Abstract
As multiculturalism has become a valued aspect of the city, ethnic enclaves have taken on new economic power in the cultural economy. However, as Western cities become increasingly diverse, multiple ethnic communities often overlap in shared urban spaces. Employing ethnographic methods, this article examines Wilshire Center, Los Angeles, to better understand how multiethnic communities perceive of and experience the culture of their community and how different actors foster or resist neighborhood change. In doing so, this research complicates our understandings of gentrification dynamics in multiethnic areas, and highlights important considerations for community development practitioners seeking to plan for multiple publics.
Introduction
With the establishment and growth of immigrant neighborhoods in Western cities in the early twentieth century, numerous scholars have examined the different characteristics of “ethnic enclaves,” and the role of collective, cultural identity in a variety of social and economic outcomes. However, as Western cities become increasingly diverse, multiple ethnic communities often overlap in shared urban spaces. It is in these urban areas that the notion of the ethnic enclave no longer holds. In such areas, it is likely that different communities will have different perceptions of the identity of the neighborhood. As overlapping immigrant populations use notions of culture to improve their community and achieve upward mobility, what contestations and collaborations emerge?
Employing ethnographic methods, this article examines Wilshire Center, a section of Central Los Angeles with numerous overlapping and intersecting ethnic neighborhoods that is undergoing neighborhood change, in order to better understand the relationship between culture and community in multiethnic urban areas. Specifically, I ask: How do multiethnic communities perceive of and respond to neighborhood change? How do different notions of community culture in multiethnic neighborhoods help us to understand the interplay between community development and gentrification in these areas? In examining the different individuals’ perceptions of their community and the different cultural assets they value, I explore how different actors foster or resist gentrification, and how these dynamics complicate common understanding of the gentrifier and the gentrified. At the same time, I discuss how planners might respond to these dynamics in pursuing strategies of community development in diverse urban areas.
Neighborhood Diversity in the Context of the Cultural Economy
This section explores the linkages between multiple literatures—ethnic enclaves, the cultural economy, and neighborhood diversity—in order to highlight how the emergence of multiethnic enclaves challenges our understanding of gentrification dynamics. While the United States witnessed the emergence of the first “Chinatown” in the late nineteenth century in San Francisco, the analysis and theorization of so-called ethnic enclaves in urban planning discourse did not appear until the 1920s, in the Chicago School’s ecological model of urban development. The Chicago model perceived of the city as a series of concentric circles (Figure 1), in which there are different neighborhood types that compete by means of invasion and succession (R. E. Park, Burgess, and McKenzie 1925). The model posited that over time, these ethnic populations would assimilate to mainstream culture as part of a natural, ecological process.
Model of urban social structure based off Chicago model, R. E. Park, Burgess, and McKenzie 1925.
Scholars departed in two directions from the Chicago model. Some further investigated how minorities overcome obstacles that impede their entry, and assimilation, into the mainstream of American culture (Child 1943; Gordon 1964; Handlin 1941, 1951; Sowell 1981; Vecoli 1977; Warner and Srole 1945; Wittke 1952). The outcome of this process of assimilation is often colloquially referred to as the “melting pot,” in which diverse groups blend together over time into an amorphous whole. More recent studies dispute this and have instead found that ethnic populations have in fact used their shared identity and spatial proximity as a means through which to exchange information and mutual assistance, participate in social and cultural activities, and develop a political voice (Alba and Chamlin 1983; Chan 1986; Glazer and Moynihan 1970; Greeley 1971; Mazumdar, Docuyanan, and McLaughlin 2000; Suttles 1968; Zhou 1992). One might refer to this as the “salad bowl,” in which diverse groups maintain their ethnic identity as a means for collective action and upward economic mobility.
However, debates on whether ethnic preservation versus assimilation is a better strategy for moving up the socioeconomic ladder assume that these processes are mutually exclusive. Other scholars note that there are several immigrant stories that defy the either/or understanding of assimilation versus preservation (Rischin 1962; Howe and Libo 1979; Portes and Manning 1986), demonstrating how a combination of social cohesion, business clustering, and competition in the general economy allow immigrant populations to achieve upward mobility. However, these groups sought neither assimilation nor ethnic preservation, but rather used their cultural identity as a means to compete in the mainstream economy.
With the shift from an industrial to a postindustrial economy, a city’s culture has become fundamental to its economic competitiveness. According to Zukin, because ethnic diversity and multiculturalism are accepted and valued realities of the contemporary city, notions of “exotic” and “authentic” cultural urban experiences are marketable assets for communities (1996). In reflecting on how cultures compete in the new cultural economy and the concurrent power dynamics, she poses the question: “Whose culture? Whose city?”
In the context of the cultural economy, many scholars have explored the different ways in which culture can be operationalized for social and economic gain. For example, culture can be used as a means for community organizing (Wherry 2011), the strengthening of a community or place identity (Grodach and Loukaitou-Sideris 2012; Loukaitou-Sideris 2002; Main 2012; Main and Sandoval 2015), and even economic empowerment by allowing the local community to find economic benefits in niche “ethnic production” (Hoffman 2003). Whereas the Chicago school and its proponents viewed ethnic enclaves as sociospatial ecologies that would slowly emulsify into the larger urban landscape, the new politics of multiculturalism has transformed immigrant communities into objects, or assets, within the larger urban growth machine (Molotch 1976). This has enabled place entrepreneurs to market ethnic enclaves—their culture, lifestyle, and traditions—as a way to attract economic activity and increase land values. Nevertheless, despite the economic benefits of marketing diversity, others have noted that the growing concentration of ethnic minorities in the city has also contributed to a perception of disorder among the general public, both as a result of implicit bias and historically constructed stigmas about the inner city (Sampson and Raudenbush 2004).
Paradoxically, while landowners are fit to gain from the branding and marketing of ethnic enclaves, the community itself faces gentrification and displacement (Dávila 2004; Hoffman 2003). Critics abound that such strategies of place marketing and cultural urban revitalization benefit tourists and wealthy residents rather than improving the well-being of the local public (Eisinger 2000; Harvey 1994, 2001; Ley 1996; Markusen 2006; Smith 1996; Zukin 1991, 1995). Others have demonstrated how local, state, and federal governments benefit from the globalization of immigrant communities more than residents themselves, as a result of foreign investment and urban redevelopment policy (Ling 1998). However, little attention has been paid to how the political dynamics of neighborhood change play out in multiethnic areas where the notion of the ethnic enclave no longer holds. The concept of the ethnic enclave as a spatially bounded territory has become further complicated by recent phenomena in the contemporary global city, and particularly in megacities such as Los Angeles, where the ability to clearly define where a neighborhood, and a neighborhood’s cultural identity, begins and ends has become more difficult (Abrahamson 1996; Fong 1994; Greinacher 1998; Krase 2002; Sassen 1996; Sen 2000; Waldinger 1993; Werbner 2001).
How the demographics of ethnic enclaves change, and what kind of neighborhoods they change into, depends on a variety of factors. In some instances, the ethnic residential population is displaced by another ethnic group (Murdie and Teixeira 2011). While the residential population may shift, the makeup of ethnic businesses may remain the same, resulting in situations where a “Little Italy” district composed of Italian eateries and delis is increasingly occupied by primarily Chinese and Vietnamese residents (Hackworth and Rekers 2005). While these broad demographic changes make place branding strategies that rely on older, static notions of community identity seem arbitrary and ignorant, business owners have long recognized that they can profit from the commodification of place, even if they themselves do not share the same heritage as the neighborhood’s brand (Zhou 2004; Becker 2015). However, this situation has the potential to pit community stakeholders against one another. The branded identity of place valued by business owners, tourists, and landowners may contend with residents’ perception of the community (Abramson, Manzo, and Hou 2006).
With this rise in urban ethnic diversity, scholars of social capital have sought to understand how the presence of other ethnic groups impacts people’s perceptions of their community, or more specifically their trust in others. Putnam’s findings suggest that increased diversity triggers anomie or social isolation, or in colloquial language, the desire to “hunker down” (2007), which may make social mobility more difficult. Robert Sampson’s study of Chicago neighborhoods in Great American City: Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect is perhaps the most complex examination of neighborhood-level trust (2012). While he did find that ethnic diversity has little relationship to declining trust, he recognizes these findings are not generalizable to other cities, and posits that scholars must incorporate an analysis of the local cultural, political, and historical context of a place. While these studies on neighborhood trust do not relate directly to research on ethnic enclaves, they provide a framework for studying how residents perceive of a community in diverse areas.
Taken together, these different literatures—on ethnic enclaves, the cultural economy, and neighborhood diversity—leave planning scholars in a perplexing place. While the marketing of culture by immigrant communities can help improve the local quality of life, it can also fuel gentrification and displacement and establish static place identities that are contested by new residential populations. How does this complicate the role of planners seeking to plan for multiple publics? To shed light on this complicated issue, my study focuses on the perceptions and experiences of residents in a diverse urban area with overlapping ethnic populations. Building off previous studies on ethnic enclaves, this research reveals the cleavages between and within ethnic groups, and highlight the multiple planes on which multiethnic communities can be divided in their perception and experience of neighborhood change. At the same time, I hope to draw attention to the overlooked spaces of everyday life, and their potential for developing translocal connections within diverse populations. To do so, however, we must problematize static definitions of the neighborhood—we must ask: whose culture? whose neighborhood?
Wilshire Center: A Multiethnic Enclave
Although Los Angeles has had multiethnic neighborhoods for much of its recent history (Wild 2005), in late twentieth and early twenty-first century, subsequent waves of immigrants have flowed into the Southern California from across East Asia and the Pacific Rim region as a result of the Immigration Act of 1965. Many thousands of residents from Mexico and Central America also crossed the US–Mexico border during subsequent decades. The 1992 Civil Unrest that occurred in the aftermath of the Rodney King trial further encouraged white flight and divestment from much of Central Los Angeles, which became the gateway communities for these newly arriving immigrants. This area, which I refer to as “Wilshire Center,” 1 is the focus of this research,
Wilshire Center is both unique and typical of inner-city neighborhoods in Los Angeles. It is the most diverse area of Los Angeles. Figure 2 below shows the dominant ethnic group in each census tract in 2010, and demonstrates that Wilshire Center is highly diverse, and its diversity is highly concentrated.
Leading ethnic populations in census tracts by percentage (Allen and Turner 2015).
At the same time, like many communities of color in Los Angeles, Wilshire Center is experiencing gentrification. The area has undergone massive reinvestment in the past two decades, due in part to ongoing flows of money from South Korean corporations (K. Park and Kim 2008), efforts by the City’s Community Redevelopment Agency (Kwong 1992; Ong and Hee 1993), a density-allowing community plan, as well as the expansion of the Metro line. As can be expected, this economic development has also led to gentrification (K. Park and Kim 2008). Figure 3 and Table 1 illustrate the changing demographic and economic landscape of Wilshire Center compared to LA County.
Race/ethnicity of study area compared to LA County. Measure of individuals who claim to be of one race of the four most populous racial/ethnic categories. This does not include individuals who claim to be of two or more races, or other statistically insignificant single-race categories.
Demographic and Economic Profiles of Study Area and LA County.
Source: 2000, 2010, and 2014 data drawn from ACS 5-year estimates.
Density measured as population per square mile.
Measure of median household income.
Most notable is the fact that the population of Wilshire Center has been falling in recent years alongside a drastic increase in vacancies. This is likely due to the effects of gentrification, as low-income residents are evicted from their homes and property owners raze the land for new market-rate or luxury apartments. Nevertheless, Wilshire Center, and in particular the area around Koreatown, remains extremely dense compared to the County (Sanchez et al. 2012).
In recognition of immigrants’ cultural influence on Los Angeles, in 2006, the City Council created a new policy whereby groups of individuals could create a petition and apply for official designation. This has led to the creation of numerous designated ethnic neighborhoods, many of which overlap (see Figure 4).
Boundaries of designated neighborhoods.
And yet, despite the City’s attempts to encourage neighborhood designation, the boundaries of these places are widely disputed, both among residents and local institutions. For example, the LA Times, the Neighborhood Council, and Google Maps all have different measures of the boundaries of Koreatown, 2 and in fact this issue persist for many other areas as well. With so many overlapping ethnic populations and interpretations of neighborhoods boundaries, their designated names seem arbitrary and obsolete. For community development practitioners working in such areas, it is therefore important to understand how community stakeholders themselves define their neighborhood and its cultural assets. This is the aim of my study.
Research Methods and Design
I employed a variety of qualitative methods, including semi-structured and unstructured interviews, participant-observation, and content analysis, all of which occurred from June 2014 to December 2015. My research methods were informed by a model of “reflexive science” (Burawoy 1998a, 1998b), which involves embracing an “intersubjectivity” (Burawoy 1998a, 1998b) between the researcher and those being studied and participating in their lives in order to study their situations as part of a social process.
Prior to beginning fieldwork, I lived in the study area for three years and became active in the community. I served as a board member to the Wilshire Center–Koreatown Neighborhood Council, and co-chair of its Planning and Land Use committee, and volunteered twenty hours per week at a local community-based organization (CBO), called KIWA (Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance). I observed and participated in a variety of community events—for example, Neighborhood Council meetings, town halls, workers’ rights trainings, and Business Improvement District meetings, among others—throughout my study area.
During events and meetings, I conducted more than fifty informal and unstructured interviews. Interviewees were selected if they lived or worked in Wilshire Center, and based upon their willingness to be interviewed. These interviews covered a range of topics depending on the context in which I encountered the individual. Unlike structured interviews, which were recorded, these interactions were documented with extensive field notes. I also selected fifteen ethnic restaurants, supermarkets, and bars that were identified by a variety of subjects as being important assets for the community, and interviewed their proprietors and/or employees. The majority of these interviews were informal, though four proprietors agreed to subsequent, formal interviews.
I conducted a total of forty-three open-ended, semistructured interviews with community stakeholders (see appendix). Interviews took approximately forty-five minutes to one hour to conduct, and were held at the office or residence of the subject. The subjects represented a variety of stakeholder types (see Tables 2 and 3). Early participants were selected based on their level of involvement in community affairs. Many subsequent respondents were selected using a snowball technique, which allowed me to examine how connections (and frictions) between stakeholders shaped community development efforts. Through my role at KIWA, I could interview first- and second-generation immigrant residents and secure interpretation (when needed) for monolingual respondents. Not all those interviewees were members of KIWA—some were friends and family members. This provided me with access to a diverse array of resident respondents who were not necessarily involved in local affairs, and who would not be immediately accessible to me as a white male researcher. 3
Individuals Interviewed by Stakeholder Type.
Note: CBO = community-based organization.
Individuals Interviewed by Ethnicity.
The qualitative data gathered during interviews and participant observation was analyzed using grounded theory and informed by qualitative content analysis (Charmaz 2006; Krippendorf 2013). Interviews were recorded and transcribed. In analyzing interview texts and field notes, I conducted open coding and drew from the literature on ethnic enclaves, the cultural economy, and social capital and neighborhood diversity 4 in order to identify important commonalities and differences between individuals’ responses.
Contestations and Collaborations in the Multiethnic Enclave
My research revealed several ways in which community stakeholders experience and perceive the culture of their neighborhood and their attitudes toward diversity and neighborhood change. While I expected to find some commonalities in responses based on ethnic identity, in fact the responses were much more nuanced and depended mainly on age, class, and positionality (occupation and level of influence over local affairs). There were three stakeholder types in which distinct patterns emerged: young residents, local ethnic leaders, and low-wage workers. Yet still within and between each of these groups there are contestations that illuminate the unique and emerging issues of multiethnic neighborhoods. Table 4 below summarizes these dynamics, which are each discussed in turn.
Responses by Stakeholder Type.
Note: ICE = US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Young Residents
I define “young residents” as those that reside in the study area and are between the ages of eighteen and twenty-nine. This includes both 1.5- and second-generation 5 immigrants as well as nonethnic (i.e., white) new arrivals. 6 Young residents—of all ethnic backgrounds—simultaneously exhibit a desire for ethnic preservation while also valuing the growing diversity and cultural hybridity of their community. The fact that they have common perceptions and attitudes toward the community regardless of their ethnic background defies the common racial disparity between gentrifier and gentrified.
The majority of second-generation residents claim to embrace the new and emerging cultural patterns of their neighborhood. Those interviewed stated that the area’s emergence as a nightlife district is ultimately a good thing—they selected new fusion restaurants, bars, and coffee shops as important cultural assets. As my interviews illustrated, these spaces were considered important assets to ethnic residents precisely because of the mix of individuals they attract, from tourists to young professionals, and because they are owned and operated by individuals with close connections to this community. In this sense, these establishments help elevate the culture of the community. As one respondent put it: The area is evolving. I mean, the second-generation, we ourselves are not super Korean. Our neighborhood is going to reflect that. And you now have a wave of second generation immigrant business owners. So now the old school Asians are kind of giving way to this new hybrid, Americanized business. So you can complain you are losing a lot of the traditional Korean places, but on the other hand, what we are doing is still Korean, but is more. It is Latino. It is L.A. (second-generation Korean American resident)
The tastes and preferences of young residents like this one are similar to those of new residents in other gentrifying neighborhoods, in that they favor a combination of ethnic restaurants and nightlife amenities (Florida 2002; Zukin 2011).
However, while both ethnic and nonethnic young residents value these spaces because of the mix of users, many reported low to moderate connections with residents from another ethnic group (i.e., bridging ties). Thus, while one could easily fall into the trap of interpreting these spaces as cosmopolitan, producing new forms of urban citizenship, like others I am skeptical as to whether cohabitation constitutes a real respect for difference (Valentine 2013), and my findings confirm a mix of users does not necessarily lead to sociocultural connections.
Other ethnic residents are much more preservationist, and demonstrate concerns about the diluting effect that too many nonethnic residents will have on the cultural identity of their neighborhood. In fact, some business owners have adopted subtle methods for moderating the effects that newcomers have on the area’s cultural landscape. For example, several Korean bars, known as “suljips,” have hidden entrances in the back of the building in order to deter non-Koreans from discovering them. Although they have a sign out front, the lack of a typical business storefront acts as a gateway mechanism, whereby only those who have heard of the place by word of mouth can gain entry. Some suljips will not allow non-Koreans to enter unless accompanied by a Korean. 7
The perspective of many young residents exemplify the concept of “gentefication” (a play on the Spanish word for people, “gente”), a process in which new minority residents with relatively higher incomes and education level move into a low-income community to which they have a cultural connection (Mejia 2015). Gentefication, while similar to gentrification in that it often involves economic development and displacement, differs in its relationship to a place’s identity. For example, several young, higher-income Korean Americans interviewed grew up in other parts of the City but have moved to the area known as “Koreatown” because of its Korean identity, and demonstrate a desire to preserve this identity. Brown-Saracino (2009) identified similar values and behaviors in the philosophy of what she calls “social preservationists”: newcomers who are aware of their role in gentrification and yet actively seeking to mediate its effects by taking action to defend the interests of long-term residents.
Young residents—simultaneously preservationist and hybrid—value those aspects of immigrant communities that are exploited by the cultural economy: authenticity and diversity. Although young ethnic residents embrace diversity in their community, their tastes and preferences for neighborhood amenities—shared by nonethnic gentrifiers—are exploited by developers and real-estate interests. This illustrates the marriage between these two groups’ respective interests. As many scholars have noted, developers capitalize on the fact that young urban residents, seeking exciting, authentic urban experiences, are increasingly demanding diverse cultural amenities (Zukin 1996, 2011). This raises the question as to whether the economic strategies discussed in the literature, such as business clustering and ethnic niche production, will have long-term positive impacts on local immigrant populations or whether they simply lay the foundation for growth coalitions in the urban growth machine. Planners seeking to highlight local culture as a means for neighborhood revitalization must recognize that for young ethnic residents, their perspective on this is decidedly mixed. While some may appreciate the growing appeal or recognition of their community’s cultural offerings, others may resist what they perceive to be the dilution of the authenticity of their neighborhood.
Ethnic Champions
My research revealed a network of ethnic leaders who actively seek to improve the local economy and quality of life by highlighting the cultural identity of their neighborhood and using this as an impetus for economic development. I have grouped these individuals under the title of “ethnic champions.” This category includes a diversity of occupations, from teachers to developers. The important, common characteristic being that these individuals play an active role in developing their ethnic community through cultural and economic development strategies.
Ethnic champions participate a great deal in efforts to attract tourism and investment, such as themed architecture and neighborhood festivals, as well as the City’s neighborhood designation processes. For example, a group of Korean ethnic champions garnered funds to decorate several streets with markers of Korean heritage (see Figure 5).
Korean pagoda in Koreatown, Brightwell 2010.
Leaders from Little Armenia similarly hope to create new public monuments to decorate the built environment and draw attention to the history of the Armenian diaspora in the area. According to them, having themed architecture will attract tourists and visitors and is “an excuse for the city to maintain and beautify the area, which is going to bring in even more money.” 8 During planning or City Council hearings where these projects were proposed, applicants invoked their own shared heritage and relationship with the community to develop a narrative of community support—for example, one mixed-use project representative claimed: “I come from this community, I know what they need.” 9 It is therefore unsurprising that all ethnic champions chose cultural festivals and events, themed architecture, and public art as the most important cultural assets of the area.
Ethnic champions reported high levels of bridging ties with other ethnic groups, because of their cross-collaboration in community development projects. A perhaps unintended effect of the City’s policy for neighborhood designation is that it encourages this, as proximate groups seek to designate a common area. While the media has portrayed this situation and others as a kind of territorial conflict (Lopez 2009), the reality is that neighborhood designation is often collaborative. Interviewees involved in this process explained that, prior to filing an application, many consulted with leaders from other ethnic communities who already went through the same process. As was the case with Little Bangladesh, Thai Town, and Little Armenia, neighborhood designation was the first step in the founding of new community organizations. Ethnic champions also consistently acknowledged the diversity of their community as an asset. Many described the area as a “melting pot” or “mosaic” of different cultures, and some even used the language of “brothers and sisters” in describing their multiracial counterparts.
However, there are important difference between ethnic champions in terms of attitudes toward neighborhood change. For example, some ethnic champions leverage connections with elected officials or business groups to invest in new developments because they want “their community” to have more wealth and access to luxury amenities, without regard for their role in displacement. This was acknowledged by one ethnic champion who is a real-estate developer and the leader of a Korean cultural association in the study area: I want to develop this community into something a little better. But if you buy up this land, add value, and bring in money, you are going to kick some people out. But I’m not worried about this place losing its Korean identity; I think the new development just adds to it. (Korean ethnic champion)
This approach is decidedly top–down, using “culture” as a means to attract investment, and glosses over the social and economic realities of those residing in the area.
Other ethnic champions believe the culture of the neighborhood is shared, and ever changing. The act of receiving designation, investing in themed architecture, and other strategies of community development are simply one means to an end, and should be complemented by investments in affordable housing, social services, small business development, and education. For example, one Thai ethnic champion who has been an activist and organizer in this area for more than two decades incorporates multiethnic community engagement before investing in any street themed decorations or cultural festivals.
10
According to her, this level of participation is crucial to ensure that any strategy of cultural urban revitalization is born out of, and serves, the diversity of residents. As she put it, To ensure a more participatory process, we opened up our campaigns to the entire community. We hired Spanish, Thai, and Armenian residents, and held a series of meetings. We then included them in the campaign, from the petition drive and postcard drive, to drafting letters of support, door-to-door canvassing, conducting meetings, building consensus, all that. . . . For me, the voice of the community needed to be heard first, we shouldn’t impose our values. (Thai ethnic champion)
Such individuals recognize and interact with the variety of identities overlapping in shared space, and value participation of all stakeholder groups. This focus on building local pride for all residents allows for multiple and overlapping spatialized cultures and creates a shared heritage.
As one way to “define” the culture of their community, ethnic champions are highly invested in neighborhood designation. There are tangible benefits to these branding activities for these local leaders: On the one hand, it helps build partnerships and can lead to the establishment of new organizations. On the other hand, it helps those with real-estate interests, because putting the neighborhood “on the map” makes new or existing apartments and condos more easily marketable to potential tenants. From a planning perspective, there is enormous tension here: for some ethnic champions, neighborhood designation opens new possibilities to preserve and support the culture of the community. For others, community designation is part of a scheme to attract more capital and development to the area, and increase land values and personal gain. This creates a delicate dance for planners seeking to assess the extent of community support for neighborhood designation (or any local project, for that matter). The establishment of ethnically based neighborhood designations in neighborhoods currently occupied by multiple overlapping groups reinforces local power dynamics by benefiting entrepreneurial ethnic champions at the expense of those groups seeking to improve the local quality of life. In other words, it exacerbates the zero-sumness of community development in diverse areas. Just because the applicant shares the ethnicity of the community does not necessarily mean they seek to benefit the local immigrant population. Therefore, planners involved in community development in diverse areas and seeking to work with local neighborhood groups should establish more nuanced criteria for deciding which groups and organizations to work with. Questions might include, How long has this organization been working in the community? Do they seek to represent specific demographics or stakeholder groups in the community, or the community as a whole? Does this group collaborate frequently with organizations from other cultural communities? By finding answers to these questions, planners will be better equipped to find partnerships with groups that have the best interest of local residents in mind, rather than just land values.
Low-Wage Workers
Low-wage workers, and specifically immigrant workers, are the majority of residents in the study area, coming primarily from Central America, Mexico, and Korea, though there are growing numbers of Bangladeshis as well. Immigrant workers’ responses during interviews were the most varied with regard to defining the culture of their community. The common thread across all of them, however, was the stated importance of ethnic small businesses and ethnic supermarkets. Respondents explained that these are the sites where they spend the most time shopping, hanging out, and socializing with friends. Many of those who spent a lot of time in these locations described their multiethnic counterparts as parts of a larger, diverse community. As one Guatemalan worker and mother of two said: All of the people around, even though we are all from different states and have different customs, we’re all able to communicate. Even though I don’t speak English or Korean, we can still communicate as community members. I feel satisfied with my friend, or my neighbor, because they are often with my kids and I am with their kids. We see each other at restaurants, and can exchange customs. (Guatemalan worker)
Ethnic supermarkets are exemplary shared spaces. Despite being Korean-owned, two of the largest ethnic supermarkets in the area serve the largely Latino/a population, and my observations documented frequent interaction among and between workers and patrons. At checkout lines, it is not uncommon to see a Korean cashier speaking basic Spanish to the baggers, and vice versa. Such interactions are also common at restaurants. According to a recent study, Latinas/os are the predominant workforce in the Koreatown restaurants (Sanchez et al. 2012).
While ethnic businesses and markets are sites of intercultural exchange, they are also sites of class tension. Researchers have found that immigrants working in low-wage jobs are frequently victims of wage theft, a widespread epidemic in the Los Angeles whereby employers do not pay their employees the wages they are rightfully owed (Cho, Koonse, and Mischel 2013). Through volunteering at KIWA, whose primary service is assisting workers with wage theft claims, I could interview and observe many individuals who have experienced wage theft, as well as those KIWA employees who are their legal advocates. 11 Indeed, some of the most frequent culprits of wage theft in Wilshire Center are owners of ethnic restaurants, restaurant chains, and supermarkets.
For those that were members of or involved in workers’ centers such as KIWA, 12 these organizations were also considered an important cultural asset. 13 Because of their participation or membership in worker’s centers, most workers I interviewed frequently interacted with workers from different backgrounds in various social and political activities, from protests and strikes to meetings with policy makers. As a result, they reported high levels of bridging ties. Worker’s center community organizers claimed that such a broad base enhances the power of their voice within the City’s political structure. To do so, organizers engage in relationship-building practices to build ties among the diversity of cultures in the area on common issues and concerns, from wage theft to unlawful evictions and immigration policy (see Figure 6). Previous scholarship has noted that Koreatown, the largest neighborhood in the study area and the one with the most concentrated diversity, may be a model for how low-wage workers can combine their efforts to challenge the hegemony of “enclave politics,” in which the interests of ethnic elites ignore deeply rooted, class-based injustices (Kwon 2010).
KIWA workshop flyers, Source: KIWA staff
However, it is worth noting that those low-wage workers that were not involved in or members of workers’ centers held varying attitudes toward diversity and neighborhood change. Some expressed fear or distrust of other ethnic groups despite their proximity, thereby exemplifying the “hunker down” effect discussed earlier, and indicating the important role that workers’ centers play in building multiethnic solidarity. Workers’ centers exemplify what others have referred to as “micro-publics” (Amin 2002): sites that produce social contact across individuals from different backgrounds, and that through organized activities break fixed patterns of interaction in order to discover new ways of learning and relating. Moreover, while many low-wage workers praised what they saw as an increase in general public safety in the area as it has developed, they do not necessarily feel safe. The majority of respondents mentioned fear of eviction or raids from immigration and customs enforcement at home or the workplace. When asked about the importance of themed architecture, neighborhood designation, and other cultural investments (the activities of ethnic champions), responses were mixed. While some appreciated the presence of these cultural markers as a sign that the public recognizes their presence and importance to the City of Los Angeles, others were apathetic or even unaware of their existence.
That ethnic small businesses and supermarkets are the most valued community assets among low-wage workers, and yet are also the source of systematic worker exploitation, is emblematic of the unique—and often overlooked—challenge that multiethnic communities face. The experience of KIWA and other workers’ centers in the area illustrates the importance of multiethnic coalition building in addressing the needs of those left most vulnerable in diverse communities. However, even the success of these organizations must be placed within a broader context. The role of local community organizations is an important one, but such efforts must be supported by serious public policy changes that remove structural barriers to family stability and upward mobility among low-income populations. In other words, it is time planners revisit the person versus place debate (Crane and Manville 2008), or rather reframe it nondichotomously. As this research demonstrates, policies addressing individual poverty and precariousness—including immigration protection and wage enforcement—may remove barriers that prevent grassroots groups from playing a larger role in place-based strategies of community development.
Conclusion
Unlike previous studies on ethnic enclaves, this research reveals the cleavages between and within these stakeholder groups, and highlights the multiple planes—age, occupation, and class—upon which multiethnic communities can be divided in their perception and experience of neighborhood culture and change. As in-migration and out-migration continue to occur between countries, across cities, and even within neighborhoods, we must examine these dynamics in the context of overlapping cultures and communities, and be critical of power dynamics between and within ethnic groups. This research also demonstrates that although not all residents of diverse communities interact regularly with members of other groups, they tend to appreciate diversity as a neighborhood characteristics. Such is reflective of Iris Young’s concept of “differentiated solidarity” (2000), in that intergroup solidarity need not manifest itself as social interaction, but can be represented in people’s attitudes toward one another.
For planners and community development practitioners working in diverse urban areas, there are several important takeaways from this research. First, planners should pay closer attention to the multilayered diversity of tomorrow’s communities. When it comes to neighborhood change and gentrification, perspectives and responses from different stakeholder groups will not necessarily coalesce around a common cultural background, but also in terms of age, class, and broader positionality within the community. Second, strategies of neighborhood revitalization, including the process of branding and marketing local identities, rely too often on static notions of spatialized cultures. Planners seeking to plan for multiple publics within the same area should focus on addressing common structural issues, like housing and job insecurity, and supporting translocal spaces—the market, the restaurant, the corner store. In addition, similar to previous scholars, this research demonstrates that instead of drawing boundaries around cultural communities, planners should focus on accentuating community “cores” (Abramson, Manzo, and Hou 2006). As evidenced here, ethnic supermarkets are important community cores for overlapping ethnic groups.
Finally, planners engaged in community development must be wary of developers and other place entrepreneurs who, despite sharing the ethnic makeup of the branded identity of a place, do not necessarily have its residents’ concerns in mind. Some ethnic champions operationalize notions of culture in order to advance more narrow interests, such as the ability to claim ownership of a space and cash in on the exchange value of branded spaces. And yet, as evidenced from this research, there are indeed community stakeholders who seek to engage the diversity of cultural groups as they seek to improve the local quality of life. The importance of workers’ centers in this regard cannot be overstated, and yet these organizations are drastically underfunded and often overlooked as key actors in immigrant integration and community development. It is important that planners be able to identify and differentiate these actors from other growth coalitions. When a project is being proposed that claims to highlight or elevate the “culture of the neighborhood”—planners must ask: Whose culture? Whose neighborhood?
Footnotes
Appendix
Acknowledgements
The research for this article was financially supported by the UCLA Institute for American Cultures. I also gratefully acknowledge KIWA staff and members for their support and collaboration. In developing ideas presented here, I have received helpful input from Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Vinit Mukhija, and Dana Cuff.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The author would like to acknowledge the UCLA Institute for American Cultures for their generous financial support of this research.