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Making Cents in the Barrios

The Institutional Roots of Joblessness in Mexican America

Institute for Health Policy Studies, UCSF, USA dohan{at}itsa.ucsf.edu

It is frequently observed that in US cities low-income immigrants are strongly attached to labor markets while the US-born poor more often suffer from detachment. This article examines everyday mechanisms related to this immigrant-native difference. Using data collected through participant-observation in two low-income Mexican-American communities in California, I examine structural-economic, cultural, and institutional perspectives on attitudes to end practices of everyday wage laboring. I argue that the institutional perspective, highlighting the manifold effects of transnational social networks, provides the most compelling account of immigrant-native differences in labor-force attachment.

Key Words: urban poverty • joblessness • low-wage work • informal economy • neighbourhood • Mexican Americans • immigration • United States

Ethnography, Vol. 3, No. 2, 177-200 (2002)
DOI: 10.1177/1466138102003002003


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