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Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in three Pentecostal temples in the Pico Union district of Los Angeles, this study suggests that Central American immigrant Pentecostalism is framed by "congregational homophily"--or the tendency for individuals occupying similar social and cultural locations to congregate with each other--especially in terms of age, ethnicity, national origin, marital status, and health status. What's more, Central American immigrant congregations often innovate and re-fashion their Pentecostalism to reflect their congregational homophily--an observation that calls into question denominational understandings of Pentecostalism. This study focuses on two Pentecostal practices, healing and roommating, and explores the ways these practices are differentially incorporated into the religious praxis of Central American immigrants in Los Angeles. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses how the spatial changes in Los Angeles, California, have affected 3rd+ Generation Mexican Americans to negotiate their ethnic identity in their everyday lives. The 3rd+ Generation did not move into the ethnic enclave for affordable housing, somewhat they were absorbed in it. The ethnic enclave provides opportunities for self-employment which give both services to the ethnic community and create jobs for new arrivals. The ethnic enclave supports social network ties that help immigrants to navigate the labor market.

The objective of this research proposal is to examine the process of day labor in the United States. Contingent work and day labor are becoming a common form of employment in U.S. metropolitan areas with rapidly growing Mexican, Central American, and South American communities. Contingent workers such as day laborers, often lack legal U.S. residency and are thus vulnerable to exploitation from employers. I intend to conduct a comparative analysis of day labor workers in Detroit, Michigan and Los Angeles, California. Both cities attract undocumented labor, however each is in a unique stage of urban development. Detroit is a post-industrial city in economic decline while Los Angeles is the prototype of the new global city. Given these facts, my research will focus on the everyday lived experiences of day labor workers and how the process of day labor functions within distinct urban structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Religious social service agencies operate within a complex organizational framework, responding to the demands of both legal and religious constituencies. Current social climate has led to increased scrutiny of religious discourses of service, accompanied by contestation over boundaries between church and state. Such dilemmas have prompted this research, an ethnographic exploration of one agency?s attempt to preserve the integrity of the religious act while remaining true to legal standards and a pluralistic context of service. Interviews with employees of Los Angeles Catholic Charities? Immigration and Refugee Services Department suggest that discourses of service are ambiguous and contested, negotiated between parallel discourses of religiosity and secularity and variable along organizational level. Analyzed through the lens of organization and secularization theories, findings demonstrate how competing authorities compel organizations to develop an adaptive discourse combining both religiosity and secularity. A complex organizational field funnels two competing discourses down to the ground level of service provision, where new meanings of religion emerge, selectively accommodating the organizational field. Both secularity and religiosity are intertwined and re-defined in service provision, imploring a new language for faith-based social service within a non-religious functional domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research will improve understanding of immigrant redistribution and adaptation by studying flows and economic adaptation strategies of foreign-born residents who out-migrate from New York City and Los Angeles to secondary destinations in the U.S. urban system. Two broad questions frame this research. First, to what extent are immigrants ?churning? through these gateway cities and where do they go, domestically, when they leave? Second, when immigrants out-migrate from these gateway cities to other nodes in the U.S. urban system, do they take their local ?ethnic economies? with them, that is, do they cluster in similar types of employment in major receiving areas as they do/did in NYC and LA? The primary source of data for this research is the 1980 and 1990 PUMS (also the 2000 PUMS, if available in time for analysis). Preliminary results indicate substantial gross foreign-born outmigration from NYC and LA, which points to the need to better understand how immigrants from these gateway centers insert themselves in new labor market contexts throughout the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How have spatial changes in Los Angeles affected how 3rd+ Generation Mexican Americans negotiate their ethnic identity in their every day lives? Presently, many live in cities transformed by the globalization process that contributed to massive influxes of immigrants from all over the world including Mexico (Kiel 1998, Scott & Soja 1996). The effect of immigration on neighborhood dynamics has had a profound effect on how the 3+Generation negotiate space within the community. It is within this context that the 3rd+ Generation find themselves as "old timers" among other new immigrants and second generation "co-ethnics". This ultimately creates a platform to make and dispute claims of "Mexicaness"/ethnicity. Often literature on neighborhoods does not take into account the various experiences of the 3rd+ Generation within and outside the ethnic enclave. While ethnic succession is not new, the difference here is that many Working Class 3rd+ Generation Mexican Americans cannot afford to leave the ethnic enclave. Many Middle Class respondents are part of an emerging class who still possess strong ties to their working class neighborhoods. However, when one leaves the ethnic enclave they often experience being "othered" and racialized more profoundly. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]