Authors: Roger Waldinger, Mehdi Bozorgmehr
Date: December 1, 1996
Project: Ethnic Los Angeles
Since 1965 more immigrants have come to Los Angeles than any other city in the United States. Streaming in from across the globe, these newcomers have profoundly transformed the city’s ethnic makeup and sparked heated debate over the impact of immigration on the region’s troubled economy.
Ethnic Los Angeles presents a multi-investigator study of Los Angeles’s immigrant population. Using U.S. census data for the past three decades, essays on each of LA’s major ethnic groups tell us where these new Americans live and work, why they came to Los Angeles, and the nature of their families and social networks. The contributors also give a history of immigration policy and discuss the economic forces that have made the city a magnet for immigrants.
The transformation wrought in Los Angeles, and its attendant challenges, will certainly repeat itself in other urban areas as new concentrations of immigrants develop there. Ethnic Los Angeles will serve as a useful guide to those who must grapple with that change and chart a new future for American cities and the country’s increasingly ethnic society.
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