, anti-Black racism, and generational differences among Latina/o immigrants in the immigrant-homemaking process, and suggests several concepts that highlight the significance of place and race in immigrant home-making.