The Politics of Diversity: Immigration, Resistance, and Change in Monterey Park, California (review)

In The Politics of Diversity: Immigration, Resistance, and Change in Monterey Park, California, sociologist John Horton offers an outstanding model of how a community reacts to ethnic, class, and cultural transformation.

Three factors work to make this study excellent. First, the data collection and analysis was carried out by a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual team of male and female researchers working in various communal settings. Second, the researchers’ theoretical and methodical openness and sophistication allowed them to learn from and build upon their collective observations. Finally, the subject of the book — Monterey Park, California — is a unique and fascinating city. A moderately diverse (White, Japanese American, and Latino) yet Anglo-conforming, middle-class Los Angeles suburb until the late 1960s, by the 1980s, Monterey Park was transformed into the “First Suburban Chinatown” in the United States by a sizable influx of largely middle-class Asians — many from Taiwan.

The research team used multiple research methods, including analysis of census data, in-depth interviews, participant observation at community events, and exit polls at local elections. From 1988 to 1994, they studied the development of community alliances and conflicts, focusing on local elections, community organizations, and key issues. Attuned to class and tenure in the community, they devoted special attention to ethnicity, noting, “We understood that in a changing community, ethnicity was something to be explained, not taken for granted, its meaning, boundaries, and political significance shifting with the economic and demographic changes that had fundamentally internationalized the local setting.” (p. 7) The study simultaneously addresses several levels of analysis: from the micro realm of block parties, sports events and other foundations of grass roots organization; to the meso level of city and regional social, demographic, and economic issues; to macro considerations of the world-system, central to the understanding the arrival of middle-class Asian immigrants.

Community responses to immigration and change were sharpest in the areas of zoning, land use, and real estate development. As Mike Davis describes in City of Quartz (1990), a classic book on the social history of Los Angeles, real estate has long been the growth engine of the Southern California economy. However, during the 1980s, community politics were remade throughout the region as homeowners and other grass roots actors united to resist the long unchallenged power of developers.

Initially, under the banner of opposing uncontrolled growth, a coalition of established residents opposed the Chinese presence. However, as time passed, new and old residents of various ethnic origins joined to forge a multi-ethnic future and fight against unwanted development in their neighborhoods. The demographic realities of the city — where no one ethnic group could ever muster a majority — meant that ethnically specific appeals were ineffective. Consequently, political candidates representing diverse ethnic, class, and ideological stripes, and the interests of newcomers and established residents alike, were forced to mobilize wider bases of support. Thus ethnic loyalty played a part in determining patterns of political mobilization; it was not the only dimension.

Moreover, within Monterey Park, the socially constructed nature of ethnic and national identities and class interests became obvious. Depending upon the issue and its context, almost any possible combination of constituencies might be brought together or split apart. For example, there was evidence of Latinos and Asians uniting against Whites and then siding with Whites against recently arrived Asians. Conversely, there were elderly Anglos who supported a drive by Taiwanese developers to establish a gambling club, a move opposed by Latinos and Chinese immigrants. Finally, in a wonderful example of the process of ethnic re-definition at the local level, Horton describes a block party organized by Anglos to celebrate the “good old days.” Despite its Euro-American premise, the event was attended almost exclusively by Latinos and Chinese retirees, who dutifully cooked hot dogs (the celebration’s official food) while planning a Cinco De...