Manufacturing marginality among women and Latinos in neo-liberal America

Abstract

Intersectionality is the study of how categorical distinctions made on the basis of race, class and gender interact to generate inequality, and this concept has become a primary lens by which scholars have come to model social stratification in the USA. In addition to the historically powerful interaction between race and class, gender interactions have become increasingly powerful in exacerbating class inequalities while the growing exclusion of foreigners on the basis of legal status has progressively marginalized Latinos in US society. As a result, poor whites and immigrant-origin Latinos have increasingly joined African Americans at the bottom of American society to form a new, expanded underclass.

Keywords:

• intersectionality
• race
• class
• gender
• immigrants
• legal status

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [grant R24 HD047879].

Additional information

Funding

Funding: This work was supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [grant R24 HD047879].

Notes on contributors

Douglas S. Massey

DOUGLAS S. MASSEY is the Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University.