Towards a Description of Migrant Diversity and Residential Segregation in the Cities of Hermosillo and Nogales, Sonora

Towards a Description of Migrant Diversity and Residential Segregation in the Cities of Hermosillo and Nogales, Sonora RAMÓN ALBERTO JORQUERA LIMÓN The frame of reference for the comparison of residential segregation presented in this essay is the 2000 population census for Hermosillo and Nogales. Census data are the basis for calculating segregation indexes according to the Duncan model (“D”), and for calculating diversity based on contributions by Simpson (S). These are considered the measures with the greatest range and utility for this type of analysis (Rodríguez 2001: 22–23).1 Diversity is the presence of concentrations of populations with different attributes or activities within the same city area; in contrast, specialization refers to the population whose attributes or activities predominate in a determined area. It is worth noting that diversity is related not to the size of a city (see Duranton and Puga 2000: 537–39), but to factors linked to the relationship between raw materials and commercialization, local versus foreign production, and geographical determinants that configure and reconfigure activities, and thus, the social conditioning of the inhabitants. (Thus, large cities can be specialized and small cities can be diverse.) Segregation can be understood in two ways: “In sociological terms, segregation means the absence of interaction between social groups. In the geographic sense, it means an inequality in the distribution of social groups within a given physical space. The presence of one type of segregation does not ensure the existence of the other” (Kaztman, 2001: 11). Residential segregation is defined in general terms as “the degree of spatial proximity or territorial conglomeration of families belonging to the same social group, be it defined in terms of ethnicity , age cohort, religious preference, or socioeconomic status” (Nieves 2004: 2). Based on these definitions, segregation and diversity should not be viewed as two sides of the same coin, since comparison and space RAMÓN ALBERTO JORQUERA LIMÓN is professor in the Department of Sociology and Public Administation at the Universidad de Sonora, Hermosillo. Journal of the Southwest 52, 1 (Spring 2010) : 71–83 72 ✜ JOURNAL OF THE SOUTHWEST adjustments are important to avoid confusion. Thus, a particular area can be segregated with respect to the city but not to adjoining areas, if they are analyzed as neighborhoods, or they can be internally diverse if analyzed as city blocks. As Rodríguez (2001: 18) suggests “the first step for any empirical inquiry on residential segregation consists of specifying the scale of analysis , that is, the territorial units whose social composition and physical proximity will be considered in the calculations and analysis.” Based on this consideration, and those expressed in previous paragraphs, I situate my description within a framework of geographic segregation, wherein the units of analysis are AGEBs (Áreas Geográficas Estadísticas Básicas, or Basic Statistical Geographic Areas)2 which are compared against the city as a whole. COMPARING THE TWO CITIES In terms of the diversity of recent migrants (i.e., with five or fewer years residence reported in the census), the cases of Hermosillo and Nogales are interesting. One might suppose that Nogales, being a border city, would have greater diversity, since it attracts labor for the maquiladora plants and is a port of entry into the United States. This is corroborated by the migrant diversity index, which is 0.89 for Hermosillo and 0.70 for Nogales, showing a higher diversity for the migrant population in Nogales. If the data do not seem to show a great difference, it should be taken into account that Hermosillo has a larger geographic area and a 2000 population of 545,928, as opposed to a population of 156,854 in Nogales. This suggests that the diversity of the immigrant populations is not a function of city size, but rather is dependent on other factors that merit more detailed exploration.3 To determine how diverse or specialized the AGEBs of those two cities are with respect to their overall diversity (i.e., location coefficient), we need a reference for its measurement, which is the diversity index of each city. Thus, Hermosillo has 118 AGEBs (46.4 percent of the total) that fall below the average diversity index for the...