Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The present paper examines the concrete conditions under which urban areas become and remain stigmatized as “bad neighborhoods.” Specifically, we are interested in determining why the Watts neighborhood, situated in the area affected by civil disturbances in 1965 and 1992, is the Los Angeles epicenter of “fear.” Three hypothetical causes are proposed: 1) actual level of danger to personal safety due to level of criminality 2) stigmatization by association with the 1992 civil unrest episode and 3) stigmatization by association with the 1965 “Watts riots.” Spatial cluster analysis provides evidence that the closest spatial event associated with the epicenter of subjective fear is the 1965 event. The proposed explanation for this finding is the role played by media during periods of intense social incandescence. During and since the 1965 events media coverage has used Watts as shorthand for the racial problems of the city. Greater fear of Watts in the maps of those who rely heavier on television for social and personal orientation provides support for this proposition.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This qualitative case study focuses on six innovative and active principals participating in a P-20 partnership designed to foster effective instruction for English language learners (ELLs). The role of the principal as “lead teacher” and “lead learner” is critical in creating positive instructional change to meet the needs of ELLs. Teacher preparation programs are reforming pedagogical and curricular practices to ensure that teacher candidates are adequately prepared to effectively meet the needs and abilities of ELLs; however, the principal, as instructional leader on campus, is charged with the task of leading for instructional reform to foster quality teaching for a student population that inservice teachers may or may not have been adequately prepared to teach.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Urban politics have been reshaped by large-scale immigration. Latinos, who comprise the largest block of immigrants in recent decades, are increasingly taking the lead in the struggle for minority incorporation. Where once urban politics was a struggle between White-led and Black-led coalitions, Whites and Blacks are now increasingly also cast as members of the audience for new Latino-led coalitions and as potentially decisive voting blocks. The dynamics of Latino mobilization, and White and Black political responses will help shape the coalitions that emerge in an age of immigration.

Will self-interest and realistic group conflict define coalition lines, or will ideology and symbolic politics play a greater role? As a result, will coalitions of color, or of ideology, of place, or of class emerge?
This study examines the 2001 and 2005 Los Angeles mayoral runoff elections between Antonio Villaraigosa and James K. Hahn. Repeat elections between identical candidates provide a valuable and rare opportunity to explore the stability of coalitions between two elections. Our dependent variable is voting for Antonio Villaraigosa, a liberal Latino candidate. Using a geographical framework, we analyze electoral constituencies to assess patterns of support for and opposition to Villaraigosa in 2001 and 2005.

Our data show that a series of contextual factors changed dramatically between the two elections, creating place-based, time-bound, interest-defined political effects to Villaraigosa’s advantage. At the same time, the underlying impact of ethnicity and ideology, in both group membership and place, was highly consistent over the two elections. Finally, we find that despite their wide internal differences, Latinos enerated a very high degree of mobilization and unity regardless of location or socioeconomic characteristics. Socioeconomic class, separate from race and ethnicity, played no significant role in the vote for Villaraigosa. One predicted place effect, San Fernando Valley, showed no predictive power beyond the role played by ideology.

The Los Angeles case shows some similarities to the dynamics of an earlier era of African American political incorporation, combining minority mobilization (in this case, built on ethnicity rather than race) with White liberal support. However, there is reason to believe that Latino-led coalitions will not be as consistently liberal across cities as were the coalitions behind African Americans and that contextual factors will make Latino coalition prospects relatively fluid.

Publication Type: Proceeding
Abstract: How does one explain the diverging voter preferences of Latinos and Asian American voters in the 2005 Mayoral election in Los Angeles? Some posit that Latino support for Villaraigosa was driven by a desire of Latino voters to elect a co-ethnic candidate. Hahn’s support among Asian Americans was most often attributed to active mobilization of the Asian American community by the Hahn campaign. We show that these explanations are incomplete. Moreover, popular explanations of Latino vote choice present an oversimplified portrait of the group’s voting behavior because they tend to be preoccupied with the role of racial cues at the expense of considering other factors, such as rational candidate evaluation. Co-ethnic voting among Latinos certainly provides some explanation for the patterns observed in 2005. But there were other factors influencing Latino vote choice left largely unexamined by observers. We also contend that mobilization mattered for the Asian Americans’ support for Hahn, but not in the manner assumed by most pundits and reporters.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In this paper I draw on my comparative ethnographic research to describe how three policy-induced trajectories of exclusion either foreclose or delay exit from homelessness in Berlin and Los Angeles in search for an answer to the question why the characteristics of homelessness are similar in both places and durations of homelessness longer in Berlin despite Germany’s more comprehensive welfare system. Specifically, “legal exclusion” pertains to homeless people’s need to generate income and delineates how insufficient public cash assistance results in the performance of informal survival strategies which are met with increasing displacement and criminalization. “Social exclusion” relates sub-standard shelter provision and the containment of homeless service facilities in deprived urban areas to personal deterioration and increasing social alienation. “Economic exclusion” links insufficient referrals to market opportunities to homeless people’s inability to access local labor and housing markets. I show that while legal and social exclusion is more evident in Los Angeles resulting in worse social and environmental conditions homeless people live in, economic exclusion is more pronounced in Berlin which ultimately explains the longer durations of homelessness. Ultimately all three forms of exclusion intersect in ways that decrease homeless people’s exit chances over time and intensify their personal problems.