The Neighborhood Context of Latino Threat

• In Event: 188 - Regular Session. Population Processes

Abstract

In recent years, the Latino immigrant population size has swelled in communities throughout the United States. For decades, social scientists have studied how a subordinate group’s relative size, be the group racial minorities or immigrants, affects the response of the dominant group. Two competing theories have been proposed about what context is created by the larger out-group: (1) it increases perceptions of threat and, in turn, prejudices; or (2) it affords greater opportunities for intergroup contact, which improves intergroup relations. The growing consensus is that these theories are not conflicting, but rather point to a need for greater geographic specificity in the understanding of context. Using a random sample survey of residents of six communities in suburban Chicago, we examine the impact of context on native-born white and black residents’ subjective perceptions of threat from Latino immigrants, using two micro-level geographies that have not been examined to date: the immediate block and the surrounding blocks. We show that after controlling for the size of the Latino population in the surrounding blocks, the percent Latino in the immediate block does not influence perceptions of three different dimensions of threat from Latino immigrants. The effect of surrounding blocks’ population size, however, is consistent with group threat, particularly for white residents: the larger the Latino population size, the greater the perceived threat. A significant interaction also suggests that it is residents—especially whites—living in immediate blocks with few Latinos, but with larger Latino populations in surrounding neighborhoods who feel especially threatened.

Authors

• Maria Krysan, University of Illinois-Chicago

• Matthew Hall, Cornell University

• Marylee C. Taylor, Pennsylvania State University