Abstract
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.
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