You may find the Sullivan and Guest texts redundant, as they both set out to briefly describe the controversy surrounding Alejandro Portes’s “ethnic enclave” theory. Feel free to focus on the reading that like better and just skim the other. Then read the two short New York Times articles about Willets Point, in Queens. Then respond, or, if you like, address the following question in a short post (~150 words).
Ethnic enclaves are places in the city (and its economy) where people of a given ethnic background can “get a leg up” economically without assimilating – they can be hired by co-ethnics and find a job – waiter, cook, auto mechanic, carpenter – where a high school education and “American” cultural skills such as fluency in English may not be necessary. At the same time, these can be places of exploitation, as vulnerable new arrivals toil in substandard conditions while their bosses exploit their lack of options.
Willets Point, also known as the “iron triangle,” a dirty, industrial patch of Queens behind Citi field, has been depicted as a “lifeline” for low-skilled immigrants. But, calling the neighborhood “blighted,” Mayor Bloomberg has slated the area for a high-end development project featuring luxury apartment buildings and a shopping mall. Does the city government have a responsibility to protect unglamorous, dirty, sometimes dangerous occupations (car service driver, street vendor, auto mechanic) that provide immigrants with low-wage, entry level work? Or is the government’s primary responsibility to raise the overall profitability of urban space, even if that means evicting low-wage workers or putting them out of a job? (This is obviously a tough question without a clear-cut answer, so just offer some thoughts after doing the reading.)
Portes and Wilson theorize that immigrants, rather than them coming empty handed to the United States, actually came with an entire network of immigrants, which aids in their economic development in the new country. Based on their theory, the network of immigrants provides a safety net for each individual, but I do not believe this is the case. Each immigrant comes to America hoping for a better life, and even though being around people of the same ethnicity may provide a small sense of unity, the immigrants are still strangers to each other. A network is built on trust, and trust does not just come from those that share the same ethnicity, but is formed from a personal relationship. Immigrants are always looking for new jobs, and the competition of jobs does not promote trust between ethnicities or networks, but rather limits an individual to itself, by only trusting oneself. An example of this exists between Guatemalans and Mexicans. Both groups are of the same ethnicity, but are constantly fighting for jobs, and restrict each other’s social development by competing to offer lower prices. Portes and Wilson may believe that immigrants are handed a large network and safety net, but that is not the case, as each individual has to fight for oneself.