Reviews
This timely volume is a storehouse of knowledge that brings together a wide selection of scholars in a rigorous and comprehensive assessment of race, ethnicity and place. The primacy of place in ethnic and racial discourse is resurrected in this volume.
—
Professor Joseph Oppong, University of North Texas
Race, Ethnicity, and Place in a Changing America provides one of the most rigorous and comprehensive assessments available on racial and ethnic geographies and explains why they are important to all of us.
—
Orlando Taylor, Graduate Dean, Howard University
To read James Forrest's review of Race, Ethnicity, and Place in a Changing America in its entirety, click here.
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Prologue
THE CHANGING AMERICAN SCENE
Two of the most significant changes occurring in the second half of 20th-century America involved racial and ethnic composition of the population and the national focus on civil rights policy (housing, school desegregation, etc.). Debates about U.S. immigration after WWII resulted in profound changes in the magnitude and origins of immigration flows into the country. In the same period, the U.S. was steeped in the conflicts of the Civil Rights Era. The laws that emerged on these two fronts dramatically changed how America would treat immigration and racial issues in the future and also modified American human geography throughout most U.S. regions. Cultural and ethnic landscapes, the visualization of cultural imprints by the occupying group, capture the racial and ethnic changes in particular American places. Some of these landscapes and places illustrate the nature and range of changes that have occurred, and that are likely to continue, in places across the nation in coming decades.
Audrey Singer, in a subsequent chapter, informs us that the public library in Montgomery County, Maryland, “welcomes visitors in 11 languages.” The welcomes are not for tourists. Rather, Montgomery County, like other suburban Washington, D.C. areas, is experiencing a rapidly changing population due to recent immigration that has made the nation’s capital a gateway city. In the same county, African American family homes of professional, white collar workers are decorated to reflect ethnic ties—among the decorations are pieces of African art, a Civil Rights era painting, and a colorful poster highlighting a recent jazz festival and, at the same time, such homes express the achievements of the black middle class (Wiese, 2005). These examples illustrate the increasing suburbanization of the black middle class and the rise of ethnic diversity.
In suburban Minneapolis, black patrons of a barbershop exchange stories. They are not African Americans; they are Africans, “Liberians of War,” living their “Liberian Way.” Earl Scott (chapter 12) explains the importance of social spaces for Liberian immigrants to reminisce about their homeland. Here in the American Heartland, Liberians have carved out landscapes and remain distinct from the local African American population, despite their common cultural ties. Liberians are not the only immigrants who have settled in the heartland. Asian ethnic groups also have settled in inconspicuous and perhaps unexpected places, including Minnesota. The Hmong people of Southeast Asia provide a good example. Following the Vietnam War, this culture experienced genocide for their support of Americans. Since receiving refugee status, more than one million Hmong people have immigrated to the U.S. and more than 60,000 have settled in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region, where hundreds of their successful businesses help define the new Hmong landscape there.
The African ethnic scene described for Liberians is repeated in other American cities by other African immigrants, Ghanaians in New York, Somalis in Maine, and Ethiopians in Los Angeles, among others. Meanwhile, black ethnic Caribbeans have created cultural landscapes in various places, including Miami, Florida (Haitian and Trinidadian). Miami also is home to “Little Havana” and became the center of Cuban-American politics and culture after Castro overthrew Battista in 1959. Their position grew even stronger due to subsequent migrations of Cubans of varying social and economic status. The U.S. subsidized “freedom flights” and other efforts contributed to this diversity. Thus, “Little Havana,” too, is a distinctive ethnic landscape of a newly emerging America in the last four decades.
No region has changed more during the last generation than the American South. Its booming economy and warm climate have attracted migrants of all backgrounds. Among the newcomers are Mexican immigrants, legal and illegal, who have been attracted by the potential for a better life. Charlotte, North Carolina, once a black-white city, realized a greater percentage increase in its Latino population than any American city of comparable size. It is now classified as an immigrant “gateway” city (Singer, 2004). Atlanta, Georgia, the largest city of the South, also has experienced significant increases in ethnic immigrants and has been a favored destination for the “reverse” migration of African Americans, who for the first time since the Great Migration, have begun returning South in very large numbers (see chapter 7). However, African Americans “returning home” are not only being attracted to the employment opportunities of large metropolitan regions like Atlanta, some are returning to their Southern roots in rural places in North Carolina and are drawn there for non-economic reasons (Cromartie and Stack, 1989 and Stack, 1996). Similarly, Latinos are moving to small towns as well as cities, settling for example in rural Tennessee and Kentucky, as well as other rural southern areas, in their search for a better life (Smith and Fuerseth, in press).
In the south central U.S., other racial/ethnic patterns illustrate change. San Antonio, Texas, has long been the residence of many people of Mexican ancestry. In recent years this community has prospered and become one of America’s most rapidly growing metropolitan regions. The established Mexican community of San Antonio has distanced itself from recent Mexican immigrants on the basis of class, and has created an interesting urban geography in that community. Further north, in the Texas Panhandle, other changes are occurring. Once occupied by Anglos, this region has experienced an out-migration of Anglos, who are being replaced by Mexican immigrants who perceive the region’s value differently. The region’s composition is changing as a result. Both of these examples are presented in more detail in subsequent chapters.
On the Pacific Coast, the influence of the Mexican-American population was significant for most of the 20th-century. It remains so today, despite the growing dispersion of Latinos into other U.S. regions. Latinos have become a political and economic force in California. They also have brought controversy. Illegal immigrants, including Mexicans, have brought serious problems to that state, which in combination with Texas, is expected to have 35 million Latinos by the year 2050. Chinese Americans also have created unique geographic places in the United States, including Chinatowns and more recently “ethnoburbs” in California. Wei Li has described them as a novel form of clustered immigrant suburban settlement of ethnic people and their businesses with complete institutional structures. She and her colleagues described the process of their formation:
“… Waves of new wealthy and middle-class immigrants from the global Chinese Diaspora settled in Los Angeles suburbs, where they strengthened their ties to the Pacific Rim through business activities; their financial resources created the demand for a strong ethnic banking sector—and, indeed, for the second wave of Chinese-American banks (which have) been instrumental in creating the San Gabriel Valley ethnoburb by financing new Chinese residential settlements and transforming the local business structure and its landscapes” (Li et al., 2002, p. 792).
Li discusses the racial encounters of Asian Americans later in this text and argues that racial experiences are important to first-generation immigrants’ paths both to assimilation and their settlement choices.
Further northward on the Pacific Coast in Oregon, white Europeans have settled in what Susan Hardwick terms “Causcasia,” indicating the long-term dominance of the European-white population. She relates a fascinating story in chapter 25 of Russians and Ukrainians, who are refugees and fundamentalist Christians guided to the area by religious networks tied to the former Soviet Union. Her analysis reminds us that not all recent immigrants and landscapes represent non-whites. More importantly, she illustrates the important roles of institutions in shaping geographic settlement patterns and in operating in the political arena, where these groups have attempted to be classified as a “coalition of color,” using racial classification as a means to access competitive government funding to address their community needs.
In the country’s largest metropolitan area, New York City, a great deal of racial/ethnic change continues to occur. New York City has always been noted for its diversity and as a global city. Manhattan’s Lower East Side witnessed a sequence of cultural occupants, including the Dutch, Germans, Jews, Italians, and others. Beginning in the 1950s, Puerto Rican settlement became significant there too. In fact, Puerto Ricans were the dominant Hispanic group in the City for decades. One of the most significant changes in the City in the recent decades has been the diversification of Latino groups, accompanied by continued white flight. There also has been a noticeable out-migration of Puerto Ricans to nearby states, most notably to Connecticut and Pennsylvania. These are topics of two subsequent chapters. Distinctive Latino clusters have arisen in places like Long Island and multicultural neighborhoods have taken form in some city boroughs. Ninety miles away, in southeastern Pennsylvania, small post-industrial cities like Allentown and Reading are being transformed by the arrival of Puerto Ricans relocating from the City and directly from the island. Recently, they have been joined by a wide variety of Central and South American Latinos. Distinct settlement patterns and cultural landscapes are emerging as a result.
These brief examples indicate the increasing racial and ethnic diversity that is changing the composition of the American population and the appearance of landscapes. The newer landscapes are troubling for some Americans who see them as undermining the American culture and leading to the decline of America’s position in the world. It is important to note that, as new landscapes appear, the remnants and expansion of persistent geographic distributions remain.
CULTURAL PERSISTENCE OF NON-ANGLO LANDSCAPES
IN AMERICAN PLACES
There are places and landscapes that serve as evidence of the perseverance of subcultures who have struggled to successfully retain their cultural identities, despite the hardships resulting from second-class citizenship. These are important reminders of how the dominant culture in a society can restrict the access of subcultures to opportunities. They also speak to the societal failures to improve the living conditions of all Americans and to create policy to eradicate the Black ghettos and other places that exist because subcultures are denied equal access and are restricted in American geographic space. The magnitude and ubiquity of the geographic expression of such places are not well known by most Americans, perhaps because of another American failing, the lack of geographic education at all levels of the U.S. education system. This is why the average American was so appalled by the plight of the inner city New Orleans population that was trapped during Hurricane Katrina. Millions open their wallets to assist and criticized the government’s lack of preplanning and poor initial response. Unfortunately, American cities are filled with such places and conditions. Several American regions help us visualize this type of cultural persistence in the shadow of a dominant culture.
The persistence of culture is expressed through ethnicity, which is a deliberate effort to distinguish one’s own group from another through strong group self-identity linked to group characteristics, common ancestry, and attachment to a particular place. Sometimes a place shapes culture and other times culture acts as an agent, sculpting a landscape that reflects its presence. Numerous examples exist and discussion of a few illustrates the importance of recognizing these American landscapes and places, which are occupied by American subcultures.
Perhaps nowhere is the bond stronger between place and culture than in the case of native Hawaiian culture and the Islands. Shawn Malia Kana’iaupuni and Nolan Malone make the argument in chapter 21 that, despite the multicultural mixing and sustained Anglo efforts to “dismember” the Hawaiian nation, the natives’ sentiment toward place has been the key connection between native Hawaiian people and their heritage and self-determination.
Among other American examples are those of Native American Indians and early immigrant subcultures who have persisted for more than a century. In Tahlequah, Oklahoma, for example, after the “Trail of Tears,” the Cherokee nation created and preserved a lasting commercial and cultural center. This place remains a symbol of Native American cultural perseverance, as does the recently opened Native American Museum in Washington, D.C. Other examples include the early Asian immigrants who also left landscape reminders of their earlier American history. In California, which has long been one of America’s cultural hearths for Chinese and Japanese Americans, Chinatowns and “Little Tokyo” are thriving examples. Little Tokyo, although never fully recovered from WWII-related depopulation and dispossession by the U.S. government, has persisted as the place of cultural focus for Japanese Americans. James Smith discusses the historical and contemporary importance of this place to Japanese-American identity in chapter 22.
These are specific examples of cultural perseverance. Other less attractive examples speak to American failures to solve the legacy of black slavery, which resulted not only in the division of black immediate families and scattered them across the South, but left a legacy of fear and hatred among many whites who refused acceptance of African Americans as equals and as neighbors, despite a war fought over slavery and later amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Separate schools, unequal access to employment, housing and services, and imposed segregation in northern and southern places resulted in African American landscapes of despair and fear that have persisted as black ghettos in the 21st century. Despite obvious African American gains in socioeconomic status and their corresponding suburban landscapes, millions of blacks remain trapped in inner city slums. Even successful African Americans routinely must absorb racist behaviors of American society (Cose, 1993). No matter how significant Black progress has been, the daily conditions experienced by too many African Americans should be constant reminders to all Americans that the nation has failed to adequately address its unique race problems.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Orlando Taylor, Howard University
Douglas Richardson, AAG
Prologue
Part I
PERSPECTIVES ON AMERICAN RACE AND ETHNICITY
Chapter 1 Race, Ethnicity, and Place in a Changing America: A Perspective
—J. W. Frazier
Chapter 2 Nightmarish Landscapes: The Orwellian World of Malcolm X
—J. A. Tyner
Chapter 3 Public Policy Impacts on School Desegregation, 1970-2000
—J. R. Logan, D. Oakley, and J. Stowell
Chapter 4 The New Metropolitan Geography of Immigration: Washington, D.C. in Context
—A. Singer
Chapter 5 U.S. Immigration and Racialized Assimilation
—W. Li
Part II
U.S. AFRICAN AMERICAN, AFRICAN AND
CARIBBEAN GEOGRAPHIES
Chapter 6 Black American Geographies: A Perspective
—E. L. Tettey-Fio
Chapter 7 People on the Move: African Americans Since the Great Migration
—J. W. Frazier and R. Anderson
Chapter 8 Lending and Race in Two Cities: A Comparison of Subprime Mortgages, Predatory Mortgages, and Foreclosures in Washington, D.C. and Akron, Ohio.
—D. H. Kaplan and G. Sommers
Chapter 9 Concentrated Poverty, Race, and Mortgage Lending: Implications for Anti-Predatory Lending Legislation
—J. T. Darden and L. Jezierski
Chapter 10 Race, Location and Access to Employment in Buffalo, N.Y.
—I. Johnston-Anumonwo and S. Sultana
Chapter 11 The Formation of a Contemporary Ethnic Enclave: The Case of “Little Ethiopia” in Los Angeles
—E. Chacko and I. Cheung
Chapter 12 The New African Americans: Liberians of War in Minnesota
—E. P. Scott
Chapter 13 The Distribution and Socioeconomic Status of West Indians Living in the United States
—T. D. Boswell and T. A. Jones
Part III
U.S. HISPANIC/LATINO GEOGRAPHIES:
CHANGING SPATIAL PATTERNS
AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS
Chapter 14 Latinos in America: Historical and Contemporary Settlement Patterns
—M. E. Reisinger
Chapter 15 Latinos in New York City: Ethnic Diversity, Changing Settlement Patterns, and Settlement Experiences
—K. D. Galligano and J. W. Frazier
Chapter 16 Placing Transnational Migration: The Sociospatial Networks of Bolivians in the United States
—M. D. Price
Chapter 17 Immigrant Accommodation and Intra-Ethnic Friction: The Case of Mexicans and Mexican Americans in San Antonio
—R. C. Jones
Chapter 18 Patterns and Issues in the Latinization of Allentown, Pennsylvania
—M. E. Reisinger, J. W. Frazier, and E. L. Tettey-Fio
Chapter 19 Population Change in the Texas Panhandle and Resultant Latino Occupational Structures:1980–2004
—L. E. Estaville, E. J. Montalvo, and B. J. Brown
Part IV
ASIAN AND PACIFIC-ISLANDER GEOGRAPHIES:
CULTURAL PERSISTENCE AND CHANGING PATTERNS
Chapter 20 Asians in the United States: Historical and Contemporary Settlement Patterns
—J. W. Frazier
Chapter 21 This Land is My Land: The Role of Place in Native Hawaiian Identity
—S. M. Kana‘iaupuni and N. Malone
Chapter 22 Little Tokyo: Historical and Contemporary Japanese American Identities
—J. M. Smith
Chapter 23 The Invisible Immigrants: Asian Indian Settlement Patterns and Racial/Ethnic Identities
—E. H. Skop and C. E. Altman
Part V
DIVERSITY, CULTURE, AND PLACE
Chapter 24 Culture and Economic Change in Indian Country
—E. J. Zolnik
Chapter 25 The Geography of Whiteness: Russian and Ukrainian “Coalitions of Color” in the Pacific Northwest
—S. W. Hardwick
Chapter 26 The Persistence of Greek-American Ethnicity among Age Cohorts Under Changing Conditions
—S. T. Constantinou and M. E. Harvey
Chapter 27 Disparities in Economic Status among Native-Born and Foreign-Born Populations in Paterson, New Jersey
—T. Y. Owusu
Chapter 28 Changes in the Heartland: Emerging Ethnic Patterns in Louisville, KY
—W. Dakan
Chapter 29 Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Health and Health Care in the U.S.: A Geographic Overview
—F. M. Margai
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Description
Part I
Perspectives on American Race and Ethnicity
Section one contains five chapters that provide varied approaches to the study of American race and ethnicity in a place context. Chapter one lays the foundation for the book by providing definitions and context for the basic concepts it presents. The next two chapters examine aspects of race but from very different perspectives. Chapter two provides a stark contrast to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s perception of future American racial landscapes by exploring the racial landscape images of Malcolm X. In doing so, we see how the human condition and state of mind are expressed on the landscape but also how our surroundings shape our consciousness and our possibilities. Chapter 3 illustrates the effects of policies (usually considered abstract) in practice (praxis). School desegregation policies (usually recalled as an across-the-board-positive landmark) are examined for pros and cons and how people were actually affected by institutional decisions.
The final two chapters in this section deal with important perspectives on immigration. Chapter 4 explains “gateway cities,” where they emerged and the roles they played in immigrant choices and settlements. It also provides a typology of gateway cities and provides a discussion of the nation’s capital as a relatively new gateway, explaining its influence on immigrants and the impact of immigrants on this particular region. Chapter 5 explores the roles of race and place in contemporary immigration. It uses history and compares models of assimilation with the author’s own experiences and observations of the U.S. In doing so, the argument is made that “racialized assimilation” occurs among many contemporary first-generation American immigrants and influences their settlement patterns.
In summary, Section One provides the conceptual introduction to the text and illustrates the variety of approaches taken by social scientists to examine aspects of race, ethnicity and place in a changing America.
Part II
U.S. African American, African, and Caribbean Geographies
This section continues the overarching themes of the text, including racial discrimination against minorities, the perseverance displayed by minorities, movement, ethnic diversity, and how racial and ethnic geographies are created. It illustrates how African Americans and more recent black migrants, including first-generation immigrants, have carved their respective niches in order to have a community and a support system. Black cultural landscapes are illustrated for African Americans and more recently arriving ethnic groups. Another overriding theme of this section is the attachment people form to place, and how humans and their environments affect one another in a cyclical way. These chapters also deal with the politics of movement, and explain why and how migration patterns occur. Finally, this section illustrates the critical importance of American social, political, and economic institutions to the creation of human geography.
Section Two opens with the broad perspective in chapter 6 of the obstacles, progress, and current status of African Americans in the United States. It also illustrates the growing black ethnic diversification in the U.S. Chapter 7 provides more detailed information about waves of African American migration and settlement patterns, including blacks’ treatment by white Americans as they sought life in the suburbs and better status, surroundings, and opportunities. It also explores the contemporary “reverse migration” to the South by African Americans from all other regions and illustrates the importance of scale and place in understanding black migrant streams.
The next three chapters deal with spatial inequities. Chapter 8 follows the thread of living conditions and the geography of settlement to describe what African Americans are now facing in the less affluent communities where many of them live, and uses two case studies to illustrate predatory lending techniques and their effects on the geography of settlement. Chapter 9 examines predatory lending from a less social and more legal perspective, discussing the possibilities of anti-predatory legislation. This chapter also examines a real difference in policy and law, weighing the political climate, the severity of the situation, and the racial makeup of local politicians and population, to give the reader a clear understanding of how predatory lending works, and how society can be changed to protect people against it. Chapter 10 deals with the injustices or inequities of location by illustrating that it takes Blacks longer to get to work than Whites.
Chapter 11 shifts the focus to black immigrants and their ethnic settlement patterns. It describes in positive terms the ethnic enclave of Little Ethiopia, describing how a group of immigrants has created an “ethnic enclave” in Los Angeles that helps them to preserve their customs and way of life, and to share a support system with people of their own ethnic background. The chapter examines the pros and cons of this situation.
Chapter 12 focuses on a different kind of black ethnic community, the “new” Liberian refugees who have come to America, and how they are integrating both with Americans and the Liberians who came over in an earlier immigration wave. The chapter focuses on how place unifies them — they are able to share food, customs, and language — as well as how their proximity to one another and to other African Americans also highlights minor cultural divides — differences in some foods, languages (Gullah), or customs.
Finally, chapter 13 looks at the geographic distribution and corresponding socioeconomic status (SES) of West Indians living in the U.S. It charts their distribution across the country, compares their respective SES by state/region, and then compares SES statistics between the regions listed and other groups in the U.S., including the white majority.
Thus, this section begins with the general to establish context, then follows specific threads to provide insights into what is happening with race relations and racial and ethnic settlement patterns in the United States, and to explain broader historical and sociocultural understandings based upon previous events and policies.
Part III
U.S. Hispanic/Latino Geographies:
Changing Spatial Patterns and Their Implications
Section three contains six chapters that present settlement, changing patterns, landscape transformations, settlement experiences, and other issues for Hispanic/Latino populations. Chapter 14 begins with a comprehensive overview of Latino settlement and the growing Hispanic ethnic diversity. It also provides a discussion of various issues of importance to Latino Americans. The next three chapters focus on Latino settlements and particular issues in three large U.S. metropolitan areas. Chapter 15 focuses on the changing Latino settlement patterns in New York City, especially those related to ethnic diversity. It also touches upon different “settlement experiences” that immigrants have had, thus sharpening the focus of an important concept introduced in the previous chapter.
Chapter 16 focuses on Bolivian immigrants, in detail, focusing specifically on the spatial aspects of their social networks, and how their transnational status and surroundings influence their actions, in relation both to the Washington, D.C. region and their homeland.
Chapter 17 examines the issues of assimilation and cultural acclimation of Mexicans. It provides a tropical twist by examining the relationships between recent Mexican immigrants and Mexican-Americans — people who share a country, a home country, and a culture, but who suffer from class tensions.
The remaining two chapters move to small city and rural environments recently influenced by Latino in-migration. Chapter 18 is a case study of Allentown, PA, one of the Northeast’s smaller cities that has become attractive to Puerto Rican and other Latino migrants from a range of Latin American cultures. It deals with the experiences of Latino migrants by examining the settlement pattern over two decades and concludes that, rather than assimilation, a case of sequent occupancies (one culture replaces another departing culture) has occurred in this city. This chapter also deals with the ways in which Latinos have changed the local landscapes architecturally, socially, and otherwise, and how their settlements have affected Allentown residents who are not Hispanic.
Chapter 19 focuses on the Hispanic and Anglo population changes in the Texas Panhandle. Like some other rural areas, this region has experienced Anglo depopulation due to declining economic opportunities. Yet, Latinos, especially direct arrivals from Mexico, perceive opportunity in the same abandoned places. Arriving Latinos do not replace the occupations once held by Anglos, but accept low-paying jobs and contribute to a new occupational structure in the regions.
Part IV
Asian and Pacific-Islander Geographies:
Cultural Persistence and Changing Patterns
Section four continues the themes of changing geographic settlement patterns, racial discrimination against minorities, and the infusion of cultural and ethnic meaning into particular places. It illustrates how America’s early Asian immigrants carved their respective niches in spite of racial discrimination. The historical settlement patterns, experiences, and adjustments of the three largest Asian groups in the early 20th century are reviewed in Chapter 20, which also provides contemporary geographies of more recent immigrant Chinese, Koreans, and Vietnamese. Three additional chapters explore other contemporary issues and patterns. Chapter 21 examines the role of place-people connections in current native Hawaiian identity, the factors that challenge its maintenance, and the place-based educational strategies that seek to ensure its preservation.
Chapter 22 examines ethnic identity for Japanese-Americans. After tracing the early geographies of Japanese-American migration, it explores the early ethnic life of Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo, a traditional urban ethnic enclave with distinctive landscape characteristics. It explains the etching of cultural features onto the landscape, and how racism and nativism led to its decline. It reveals the ethnic persistence that reshapes ethnic identity and adjusts to political and economic pressures of the host society. This chapter provides an example of how agencies (social institutions) create landscapes that “reflect and impact” contemporary ethnic identities and are a part of place-making.
One of America’s fastest growing Asian ethnic groups in recent times is Asian Indians. Chapter 23 examines the settlement patterns and ethnic identities of this controversial “racial classification.” As in the case of other immigrants, commercial spaces have become important symbolic and landscape markers for this otherwise “invisible” immigrant group. This chapter examines the methods of “identity re-formation” used by Asian Indians, who tend to be geographically dispersed in metropolitan regions but remain connected by various forms of interaction that reinforce their ethnic identities.
Part V
Diversity, Culture, and Place
Previous chapters provided examples of increasing ethnic diversity among U.S. minority populations, expressions of culture and the issues they create, and the creation and re-creation of geographic spaces and places. This final section pursues the interrelationships between these topics.
Chapter 24 examines the relationship of land to American-Indian identity. It reports efforts by tribes to reclaim ancestral lands as a symbol of group identity but also considers the interrelation between land and sovereignty, and between economic development and cultural sustainability.
The next two chapters remind us of the continued importance of Europeans to American ethnic diversity. Chapter 25 explores “whiteness” in a unique way, by examining its spatial and socioeconomic basis in Portland, Oregon. It illustrates how white identities have been re-created amongst Russian and Ukranian immigrant refugees for a unique purpose, to share in the resources provided needy minority populations. In the process, the chapter explores relationships between social institutions, shifting ethnic identities, and the geographic patterns of these recent immigrants.
Greek-Americans came to the U.S. in substantial numbers during different immigration waves and settled in “Greek Towns” of some large inner cities. These visible ethnic enclaves were evidence of a Greek-American presence that centered on the cultural triad of language, family and church. American suburbanization contributed to the decline of Greek Towns, as the younger, educated, and affluent Greek-Americans became part of white flight. Chapter 26 examines challenges to Greek-American ethnic traditions posed by suburbanization. In doing so, it reveals the persistence of particular cultural traits that continue to define Greek-American ethnicity for multiple-age cohorts at the beginning of the 21st century.
As the number of foreign-born increased after the 1965 Hart-Celler Act, particular gateway states and their cities gained a disproportionate number of immigrants. New Jersey is one example, and Chapter 27 explains the disparities of economic status among native-born and foreign-born in a case study of Paterson. It illustrates that factors other than educational attainment explain economic disparities in this increasingly ethnically diverse city.
Ethnic diversity also has reached the American Heartland, both in rural and urban areas. Chapter 28 uses Louisville, Kentucky to illustrate this process. It focuses on the characteristics of that city’s highly diverse foreign-born population, including the diversity within major groups, such as Asian Americans. It also stresses landscape changes and immigrant trajectories toward middle-class status.
This text closes by examining one of America’s greatest dilemmas, racial and ethnic disparities in U.S. health and health care. Chapter 29 describes health inequalities within a geographic framework for the major U.S. ethnic groups and illustrates the unique health problems of each group. It also briefly examines health intervention strategies.
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Author Information
John W. Frazier is a Professor of Geography at Binghamton University, where he has taught geography for three decades and mentored more than 60 graduate students. He has served as consultant to private and public agencies throughout his career, including with HUD's FHEO department in the mid-1990's when he taught regional staff to use geographic concepts and GIS in fair housing analysis. Professor Frazier has published research in leading journals and is author/editor of five books. He was awarded the NYS Service Award and the Anderson medal of Applied Geography, which is the highest honor awarded to a practicing geographer.
Eugene L. Tettey-Fio is an Associate Professor of Geography at Binghamton University where he teaches and does research on topics related to race, ethnicity and place, retail geography and geographic information systems. He has coauthored/edited two books on race, ethnicity and place. He has presented his research at several conferences over the past ten years and published book chapters and journal articles on issues related to race, ethnicity and place. He currently is a member of the planning committee of the Race, Ethnicity and Place Conference and a seating member of the Board of Directors for the Applied Geography Conferences.
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Additional Information
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Department of Geography, Binghamton University, SUNY
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Race, Ethnicity, Place Conference 2006
—
Inside BU
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