Resurgent Ethnicity and Residential Choice Among Second-generation Asian Americans in a Los Angeles Panethnic Suburb

Abstract

We draw on forty-six in-depth interviews with residents of Cerritos, California, a middle-class majority Asian suburb in Los Angeles County to explore the meaning of resurgent ethnicity and the ways in which a racialized identity informs residential preferences and choice among second-generation Asian Americans. Findings suggest that second-generation Asian Americans are choosing to reside in a place that offers cultural and class-based amenities that reflects a multiethnic sensibility. They also make residential choices based on family ties to strengthen and maintain intergenerational relations and share mutual social and economic resources. For second-generation Asian Americans, this racially dominant but ethnically diverse spatial settlement also provides a sense of belonging, signifying the continuing significance of race among middle-class, acculturated racial minority groups. As U.S. ethnic populations continue to grow and continue the trend of suburbanization and segregation, understanding such places and their implications will become increasingly important.