Convergence or divergence in Los Angeles: Three distinctive ethnic patterns of immigrant residential assimilation

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Abstract

This paper uses census microdata to examine five aspects of residential assimilation in the greater Los Angeles area. A double cohort method is used to separate the effect of duration in the US from the effect of aging. We track a single arrival cohort that came in 1970–79, and analyze the processes and determinants of their residential assimilation between 1990 and 2000. Groups compared are Mexican, Korean, and Chinese immigrants, along with a common reference group of native-born, non-Hispanic whites. We find that while the Mexicans follow the traditional path of residential assimilation, they are more likely to reside in ethnic districts once they become homeowners. The Chinese are most unusual, locating in the suburbs and attaining very high homeownership soon after arrival, but moving into areas of co-ethnics over time. The Koreans exhibit a strong preference for urban lifestyle, often remaining in the city and renting in districts with whites and Latinos. Residential assimilation is a multifaceted process and the dynamics of residential adjustment are much more complex than previously revealed.

Introduction

As a result of large immigration in recent decades, immigrant gateways have experienced tremendous changes in residential patterns. Our understanding of the assimilation process also evolves as we gain new experiences from the life progress of post-1965 immigrants. Newly arrived and more established immigrants are integrated throughout the metropolis, changing the patterns of concentration and segregation. But not all ethnic groups follow the same patterns.

The contrast between Asians and Latinos is especially great in the housing market. Mexican immigrants, who generally have less education and larger household sizes, face a difficult time in high cost housing markets such as Los Angeles. In contrast, several of the Asian immigrant groups are highly educated, and the assimilation patterns of these “human capital” immigrants are quite different from those of unskilled “labor” immigrants (Nee et al., 1994, Sanders and Nee, 1996). Based on the achievement of homeownership, Asian immigrants (particularly Chinese) appear to engage in instant assimilation (Myers and Lee, 1998, Painter et al., 2003). In contrast, Mexican immigrants work their way up slowly and steadily in the housing market, more closely resembling the pattern of early European immigrants (Myers and Lee, 1998).

On the other hand, there are significant differences even within Asian immigrants (Painter et al., 2003, Yu, forthcoming). Although Korean and Chinese immigrants came from geographically close areas and share some common heritage, they seem to have followed rather different paths of residential assimilation. While many new Korean immigrant households settled in inner city neighborhoods, many Chinese immigrants have bypassed inner-city ethnic enclaves and directly settled in suburban ethnic communities (Alba et al., 1999). Due to different homeownership rates and settlement history, they have different location patterns.

The present paper uses decennial census public use microdata samples (PUMS) to examine the residential assimilation of three immigrant groups, Mexican, Chinese, and Korean immigrants, in the greater Los Angeles area, treating it as a process of spatial dispersion and incorporation that is aided by homeownership attainment. It seeks to extend the recent literature on locational attainments by bringing to bear the cohort methods used in the analysis of immigrant housing trajectories (Myers and Lee, 1996, Myers and Lee, 1998). The cohort approach may shed greater light on the dynamics of mobility processes that underlie locational attainments. In addition, the paper has the broad objectives of studying the role of homeownership attainment in residential assimilation and understanding the extent to which immigrants’ growing duration in the US influences their pace of locational and homeownership attainment.

Section snippets

Residential assimilation

Contemporary research on residential assimilation is rooted in Massey’s (1985) model of “spatial assimilation.” Strongly resembling earlier models of Park et al. (1925), the model of ecological succession and spatial assimilation assumes that new immigrants initially settled in inner-city ethnic enclaves where housing was cheap and ethnic support strong. In the “zone in transition” (Park et al., 1925) which used to be the slum area of the city, recent arrivals draw upon established ethnic

Five indicators of residential assimilation

First, homeownership attainment is analyzed, both as an outcome variable of assimilation and as a mediating factor of locational attainments. While homeownership is hardly an exogenous factor in locational attainment, it facilitates residential assimilation of immigrants. Homeownership represents assimilation into the housing market but without any necessary spatial consequences. Nonetheless, access to homeownership may create the opportunity to live in a wider array of neighborhoods (Logan et

Descriptive findings

Findings are presented first for the descriptive analysis. The five residential indicators are directly compared for all three immigrant ethnic groups. A simple summary of indicators of residential assimilation might aggregate foreign born from both recent and earlier arrival waves and combine adults from many different age groups. If we wish to discern any changes in location behavior, it is necessary to be more temporally specific. As a first approximation, let us focus on adults age 35–44,

Cohort longitudinal estimation of residential assimilation

To better assess the dynamics of residential assimilation we need to trace cohorts over time. Only in this way can we separate their initial status from the net changes achieved over the last decade by specific groups of people. As described above, for this analysis we have focused on members of the 1970–79 arrival cohort. Estimation results are presented in Table 2, Table 3, Table 4, Table 5, Table 6, one for each of the five residential outcome variables. Two sets of estimates are presented

Discussion

Overall, what is the assessment of these temporal patterns of residential assimilation? Clearly, the three ethnic groups exhibit three distinctive patterns of residential adjustment. The residential patterns of Mexican immigrants seem to be more resembling of those expected by assimilation theory. After arrival the Mexicans had a low level of residential attainment. In the first decade of their US settlement, they had a very low level of homeownership, were very likely to live in Los Angeles

Conclusions

There are two major contributions of the preceding analysis. The first contribution is substantive. This analysis of Los Angeles has uncovered distinct assimilation lifestyles for the three immigrant ethnic groups. Although the research findings generally support expected processes of residential assimilation, such support is weaker and more complex than that documented in the literature (e.g., Logan et al., 2002). While the findings for Chinese immigrants have been preceded by other scholars (

Acknowledgments

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of Population Association of America in April 2004. The authors acknowledge financial support from the USC Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Center. Elizabeth Goode provided helpful research assistance. We are grateful for the comments of Camille Zubrinsky Charles and anonymous reviewers. Remaining errors are our own.

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