Ethnic Enclaves

An ethnic enclave is a place with a high concentration of an ethnic group that is distinct from those in the surrounding area. Most ethnic enclaves are neighborhoods within large cities. Ethnic enclaves with distinctive physical appearances and social structures typically form through migration.

Ethnicities are defined in part by their possession of distinct cultural features, such as languages, religions, and art. These cultural features can influence the creation of a place with the physical appearance and social structure reflective of a particular ethnicity.

As immigrants arrive in a new country, many follow the process of family-based migration, discussed in Chapter 3. That is, new immigrants often locate in places where people of the same ethnicity have already clustered. In an ethnic enclave, newcomers can find people who speak the same language, practice the same religion, and prepare the same foods. They can also get help from people who know how to fill out job applications, sign up for language courses, and adapt to the culture of the receiving country. Most importantly, ethnic enclaves offer newcomers economic support, such as employment opportunities, affordable housing, and loans.

Changing Urban Ethnic Enclaves

The areas that ethnicities occupy in U.S. cities have changed over time. In the early twentieth century, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and other Midwest cities attracted ethnic groups primarily from Southern and Eastern Europe to work in the rapidly growing steel, automotive, and related industries. In 1910, when Detroit’s auto production was expanding, three-fourths of the city’s residents were immigrants and children of immigrants. Southern and Eastern European ethnic groups clustered in neighborhoods named for their predominant ethnicities, such as Detroit’s Greektown and Poletown.

As recently as the middle of the twentieth century, large U.S. cities still had ethnic enclaves established by European immigrants. By the late twentieth century, most of the children and grandchildren of European immigrants had moved out of the inner-city enclaves to suburbs, in some cases forming ethnoburbs. An ethnoburb is a suburban area with a cluster of a particular ethnic population. For descendants of European immigrants, ethnic identity is more likely to be retained through religion, food, and other cultural traditions than through location of residence. A visible remnant of early-twentieth-century European ethnic neighborhoods is the clustering of restaurants in such areas as Little Italy and Greektown.

Polish Constitution Day Parade, Chicago

Chicago has the largest population of ethnic Poles outside Poland. The parade celebrates the ratification in 1791 of a Constitution in Poland, the second country in the world (after the United States) to have one. The parade is also a broader opportunity for Chicago’s ethnic Poles to celebrate their cultural identity.

Cartograms depict the change in Chicago. In 1910, most residents of the city were descendants of immigrants from Europe, but by 1990, descendants of immigrants from Latin America and Asia were comparable in number

Cartograms of Ethnic Groups in Chicago

(a) in 1910, most immigrants were from Europe, (b) in 1990, origins were more diverse.

Urban Ethnic Enclaves

The clustering of ethnicities is especially pronounced at the neighborhood scale. An example is the Goutte d’Or neighborhood in Paris. One-third of the residents belong to ethnicities who have emigrated from former African colonies of France. In the United Kingdom, London has developed a number of ethnic enclaves. One-third of London’s inhabitants were born outside the United Kingdom, including 18 percent in Asia, 7 percent in Africa, and 6 percent in the Caribbean. These ethnic groups have formed enclaves in various parts of London. For example, Bangladeshis and Africans have clustered in the east, Caribbean immigrants in the north and south, and Arabs in the west.

Ethnic Enclave, Paris

Muslim immigrants from Africa pray in the street in the Goutte d’Or neighborhood, because the local mosque isn’t large enough to accommodate everyone who wants to pray.

Ethnic Enclaves, London

(a) Bangladeshi, (b) African, (c) Caribbean, (d) Arab.

In the United States, African Americans and Hispanics are highly clustered in urban enclaves. Around 90 percent of these ethnicities live in metropolitan areas, compared to around 75 percent for all Americans. The City of Chicago, for example, consists of roughly equal numbers of whites, African Americans, and Hispanics. Whites cluster on the North Side, African Americans on the South and West sides, and Hispanics on the Northwest and Southwest sides. Urban ethnic patterns are discussed in Chapter 13.

Pause & Reflect 7.1.5

Can you give an example of an ethnoburb in or near your community?