Celebrating the legacy, embracing the future: How research can help build ties between historically African American Churches and their Latino immigrant neighbours

Abstract

In South Los Angeles, like in many low-income urban communities throughout the country, Latino immigrants are moving into historically African-American urban neighborhoods. This results in some real and some perceived competition for government resources, jobs, and political power. In such contexts, religious institutions can play a powerful role in building alliances between African-American and Latino immigrant residents. This case study aims to inform how the Second Baptists Church of Los Angeles, a historically African-American church and leader in civil rights, can begin developing ties with its Latino neighbors. Drawing on analyses of publicly available administrative data and original needs assessment data, we identify issues that might unite African-Americans and Latinos around a common agenda. This study presents a replicable model for a research-based approach to promoting multi-racial alliances in neighborhoods experiencing demographic transitions.

Keywords:

• immigration
• faith communities
• neighborhoods
• university–community relations

Notes

 1. Authors have access to original data used by Blackwell et al. (2010) so were able to get the exact percentages shown in their Figure 1-1.

 2. IRCA also aimed to deter undocumented migration through increased border enforcement and sanctions for employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers (Massey, Durand, & Malone, 2003).

 3. Data analysis by the authors, 2009 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates, Los Angeles County. Latinos include persons of all races. For data tables, go to factfinder.census.gov.

 4. Because the neighborhood was defined by the Church, we use approximate boundaries. The Public Use Microdata Area (PUMA) surrounding Second Baptist Church is quite homogenous, so we use PUMA-level data from 2006 to 2008 which gives us recent and rich socioeconomic and housing data. When we report data on the metro area, that is the “Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana” Metropolitan Statistical Area (metro), includes Los Angeles and Orange counties.

 5. Tabulations by the Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (CSII) at USC from IPUMS 2006–2008 American Community Survey (ACS) data. Unless otherwise specified, all data in this report is from this source.

 6. Data from 2006 to 2008 indicate that about 64% of renters pay more than 30% of their income toward rent, Census data tends to undercount and neutralize extremes in under-resourced communities. As a result, we tend to favor our survey data, where possible.

 7. CHIS data is available in Service Planning Areas (SPAs). For the neighborhood, we use SPA 6 which encompasses the neighborhood but also includes surrounding communities. 2007 California Health Interview Survey, UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, www.chis.ucla.edu.

 8. The Environmental Cumulative Impact score (CI score) uses a variety of publicly available data sources on air quality, socio-economics, and health using Census Tracts and data from 2000. The CI score indicates how a neighborhood (census tract) compares to others in the six-county Southern California region. The score ranges from 3 to 15, and takes into account proximity to hazardous facilities, measures of health risk due to stationary and mobile sources of air pollution, and measures of social vulnerability that might make people more susceptible to health impacts given any level of risk. It places focus on where people live, and is thus mapped only for areas where the land use is residential or “sensitive.” Sensitive land uses are areas that tend to host more vulnerable populations and include schools, childcare facilities, healthcare facilities, and urban playgrounds/parks. For methodological details, see Sadd, Pastor, Morello-Frosch, Scoggins, and Jesdale (2011), for details on the ongoing project, seehttp://college.usc.edu/pere/projects/cumulative_impacts.cfm.

 9. South Los Angeles Health and Human Rights.http://www.southlahealthandhumanrights.org/

10. For more specific recommendations and organizations with whom the authors suggested collaboration, see the report commissioned by Second Baptist Church, seehttp://csii.usc.edu/documents/2nd_Bapt_Report_web.pdf.