Maria G. Rendon - UC Irvine, Public Policy School of Social Ecology
Stagnant Dreamers: How the Inner City Shapes the Integration of Second Generation Latinos
Date: 02/10/2022 (Thu)
Time: 3:30pm- 5:00pm
Location: This seminar will be held remotely via Zoom. (Please sign in to see the link.)
Organizer: Marcos Rangel
Meeting Schedule: (Not currently open for scheduling. Please contact the seminar organizer listed above.)
All meetings will be held in the same location as the seminar unless otherwise noted.
3:00pm - Seminar Prep
3:30pm - Seminar Presentation (3:30pm to 5:00pm)
Additional Comments: How does the American urban context, with high levels of poverty concentration and segregation, shape the integration process of children of Latino immigrants? Stagnant Dreamers calls attention to urban structural conditions constraining social mobility for the second-generation while highlighting how the Latinx community draws on internal resources to inhibit ‘second-generation decline.’ The book follows the lives of 42 Latino young men whose immigrant families settled in Los Angeles in the 1980s and early 1990s, a time when urban violence peaked in American cities. Rather than negative acculturation processes shaping social mobility, Stagnant Dreamers documents how exposure to urban violence hurt young men’s schooling and how segregation reinforced working poor and working class insular social networks. Kin and community ties help the second-generation get by, but a lack of cross-racial and cross-class ties complicate how they navigate institutions of higher education and broker access to highly coveted jobs. Stagnant Dreamers demonstrates how the American urban context is a place of paradox – while it constrains opportunities, it also sustains the concept of the American Dream. This book explains why despite the adversity Latino young men face, most remain optimistic about their future or determined to get ahead.