Latino Los Angeles

As the twenth-first century begins, Latinas/os represent 45 percent of the residents of Los Angeles County, making them the largest racial/ethnic group in the region. At the same time, the shifts from manufacturing to a service-based economy in the area has contributed to decline in good-paying jobs, significantly impacting working-class families. These transformations have created a backlash that has included state propositions impacting Latinas/os and escalting anti-immigrant rhetoric--and Latinas/os of all backgrounds are making their voices heard. Until recently, most research on Latinas/os in the United States has ignored historical and contemporary dynamics in Latin America, just as scholars of Latin America have generally stopped their studies at the border. This volume roots Los Angeles in the larger arena of globalization, exploring the demographic changes that have transformed the Latino presence in Los Angeles from primarily Mexican-origin to one that now includes peoples from throughout the hemisphere. Bringing together scholars from a range of disciplines, it combines historical perspectives with analyses of power and inequality to consider how Latinas/os are responding to exclusionary immigration, labor, and schooling practices and actively creating communities. Reflecting a range of methodologies--statistical, historical, ethnographic, and participatory research--this collection is relevant not only to ethnic studies but also to broader concerns in political science, sociology, history, economics, and urban studies. In addition, some chapters focus explicitly on women, and gender issues are interwoven throughout the text: Latino Los Angeles is an important work thatcontributes to contemporary scholarship on transnationalism as it reexamines the changing face of America's largest western metropolis.