University of California, Los Angeles

Two Urban Planning faculty members participated in a conference entitled “The Chicano Experience: The Culture, Economy and Politics of the Mexican-American Community in the United States,” conducted in Spain in November to promote Chicano/Latino studies in that country.  Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda, Assistant Professor of Urban Planning and Research Director of the North American Integration and Development Center, discussed the global Chicano political economy as it relates to US-Mexico integration. Abel Valenzuela, Assistant Professor of Urban Planning and Chicano Studies, and Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Urban Poverty, gave a presentation about immigration and the native Mexican population in California.  Both faculty members are part of the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, which sponsored the series of panel presentations along with the Universities of Valencia, Granada and Sevilla.

According to Abel Valenzuela, co-editor of   Prismatic Metropolis: Inequality in Los Angeles,  published by the Russell Sage Foundation , Los Angeles and the nation as a whole have enormous work to do to ensure rising standards of living and greater equality. The study examines the relationship between the labor market, housing market, and attitudes about race and relations among ethnic groups in Los Angeles County.  Prismatic Metropolis is the largest component of a multi‑city study of urban inequality funded by the Ford Foundation and the Russell Sage Foundations. Other cities studied were Atlanta, Boston and Detroit. The study concludes that negative stereotypes and prejudice, especially toward African Americans and Latinos, remain widespread problems in Los Angeles. Economic hardship has a strong racial and ethnic dimension, with segments of the African‑American and Latino communities bearing a heavily disproportionate burden of joblessness and poverty.