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Mexicans in California

University of Illinois Press

Contents

Acknowledgments...........................................................................................................................................................................viiIntroduction..............................................................................................................................................................................11. Poverty, Work, and Public Policy: Latino Futures in California's New Economy Manuel Pastor Jr.........................................................................................152. Working Day Labor: Informal and Contingent Employment Abel Valenzuela Jr..............................................................................................................363. Understanding and Addressing the California Latino Achievement Gap in Early Elementary School Russell W. Rumberger and Brenda D. Arellano.............................................614. Reaffirming Affirmative Action: An Equal Opportunity Analysis of Advanced Placement Courses and University Admissions Armida Ornelas and Daniel G. Solórzano.....................775. Chicano Struggles for Racial Justice: The Movement's Contribution to Social Theory Ramón A. Gutiérrez.......................................................................946. "Lifting As We Climb": Educated Chicanas' Social Identities and Commitment to Social Action Aída Hurtado.........................................................................1117. The Quebec Metaphor, Invasion, and Reconquest in Public Discourse on Mexican Immigration Leo R. Chavez................................................................................1338. Prime-Time Protest: Latinos and Network Television Chon A. Noriega....................................................................................................................1559. The Politics of Passion: Poetics and Performance of La Canción Ranchera Olga Nájera-Ramírez............................................................................16810. Conflict Resolution and Intimate Partner Violence among Mexicans on Both Sides of the Border Yvette G. Flores and Enriqueta Valdez Curiel............................................183Bibliography..............................................................................................................................................................................217Contributors..............................................................................................................................................................................243Index.....................................................................................................................................................................................247

Chapter One

Introduction

As recession gave way to a strong expansion in the mid-1990s, many felt California had entered an era of a "new economy." Employment gains over the decade were impressive, with roughly 2.2 million jobs added over the 1991–2000 period. Unemployment rates declined sharply, with the state rate in 2000 dipping below 5 percent even as unemployment in the San Francisco and San Jose areas fell to around 3 percent. When an economic downturn began in early 2001, many felt that it was but a temporary blip in a healthy trend of long-term growth and suggested that California's fundamental strengths in industries such as information technology and biotechnology would help it stay ahead of the national economic curve. The recession did last longer than expected—and was remarkably deep in the high-tech environs of northern California—but by 2005, California's unemployment rate was back around its 1999 level.

Yet the optimism about the overall economy was not matched by hope about progress in terms of inequality in the state. Once celebrated as a sort of land of opportunity for all, by the late 1990s California had emerged as the third or fourth most unequal state in the union, depending on whether one measured inequality as the ratio of the top fifth of households to the middle fifth or the top fifth to the bottom fifth (Economic Policy Institute, 2002). And while California improved its distributional position slightly in the early part of the century—an update from the Economic Policy Institute on income distribution for the 2001–2003 period placed California as the tenth most unequal state when comparing the top fifth of households to the middle fifth of households, and the sixth most unequal in the United States when comparing the top fifth to the bottom fifth—this was hardly a record to boast about (Bernstein et al., 2006:18–19, 23).

Against this backdrop of a robust economy and unequal fortunes, California's Latinos have generally shown up at the lower end of the income profile. Employment rates for Latinos are relatively high, suggesting a strong work ethic and attachment to the labor force. At the same time, Latinos are the poorest ethnic group in California, with disproportionate representation at the bottom of the wage and occupational structure. As I note below, this is not simply a function of the recency of immigration, with a longer period of time in this country likely to produce improved outcomes—even second- and third-generation Latino households find their incomes lagging those of Anglos. And because employment and economic growth do not seem to be doing the trick on their own, Latinos will need to devise long-term political and policy strategies to improve economic outcomes for themselves and their children.

This chapter seeks to contribute to this task by offering a longer-run look at the state of Latinos in the California economy. I begin with a brief review of employment and distributional trends of the last decade and a half. I then profile key economic characteristics of California's Latinos, especially the striking contradiction between high rates of labor-force participation and high rates of poverty, and suggest that a significant portion of this gap has to do with lower levels of job quality and educational attainment. I suggest that Latinos are a disproportionate share of the state's working poor and note how strategies geared to the working poor should therefore be of special interest to Latinos. I conclude with a brief discussion of both the policies and the political will that will be necessary to improve Latinos' fortunes.

A few caveats are in order. First, I do not focus in this piece on Latino small business; in Pastor (2003), I offer a more detailed account of that sector and stress the importance of such businesses in hiring other coethnics and thus enhancing employment. I also note the potential contribution of small business to community and economic development, emphasizing how the flowering of a middle class with sufficient assets and political power can help a general Latino agenda, particularly when that middle class is only one generation and modest amounts of income away from its working-class origins. However, though the number of Latino businesses has grown dramatically, in 2002 the receipts for Latino-owned firms in California were only about 2 percent of total business receipts in the state, slightly down from the 2.4 percent share of such receipts in 1997. This...