Ethnic Los Angeles [Hardcover]

Roger Waldinger (Editor), Mehdi Bozorgmehr (Editor)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 497 pages
• Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation (January 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0871549018
• ISBN-13: 978-0871549013
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,322,105 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a snapshot of 90s Los Angeles, May 14, 2006

By 

W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ethnic Los Angeles (Paperback)

Waldinger looks at the myriad ethnic entanglements of Los Angeles. The book is a collection of papers by various authors, that delve into the recent history of the ethnic groups. Written shortly after the 1992 riot, and when LA was still stumbling out of a combination of that riot, recession and the 1994 Northridge quake, the book offers a good study of 90s LA.

Now, ten years hence, much of the book is still quite germane. Though LA has grown strongly since then, in years of considerable prosperity that have reduced much of the tensions within the city.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Torn - should actually be 2.5 stars, June 18, 2007

By 

Willy Yu "willywyu" (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ethnic Los Angeles (Paperback)

Interesting read with lots of statistics, for which it won an award ten years ago. However, the book fails on describing where it bases its statistics (e.g. geography, social categories, facial resemblance or something else). For example, "Asians" are listed as East Asians (i.e. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Pilipino, Indian, etc.), yet another section lists "Middle Easterners" - who are Central Asians - in a different category as namely "Middle Easterners." These categories are probably based on U.S. Census statistics, but there's not even a footnote that conveys this message.

Another section labels Russians - who are from Europe AND Asia - as "Anglos", yet never really explains why Russians from Asia have effectively been excluded. Do those people just not go to Los Angeles? The authors never say, "We have labeled them this way because..."

Still, there's lots of facts and figures that the authors have collected, which are surprising and even alarming, such as bilingualism, acculturation, etc.

Read it if you want, but there's better books out there.