From E1 to 90057: The Immigrant-Serving Nonprofit Sector Among London Bangladeshis and Los Angeles Central Americans

Abstract

This study contributes to the current literature on the welfare state, the voluntary sector, and immigrant communities in two ways. It compares two immigrant groups who immigrated to London and Los Angeles in the 1980s (Bangladeshis and Central Americans, respectively), in terms of how their immigrant-serving, nonprofit sector mediates the larger welfare state, itself pluralistic and neoliberalizing. Results suggest that although each community experienced similar grassroots origins that expanded to assume the functions of an unaccommodating welfare state, development trajectories have diverged considerably since the 1980s. For London Bangladeshis, the sector is smaller because of much stronger national and local welfare state settlements, whereas for the Central-Americans in L.A., the sector is larger and has been forced, due to a residualized welfare state, to shoulder far greater burdens.

Keywords:

• welfare state
• London
• Los Angeles
• neoliberalism
• immigrants