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FADE TO BLACK

Multiple Symbolic Boundaries in “Black/Brown” Contact

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 July 2016

Tomás R. Jiménez
Tomás R. Jiménez*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Stanford University
*
*Corresponding author: Tomás Jiménez, Department of Sociology, MC 2047, Stanford University, 450 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305. E-mail: tjimenez@stanford.edu
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Abstract

Increasingly, African Americans find themselves living side-by-side with immigrant newcomers from Latin America, the largest source of today’s immigrant population. Research on “Black/Brown” relations tends to a priori define groupness in ethnoracial terms and gloss over potential nuance in inter-group relations. Taking an inductive approach to understanding how African Americans interpret the boundaries that result from immigration-driven change, this paper draws on fieldwork among African Americans in East Palo Alto, California, a Black-majority-turned-Latino-majority city, to examine how African Americans construct multiple symbolic boundaries in the context of a Latino-immigrant settlement. Blacks’ rendering of these boundaries at the communal level invokes ethnoracial boundaries as a source of significant division. They see Latinos as having overwhelmed Black material and symbolic prowess. However, accounts of inter-personal interactions evince symbolic boundaries defined by language and neighborhood tenure that render ethnoracial boundaries porous. Respondents note intra-group differences among Latinos, pointing out how the ability to speak English and long-time residence in the neighborhood are important factors facilitating ties and cooperation across ethnoracial boundaries. The findings point to the importance of intra-ethnoracial-group differences for inter-ethnoracial-group attitudes and relations. Adopting ethnographic and survey research practices that treat boundaries as multiplex will better capture how growing intra-ethnoracial-group diversity shapes inter-ethnoracial-group relations.

Keywords

RaceLatinosBlacksImmigrationBoundaries
Type
State of the Art
Information
Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , Spring 2016 , pp. 159 - 180
Copyright
Copyright © Hutchins Center for African and African American Research 2016 

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