Ethnic Neighborhoods

10 Key excerpts on "Ethnic Neighborhoods"

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  Ethnic Identity

  • Zeev Sternhell, David Maisel(Authors)
  • 1995(Publication Date)
  • Yale University Press

    (Publisher)

  In their classic statement on the urban role of ethnicity, Glazer and Moynihan (1970) chart some of these neighborhoods as they existed in the New York City of the 1950s and 1960s. They describe the ethnic atmosphere of Italian neighborhoods, for example, as a transplantation of village-centered Southern Italian culture. Their portrait, dominated by an image of stable, well-kempt neigh-borhoods and watchful family-based networks, seems compelling as evidence of the power of ethnicity to mold the social contours of urban space. Ethnic Neighborhoods are important not merely as visible manifestations of ethnicity, but also for their capacity to concen-trate the institutions and cultures of an ethnic group, thereby keep-ing alive the sentiments and loyalties associated with ethnicity in adult residents and socializing a new generation to ethnic ways. 2 Ethnic Neighborhoods typically house the small businesses that cater to special ethnic needs, such as those connected with a group s cuisine, and often serve as sites for such events as ethnic and re-ligious festivals, which celebrate ethnicity and perpetuate its tradi-tions. Accordingly, they expose their residents to ethnicity in its most unadulterated form (however altered that may be from the culture and ways brought by immigrants). These effects need not be limited to residents, although the impact on them is deepest. Ethnic Neighborhoods can serve as beacons of ethnicity for those group members who reside in more assimilated settings. Outlying ethnics can travel to these neighborhoods in order to visit with relatives and old friends, to purchase the needed ingredients for ethnic dishes or other kinds of ethnic supplies, and to attend traditional celebra-tions. Ethnic Neighborhoods are thus likely to fuel a sense attach-ment to the group. Fainter effects may even be felt by those who do not make such visits.

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  The New Urban Sociology

  • Mark Gottdiener, Randolph Hohle, Colby King(Authors)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  When immigrants move to another country that contains people from varied origins, such as the United States, subcultural differences may take on the dimensions of ethnic distinctions. These are almost wholly symbolic or cultural in nature. In particular, ascribed characteristics and inherited beliefs may be applied to socially constructing differences among individuals of different foreign heritage. What counts for the dynamics of ethnicity is the extent to which those symbolic differences clash with those of the dominant society or of other ethnic groups in a diverse society. Even the categories of ethnic identity themselves can shift and change over time, as illustrated by Smajda and Gerteis’s (2012) study of Italian ethnic boundaries in Boston. In their study of the city’s North End neighborhood, at the time populated largely by Italian immigrants, they found an evolving sense of what it meant to be Italian in that neighborhood among residents, business owners, and politicians. Rather than observing an Italian ethnic identity that was weakening over time as members of the ethnic group assimilated, they found that the particular Italian ethnic identity dominated the culture and space of this neighborhood, and was often placed in contrast to social class identities and political boundaries, rather than other ethnic identities. Thus, this study illustrates the contrarian view that immigrants to America seek to assimilate into its larger culture. Consequently, the idea that all immigrants throughout the US invariably assimilate, except for those that are actively anti-American, is called into question.

  Although it is common to speak of Ethnic Neighborhoods in American cities—and most of us are familiar with Chinatowns, Mexican neighborhoods, Greektowns, and the like—urban sociologists are more likely to talk about the ethnic enclave, a concept which refers to an urban space with a concentration of members of one ethnic group who live, work, and typically operate small businesses within that space. The ethnic enclave emphasizes the ways in which social networks among residents of the same ethnic background, defined by a shared language, religion, history, or other customs, shapes the social life of the neighborhood. Much of this research focuses on the paradox of the ethnic enclave: the positive effects that social networks can provide for new immigrants, and the negative effects of concentration and isolation within the enclave. On the one hand, the ethnic enclave can be a resource for community support, at least for those residents able to leverage their status in the enclave to better themselves economically and/or politically (Portes and Zhou, 1993; Sanders and Nee, 1987). On the other hand, enclaves reinforce boundaries between different groups, leading to their exclusion from local political matters, thereby reinforcing exclusion.

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  Visualizing Human Geography

  At Home in a Diverse World

  • Alyson L. Greiner(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  The concept of heterolocalism means that members of an ethnic group maintain their sense of shared identity even though they are residentially dispersed. Zelinsky and Lee (1998) identified four characteristics crucial for the development of heterolocalism. These are: (1) an immigrant population that, upon arrival, clusters only minimally if at all; (2) the conduct of social activities (shopping, employment, entertainment, residence) in separate, nonoverlapping areas; (3) the persistence of a sense of identity as a community because of technological advances, such as the Internet, or what Zelinsky and Lee (1998, p. 285) call “community without propinquity;” and (4) a history tied to the processes of late-20th-century globalization. Cartographically, what would a heterolocal community look like? See Figure 6.8. Ethnic settlements Geographers have identified several different kinds of ethnic settlements, and three of the more common types are ethnic islands, Ethnic Neighborhoods, and ethnoburbs. Ethnic islands are associated with rural areas. In the United States they vary in size from smaller than a county to multicounty regions that may extend into several states. Ethnic islands and Ethnic Neighborhoods are sometimes called enclaves. (An enclave is a unit that is nested within another unit). In terms of population, ethnic islands may have fewer than 100 residents or several thousand (Figure 6.9). In contrast to ethnic islands, Ethnic Neighborhoods develop in urban areas but may vary in scale from a few city blocks to sizable districts within a city. Such places as Chinatown and Little Italy are examples of ethnic neigh- borhoods. A ghetto is a type of ethnic neighborhood. The first ghettos were involuntary settlements created in the Middle Ages when Jews were forced to live in one district of the city. In the United States, the term ghetto refers to inner-city neighborhoods with predominantly African American populations. As impoverished and economically

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  Space and Pluralism

  Can Contemporary Cities Be Places of Tolerance?

  • Stefano Moroni, David Weberman, Stefano Moroni, David Weberman(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Central European University Press

    (Publisher)

  Residential Neighborhoods in an Ethnically Mixed Area: Factors that Shape Coexistence Itzhak Omer 1. Introduction The residential segregation of minority groups in a city has been the sub-ject of a significant body of research. Studies have shown that such segre-gation results from internal group cohesiveness and own-group prefer-ences as well as majority-group attitudes of tolerance and institutional discrimination (Clark 2002; Johnston et al. 2007). Minority enclaves are also considered preferred residential locations at least partially due to the distribution of public services, such as educational institutions and places of worship, associated with cultural or ethnic identities. Community infra-structure of this kind contributes to the geographical clustering of the re-spective minorities, what may also be considered their relative isolation from the majority group (Boal 2002). In addition to mutual choice, resi-dential segregation also implies some level of institutional constraints, which are closely related to the nature of majority–minority power rela-tions (e.g., Sibley 1995). At the same time, ethnically mixed neighborhoods are also common, particularly when social distance is less significant for all parties in major-ity as well as minority areas. When majority–minority ethnic differentia-tion is substantial, mixed neighborhoods are associated primarily with transitional areas, characterized by the spatial expansion of minority resi-dents due to natural population increase and incoming migrants, or the influx of majority residents in search of the locational advantages found in the minority area. The very fact of living in mixed ethnic areas can potentially affect in-tergroup exposure, contact, tolerance and feelings among minority and majority members. Ample evidence supports significant attitudinal varia- 226 Itzhak Omer tion among residents in ethnically mixed as opposed to ethnically homo-geneous neighborhoods (e.g., Wessel 2009).

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  Global Neighborhoods

  Jewish Quarters in Paris, London, and Berlin

  • Michel S. Laguerre(Author)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • SUNY Press

    (Publisher)

  The chapter explains how these different actors contribute directly or indirectly and minimally or maximally to the well-being of these neighborhoods. The sociological literature has yet to tackle in a systematic fashion intragroup relations between ethnic immigrants, let alone between im- migrants and multinational and transnational entities. Some research has pointed out differences between the parameters of the “ethnic” and “enclave” economies, emphasizing that the ethnic economy includes 197 Neighborhoods of Globalization also the entrepreneurial activities of the group outside the historic quarter, while the enclave economy operates exclusively in the ghet- toized area. 1 Some other researchers have shown how the geographical dispersion of the group helps explain upward ethnic spatial mobility from a poor enclave to a middle-class or richer neighborhood. 2 Still other studies have shown how immigration streams have fed one en- clave at the expense of others, thereby contributing to the difference in status of communities that share the same ethnicity. 3 This chapter, in contrast, moves the discussion in another direction. It attempts to explain and document how formal institutions of the group man- aged by people outside the enclave affect the Jewish quarter and how their interventions enter into the mathematics of the globalization of the neighborhood. Demographic and Geographical Profiles The Jewish neighborhoods in Paris, London, and Berlin are not sim- ply post-Holocaust communities in the sense that they are remnants of communities that existed prior to the Holocaust. Instead, they are for the most part new or reconstituted communities—communities that have remade themselves since the Holocaust. 4 In Paris, the Ashkenazi residents of Le Marais lost control over the neighborhood as a result of the Holocaust. Some were deported to concentration camps, while others fled the area to save their lives.

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  Understanding Ordinary Landscapes

  • Irving Rouse(Author)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • Yale University Press

    (Publisher)

  44 How-ever, ethnicity, as well as race, class, and gender, can be uncovered as a shaping force of American urban places, provided one looks carefully at the production of social space. In Eastern European Jewish neighborhoods, distinctive ethnic building types include synagogues; in Chinese-American neighborhoods, laun-dries, herb shops, and association boarding houses; in Japanese-American neigh-borhoods, temples, nurseries, and flower markets. (The researcher needs to be able to use sources not only in English but also in Yiddish, Chinese, and Japan-ese.) Distinctive design traditions for outdoor spaces are associated with different ethnic groups—yards or gardens planted in certain ways identify Latino, African-American, Portuguese-American, Chinese-American, or Italian-American resi-dents. 45 Stoops and porches, and the ways they are used, also speak about eth-nicity and gender. Religious shrines do too, and so do street games for children. A world of shared meanings builds up, couched in the language of small semipri-vate and semipublic territories between the dwelling and the street that support certain kinds of typical public behavior. The architect and planner James Rojas has analyzed the ways such spaces are created and used by residents in East Los Angeles, what he calls the enacted environment. 46 Larger spatial patterns as-sociated with ethnic groups have been studied in certain cities, such as Asian-American patterns of building and ownership in the state of Washington, Chi-nese-American gateways and underground passages in Vancouver, Canada, Latino public plazas in Los Angeles, African-American alley dwellings in Wash-ington, D.C., or Puerto Rican casitas in New York. 47 The story of the casita in New York City, is particularly fascinating.

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  Human Geography

  People, Place, and Culture

  • Erin H. Fouberg, Alexander B. Nash, Alexander B. Murphy, Harm J. de Blij(Authors)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  Thus, the term “ethnicity” is often used to refer to a small, cohesive, culturally linked group of people who stand apart from the surrounding culture (often as a result of migration). As with other aspects of culture, ethnicity is a dy- namic phenomenon that must be understood in terms of the geographic context and scales in which it is situated. SEXUALITY AND PLACE Part of the social relations of a place are the embedded as- sumptions about ethnicity, gender, and sexuality; assump- tions about what certain groups “should” and “should not” do socially, economically, politically, even domestically. Geographers who study social categories of identities, such as gender, ethnicity, race, and sexuality, realize that when people make places, they do so in the context of surrounding social relationships. We can, for example, create places that are gendered—places designed for or understood as the appropri- ate or “normal” location for women or for men. A building can be constructed with the goal of creating gendered spaces within it, or a building can become gendered by the way people use it and interact within it. Sexuality is part of humanity. Just as gender roles are socially and culturally constructed, so too are our ideas of what is “normal” sexual conduct and practice. In their install- ment on “Sexuality and Space” in Geography in America at the Dawn of the 21st Century, geographers Elder, Knopp, and Nast argue that most social science, across disciplines, is written in a heteronormative way. This means that, in the minds of the academics who write articles and do research, the default subject is heterosexual, white, middle-class, and male. These geographers, and many others, are working to find out how the contexts of local cultures and the flow of global culture and politics affect the sexual identities of people.

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  Applied Human Geography

  • Rodolfo B. Valdenarro(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Delve Publishing

    (Publisher)

  This fact can be supported with an example of a research conducted about the original population of America. The research drew many political battles as its worried Native Americans of getting stripped off their special rights to the land, fishing and hunting. They feared that the archaeological and genetic research may fortify the idea of they being just another immigrant group rather than being the original part of that particular geographic area., & this may undermine their claim to their basic special rights. Opponents of Native rights to control and use the land frequently try to call Natives’s authenticity into question by suggesting that they have assimilated too much into mainstream American culture (Nesper and Schlender, 2007). Ethnicity is a complex phenomenon. The word ethnicity is derived from the Greek word ethnikos, referring to a heathen, pagans or gentiles. It first emerged in English language in 14 th century. By 19 th century it had acquired its racial characteristics and thus it evolved as a synonym for ‘race.’ By 20 th century, the term was put to anthropological use where it represented a group identity based on self-pertaining cultural values, norms, traditions, and practices. Within geography, ethnicity, the concept refers to group communality where people are classed according to common race, nation, tribe, religion, Applied Human Geography 88 linguistic, or cultural origin or background. It is a socially defined category based on common language, religion, nationality, history and other cultural factors. The work of geographers focuses on individual and group place attachment and emphasizes the spatial nature of ethnicity at multiple scales—from the nation to the body. In 1920s, the work of sociologists from Chicago school seriously directed the study of ethnicity in American academia which primarily focused on the formation and evolution of urban immigrant neighborhoods.

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  Human Aspects of Urban Form

  Towards a Man—Environment Approach to Urban Form and Design

  • Amos Rapoport(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Pergamon

    (Publisher)

  These result in culture-specific behavior setting systems which are 248 The City 249 Gustering and Urban Enclaves We have already briefly seen that, when there is no interference, a clustering process tends to occur in cities based on perceived homogeneity, differing interpretations of environmental quality, lifestyles, symbol systems and defenses against overload and stress. Although this tendency of people to cluster with others like themselves is often denied and suppressed, it has been suggested that it still occurs, but is then artificial rather than natural (e.g., Petonnet 1972(a)), i .e., based on imposed and arbitrary, rather than subjectively defined, criteria. Neighborhoods are one particular type of homogeneous area. They tend to be small, and are an enclave of people providing a social and physical element intermediate between the individual and his family and the larger, heterogeneous group. Context may influence the desire for clustering. It may be that when overall homogeneity is high local homogeneity may be unimportant and low, and vice-versa (e.g., Johnston 1971(a)). This clustering may be partly voluntary even when it appears forced (e.g., Adjei-Barwuah and Rose 1972) and is related to shared images and a desire to preserve a lifestyle, religion or culture. There may also be a distinction, large or small, between the appreciation of group identity (a cognitive criterion) and overt behavior. The latter may be constrained or distorted by other factors, however, and if and when people are able to cluster they will frequently do so. One can thus predict good agreement between cognitive and behavioral aspects within the constraints of habitat selection - which is confirmed (e.g., Cohen 1974, pp. 1-36). The critical factor is the apperception of homogeneity, which is clearly a matter of subjective definition of like and unlike, and hence an example of a cognitive taxonomy.

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  Human Aspects of Urban Form

  Towards a Man—Environment Approach to Urban Form and Design

  • Amos Rapoport(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Pergamon

    (Publisher)

  These result in culture-specific behavior setting systems which are 248 The City 249 Clustering and Urban Enclaves We have already briefly seen that, when there is no interference, a clustering process tends to occur in cities based on perceived homogeneity, differing interpretations of environmental quality, lifestyles, symbol systems and defenses against overload and stress. Although this tendency of people to cluster with others like themselves is often denied and suppressed, it has been suggested that it still occurs, but is then artificial rather than natural (e.g., Petonnet 1972(a)), i.e., based on imposed and arbitrary, rather than subjectively defined, criteria. Neighborhoods are one particular type of homogeneous area. They tend to be small, and are an enclave of people providing a social and physical element intermediate between the individual and his family and the larger, heterogeneous group. Context may influence the desire for clustering. It may be that when overall homogeneity is high local homogeneity may be unimportant and low, and vice-versa (e.g., Johnston 1971(a)). This clustering may be partly voluntary even when it appears forced (e.g., Adjei-Barwuah and Rose 1972) and is related to shared images and a desire to preserve a lifestyle, religion or culture. There may also be a distinction, large or small, between the appreciation of group identity (a cognitive criterion) and overt behavior. The latter may be constrained or distorted by other factors, however, and if and when people are able to cluster they will frequently do so. One can thus predict good agreement between cognitive and behavioral aspects within the constraints of habitat selection - which is confirmed (e.g., Cohen 1974, pp. 1-36). The critical factor is the apperception of homogeneity, which is clearly a matter of subjective definition of like and unlike, and hence an example of a cognitive taxonomy.

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