Opportunity and Place: Latino Children and America’s Future

DOI10.1177/00027162211039504
Published date01 July 2021
Date01 July 2021
AuthorKenneth M. Johnson,Daniel T. Lichter
Subject MatterPlace
20 ANNALS, AAPSS, 696, July 2021
DOI: 10.1177/00027162211039504
Opportunity
and Place:
Latino Children
and America’s
Future
By
DANIEL T. LICHTER
and
KENNETH M. JOHNSON
1039504ANN THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYOPPORTUNITY AND PLACE
research-article2021
We examine the spatial distribution of Hispanic children
and analyze its relationship to the geography of opportu-
nity. We describe the spatial distribution of Hispanic
children across all U.S. counties, document their expo-
sure to salutary and deleterious conditions, and compare
exposure to these conditions among children living in
metropolitan and nonmetropolitan counties that repre-
sent traditional and new destinations for immigrants. We
find clear evidence of racial and geographic differences
in opportunity, at least as defined by spatially uneven
patterns of intergenerational mobility. We show that the
typical Hispanic child is highly isolated, living in a county
with a majority-minority population, high rates of pov-
erty, low levels of education, and poor public health.
Opportunities are limited in metropolitan core counties,
where the large majority of Hispanic children live, and
the movement of immigrant families from traditional
gateways to new destinations provides little to children in
terms of exposure to more opportunity.
Keywords: Latino; spatial inequality; rural-urban;
intergenerational mobility; concentrated
poverty; race and ethnicity; children
Latino children1 make up an increasing
number and share of America’s population
under age 18—18.7 million or roughly 26
Daniel T. Lichter is the Ferris Family Professor, Emeritus,
in the Department of Policy Analysis and Management at
Cornell University and a research associate of the
Cornell Population Center. His recent work has focused
on changing ethno-racial boundaries, as measured by
changing patterns of interracial marriage and residential
segregation in the United States. He is especially inter-
ested in America’s racial and ethnic transformation,
growing diversity, and the implications for the future.
Kenneth M. Johnson is a senior demographer at the
Carsey School of Public Policy, Class of 1940 Professor
of Sociology at the University of New Hampshire, and
an Andrew Carnegie Fellow. His recent research exam-
ines county patterns of migration and population redis-
tribution, chronic rural depopulation and natural
decrease, and the relationship between demographic
and environmental change.
Correspondence: dtl28@cornell.edu
OPPORTUNITY AND PLACE 21
percent of all children in 2019 (Kids Count 2020). They are distributed unevenly
across the United States, overrepresented both in poor urban neighborhoods
(Tienda and Fuentes 2014) and, more recently, in “new destinations” throughout
America’s rural heartland, the Carolinas, and many other parts of the South and
Northwest (e.g., where their parents often work in aquaculture; meat processing;
and the dairy, timber, hospitality, and construction industries) (Johnson and
Lichter 2016; Saenz 2012). Many live in Spanish-speaking barrios in the
Southwest, in underdeveloped rural colonias along the Mexico-Texas border
(e.g., Hidalgo county), or with their families on corporate vegetable and fruit
farms in Southern California (e.g., Santa Cruz county), which have historically
provided few opportunities for upward mobility into mainstream American soci-
ety. In parts of the lower Rio Grande Valley—Laredo, McAllen, Brownville and
El Paso—Hispanics live in neighborhoods that on average are more than 85
percent Hispanic.2 For Hispanic children, place and opportunity are inextricably
linked.
Whether the spatial redistribution of America’s Latino children and youth
signals a new geography of opportunity is unclear. Our article addresses this
question at a politically contentious period in U.S. social and demographic
history. Hispanic children are in the vanguard of the nation’s changing racial and
demographic composition—especially as the mostly White baby boom genera-
tion is succeeded by more diverse birth cohorts. Diversity occurs from the “bot-
tom up”—with children and youth at the demographic forefront (Johnson and
Lichter 2010; Lichter 2013).
Hispanic population growth, fueled by immigration and natural increase (i.e.,
excess of births over deaths), has occurred unevenly across regions, cities, sub-
urbs, and rural areas in ways that could impede cultural and economic integration
of Latino children and youth. Most studies have focused on residential segrega-
tion of racial and ethnic populations across neighborhoods (i.e., census tracks or
blocks) in metropolitan areas (Ludwig et al. 2012; Sharkey and Faber 2014),
emphasizing so-called neighborhood effects—how children’s developmental tra-
jectories are shaped by where they live. Indeed, studies show that Hispanic chil-
dren remain isolated from mainstream American society, exposed instead to
underresourced and highly segregated schools, crowded and dilapidated housing,
and poor and dangerous neighborhoods that restrict economic opportunities for
parents and caregivers. Sharkey and Faber (2014, 560) suggest that this preoc-
cupation with urban neighborhoods “has distracted attention from the larger
question of how different dimensions of the residential context, which operate at
NOTE: This research was supported by an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship from the Carnegie
Corporation of New York and by the New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station in
support of Hatch Multi-State Regional Project W-4001 through joint funding of the National
Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, under award number
1013434, and the state of New Hampshire. Barbara Cook of the Carsey School of Public Policy
provided GIS support. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not
necessarily represent the official views of the agencies supporting their research. Finally, the
coauthors acknowledge the helpful comments of the coeditors and external reviewers.

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT