ABSTRACT
Susan M. Walcott and Arthur Murphy Introductory Overview: Atlanta Setting This chapter examines the impact of a surge during the 1990s in Latino immigration to Atlanta, arguably the economic engine of the Deep South. Our discussion analyzes the varied composition of metropolitan Atlanta’s Latino community through the lens of segmented assimilation. The segmented assimilation approach is focused upon citizens of different sending countries occupying varied occupational and economic sectors. This analysis explores this phenomenon in metropolitan Atlanta and extends the concept to patterns of segmented settlement as well. This constitutes a key contribution to understanding the transformative impact of Latino populations on the Atlanta metropolitan area in both economic and community terms. Utilizing this organizational framework it is hoped that our understanding of the complexities of Latino immigration to a top new Sunbelt magnet for both domestic and foreign born migrants is broadened and enriched (Portes and Zhou, 1993; Frey, 2002a, 2002b). In 2000, the 20 county Atlanta Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) was the largest urban region in the American South. Centered on the city of Atlanta, the region extends outward in multiple layers of urban and suburban development across north Georgia (Figure 8.1). An attractive destination for domestic and international migration, the 2004 American Community Survey estimates the MSA population is 4.47 million residents (U.S. Census Bureau, 2005). Indeed, in 2000, 418,721 MSA residents were foreign-born (Duchon, Hendrix, Walcott and Kart, 2003). During the last decade of the 20th century, Atlanta experienced 118 per cent growth in its Latino population, continuing a trend begun in the mid-1980s that endures into the first decade of the new century. Georgia’s capital serves as the epicenter of a southeastern Sunbelt boom in employment, drawing migrants motivated primarily by job opportunities. Although Mexican immigrants constitute by far the bulk of Latino population in metropolitan Atlanta, defined as the six core
Source: Duchon, Hendrix, Walcott and Kart, 2003. Figure 8.1 Atlanta Metropolitan Statistical Area, 2000 counties around the central city, significant Latino leadership and population groups also come from Cuba in various migration waves, as well as Central and South America. Table 8.1 indicates the wide number of Latin American countries sending emigrants to Atlanta. Although Central America represents 82.7 per cent of the Latino source region figure, and roughly 80 per cent of that group comes from Mexico, eighteen other countries send their citizens to metropolitan Atlanta. The variety is often obscured by the Latino label and the similarity of language - with the exception, of course, of Portuguese-speaking Brazil, which comes in eighth on this list. The range of Central and South American countries listed, and the three decades over which different groups have immigrated to Atlanta, provide an
Table 8.1 Metropolitan Atlanta Latino population, 2000
Place of Origin Population Proportion of
Regional Total Mexico 120,328 67.83% Colombia 8,647 4.87% Guatemala 7,904 4.46% El Salvador 7,780 4.39% Honduras 5,585 3.15% Brazil 4,593 2.59% Cuba 4,003 2.26% Guyana 3,291 1.86% Peru 3,141 1.77% Venezuela 2,234 1.26% Panama 2,226 1.25% Ecuador 1,874 1.06% Nicaragua 1,547 0.87% Dominican Republic 1,026 0.58% Costa Rica 1,024 0.58% Argentina 875 0.49% Chile 799 0.45% Puerto Rico 298 0.17% Bolivia 234 0.13% Central America (includes Mexico) 146,758 82.72% South America 26,862 15.14% Total Metro Atlanta Foreign Born Latino Population 177,409
Source: Census 2000 Summary File 4. excellent illustration of what Portes and Zhou (1993) term ‘segmented assimilation’ or multiple paths to incorporation in a new society. Significant differences exist among each of these groups and are felt most particularly, as this chapter details, in employment sector representation and within the diverse and evolving Latino community itself. Atlanta Migration Surges and Streams It is important to remember that census data reflects a moment in time and that Atlanta’s 2000 Latino population is the most recent reflection of a much longer
migration process. As imperfectly captured in the dicentennial censuses, migration to Georgia-primarily concentrated in its leading city of Atlanta-accelerated in particular time periods and included various sending countries in each time segment. Twentieth century Latino immigration to Georgia began as Mexican agricultural assistance in the southern part of the state during periods of labor shortage such as World War II. The U.S. government’s Bracero program (1942-1964) legalized the use of what became 4.6 million temporary Mexican laborers to fill such gaps (Griswold, 2002). Foreign immigration to Atlanta began to register in the mid-1970s during the ‘fourth wave’ of major American immigrant influx following the landmark major revision of national immigration laws in 1965 (Martin and Midgely, 1994; Hill, 1979). In January 1975, Maynard Jackson, the first Black mayor of Atlanta, proclaimed a ‘Spanish speaking Peoples Day’. Historically, the proportion of Latino immigrants from particular countries varied enormously, reflecting periods of political economic instability in different countries at different times (Table 8.2), thus contributing to the segmented assimilation affect. For instance, DeKalb County, a low cost housing location, served as the earliest recipient of Cubans in the 1970s. Many individuals in this group were former professionals fleeing communism under Castro. But, by 1980, refugees from Guatemala’s civil war were around four times more numerous than Cubans of the previous decade, and Mexicans topped that number by 1990. In contrast to the Cubans, the latter two groups largely came from the working class or peasant agriculturalists (Dameron and Murphy, 1997). By the 1990s, the lure of better schools and jobs in other counties redirected the Cuban migration flow to more prosperous Gwinnett, north Fulton, and Cobb counties. The surge in Mexican immigration over three decades-particularly the 1990s-multiplied the 1970 census figures for Mexican immigrants by a factor of 4-8 times in most metropolitan Atlanta counties. The building boom concentrated in the counties north of the city of Atlanta accelerated settlement in these counties. As shown in Table 8.2, the proportion of Latinos varies from 9.6 per cent to 17 per cent in each of the four major counties where their population is concentrated in metropolitan Atlanta. Whereas DeKalb contains the largest number of Latinos, it also serves as a receiving site for a wide range of immigrants from numerous countries. Gwinnett’s top percentage score reflects the concentration of Latinos extending east along Buford Highway, into the southern portion of Georgia’s most populated and one of its most rapidly growing areas. The concentration of Columbians in Gwinnett comes largely from their higher economic sector jobs, while the predominance of Caribbean migrants in DeKalb evidences their concentration-and related businesses-along Memorial Highway in that county which also features a large number of Blacks in the general population. Indeed, with the exception of a proportionally large White population concentration in northern Cherokee and a proportionally large Black population concentration in south/central Fulton, Latino settlement has spread across the metro area. Figure 8.2 contrasts the location of metropolitan Atlanta’s Latino population in the 1990 and year 2000 censuses. Displaying Latino population in this dot density format more accurately reveals the amount of concentration rather than generalized by census tract. A clear concentration of population in both decades
Table 8.2 Latino population in major Atlanta counties, 2000 Cobb DeKalb Fulton Gwinnett All Foreign-born Population 70,439 101,320 78,619 99,518 Per cent County Population 12.0% 15.0% 9.6% 17.0% Total Foreign-born Latin America Population 35,712 50,955 37231 45,599 Per cent Foreign-born 51.0% 50.0% 47.0% 46.0% Foreign-born Caribbean 5,195 12,761 4,991 4264 Cuba 764 1,055 868 974 entry ‘90-‘00 217 150 306 359 entry ‘80-‘89 27 149 112 149 entry pre ‘80 501 613 398 451 Dominican Republic – 581 – 445 Puerto Rico 89 59 74 76 Foreign-born Central America 24,872 32,508 26,810 34,049 Mexico 21,492 24,054 24,219 26,682 Per cent Total Foreign-born Latin America 61.0% 47.0% 65.0% 59.0% entry ‘90-‘00 16,685 20,031 19,534 20,136 entry ‘80-‘89 4,053 3,265 3,863 5,427 entry pre ‘80 754 758 822 1,119 Guatemala 651 2,339 – 1,315 Honduras – 1,643 501 628 Salvador 982 1,440 676 1,801 Foreign-born South America 5,645 5,686 5,430 7,286 Columbia 976 1,199 1,140 2,697 Ecuador 255 – – – Peru 439 431 – 514 Venezuela – – – 442
Source: Census 2000 Summary File 4 (http:factfinder.census.gov). stretches along Buford Highway in a unique concentration of low cost apartments that will be discussed later. The proliferation and spread of Latino population into more outlying counties indicates the sprawl of new construction for which Atlanta is infamous. The enormity of the numerical increase of Latinos into Georgia’s primary city, and the patterns of their settlement over the course of the last decade, only begins to
Source: Duchon, Hendrix, Walcott and Kart, 2003. Figure 8.2 Atlanta Metropolitan Latino Population, 1990 and 2000 suggest the pressures within the immigrant community for cultural adaptation to a traditional bi-racial/bi-cultural society and within the receiving community for services designed for a group that is culturally distinct from the two traditionally dominant groups of Whites and Blacks (Portes and Stepick, 1993; Martin and Midgley, 1994; Ong et al., 1994; Roseman, 2002). The relocation of people from a developing country-many of whom are rural agriculturalists-to the booming Bible Belt Atlanta metropolitan area requires adjustments that provide both sending and receiving countries and citizens with a visible object lesson in globalization’s cultural and political economic ramifications (Appadurai, 1996; Clark, 2003). Social service agencies in Atlanta-including churches, non-governmental organizations, mutual assistance associations, voluntary agencies, and government agencies at various local to national levels-helped to direct and manage the large
and diverse immigrant population that began to come in the 1970s. Refugee and resettlement organizations targeted Atlanta due to the availability of many types of jobs, the availability of low cost housing (particularly as noted earlier along Buford Highway), and an affordable cost of living. Numerous churches proved willing to serve as sponsors for indigent immigrants who could then fill their emptying pews and coffers, as former congregation members migrated to more distant suburbs. As the largest city in the southeast, Atlanta serves as the regional headquarters for large organizations including CARE, World Relief, Save the Children, Georgia Mutual Assistance Association, World Catholic Relief, Lutheran Ministries, Asian Community Services, and the Latin American Association. The division between immigrant and refugee classification and services came to the fore when funding reductions for Georgia’s State Office of Refugee Resettlement left non-native groups to contend for a shrinking benefits pie. Limited resources to deal with a large special needs population (foreign immigrants) exacerbated tensions between native born Black groups and immigrants with different medical customs, cultural practices, and special demands such as for translation services (Dameron and Murphy, 1997). The influx of immigrants coincided with a corresponding out-migration of non-Hispanic White workers laid off in the economic downturn of manufacturing during the 1960s and 1970s. Native born Black resident concentrations remained in the southern section of the city of Atlanta, rather than spreading to newly available but transient housing areas. Blocks of newly vacant apartments serviced by mass transportation along Buford Highway provided miles of available and affordable housing, precipitating in turn sales of modest single family homes by a large Jewish population in the area (Fennell, 1977). Construction of the heavy rail Metropolitan Area Rapid Transit (MARTA) train system in the 1980s added two major stations to the transportation facilities of the Buford corridor. In a pattern typical of that mapped for other low-wage immigrant groups in Atlanta (Duchon et al., 2003) the stillevident concentration of Latino settlement along this arterial highway results from both the abundance of affordable housing as in other cities with similar situations (Smith and Furuseth, 2004) and the location of sponsoring agencies and churches for whom it is convenient to have their sponsored individuals nearby. The Havana Sandwich Shop opened in 1976 as the first of many varied ethnic eateries along what is known in the Latino community as ‘La Buford’. Another Cuban migrant from the first wave in the 1960s became the first Latino head of Coca Cola, Roberto Goizueta. The ascent to such positions of power reflected exceptional individuals from a Latino community with a broad job base and multiple constituent parts, detailed in the following section.
