Prior research has examined how racial and socioeconomic environments influence the racial attitudes of Whites and Blacks. We extend this line of research to explore how local context influences Latinos’ perceived competition with African-Americans. We use the 2006 Latino National Survey and a newly appended contextual data set. We find that having more Black neighbors heightens Latinos’ perceived competition with Blacks, but only when Latinos are economically vulnerable. The presence of African-Americans within Latinos’ neighborhoods is a necessary but insufficient condition for increasing their perceived competition with Blacks; Latinos’ perceived threat is shaped by the combined effect of the neighborhood racial composition and their group’s economic status.
AllportGordon W.1954. The Nature of Prejudice. Reading: Addison-Wesley.
2.
AudSusanFoxMary AnnKewalRamaniAngelina. 2010. “Status and Trends in the Education of Racial and Ethnic Groups.” Technical Report, U.S. Department of Education, Washington, DC.
3.
BaybeckBrady. 2006. “Sorting Out the Competing Effects of Racial Context.” Journal of Politics68:386–96.
4.
BlalockHerbert M.1967. Toward a Theory of Minority Group Relations. New York: Wiley.
5.
BlumerHerbert. 1958. “Racial Prejudice as a Sense of Group Position.” The Pacific Sociological Review1 (1): 3–7.
6.
BoboLawrence D.HutchingsVincent L.1996. “Perceptions of Racial Group Competition: Extending Blumer’s Theory of Group Position to a Multiracial Social Context.” American Sociological Review61:951–72.
7.
BoboLawrence D.ZubrinskyCamille L.1996. “Attitudes on Residential Integration: Perceived Status Differences, Mere In-group Preference, or Racial Prejudice?” Social Forces74:883–909.
8.
BorjasGeorge. 2002. “Welfare Reform and Immigration.” In The New World of Welfare, edited by BlankRebeccaHaskinsRon, 369–90. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
9.
BrantonRegina P.JonesBradford S.2005. “Reexamining Racial Attitudes: The Conditional Relationship Between Diversity and Socioeconomic Environment.” American Journal of Political Science49 (2): 359–72.
10.
CamarilloAlbert M.2004. “Cities of Color: The New Racial Frontier in California’s Minority-Majority Cities.” Pacific Historical Review76 (1): 1–28.
11.
ChoWendy K. TamBaerNeil. 2011. “Environmental Determinants of Racial Attitudes Redux: The Critical Decisions Related to Operationalizing Context.” American Politics Research39 (2): 414–36.
12.
CohenCathy J.DawsonMichael C.1993. “Neighborhood Poverty and African American Politics.” American Political Science Review87 (2): 286–302.
13.
de LeeuwMichael B.WhyteMegan K.HoDaleMezaCatherineKarteronAlexis. 2008. “The Current State of Residential Segregation and Housing Discrimination: The United States’ Obligations Under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.” Michigan Journal of Race & Law13:337–40.
14.
ForbesHughes Donald. 1997. Ethnic Conflict: Commerce, Culture, and the Contact Hypothesis. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press.
GayClaudine. 2006. “Seeing Difference: The Effect of Economic Disparity on Black Attitudes Toward Latinos.” American Journal of Political Science50:982–97.
17.
GilesMichael W.BucknerMelanie A.1993. “David Duke and Black Threat: An Old Hypothesis Revisited.” Journal of Politics55 (3): 702–13.
18.
GlaserJames M.1994. “Back to the Black Belt: Racial Environment and White Racial Attitudes in the South.” Journal of Politics56:21–41.
19.
GranovetterMark. 1995. Getting a Job: A Study of Contacts and Careers. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
20.
HaShang E.2010. “The Consequences of Multiracial Contexts on Public Attitudes Toward Immigration.” Political Research Quarterly63 (1): 29–42.
21.
IacusStepahnoKingGaryPorroGiuseppe. 2009. CEM: Coarsened Exact Matching Software. Available from http://j.mp/oGIFsf.
22.
IoannidesYannis M.LouryLinda Datcher. 2004. “Job Information Networks, Neighborhood Effects, and Inequality.” Journal of Economic Literature42 (4): 1056–93.
23.
JohnsonJames H.OliverMelvin L.1989. “Interethnic Minority Conflict in Urban America: The Effect of Economic and Social Dislocations.” Urban Geography10:449–63.
24.
KarafinDiana L.2009. “Racial and Ethnic Integration in U.S. Metropolitan Neighborhoods: Patterns, Complexities and Consequences.” PhD dissertation, The Ohio State Univ., Columbus.
25.
KaufmannKaren M.2003. “Cracks in the Rainbow: Group Commonality as a Basis for Latino and African-American Political Coalitions.” Political Research Quarterly (2):199–210.
LevineRobert A.CampbellDonald T.1972. Ethnocentrism: Theories of Conflict, Ethnic Attitudes and Group Behavior. New York: John Wiley.
28.
LimNelson. 2001. “On the Back of Blacks?” In Strangers at the Gates: New Immigrants in Urban America, edited by WaldingerRoger, 186–227. Berkeley, CA: Univ. of California Press.
29.
LopezLindaPantojaAdrian D.2004. “Beyond Black and White: General Support for Race-Conscious Policies Among African American, Latinos, Asian Americans, and Whites.” Political Research Quarterly57 (4): 633–42.
30.
McClainPaula D.CarterNiambi M.DeFrancesco SotoVictoria M.LyleMonique L.GrynaviskiJeffrey D.NunnallyShayla C.ScottoThomas J.KendrickJ. AllanLackeyGerald F.CottonKendra Davenport. 2006. “Racial Distancing in a Southern City.” Journal of Politics68:572–84.
31.
McClainPaula D.KarnigAlbert K.1990. “Black and Hispanic Socioeconomic and Political Competition.” American Political Science Review84 (2): 535–45.
32.
MeierKenneth J.McClainPaulaPolinardJ. L.WinkleRobert D.2004. “Divided or Together? Conflict and Cooperation Between African Americans and Latinos.” Political Research Quarterly57 (3): 399–409.
33.
MohlRaymond A.2003. “Globalization, Latinization, and the Nuevo New South.” Journal of American Ethnic History22 (4): 31–66.
34.
MorinJason L.SanchezGabrielBarretoMatt A.2010. “Perceptions of Competition Between Latinos and Blacks: The Development of a Relative Measure of Inter-group Competition.” In Black-Brown Relations, edited by Rivera-SalgadoGasparTellesEdwardZamoraSylvia, 96–124. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
35.
OliverJ. Eric. 2010. The Paradoxes of Integration: Race, Neighborhood, and Civic Life in Multiethnic America. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago.
36.
OliverJ. EricMendelbergTali. 2000. “Reconsidering the Environmental Determinants of Racial Attitudes.” American Journal of Political Science44 (3): 574–89.
37.
OliverJ. EricWongJanelle. 2003. “Intergroup Prejudice in Multiethnic Settings.” American Journal of Political Science47 (4): 567–82.
38.
PettigrewThomas F.TroppLinda R.WagnerUlrichChristOliver. 2011. “Recent Advances in Intergroup Contact Theory.” International Journal of Intercultural Relations35:271–80.
39.
PowersDaniel A.EllisonChristopher G.1995. “Interracial Contact and Black Racial Attitudes: The Contact Hypothesis and Selectivity Bias.” Social Forces74 (1): 205–26.
40.
QuillianLincoln. 1995. “Prejudice as a Response to Perceived Group Threat: Population Composition and Anti-immigrant and Racial Prejudice in Europe.” American Sociological Review60 (4): 586–611.
41.
SouthScott J.CrowderKyleChavezEric. 2005. “Exiting and Entering High-Poverty Neighborhoods: Latinos, Blacks, and Anglos Compared.” Social Forces84 (2): 873–900.
42.
TaylorMarylee C.1998. “How White Attitudes Vary with the Racial Composition of Local Populations: Numbers Count.” American Sociological Review63 (4): 512–35.
U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2011. “Unemployment Databases, Tables and Calculators by Subject.” Historical Unemployment Data for African Americans and Hispanics. http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet (accessed July 11, 2011).
45.
VossD. Stephen. 1996. “Beyond Racial Threat: Failure of an Old Hypothesis in the New South.” Journal of Politics58 (4): 1156–70.
46.
WaldingerRoger. 1997. “Black/Immigrant Competition Re-assessed: New Evidence from Los Angeles.” Sociological Perspectives40 (3): 365–86.
47.
WaldingerRoger. 2001. “Up from Poverty?: ‘Race,’ Immigration, and the Fate of Low-Skilled Workers.” In Strangers at the Gates: New Immigrants in Urban America, edited by WaldingerRoger, 80–116. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
48.
WashingtonJesse. 2011. “Despite End of Great Recession, Jobless Rate Still Rising for Blacks.” Fort Worth Star Telegram, July10, p. 6A.
49.
WelchSusanSigelmanLeeBledsoeTimothyCombsMichael. 2001. Race and Place: Race Relations in an American City. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.
50.
WilsonWilliam J.2001. The Bridge over the Racial Divide: Rising Inequality and Coalition Politics. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
