The Neighborhood Has Its Own Rules: Latinos And African Americans In South Los Angeles - 9780814762844

South Los Angeles is often seen as ground zero for inter-racial conflict and violence in the United States. Since the 1940s, South LA has been predominantly a low-income African American neighborhood, and yet since the early 1990s Latino immigrantsùmostly from Mexico and many undocumentedùhave moved in record numbers to the area. Given that more than a quarter million people live in South LA and that poverty rates exceed 30 percent, inter-racial conflict and violence surprises no one. The real question is: why hasn't there been more? Through vivid stories and interviews, The Neighborhood Has Its Own Rules provides an answer to this question. Based on in-depth ethnographic field work collected when the author, Cid Martinez, lived and worked in schools in South Central, this study reveals the day-to-day ways in which vibrant social institutions in South LAù its churches, its local politicians, and even its gangsùhave reduced conflict and kept violence to a level that is manageable for its residents. Martinez argues that inter-racial conflict has not been managed through any coalition between different groups, but rather that these institutions have allowed established African Americans and newcomer Latinos to co-exist through avoidanceùan under-appreciated strategy for managing conflict that plays a crucial role in America's low-income communities. Ultimately, this book proposes a different understanding of how neighborhood institutions are able to mitigate conflict and violence through several community dimensions of informal social controls.

• | Author: Cid Martinez
• | Publisher: Nyu Press
• | Publication Date: Jul 19, 2016
• | Number of Pages: 272 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback/Social Science
• | ISBN-10: 0814762840
• | ISBN-13: 9780814762844