Vulnerability and Resilience of Latin American Immigrants during the Great Recession

• In Event: 566 - Section on Latino/a Sociology Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 06. Labor Markets and Work

Abstract

This paper focuses on the effects of the Great Recession on Latin American immigrants using a comparative perspective and examines the experiences of Latino immigrants in the United States and Spain. It contains analysis of the immediate effects of the Great Recession on immigrants’ employment and explores the patterns of adaptation and developed social mechanisms in times of high unemployment, increasing discrimination, and changing host society’s perceptions of immigrants. This introductory chapter has four main purposes. First, we describe the flow and composition of Latino immigrants in the United States and Spain, the two main destination countries for Latin American migrants. Second, we provide a general account of the different phases of the Great Recession and explain how these phases of the global economic crisis have affected immigrants and Latino immigrants in particular. Third, we provide an analytic framework based on the concepts of vulnerability and resilience to study the increasing risks faced by the Latino immigrant population given the deterioration of labor markets and increasing anti-immigrant sentiment. Latino immigrant reactions in these difficult times are also reported.

Authors

• Maria Aysa-Lastra, Winthrop University

• Lorenzo Cachon, Universidad Complutense de Madrid