Spatial Assimilation and Its Discontents: Asian Ethnic Neighborhood Change in California

• In Event: 449 - Regular Session. Asians in Systems of Ethnic Stratification

Abstract

I use geographic mapping of ethnic neighborhood patterns as a platform for understanding the social and structural factors that relate to social mobility for members of the nation’s fastest-growing racial minority group, Asian Americans. Using California Census data from 2000 and 2010, this large-scale, longitudinal representation of ethnic neighborhood patterns makes three main contributions. First, using spatial analysis techniques appropriate for groups with low proportional representation, I detail ethnic neighborhood boundaries for four Asian national-origin groups – Chinese, Filipino, Korean, and Vietnamese Americans – across two greater metropolitan areas in California. Second, I represent the neighborhood boundary changes over the preceding ten-year decennial census period. Third, the revelation of dynamic patterns allows for insight into three theories of spatial incorporation – spatial assimilation, heterolocalism, and resurgent ethnicity – that inform our understanding of social mobility and the prospects for members of these Asian national-origin subgroups to “get along and get ahead”.

Author

• Emily Walton, Dartmouth College