The Latin Melting Pot Is Boiling Over

A bstract . During the 1970s no area contributed more immigrants to the United States, both legal and illegal, than Latin America. The Latin American population in the U.S. has become the country's fastest growing large minority and unless economic conditions in Latin America improve for its poorer population, these people will continue to enter the U.S. in large numbers. The chaotic social situation in the country's Latin ghettos highlights a grave national problem. A. J. Jaffe, R. M. Cullen and T. D. Boswell of the Research Institute for the Study of Man completed a study of this immigration which deserves far greater attention than it has received. They found that cultural convergence of Latins with the non-Latin White population varied by subgroup, and was heavily dependent upon the volume of immigration of a particular subgroup and the degree of their concentration in this country.     

Ethnic Competition for Residential Space in Miami, Florida, 1970–80

A bstract . Between 1970 and 1980 the Hispanic population of Miami had a phenomenal rate of growth while the Black population also grew rapidly. The non-Hispanic White population actually experienced a numerical decline. The Hispanic population of the city has been highly successful in improving its economic well-being and has been able to penetrate deeply into non-Hispanic White neighborhoods throughout the city. Blacks have not been able to increase their economic well-being as greatly and their expansion has been confined largely to neighborhoods adjacent to older Black neighborhoods. Non-Hispanic White neighborhoods shrank considerably in area during the decade and today are mainly found on Miami Beach , in northeast Miami and the far south of the city. If large scale Hispanic migration continues, and the Black population maintains its rate of growth, by 1990 Miami will likely have an even smaller non-Hispanic White population than today and be ethnically more segregated.     

Income Polarization Between the Central Cities and Suburbs of U.S. Metropolises, 1950–1980

Abstract . Through an examination between 1950 and 1980 of household income in central cities and suburbs of the 37 largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas of the United States. was found that considerable polarization of household income groups had occurred. By 1980 the median share of the poorest within the total households of the central cities had risen to well over double the share of the group in the total households of the suburbs. The share of the wealthiest households in the total for the suburbs rose to double that of that group's share of the total central cities households. No generalizations could be made which would explain the degree nor the rate of polarization, though a number of socioeconomic variables were tested.     

Housing Segregation of a Predominantly Middle Class Population: Residential Patterns Developed by the Cuban Immigration Into Miami, 1950-74

A bstract . Latin Americans , principally Cubans , have entered Miami in large numbers since 1950. Although most who arrive have both urban and middle class backgrounds, which greatly facilitate their economic assimilation within the city, they have come in such large numbers that they are not becoming residentially assimilated with the non-Latin population. Instead, through invasion and succession they are creating their own ethnic ghettoes , a fact which is proven in this study through use of the location quotient and indexes of dissimilarity. Miami's Black population has always been isolated from both the Latin and non-Latin White populations. The city's major ethnic and family-cycle groups, however, have steadily become more isolated from the Latins since 1950. Furthermore, following the departure of these groups from neighborhoods invaded by Latins, they have relocated throughout the city in a way so that they are becoming increasingly more isolated from each other.     

Flight from the Ghetto

A bstract . The movement of middle-class Blacks from the Black ghettos is a phenomenon which greatly intensified in the 1970s. Using 1980 data for ten Florida Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas with large populations, it was determined that the intensity of the migration varied greatly among the cities , for a variety of different reasons. All ten cities, however, experienced clustering among the middle-class Blacks who moved from the ghettos. This clustering was usually around large public service institutions , principal employers of the group. Tracts selected by the Black middle class generally have homes more expensive and newer than the tract average, and the period of occupancy of the residents was shorter than the tract average. Usually Black households in White tracts within the Florida cities do not have socioeconomic parity with their White cohorts.