Elsevier

Social Science Research

Volume 68, November 2017, Pages 117-131
Social Science Research

Solamente Mexicanos? Patterns and sources of Hispanic diversity in U.S. metropolitan areas

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2017.08.006Get rights and content

Abstract

Rapid Hispanic growth has been a major source of increasing ethnoracial diversity in the United States. However, diversity within the Hispanic population is frequently obscured by the tendency to lump all Latinos together. Our study examines Hispanic diversity at the local level, drawing insights from the Mexican dominance, Caribbean-centric settlement, spatial assimilation, and economic opportunity perspectives. Measures of the magnitude and structure of Hispanic origin-group diversity during the 1990–2010 period are constructed for 363 metropolitan areas based on each area's shares of Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Dominicans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Colombians, and ‘others’. We find that diversity magnitude varies markedly across metropolitan Hispanic populations. Although the most diverse metro areas lack a majority origin group, Mexicans often constitute a majority or plurality of local Latinos. Diversity levels and structures have remained relatively stable over time. In both 1990 and 2010, metro areas with more diverse, multigroup Hispanic communities are distinguished by their larger size, smaller proportion of Hispanics, location farther from Mexico and closer to the Caribbean, and greater odds of being a military hub. They also exhibit higher rates of housing construction and lower rates of agricultural and manufacturing employment. We use weighted data to show that Dominican metro dwellers experience the highest Hispanic diversity while the average Mexican lives in an area where four-fifths of all Latinos are Mexican. Overall, our results provide primary support for the Mexican dominance perspective but some support for the other three perspectives as well.

Section snippets

Unpacking panethnicity

The institutionalization of Hispanic or Latino panethnicity is relatively recent, emerging from prolonged negotiations that began in the 1970s between the Census Bureau and an assortment of Latino advocacy organizations, businesses, and media over how best to classify people of ‘Spanish origin’ (Mora, 2014). Conceptually, the social construction of a panethnic population emphasizes what persons from different national or ancestral backgrounds are believed to have in common. In the case of

Data

We rely on data from the summary files (SFs) of the 1990 and 2010 decennial censuses and the 2008–2012 American Community Survey (ACS) to explore Hispanic diversity. The race by Hispanic or Latino origin crosstabulation in SF1 yields counts of Hispanics of any race and of non-Hispanic whites, blacks, Asians, Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, multi-race individuals, and those reporting some other race. Collapsing categories enables us to define Hispanic and non-Hispanic populations in an

Metropolitan variation

Our initial research question asks how Latino origin group diversity differs from one metropolitan area to the next. We begin to address this question by describing the magnitude of diversity in 2010. Across all 363 metro areas, the average entropy index score equals 50, at the midpoint of E's 0–100 range. However, marked variation exists around that average. Table 1 explores the tails of the distribution, identifying the 10 most and least diverse areas by name and presenting mean

Conclusion

Our analysis offers answers to a series of understudied questions about the origin-group diversity of Hispanic populations within metropolitan areas. We find that the magnitude of Hispanic diversity, as measured by E, ranges widely. Local Latino communities with no-majority structures are concentrated at the high end of the diversity continuum; homogeneously Mexican communities, at the low end. Mexicans make up the majority or plurality origin group in more than eight of every ten metro areas.

Funding

Support for this research has been provided by a grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD074605). Additional support comes from the Population Research Institute of Penn State University, which receives infrastructure funding from NICHHD (P2CHD041025). The content of the paper is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not reflect the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

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