Social Enclaves: What Neighborhood Are You From?

As a young colored women living in LA County, I have always been fascinated with the police approach and attitudes towards minorities and rural part of LA. I was aware with the gangs’ situation in major cities of country, including LA. Yet, I was unaware of the history and rise of gangs etc. When I came across the movie,”Bastards of the Party”, I was thrilled and excited. I could relate to this documentary with the theories such as racial segregation and white supremacy. I was also able to relate to this documentary with Coates reading the “between the world and me.” Coates work is not a work of inspiration or optimism. It is not written for white people - not written to comfort them, pat them on the back for their occasional acknowledgment

The history of Mexicans in Los Angeles is a long one. The city itself was founded in 1781, by Spaniards and mixed race Latinos. As time went on, Latinos faced more and more discrimination. Certain events stand out in California’s Latino history. In the forties, Caucasian sailors would beat up Latinos who wore “Zoot Suits”, or baggy clothes, and the police let the Caucasians do it with no consequences.

For decades racial discrimination has been a reoccurring issue that has shaped the relationships across the country. Riots, in the case of the L.A. riots, are a form of venting and a negative form of freedom of expression. Almost immediately after the jury`s decision to seize the officers of charges that included assault with a deadly weapon and excessive use of force towards King, riots broke out across Los

Race riots are one of the major news items we hear about via the media when a social crisis occurs. The riots in Baltimore, however, were not so much about race, but more about economic and social class separations. The riots began as a peaceful protest amongst the citizens of Baltimore over the death of one of their own, Freddie Gray. Gray was a young, African-American, from a financially lower class area of Baltimore. Unfortunately, he died while in custody of the Baltimore Police. While this is a tragic loss, he was unlawfully detained by the police (Sarlin, 2015) during this ordeal. On the surface, the riots may appear as a cut-and-dry race provoked, once they are looked into further, that is not necessarily the case.

Despite the important racial progresss our society has made since Emmett Till’s death, from the civil rights era, to present increase of police brutality has still left the Black/African American community in shadows of segregation. The second most recent shooting of teenager Michael Brown has left citizens in ongoing battles with law enforcement officers of Ferguson, Missouri. New Statement (2014) reports, Missouri police similarly attempted to retain control of the narrative, claiming Brown had stolen cigars, and then paying for them, and then claiming he was a bad child and attacked the officer who shot him” (New Statement, 21). Brown autopsy reveals he was gun less and shot six times. Police brutality is not solely about Ferguson, Emmett Till, or the civil rights movement, but it is simply about the history of capitalism and police brutality in America and having many forms of it.

The shooting of sparked a nation-wide movement not only demanding justice for Mike Brown, but also protesting the racial discrimination deeply embedded in the criminal justice system as well as various institutions in the larger American society. Furthermore, jfdkjfjdakljk something about international recognition. Similar protests and riots have been springing up in other cities since 1960s, and police killings of unarmed black men happen once every 28 hours (Kahle, 2014). However, Michael Brown’s killing has led to the most sustained uprising against police violence in at least two decades, centered among the African American residents of Ferguson, and has rallied significant nationwide support as well as international attention (Kahle, 2014; Taylor, 2014). The killing of Michael Brown is by no means an isolated event, and presence of racial tensions, especially in the St. Louis area, was already present long before. The large-scale pushback that the killing of Michael Brown has set in motion, then, seems to have been the last straw, prompting the eruption of decades of pent up frustration at a racist and oppressive system. That being said, what are the previous straws that have slowly pushed the black community in Ferguson to the breaking point? What are the factors that have caused these tensions to boil over and erupt into such a large-scale upheaval? This paper will explore some of the

This essay will attempt to show evidence that supports the question ‘Does residential segregation shape the social life of cities and people’s sense of who they are’ by using different types of evidence, such as qualitative, which comes from interviews, focus groups, or even pictures and other artistic endeavours like murals. Whilst quantitative is obtained from statistics, surveys and records. Evidence will be looked at by what has appeared over time, looking at the growth of Manchester during 1800’s, with migration of people from the country side, to the city to take up jobs of an industrial nature and how segregation kept the wealthy and workers apart and the inequalities of conditions they lived in. Then at more recent evidence showing a case study of Belfast and the history of a single street Portland Road in London and how segregation can create connections as well as disconnections in people’s lives and how this shapes peoples sense of who they are.

Employment challenges and economic disparities amongst Hispanics in the United States has been an ongoing battle, social policies along with institutions continue to perpetuate poverty among Latinos’ and African Americans. According to Liu (2011), Labor market segmentation by race/ethnicity, gender, and national origin has been recognized as a prominent feature of urban labor markets in immigrant gateway cities across the United States. A direct example of this would be when Cubans’ immigrated to Miami in the 1960’s, at first, they were welcomed by the Americans with open arms until they realized they could be in competition for employment as the Cubans were not leaving to go back home. This created many issues especially when it came to welfare,

The L.A. Riots is one of the massive riots in american history. The riots were caused by the injustice beating of Rodney King by four officers. To put it in perspective, the riots happened because of racism by jury and officers. I watched a sundance film trailer about the L.A. Riots and how koreans were affected by the riots. After watching the trailer, I decided to do research and I learned about the deep details of how the riots happened. The L.A. Riots changed my morals on how people can be proved guilty or innocent so easily, plus my perspectives on racism against minorities of the United States. My perspective is that police have been harassing more people of color more during the

The book: “Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys” was written by the author Victor M. Rios who was also a gang member in Oakland, California. He selected a total of 40 young men for this investigation, 30 of them had been previously arrested in the state of California. This book has two main sections. Over the first section we find Chapter 1 which sets the different methods and some of the experiences the author lived when he was working on this project. This chapter also deals with the punitive system developed in the city of Oakland, CA. If we turn pages to chapter number 2 we will find a brief description of Oakland along with its high level of poverty and reduced opportunities. Victor emphasizes that Latinos and Blacks have had a strong trajectory in criminal acts and punitive social control.

This picture taken by Barbara Davidson in Los Angeles on December 29,2010 depicts the true reality of the environment that the people in Los Angeles were living in. The photo informs audiences that many families were victims caught in the crossfire of the gang violence that erupted within the city. The victim in this picture is a young man still in high school shot and killed walking home after a shopping trip. The photographer uses pathos and appeals to the audience emotions by showing the sorrow and pain left behind by these acts of violence and complete disregard to human life and those affected in the aftermath. The context of this photo can be political and cultural in that the suspect of this picture was an undocumented immigrant teenager

Under the term of Donald Trump’s presidency, the polarized stances toward undocumented immigrants and racial minorities have become more apparent to the public. As the Trump’s administration repeatedly associating racial minorities with crimes and immoralities, Edward Orozco Flores’s book, God’s Gangs: Barrio Ministry, Masculinity, and Gang Recovery, is a blessing to those who wish to further understand gang formation and the “way out of the wrong crowd”.

“The Republic of East L.A. Stories” captures the heartbreaking experiences Mexican-American’s were forced to endure. Escaping poverty, alcohol abuse, drug use, and gang violence was an everyday struggle for many families during this time. African American and Latino gangs were initially created as a response to white racism. They were restricted as to what areas they could live in and where constantly harassed. As their populations increased, so did white gangs, in order to take control of their “territory”. African Americans and Latinos had no choice but to protect their families by fighting back. As time went on, the violence only continued. The Civil Rights Movement led many gang members to join organizations like the Black Panther Party, but the government quickly responded by breaking them up and soon enough, street gangs quickly returned. The violence escalated, alcohol,

Within ethnic communities, there are a huge number of people who face language barriers that prevents them from seeking employment outside of their ethnic community. People within these ethnic enclaves do not feel the need to learn the dominant language, because the majority of the population with their community speaks the same language as they do. Places like San Francisco’s China town has established their own enclave that includes everything from grocery shops to hospitals. This

Many academics, including the most famous sociologist alive today, William Julius Wilson has proven the fact why many Immigrants work in such low paying jobs in the service sector. Namely because many Native - US born citizen just do not want them. In other words, there is a demand for their labor because low-income Blacks and Latinos frequently won't take those kinds of jobs. In fact, it is proven that Immigrants can actually generate more jobs. Given the fact that, they have revitalize the reproduction of garment manufacturing, shoe manufacturing and even agriculture. Because of all these immigrants taking over what the Native born Us would take, industries like these have actually been recovering from being shut down. Now with new departments and industries being opened, they create many new jobs for the middle range people allowing them to continue on with their own standard way of living (i.e. personal services, in hotels, restaurants, maintenance, cleaning, construction etc.).