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Shades of conflict and conviviality: negotiating intercultural living and integration in Los Angeles's globalizing multi-ethnic spaces

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Shades of conflict and conviviality: negotiating intercultural living and integration in Los Angeles's globalizing multi-ethnic spaces

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SHADES OF CONFLICT AND CONVIVIALITY:
NEGOTIATING INTERCULTURAL LIVING AND INTEGRATION IN
LOS ANGELES’S GLOBALIZING MULTI-ETHNIC SPACES

by

Felicity Hwee-Hwa Chan

________________________________________________________________________

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(POLICY, PLANNING, AND DEVELOPMENT)

August 2013

Copyright 2013 Felicity Hwee-Hwa Chan

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Contents
Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ iii
List of Figures ..................................................................................................................... v
List of Tables .................................................................................................................... vii
Preface.............................................................................................................................. viii
Abstract ............................................................................................................................. xii
1. Introduction: Tensions of Diversity in Globalizing Cities ....................................... 1
2. Approaching and comparing everyday social space: framing, design, fieldwork
and writing..................................................................................................................... 47
3. Scene One: Negotiating cultural differences and diversity in San Marino ............ 79
4. Scene Two: Negotiating poverty and diversity in Central Long Beach .............. 126
5. Scene Three: Negotiating Fragmentation and Diversity in Mid-Wilshire ........... 165
6. Gathering the Patterns of Intercultural understanding (ICU) in diversity ........... 203
7. Ice-breakers and Bridge-makers: Building everyday relational spaces of
conviviality .................................................................................................................. 244
8. Concluding thoughts and future research ............................................................ 298
Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 313
Appendices ...................................................................................................................... 327

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Acknowledgements
An astute acquaintance after looking at several of the maps I had made for the
dissertation concluded humorously in his Greek accent, “This is like building a spaceship
by hand!” I would add to his apt observation that this spaceship has indeed been built by
many generous pairs of hands and financed in its last year by the USC Graduate School
Dissertation Completion Fellowship 2012-13.

Foremost, I would like to acknowledge the 140 interviewees who willingly gave of their
time to share with me their experiences, without whom there would be no dissertation to
write. The congenial support from the head librarians (Ann Dallavalle, Chris Parsons and
Sue Taylor) in the three neighborhoods to let me use their space to kick start the
interview process has been absolutely critical to getting this project off the ground. Thank
you.

My fellow sojourners and their spouses from my PhD cohort, particularly Sanghee Park,
Cheongsin Kim, Michael Cheng-Yi Lin and Elena Maggioni, have been a continual
source of encouragement over coffee and meals during the last 70 months of our lives
when we all took turns feeling lost in the desert. I also want to thank Meredith Drake
Reiten, Surajit Chakravarty and Stephanie Frank who have been part of my academic
sojourn at USC at different points as “PhD seniors” to shed light on getting from here to
there.

Friends near and far have been a support to me in prayer and in deeds. Grateful thanks
must go to Juliana Zhu for her faithful “check-ins” in this past year to make sure my
needs are prayed for and for her generosity to help with editing early versions of the
manuscript that were convoluted in the most polite sense. My friends in Singapore since
when we were thirteen, especially Winnie Lim and Yanzhen Lui, despite the oceans
between us and the time differences, have encouraged me through their steady streams of
email and WhatsApp messages, reminding me of God’s faithfulness and keeping me
grounded through life’s transitions.

I was also blessed to live in Zürich for six months during a timely phase of writing this
dissertation. There I met with Christian Schmid at the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology (ETH Zürich) who generously gave of his time and expertise to engage in
several intellectually stimulating conversations about the theories of Henri Lefebvre.
Those exchanges helped me work out the theoretical kinks that I encountered in applying
Lefebvre to this dissertation. During this time also, I got to know Ileana Apostol, another
USC “PhD senior” at ETH Zürich. We had many lovely hours of engaging discussions
about doing urban research and Henri Lefebvre.

Many professors at USC have guided me at various points along this long journey. I want
to especially thank the special acts of kindness from Andrew Curtis who has offered
helpful advice early on about using GIS for my dissertation, and Lisa Schweitzer who
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mentored me, gave me opportunities to teach and showed me through her example how
teaching can be inspiring!

I am very grateful to my dissertation committee comprising of Janet Hoskins, Alison
Renteln and Dowell Myers. Janet, I want to thank you for being so open and easy to
sound ideas out with and for your insightful thoughts to develop them. Alison, I want to
thank you for your constant encouragement to pursue my research ideas. Your
enthusiasm and support have made the completion of this dissertation possible. Dowell,
thank you for persuading me that USC is a good place to study immigration and
developing my appreciation for it!

Without the faithful guidance and insights of my dissertation advisor, Tridib Banerjee,
this dissertation will never come to light. He encouraged me to explore and find my
interests, never rejected a meeting request, patiently gave his hours to intellectually
engage my ideas and most of all, he believed in the value of this project when many did
not. Thank you for your intuitive understanding of the spirit behind my ideas even when I
did not see them clearly myself. You have been a wonderful mentor and taught me a lot
on how to be a good teacher through these six years.

Although my parents have only a faint idea of what I am researching about and why, but
they have given me their unwavering support and love across the oceans and through life.
My mother’s wise counsel and timely perspectives have time and again steered me away
from harmful stress. My dad’s work ethic and my brother’s humor were invaluable assets
for this journey.

To my life companion and soulmate, Ji-Jon Sit, who has cautioned me against traveling
on the same narrow PhD path, I owe my deepest appreciation. Thank you for being there
through the hills and valleys, praying with me and for me, gently reminding me of the
love of Jesus Christ for me whenever I met with self-doubts, and inspiring me with your
purity for truth! I am thankful to God for you. Without your care and support, the PhD
would have been impossible.

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List of Figures

Figure 1.1: Foreign Born and their origins in LA County. ............................................... 37
Figure 1.2: Ethnic diversity, density and distribution in Los Angeles County in 2010 .... 38
Figure 1.3: Location map of the three study areas in Los Angeles County ................. 42
Figure 2.1: Conceptual framework of a rotating tetrahedron of Lefebvre-Lofland-
Lynch (3L) social space dialectics ................................................................................. 53
Figure 3.1: Photo of Huntington Drive, San Marino ..................................................... 80
Figure 3.2: Photo of a single-family house for sale, San Marino ................................. 80
Figure 3.3: Photo of activities in Lacy Park, San Marino ............................................. 81
Figure 3.4: Photo of Hauntington Breakfast, San Marino ............................................. 81
Figure 3.5: Geographic distribution of ethnicities in San Marino and its surrounding
region in 2010 .................................................................................................................. 83
Figure 3.6: Zack’s cognitive map, San Marino .............................................................. 89
Figure 3.7a: Collective boundaries of residents and long-time workers, San Marino 91
Figure 3.7b: Collective boundaries of regular visitors, San Marino ............................ 91
Figure 3.8a: Routine geographies of White Caucasian interviewees, San Marino ..... 95
Figure 3.8b: Routine geographies of Asian interviewees, San Marino ........................ 96
Figure 3.9: Zoning map of the City of San Marino ....................................................... 98
Figure 3.10: Territories in San Marino. ........................................................................ 100
Figure 4.1: Photo of housing conditions, Central Long Beach ................................... 127
Figure 4.2: Photo of street life along East Anaheim Street, Central Long Beach. .... 128
Figure 4.3: Photo of sidewalk life, Central Long Beach ............................................. 128
Figure 4.4: Photo of “Cambodia Town”, Central Long Beach ................................... 129
Figure 4.5: Geographic distribution of ethnicities in Central Long Beach and its
surrounding region in 2010 ........................................................................................... 130
Figure 4.6: Laura’s cognitive map, Mid-Wilshire ....................................................... 136
Figure 4.7: Collective conceived neighborhood boundaries, Central Long Beach ... 138
Figure 4.8: Geography of danger, Central Long Beach............................................... 139
Figure 4.9a: Conceived neighborhood boundaries of newcomers, Central Long Beach
......................................................................................................................................... 142
Figure 4.9b: Conceived neighborhood boundaries of old-times, Central Long Beach
......................................................................................................................................... 142
Figure 4.10a: Conceived neighborhood boundaries of White Caucasians and African-
Americans, Central Long Beach ................................................................................... 144
Figure 4.10b: Conceived neighborhood boundaries of Latinos and Asians, Central
Long Beach .................................................................................................................... 144
Figure 4.11: Routine geographies, Central Long Beach ............................................. 146
Figure 4.12: Routine spaces along East Anaheim Street, Central Long Beach ......... 147
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Figure 4.13: Gang territories and danger areas, Central Long Beach ........................ 150
Figure 4.14: Conceived territories and areas to avoid, Central Long Beach ............. 153
Figure 5.1: Luciana’s cognitive map, Mid-Wilshire.................................................... 166
Figure 5.2: Collective conceived neighborhood boundaries, Mid-Wilshire .............. 167
Figure 5.3: Photo of street of large houses and mansions, Mid-Wilshire .................. 169
Figure 5.4: Photo of Larchmont Village, Mid-Wilshire .............................................. 170
Figure 5.5: Photo of Koreatown streetscape, Mid-Wilshire ........................................ 170
Figure 5.6: Photo of apartment living, Mid-Wilshire .................................................. 171
Figure 5.7: Geographic distribution of ethnicities in Mid-Wilshire in 2010 ............. 174
Figure 5.8a: Collective conceived neighborhood boundaries of eastern Mid-Wilshire
residents .......................................................................................................................... 177
Figure 5.8b: Collective conceived neighborhood boundaries of western Mid-Wilshire
residents .......................................................................................................................... 177
Figure 5.9a: Routine geographies of eastern Mid-Wilshire residents ........................ 178
Figure 5.9b: Routine geographies of western Mid-Wilshire residents ....................... 178
Figure 5.10: Composite fractal territories of Mid-Wilshire. ....................................... 181
Figure 5.11: Sketch of the “ethnic bubble” living by Hannah Youn .......................... 183
Figure 6.1a: Status of intercultural understanding in the neighborhoods before
working definition is given by percentage distribution .............................................. 207
Figure 6.1b: Status of intercultural understanding in the neighborhoods after working
definition is given by percentage distribution ............................................................. 207
Figure 6.2: The opportune dimensions of cultivating intercultural understanding ... 238
Figure 7.1: Photo of Van Ness / Robert Burns Park, Mid-Wilshire ........................... 253
Figure 7.2: Photo of Mark Twain Library, Central Long Beach ................................ 258
Figure 7.3: Suggestions to improve neighborhood spaces for relationship-building 267
Figure 7.4: Photo of Martin Luther King Parade, Central Long Beach ..................... 270
Figure 7.5: The most likely neighborhood places to start a conversation .................. 281
Figure 7.6: Neighborhood places where familiarity matters most ............................. 283
Figure 7.7: Qualities of public spaces that encourage intercultural understanding .. 285
Figure 7.8: Photos of Santa Monica Public Library, California. ................................ 292
Figure 7.9: Photo of Lugano Parco Civico, Switzerland ............................................. 297

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List of Tables

Table 2.1: Total number of interviews in each setting, the composition and type ........... 57
Table 3.1: Demographic characteristics in San Marino 2000 and 2010 ...................... 85
Table 3.2: Feelings and reasons of belonging in the three study areas ........................... 120
Table 4.1: Demographic characteristics in Central Long Beach 2000 and 2010 ...... 132
Table 5.1: Demographic characteristics in Mid-Wilshire 2000 and 2010. ................ 172
Table 6.1: Descriptive definitions of intercultural understanding according to
interviewees ................................................................................................................... 215
Table 6.2: Patterns of barriers to intercultural understanding .................................... 221
Table 7.1: Routine destinations and good intercultural “third places” ...................... 262

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Preface
The origins of this research project did not in fact begin in Los Angeles. The research
interest about the everyday experience of negotiating integration in culturally diverse
settings began between the interstices of time and space of my multiple relocations
between Singapore, Boston and Los Angeles between 2002 and 2007. Moving between
the identities of a native and a foreigner within an intense short span of time, I became
sensitized to the tensions of crossing borders and negotiating cultural differences.

During this same period (post 9-11 world), the rhetoric of global immigration discourses
in European and American cities shifted from an era of celebrating diversity through
globalization to one that highlighted the problems and growing intolerance of foreign
residents about their different practices of religion and culture in urban space. Even in
Singapore, a multi-racial city-state with predominantly ethnic Chinese citizens that was
touted for its political success in keeping social peace and for its openness to foreigners,
an unexpected tide of social friction and anti-immigrant sentiment between Singaporeans
and foreigners, particularly the new immigrants from China was brewing.

These social and personal experiences of the tensions of global immigration, of which I
was part of and continued to be a part, led me to interrogate the experience of everyday
complexities of living with global diversity. As someone keen in urban planning, I
thought: if only we knew more about what difficulties people faced and their experiences
of negotiating cultural differences, then, we could better understand how to respond in
concrete and meaningful ways to help move cities out of conflict into conviviality. To
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this end, Leonie Sandercock’s (2003) Cosmopolis II: Mongrel Cities in the 21
st
Century
and Ash Amin’s (2002) Ethnicity and the multicultural city: living with diversity were
two influential sources of inspiration.

Originally intended as a research to compare Singapore, Los Angeles and possibly
another Canadian or European city struggling with the stresses of global immigration, the
clearly ambitious contours of the original research intention were eventually pared down
to Los Angeles, where I was based, due to practical but worthy concerns. Thus, Los
Angeles was my “home” and my “field” where I as a foreigner resident interviewed
Americans and non-Americans about their urban lived experiences of global diversity,
further blurring the distance between “here” and “there” (Gupta and Ferguson 1997b) as
well as complicating “the dichotomy between Us and Them” (Gupta and Ferguson 1997b,
33 quoting Kath Weston).

To begin, I am approaching this study of negotiating Los Angeles’s diversity through the
eyes of someone with nested identities as a fourth generation Singaporean Chinese, an
Asian foreigner who has lived in American cities for a decade, a resident of Los Angeles
and an observer of global trends. Hence, my study in Los Angeles is explicitly as much
about studying a globalizing process in Los Angeles that I have first observed elsewhere
as it is inherently comparative with other globalizing cities right from its inception
because of the lens I am looking through. As one of the largest immigrant gateways in the
United States, the magnitude of cultural diversity (e.g. ethnicity, nationality, language,
religion and immigration history) in Los Angeles combined with its polycentric structure
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and disparities in socio-economic conditions presents a global diversity that is complex in
scope and formation. For this purpose, I have selected three settings of different
diversities and income within Los Angeles to study and compare.

Earlier in the research project, I was asked what kinds of cultural diversity I was studying:
Was it a study based on interaction between two specific ethnic groups such as White-
Black, Black-Latino? Was it a study between the native-born and the foreign-born? Or
was it a study to compare the experiences of integration of different Asian-origin
immigrants who I might have an advantage to study? However, being raised in a multi-
ethnic context very different from the American one, my predilection was to understand
diversity of ethnicities beyond the traditional group sociology. The diversity I was
interested in exploring was not a group-focused one but the phenomenon of how diversity
as a whole i.e., different ethnicities and nationalities, was experienced and its tensions
negotiated.

The scope of the research project was also intentionally focused on the experiences of
adults rather than children, and on the living space rather than the workplace. Adults,
especially those who do not work in multi-cultures workplaces, usually lack the
opportunities that school environments provide to substantively learn and interact with
someone from a different culture. Hence, adults compared to children can experience
more daily barriers encountering cultural differences and as a result, likely suffer from
greater social isolation. Further, adult parents are active agents in shaping the
intercultural mindsets and opportunities of their children to interact and bond with other
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ethnicities and nationalities through informal and formal engagements outside the school
settings. This study thus regards its focus on adults’ experiences living in diversity as a
strategic intervention to inform how diverse cities can be planned and designed to
respond to the barriers and opportunities to make everyday local urban spaces (e.g. parks,
libraries, shops, sidewalks etc.) in settings of diversity to become spaces for multi-
generational intercultural living and integration.

Last but not least, I was asked if this was a study about social capital (Putnam 2000 and
2007). It is and it isn’t. While there may be many familiar strands in terms of discussion
about how to improve the interaction between neighbors and community life, the goal is
not to increase social capital as a means for greater civic participation. Instead, its
objective is to find out how globalizing diverse urban environments can be planned and
designed to encourage the growth of intercultural understanding and capabilities as
means to relationship and friendship building between different ethnicities and
nationalities so that multi-ethnic spaces can become spaces of productive conviviality
rather than spaces of destructive conflicts.

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Abstract
The contested process of sharing lives and space in contemporary culturally diverse
globalizing cities challenges head-on the inadequacy of abstract discourses about
integration that do not address the daily palpable experience of negotiating the tensions of
diversity. These tensions are produced by the intersections of real and imagined
differences in expectations, values and ways of life between different ethnicities and
nationalities that often find expressions in and through their use of urban space. This new
set of globalizing dynamics will inexorably require that policies, plans and designs of
new urban interventions in globalizing multi-ethnic spaces consider these tensions
carefully and their implications for intercultural integration. However, there is a relative
silence in empirical scholarship about how inhabitants in diversity negotiate everyday
integration and the kinds of urban space that facilitate intercultural understanding (ICU).

This dissertation begins from the everyday multi-ethnic spaces of globalizing Los
Angeles. I used mixed methods of cognitive mapping, ethnographic and semi-structured
interviews and survey to understand the inhabitants’ experiences of negotiating the
tensions of diversity through the sharing of social space, and to discover the existing
possibilities of local neighborhood spaces for ICU. Framing the investigation with
Lefebvre’s (1991) conceptualization of the production of social space as a dialectical
triad of conceived-perceived-lived space in the form of an innovative rotating
tetrahedron that combines with Lofland’s (1998) theory of the public realm and Lynch’s
([1960] 1998) method of cognitive mapping, I discuss how the sharing of social space is
negotiated through nested boundaries, territories and routines in three multi-ethnic and
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multi-national settings of different socio-economic status (San Marino, Central Long
Beach and Mid-Wilshire) within metropolitan Los Angeles.

I found that ordinary Los Angelenos who live in multi-ethnic diversity maintain in their
daily lives a fleeting and routinized co-presence with their neighbors of different
ethnicities and nationalities, adopting a range of prosaic “negotiation” that includes
“hunkering down” (Putnam 2007), adopting a “civility of indifference” (Bailey 1996),
creating “comfort zones,” living in “ethnic bubbles,” trading racial slurs and harboring
prejudices in private. Conviviality in diversity is occasional but rare, transient and does
little to transform longer term relationships in existing inter-ethnic ties. The dissertation
illustrates that these prosaic negotiations in shades of conflict and conviviality are in fact
critical in shaping the formation of the sense of local belonging and the possibilities for
intercultural living and integration in settings of diversity.

Based on the findings, I argue that public space and institutional initiative and
intervention is extremely important to the formation of an ethos and practice of
intercultural living. To support this argument, the dissertation presents the different
conceptions of intercultural understanding by the inhabitants in these diverse settings,
uses the analysis of the empirical findings to recommend where and what kinds of
strategic interventions for intercultural living could be introduced, discusses the qualities
of urban spaces that are conducive for intercultural understanding and friendship, and
shows how Lefebvre’s logic of social space production can be tapped in urban
interventions to transform social space into an intercultural space.
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1. Introduction: Tensions of Diversity in Globalizing
Cities
And one might see among those who travel that every human being is akin and a friend to a
human being. And friendship seems to hold cities together, and lawmakers seem to take it more
seriously than justice, for like-mindedness seems to be something similar to friendship, and they
aim at this most of all and banish faction most of all for being hostile to it. And when people are
friends there is no need for justice, but when they are just there is still need of friendship, and
among things that are just what inclines toward friendship seems to be most just of all.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book Eight Chapter One, translated by Joe Sachs (2002, 144)

“One might see among those who travel that every human being is akin and a friend to a
human being…And when people are friends there is no need of justice, but when they are
just there is still need of friendship…,” Aristotle writes in Book Eight Chapter 1 of
Nicomachean Ethics (Sachs 2002, 144). Friendship is a coveted virtue not only by people
but by cities and lawmakers because “friendship seems to hold cities together” according
to Aristotle. Yet with the intensifying travels of peoples and nations across city borders
through globalization, what we are witnessing in globalizing cities is not necessarily a
growth in the virtue of friendship across cultures and boundaries but its antithesis.

Living with and in ethnoscapes of “tourists, immigrants, refugees, exiles, guestworkers
and other moving groups and persons” (Appadurai 1990, 297) has led to a production of
tensions arising from the “disjuncture and difference” in the interaction between people
and places. We hear about the “friction” of globalization (Tsing 2005) in squabbles over
mundane concerns of different neighborly expectations about noise, cultural habits and
mores between neighbors of different ethnicities and nationalities, we read about conflicts
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over land use and cultural landscapes pertaining to mosque construction in California and
in Switzerland, we experience the unease whenever episodes of dispute or violence laced
with overtones of ethnicity, race, nationality or religion are reported or discussed.
Habitual contact in diversity has not brought understanding and goodwill (Allport [1954]
1979, Amin 2002) but opposite effects of catalyzing friction and social anomie as people
according to Putnam’s (2007, 149) study, “‘hunker down’ that is pull in like a turtle” in
settings of diversity.

These tensions have exasperated German Chancellor Angela Merkel in October 2010
when she stated with candor that “Multiculturalism has utterly failed!” Her
pronouncement of the illusion that Germans and guestworkers could “live happily side by
side” (Smee 2010, Spiegel Online International, October 18 2010) echoes with the same
poignancy in Rodney King’s desperate appeal at the height of the Los Angeles civil
unrest in 1992, “Can we all get along?” The struggles to live in and with daily differences,
diversity and density have raised debates about the efficacy of multiculturalism to “hold
cities together” in tandem with the production of academic and political discourses about
the exigencies for integration and interculturalism. While some of the discourses are
helpful in conceptualizing and clarifying the theoretical and discursive heartbeat of the
dilemmas and debates of living in and with diversity (e.g. Gutmann 1994, Parekh [2000]
2006, Vertovec and Wessendorf 2010, Kymlicka 2012), many remain abstract ending
their ruminations with a call for more dialogues between cultures or vague exaltations of
the virtues of diversity living.

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Indeed, as Sandercock (2000) provocatively states in her paper titled “When strangers
become neighbors: managing cities of difference,” the banality of everyday life is at the
heart of the frictions of globalizing process. In a response to the frictions and tensions of
“living with diversity” in a multicultural city, Amin (2002, 967) conceptualized a practice
of “urban interculturalism” that emphasizes the prosaic negotiation of differences in
everyday spaces in order to build understanding and respect between ethnicities. This
process of urban interculturalism by creating opportunities for encounters of intercultural
conversations in everyday activities and spaces, purposefully diverges from “versions of
multiculturalism that either stress cultural difference without resolving the problem of
communication between cultures, or versions of cosmopolitanism that speculate on the
gradual erosion of cultural difference through interethnic mixture and hybridization”
(Amin 2002, 967). In this way, urban interculturalism complements the necessary but
inadequate forums of cultural dialogues that are frequently proposed by political
philosophers as the way forward through “distinctive individual and interpersonal
experiences” in everyday spaces that build understanding and respect between different
cultures embodied in ethnicity or nationality in these globalizing settings (ibid.).
Therefore, urban interculturalism promises to create the conditions that encourage and
enable friendships to form across cultural lines that are valuable to the social cohesion of
cities according to Aristotle in Nichomachean Ethics in the opening quote. Cross-group
friendships (described as “close high-quality intergroup relationships”) are important as
Pettigrew and Tropp (2011, 117, 128) found in their research because they help “in
reducing prejudice and promoting positive intergroup effects.”

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Using three diverse (multi-ethnic and multi-national) and socio-economically different
settings in Los Angeles, this dissertation explores how prosaic encounters across cultural
lines occur, where these interactions unfold, what the barriers against intercultural
understanding are, if and how local urban spaces including public spaces shape the
opportunities for intercultural understanding and lastly, the characteristics of urban
spaces that create possibilities for everyday interculturalism to flourish. In this study,
intercultural understanding (ICU) is defined as “engaging in mutual learning and
adaptation between different cultures and ethnicities.” It is used as a proxy to describe the
dimension of meaningful interaction through “distinctive individual and interpersonal
experiences” that forms a part of the urban interculturalism that Amin (2002, 967) writes
about. Intercultural understanding (ICU) is thus approached in this dissertation as an
enabler of the set of conditions conducive for intercultural living, the formation of
intercultural friendships and the process of intercultural integration.

The “intercultural integration” that I refer to in this study have these work-in-progress
qualities
1
: first, it is a process with an objective to seek an outcome that is more than the
sum of its parts; second, it entails reciprocity that requires all sides to give, learn, adapt

1
The qualities of integration used here build on the definition originally given by Dowell Myers (18
November 2008) in his presentation titled “Immigrant Integration as a Process in Time” at the Sol Price
School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California. He defines, “Integration is a dynamic,
two-way process of mutual accommodation by immigrants and established residents of receiving societies.
Integration involves the socioeconomic advancement of immigrants, including their economic, civic and
social incorporation, and it also requires investment by the receiving society in the well-being and
productivity of the newcomers.”
Page | 5

and transform in order to arrive at a higher ground of genuine and deeper understanding
between individuals and cultures; third, it requires negotiating relations, perceptions, and
issues of space-sharing across nested layers of diversity including ethnicity, citizenship
and length of residency.

This dissertation stems from these seemingly disparate strands of normative ideals of
human relations in urban settlements, the observations of discord in the everyday social
life of diverse globalizing cities, and the troubled dissatisfaction with abstract intellectual
and political discourses about living together. The aim of the dissertation is hence to
ground these anecdotal observations in empirical settings and move past the unhelpful
discourses about integration and its related -isms to understand the experiences, barriers
and opportunities in the process of everyday integration. This is undertaken with the
purpose to inform how diverse globalizing cities can productively intervene in the
spheres of urban policy, planning and design to build convivial urban spaces that bring
people together and “hold cities together” (Aristotle in Nichomachean Ethics, Sachs
2002).

Framing diverse globalizing settings
Tensions of people and space
In his conceptualization of ethnoscapes, Appadurai (1990) likens ethnoscapes formation
to a seamless and fluid process of movement that have cut loose the tight moorings of
people and places in anthropological imagination that have produced static portrayals of
culture, Appadurai (1990, 297) writes,
Page | 6

By ethnoscape, I mean the landscape of persons who constitute the shifting world
in which we live: tourists, immigrants, refugees, exiles, guestworkers and other
moving groups and persons constitute an essential feature of the world, and
appear to affect the politics of and between nations to a hitherto unprecedented
degree. This is not to say that there are not anywhere relatively stable
communities and networks, of kinship, of friendship, of work and of leisure as
well as of birth, residence and other filiative forms. But it is to say that the warp
of these stabilities is everywhere shot through with the woof of human motion, as
more persons and groups deal with the realities of having to move, or the fantasies
to move.

However, the phenomenon of ethnoscapes formation in fact implies three types of
tensions between groups of people that are inherent to the process and are tied to space:
They are the tension between stable communities and those on the move, the tension
between different cultures co-existing in space, and lastly, the tension between the
material and the imagined (Chan 2013). Embedded in these tensions are both
unproductive and creative capabilities that are unleashed according to how the balance in
the tensions is maintained. Tsing’s (2005, 5) vivid description of the nature of friction in
the process of globalization is a case in point. She writes, “a study of global connections
shows the grip of encounter: friction. A wheel turns because of its encounter with the
surface of the road; spinning in the air it goes nowhere. Rubbing two sticks together
produces heat and light; one stick alone is just a stick.” Similarly, the three tensions of
Page | 7

diversity are anchored by opposite extremes (i.e., stability and movement, material and
imagined) on both ends. Negotiating this tension creatively and productively requires
finesse by individuals to delicately walk the tightrope and cities to ensure that the
tautness of the rope is skillfully regulated so that the influence of one extreme is not
growing at the expense of the other. For example, when stable communities are
destabilized by new global immigration, opportunities arise for change and growth.
However, if the community never regains new stability while the foundations of its old
stability are being eroded, the creative tension loses its potential for growth and promise
for transformation. Instead, the creative tension translates into encounters of friction,
producing excessive heat and light that is uncomfortable and detrimental to all.

The tension of stability and mobility is also hinted by Castells ([1996] 2000, 453) in his
discussion of “space of flows” and “space of places.” The “space of flows” refers to new
social spaces that cater to the “network society” of jet-setting elites that facilitate their
fluidity and exclusivity, while the “space of places” refers to “locale whose form,
function, and meaning are self-contained within the boundaries of physical contiguity”
where people outside the “network society” experience their everyday life. In a
subsequent discussion, Castells (2005, 50) re-conceptualizes this somewhat static spatial
binary and states that “there is a growing tension and articulation between the space of
flows and the space of places.” Using Castells and Appadurai together enlarges the lens
through which we can frame the globalizing processes and its related tensions so that the
framing is not limited to an overly people-dominant framework as in Appadurai’s (1990)
discussion of ethnoscapes or a static binary spatial framework that Castells ([1996] 2000)
Page | 8

uses. Instead as Gupta and Ferguson (1997a) emphasized, the study of globalization must
be framed as a dynamic negotiation of people-space tensions. They have argued for the
necessity in anthropology to ask questions about how the relations between people and
local places are being re-territorialized and formed in globalizing spaces rather than
taking them as given. This was the basis of inquiry in Banerjee, Chakravarty and Chan’s
(forthcoming) discussion of the emerging ethnoscapes of Southeast Asian diasporas in
Los Angeles.

This people-space framework is extremely critical if we are to understand the tensions at
work in cities. According to Holston and Appadurai (1999, 10), cities have become the
uneasy intersections where the politics of immigration and citizenship gets worked out as
“politics of quality (in particular difference) meets the “politics of quantity (and the
anxieties of density).” Cities are the sites of the new “politics of recognition” (Taylor
1994), where identity formation goes with new ways to imagine communities, territories
and to inhabit spaces (Sassen 1996, Gupta and Ferguson 1997a, Sandercock 1998a and
2003, INURA 2004). The significance of the spatial dimension to understand these
globalizing tensions arising from ethnoscapes was addressed by Appadurai (1996, 184) in
a later publication when he wrote that the importance of locality should not be seen only
as a backdrop but also “the actual settings in and through which social life is reproduced”
and thus an active element in shaping the global-local processes of the making of
ethnoscapes.

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Globalizing neighborhoods: boundaries, borders and territories
Shifting boundaries and borders
The ease of people moving across borders, settling in new places with new technologies
of connection is continuously re-defining the boundaries of places. The concept of a
neighborhood space thus sits at the nexus of our understandings of the tensions between
global and local, bounded and unbounded, of flows and places, of foreigners and citizens
etc. Particularly, globalizing multi-ethnic and multi-national neighborhoods manifest the
process of living out of these multiple tensions of social space that are at once
dichotomous and continuous.

Although boundaries (visible and invisible, social and physical, symbolic) are implicit in
these tensions, geographers such as Massey (1993) has questioned the utility of
boundaries as a concept that limits our understanding of places in global times, preferring
a conceptualization of connections rather than boundaries. Globalizing process has thus
led to a re-conceptualizing of space away from stasis and singularity towards fluidity and
multiplicity in concepts such as “progressive sense of place” (Massey 1993), relational
space (Massey 2005, Amin 2012) in addition to the “space of flows” (Castells [1996]
2000) and ethnoscapes (Appadurai 1996) mentioned above. They represent the
contemporary genre of geography that is inclined towards more dynamic conception of
space/place than Heidegger’s notion of places as having “single essential identities” and
as bounded (Massey 1993).

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As Lamont and Molnar (2002, 167) argue, boundaries (social, symbolic and spatial) and
its “twin concept” of borders increasingly “play a key role in important new lines of
scholarship across the social sciences.” For example, sociologist Richard Sennett (The
Public Realm Quant essay, http://www.richardsennett.com) discusses the significance of
borders rather than boundaries in approaching the contemporary city. Borders for Sennett
imply porosity and connection, while boundaries convey limits. From international
geopolitics to local resource allocation, boundaries as a concept retain its social,
administrative, symbolic and spatial significance in determining social relations and
everyday resources for living in the city. An example is the heated contestation of Los
Angeles’s decennial political redistricting in 2012 which involved a huge turnout of
neighborhood residents and activists, special interest groups and politicians in endless
hours of dispute over council district boundary. It highlights the contested and negotiated
salience that boundaries play. Overall, the approach towards the study of boundaries
reflects the trend toward a relational and more fluid understanding. It has taken on a less
primordial stance and a more social constructionist leaning (Suttles 1972). As Barth
([1969] 1989) points out in his seminal text on the formation of ethnic boundaries, ethnic
boundaries should not be viewed as static or as fixed outlines of ethnic groups. Instead,
ethnic boundary-making is characterized by continuous processes of differentiation
between the inclusion and exclusion of people and space.

Territories
The concept of boundaries is intertwined with the concept of territories. As Smith (1990,
2) explains, territories are “pieces of geographical space” that humans attach identities to
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at different scales. The significance of territoriality as Suttles (1972, 18) illustrates is less
in its biological moorings but “rather, they are preeminently human constructions.” In
this regard, Suttles’s views are similar to Barth’s ([1969] 1989) and Gupta and
Ferguson’s (1997a) social constructionist views on territories. Suttles explains (1972,
188), “The functions of territoriality and distancing in human societies are to preserve
people from the prospects of insult and injury while introducing accountability into
interpersonal negotiations. As the boundaries of social groups change or expand, new
forms of territoriality and distancing are required to serve these functions.” Suttles’s
(1972) insight into the dynamism and relevance of boundaries and territories is indeed
spot on as globalization has not produced non-territorial “spaces of flows.” Instead as
Gupta and Ferguson (1997a) observe, the politics of difference and identity will
increasingly make use of physical territories to support and further the symbolic and
social imaginings of communities and homelands (Anderson 1983). Banerjee,
Chakravarty and Chan’s (forthcoming) discussion of the formation of new ethnic towns
in Los Angeles demonstrates how ethnic territories or concentrations in social and
symbolic forms will find its expression in globalizing urban space.

Significance of neighborhood as unit of study in globalization
Skepticism for a universal understanding of the social and spatial dimensions of a
neighborhood is made fuzzier by the process of global flows of people that has raised
new understandings of spatial concepts such as boundaries, borders and territories.
Globalizing multi-ethnic and multi-national neighborhoods are hence complex social
spaces that Amin (2008) identifies as “situated multiplicity” with “fractal” and
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“polythetic” nature of cultural relations and space (Appadurai 1996, 46). The globalizing
multi-cultural city hence exposes the rigidity and limits of a Marxian class analysis of the
city to understand space and identity in its contemporary formulations (Tajbakhsh 2001).

As Appadurai (1996, 184) writes, “The neighborhood is a multiplex interpretive
site…This context-generative dimension of neighborhoods is an important matter
because it provides the beginnings of a theoretical angle on the relationship between local
and global realities.” As such, approaching the neighborhood as a concept and unit of
study triggers a familiar intellectual unease whenever lines are drawn to define the
boundaries of study. There seems to be a universal acknowledgement that boundaries of
any kind connote tension, a tension that arises from an ambiguity of what we have
included may be what should be excluded and what we have excluded unknowingly
should perhaps have instead be included.

According to Banerjee and Baer (1984), the concept of neighborhood as a method of
“structuring, ordering, and presenting the urban society dates to the dawn of civilization”
and it is seen in the cities of ancient China, Egypt, Greece and during the Roman times.
Simply put, neighborhoods exist “whenever a group of people share a place” Banerjee
and Baer (1984, 17). The neighborhood unit, a concept by Clarence Perry (1939) that has
been used as a design template to plan and develop socially and physically desirable new
neighborhoods in the United States to counteract the trend of weakening social ties in the
urban life. These reformist ideals including those of Jane Addams, Robert Park and John
Dewey championed the maintenance and creation of new communities that embrace the
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values of humanistic gemeinschaft and these visions coalesced and validated the concept
of the neighborhood as the delivery mechanism to provide renewed local community life
in modern cities (Banerjee and Baer 1984).

This entanglement of the neighborhood as a meaningful local community or what
Blokland (2003) calls the “Siamese twins of neighborhood and community” has shaped
urban policies and is the common unit in scholarship about the city and urban life,
especially in discussions of segregation (Massey 1996) and social capital (Putnam 2000).
In Blokland’s (2003, 7) discussion of the Siamese-connection, she asked provocatively,
“But is a neighborhood indispensable for a community, and what is left of a
neighborhood if it is no longer a community?” Clearly, the neighborhood concept is a
capacious term that has become loosely used with different embedded meanings that have
become profoundly difficult to tease apart. In fact in the study of Los Angeles
neighborhoods, Banerjee and Baer (1984, 35) decided to use the term “residential area”
with the interviewees instead “hoping to avoid any loaded connotations or biases
stemming from the use of the word neighborhood.”

What has emerged from research about urban neighborhoods by Banerjee and Baer
(1984), Abu-Lughod (1994) and Blokland (2003) illustrate that there is social, physical,
and symbolic salience in the concept of the urban neighborhood to understand the social
life experiences of the city but they must be understood in a more dynamic context that
must not be conflated with notions of traditional community ties. Akin to Suttles’s (1972)
view of the “The social construction of communities” in America, Blokland (2003, 207)
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concludes her study of Dutch neighborhoods succinctly, “This is how the neighborhood
exists… The neighborhood is not, never was and can never be a community. Instead, it
serves practical and symbolic purposes as a means to form and perpetuate many different
communities.”

Thus as a socio-spatial unit that encompasses routine living, working, recreating and
where the different lifeworlds intersect and negotiate daily, the globalizing neighborhood
is a socially meaningful and intellectually rich space for research about boundaries and
how tensions are negotiated in globalizing spaces. This is because neighborhood spaces
are “secondary territories” that “involve a blend of public accessibility and private use”
and thus “it is easy for people to misread and even be unaware of the existence of
secondary territories” (Altman and Chemers 1980, 133). These ambiguous “secondary
territories” are located in the continuum between the public and the parochial realms that
straddle between a public realm where the dominant form of relational types is “stranger
or categorical,” and a parochial realm where communal space is “characterized by a sense
of commonality among acquaintances and neighbors who are involved in interpersonal
networks that are located within ‘communities’” (Lofland 1998, 10-14). The ambiguity is
heightened in diverse settings that are also globalizing and thus prone to tensions and
social anomie.

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Approaching the Complexities of Diversity Living
Beyond singularity
Contemporary anthropological theories frame culture as dynamic and not necessarily
bounded to a group identity (e.g. L. Abu-Lughod 1991, Gupta and Ferguson 1997a).
Sharing this view, Parekh ([2000] 2006, 337) writes that cultures must be recognized as
“internally plural and represent a continuing conversation between their different
traditions and strands of thoughts.” Thus, contemporary cultural diversity is accepted to
manifest in many forms as Fincher and Jacobs’s edited volume Cities of Difference (1998)
highlight the “located politics of difference” of age, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity and
class as new ways to understand cities as contested spatial polyglots. These diversities
continue to expand in categories and include what Parekh ([2000] 2006, 3) termed as
“subcultural”, “perspectival” (e.g. feminists) and “communal diversity” (e.g. newly
arrived immigrants, long-established communities like Jews, Gypsies, religious groups
and territorial concentrated groups such as indigenous peoples., the Basques etc).

Writing in the context of cultural diversity in Britain in the 21
st
century, Vertovec (2007)
coined the term “superdiversity” to describe the contemporary complexity of diversity
that transcends ethnic groups or national origins per se. Vertovec (2007, 1024) explains,
“Such a condition is distinguished by a dynamic interplay of variables among an
increased number of new, small and scattered, multi-origin, transnationally connected,
socio-economically differentiated and legally stratified immigrants who have arrived over
the last decade.” Vertovec’s (2007, 1026) views to move towards a “multi-dimensional
perspective on diversity” echoes the call to reframe our understanding of globalizing
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tensions (ethnicity, race, class, identity and space) as hybrid and shifting, no longer
dependent on fixed and binary notions of ethnicity or class alone (e.g. Roy 2001,
Tajbakhsh 2001, Brubaker 2002). In the three empirical settings in this dissertation, the
use of the descriptions “multi-ethnic” and “multi-national” are meant to convey a sense
of a complex and nested diversity that is not limited to only separate considerations of
ethnicity and nationality per se but in a way that ethnicity and nationality are intertwined
with other demographic and cultural elements in an overlapping manner that resists
discrete separation without altering all elements and their relationships with each other.
However, in order to understand about the nested nature of diversity, trade-offs are
necessary as long as one is cognizant of them. This dissertation has chosen to approach
nested diversity by prioritizing the analysis of ethnic and nationality differences as they
interface with each other in diverse settings that are also experiencing global
immigration.

“Rethinking multiculturalism”
Of the murky renditions on what multiculturalism is or is not, I think Bikhu Parekh’s
provides the clearest articulation of an understanding of multiculturalism that is centered
on the meaning of culture. It is hence deemed as a helpful starting point for the discussion.
In “rethinking multiculturalism,” Parekh ([2000] 2006, 2-3) emphasizes the necessity to
consider history in understanding the complexity of cultural diversity,

Multiculturalism is not about difference and identity per se but about those that
are embedded in and sustained by culture; that is, a body of beliefs and practices
Page | 17

in terms of which a group of people understand themselves and the world and
organize their individual and collective lives. Unlike differences that spring from
individual choice, culturally derived differences carry a measure of authority and
are patterned and structured by virtue of being embedded in a shared and
historically inherited system of meaning and significance.

Overlaying on the inherent complexity of contemporary multicultural societies is the set
of historical circumstances that have shaped and affected our understanding of cultural
diversity, such as modernization, postcolonialism, technology and nation-state building
according to Parekh ([2000] 2006). Tracing the origins of multiculturalism, it quickly
illustrates that multiculturalism is an aggregate of multiple strands of political and
ideological responses to the exigencies of post-WWII in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Multiculturalism was meant to address the growing presence of new immigrant cultural
groups who are not assimilating in Britain, Canada and Australia, the civil rights
movement in the early 1960s in the United States and the backlash on the ideology of
mass society, homogeneity and nation-building post- WWII (Gleason 1992, Young 1999,
Fuchs 1999, Parekh [2000] 2006, Kymlicka 2007). Thus, cultural diversity in
contemporary times was born out of tensions of not only co-existing cultural differences
but also the tensions between the material and imagined notions of sharing of lives and
space!

Hence value-laden from its conception as a “rejection of the assimilationist demand of
the wider society” (Parekh [2000] 2006, 5), multiculturalism as a philosophy is caught in
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the maelstrom between classical liberalism that focuses on the individual and tends
toward assimilationist perspectives, and communitarianism that focuses on the group and
its demands (Entzinger 2000). Part of the controversy or perhaps confusion that
surrounds multiculturalism is in fact the gradation of positions within the philosophy that
is informed by both liberal and communitarian points of view (Young 1999, Entzinger
2000). Alternatively as Parekh ([2000] 2006) puts it, perspectives from conservative to
socialist and even racist ones, can be found under the “capacious” banner of
multiculturalism.

In addition, multiculturalism, with a large part of its foundations built on the clash of
majority-minority relations, is internally challenged as the circumstances of globalizing
cities are introducing a different set of relations and tensions of minorities-minorities
which requires new understanding (Valentine 2008). As Entzinger (2000) points out, the
fact that practiced multiculturalism is often codified in laws and regulations that require
enforcement, it has the tendency is to fall into the trap of reifying cultures and
“fossilizing” them. This essentialization of race or ethnicity encourages generalizations
that tend to freeze time and flatten differences that attribute to culture a “homogeneity,
coherence, and timelessness” (Abu-Lughod 1991, 154) that can inadvertently create
unnecessary schisms between cultures and peoples (Dirlik, 2008)

Among many contemporary multiculturalists, there is a clear recognition that not all
cultural practices are morally equal and should be accepted (Taylor 1994, Phillips, 2007)
and a call to transcend the enculturation in both majority and minority groups through
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open dialogue (Parekh 1996 and [2000] 2006, Renteln 2004, Phillips 2007). However, as
Entzinger (2000, 113) points out the practice of multiculturalism as formalized in
“policy-making in the cultural domain is hard to reconcile with the view that cultures are
living expressions of what people feel and think under rapidly changing circumstances.”
Despite the many critiques against multiculturalism and discourses about its decline,
Vertovec and Wessendorf (2010) show that these perceptions are in fact exaggerated. In
reality, multicultural principles continue to guide policies on under the new rubric of
“diversity” and “integration.”

Melting Pot, Assimilation and Hybridization
Israel Zangwill’s play The Melting Pot performed in 1908 on Broadway idealized the
future of America to be one that is homogeneous, where race, ethnicity or national origin
would not matter anymore (Glazer and Moynihan [1963] 1970, Alba 1985). America was
to be “God’s Crucible”, the great fusion that would produce “the coming superman”
(Glazer and Moynihan [1963] 1970, 289). This melting pot metaphor is often popularly
conflated with the assimilation practiced in the United States, which Alba (1985, 5) terms
as Anglo-conformity and defined as acceptance “without alteration the culture and
institutions, derived largely from English models, that dominated American society” by
new immigrant groups. Assimilation of this kind results in homogeneity or what is known
as “forced Americanization” (Gleason 1992).

Assimilation in the United States arose as a concern on how America could absorb the
incessant waves of European immigrants in the early 1900s in the face of growing ethnic
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nationalism in Europe and WWI (Gleason 1992). Synonymous with “Americanization”
and popularly symbolized by the “melting pot” (although not completely the same),
assimilation is concerned with unity and “approves of the processes by which various
elements have been blended into the national culture” (Gleason 1992, 49). It is hence
viewed as ethnocentric and nativistic, favoring the American culture as defined by early
Anglo-Saxon founders
1
(Alba 1985, Gleason 1992) and requiring newer immigrants to
conform to what Taylor (1994, 63) described vividly as “This is how we do things here.”
From these traits, unlike multiculturalism accommodation through assimilation does not
promote intercultural dialogue. Although, in a more permissive environment for
pluralism like the United States, assimilation is practiced in a form of “voluntary ethnic
pluralism” (Fuchs 1999) that can lead to dialogue opportunities. However, the practice of
admitting cultural evidence into the legal system is generally not encouraged in countries
that are more assimilationist and follows a mantra akin to, “When in Rome, do as the
Romans do” (Renteln 2004).

However, according to Gleason (1992) the interpretation of the melting pot as solely a
homogenizing metaphor is incorrect. Gleason’s (1992, 24) explanations that melting pot
analogy implies the following—“first, the interaction of the various elements proceeds
according to its own inner laws in the general direction of reducing the most glaring

1
According to Gleason (1992, 53), there was a period where assimilation was pursued as a more liberal
process and forced Americanization was seen as counterproductive. During this period in the early 1910s,
assimilation was likened to current ideas on integration where immigrants “were to be assisted toward fill
partnership in the national life by means of ‘a mutual giving and taking of contributions from both newer
and older Americans in the interest of the common weal.’”
Page | 21

differences and is subject to human manipulation to only a limited degree; and second,
the suggestion that the final result of the interaction cannot with certainty be known
beforehand.” Interpreted this way, the melting pot metaphor can be understood as a
precursor of the concept of hybridization.

Hybridity is popularized by postcolonial theories (e.g. Roy 2001). The concept of
hybridity suggests a significant degree of fusion and of what Appiah terms as
“contamination” of purity. Appiah’s (2006, 8) quote of Salmon Rushdie’s novel describes
hybridity incisively as the “intermingling, the transformation that comes of new and
unexpected combinations of human beings, cultures, ideas, politics, movies, songs. It
rejoices in mongrelisation and fears of the absolutism of the Pure. Mélange, hotchpotch, a
bit of this and a bit of that is how newness enters the world.” According to planning
theorist Leonie Sandercock (2003), the contemporary cosmopolis is likened to a
“mongrel city.” It is an emblem of hybridity and juxtapositions of different “landscapes
of group identity.”

Clearly these two extremes of melting pot assimilation and the celebration of hybridity
exist in concurrence in multicultural cities. Ethnoscapes, which exist in tension between
“cultural homogenization and cultural heterogenization” (Appadurai 1990, 295),
encapsulates the challenge of the ideals between homogeneity through assimilation and
the celebration of hybridity. It dismantles the simplistic melting pot assimilation ideal
that differences can melt away (Glazer and Moynihan [1963]1970) and subsume into the
dominant paradigm upon contact with each other without “friction” (Tsing 2005), which
Page | 22

would in actual fact affect and change each of the units as they come into contact with
each other. The extent to which hybridity can be sustained in the face of a growing
consciousness and re-assertion of group identity is questionable as re-territorialization
becomes increasingly evident in globalizing cities of diversity (e.g. Sassen 1996, Gupta
and Ferguson 1997a, Holston and Appadurai 1999).

Cosmopolitanism
Cosmopolitanism builds on concepts of hybridity. The essential elements of
cosmopolitanism according to Appiah (2006, 144) are pluralism and fallibilism.
Commitment to pluralism means a recognition that “there are many values worth living
by and that you cannot live by all of them. So we hope and expect that different people
and different societies will embody different values.” And fallibilism is a humble
recognition that “the sense that our knowledge is imperfect, provisional, subject to
revision in the face of new evidence.” Described as “an outlook” by Beck (2006),
cosmopolitanism emphasizes empathy for our global neighbors. It resists binary
categorizing and upholds “the mélange principle” (Beck 2006, 7).

In terms of egalitarian principle, cosmopolitanism is comparable to multiculturalism in
that it upholds different values. Where it differs is that cosmopolitanism’s unit of analysis
is the individual, not the group as per multiculturalism. Cosmopolitanism’s principle of
mélange suggests an individualized diversity. However, its bent towards individualism is
moderated by its commitment to the principle of reciprocity and the “obligations to
strangers” (Appiah 2006, 97, 153). To achieve this goal of mutual respect,
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cosmopolitanism champions intercultural dialogue and reasoning as a political
community that aims to “be able to agree about practices while disagreeing about their
justification” (Appiah 2006, 70). Unlike assimilation and multiculturalism which have
been translated into policies, cosmopolitanism has remained largely an outlook that and
has remained largely an academic critique of the weaknesses of the other two theories
and policies. In Sandercock’s (2003, xiv) normative vision of a city built on cosmopolitan
values, a cosmopolis is “a construction site of the mind and heart, a city in which there is
genuine acceptance of, connection with, and respect and space for ‘the stranger’ (outsider,
foreigner…), in which there exists the possibility of working together on matters of
common destiny of forging new hybrid cultures and communities.”

Overall, writings on multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism have emphasized the need to
interpret culture more dynamically. Further, not all cultural practices are morally equal
and should be socially accepted (Taylor 1994, Phillips 2007). Lastly, scholars of
multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism have gravitated to an approach that favors
intercultural dialogue undertaken with openness and humility (Taylor 1994, Parekh 1996
and [2000] 2006, Appiah 2006, Sen 2006 and 2007, Phillips 2007) culminating in a
special issue in Journal of Intercultural Studies where Meer and Modood (2012) discuss
“How does Interculturalism contrast with Multiculturalism?”

Urban Interculturalism and intercultural integration
Interculturalism, according to Meer and Modood (2012) emphasizes communication.
Quoting Wood (2006, 9), “an intercultural approach aims to facilitate dialogue, exchange
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and reciprocal understanding between people of different backgrounds” (Meer and
Modood 2012, 182).
2
The underlying assumption here is that when different cultures live
or work together, misunderstandings leading to conflicts can be inadvertent because of
the culturally embedded and limited worldview each culture has (Parekh [2000] 2006,
Sandercock 2003, Gudykunst 2004, Jandt 2004, Wood and Landry 2008, Spencer-Oatey
and Franklin 2009). Interculturalism is also “less groupist and culture-bound,” thus
focusing less on cultural identities but with a more open and practical concept of
interactive cultural exchange as compared to multiculturalism. Lastly, interculturalism
has an action-oriented agenda that moves towards integration that is mutual and
reciprocal, not one-sided.

In this light, I find Amin’s (2002) version of interculturalism that takes into account the
characteristics of urban living especially inspiring and promising. Amin orients
interculturalism towards daily social practice and away from the level of abstract
ideology and discourses that multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism tend to remain at. As
discussed earlier, Amin (2002, 967) conceptualizes “urban interculturalism” as follows,

The term ‘intercultured’ I used to stress cultural dialogue, to contrast with
versions of multiculturalism that either stress cultural difference without resolving

2
Interculturalism is defined by the Council of Europe (Wood 2009, 11) as “a concept that promotes policies
and practices that encourage interaction, understanding and respect between different cultures and ethnic
groups.” In addition, interculturalism is seen as “a longer-term process leading to better ways of
strengthening community cohesion and improving the social, economic and cultural well-being of cities”
(ibid.).
Page | 25

the problem of communication between cultures, or versions of cosmopolitanism
that speculate on the gradual erosion of cultural difference through interethnic
mixture and hybridization. The literature on race, multiculturalism, and
citizenship has tended to discuss this question the level of national rights and
obligations, individual or collective. My emphasis, in contrast, falls on everyday
lived experiences and local negotiations of difference, on microcultures of place
through which abstract rights and obligations, together with local structures and
resources, meaningfully interact with distinctive individual and interpersonal
experiences. This focus on the microcultures of places is not meant to privilege
bottom-up or local influences over top-down or general influences, because both
sets make up the grain of places. It is intended to privilege everyday enactment as
the central site of identity and attitude formation.

Inter-cultural living hence departs from multi-cultural living in its very intention to
negotiate differences through direct engagement in everyday circumstances and spaces
“when strangers become neighbors” as Sandercock (2000) incisively identifies the
tension in Simmel’s (1950, 402) thought-provoking statement of a stranger as someone
“who comes today and stays tomorrow.” Wood and Landry’s (2008) “intercultural city,”
and Wise and Velayutham’s (2009) conceptualization of “everyday multiculturalism”
share similar strands with Amin’s (2002) emphasis for a “grounded approach that focuses
on “the everyday practice and lived experience of diversity in specific situations and
spaces of encounter.” The stance of interculturalism is clearly practical and normative in
its attempt to establish meaningful contact, interaction, exchange and understanding
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between cultures in and through the “microcultures of place” such as youth clubs and
community gardens (Amin 2002, 967) and the “modern contact zones” of parks, libraries
and cafes (Wood and Landry 2008). It diverges from the conception and practice of
multiculturalism that seems to encourage instead “parallel lives” that Cantle (2005) found
in the case of Britain. The focus is on the building up of cumulative productive
interpersonal experiences and new intercultural understandings (ICU) to counteract bad
experiences through misunderstandings that can get in the way of developing
intercultural relationships.

However, critiques of interculturalism abound (see Meer and Modood 2012) including
that unlike multiculturalism, it is not an intellectually rigorous political theory.
Interculturalism is portrayed by skeptics as the vague “new myth” that is constructed to
“enable inclusive politics while disabling xenophobic politics” but as Kymlicka (2012,
213-5) points out too, interculturalism nevertheless functions as a trope that can be a
“potentially enabling political myth” that supports cultural diversity.

Underlying the spirit of interculturalism is the recognition that there is a need to
respectfully move between and connect differences so that a greater and more robust
integrated whole can emerge (Wood and Landry 2008, Meer and Modood 2012). Hence,
embedded in interculturalism as a practice, is the concept and process of integration.
However, I want to make a distinction between the version of integration understood as a
tacit expectation for minorities and immigrants to adjust to the mainstream dominant
culture (Schönwälder 2010, 156) whether one would or could (Parekh [2000] 2006) and
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the greater and more robust integrated whole that I have in mind, consistent with the
Latin word “integer” that refers to the character of wholeness and completeness.

Once again, the integration that I refer to in this study builds on Myers’s (2008) version
as an outcome has these work-in-progress qualities: it is a process with an objective to
seek an outcome that is more than the sum of its parts; it entails reciprocity that requires
all sides to give, learn, adapt and transform in order to arrive at a higher ground of
genuine and deeper understanding between individuals and cultures; it requires
negotiating relations, perceptions, and issues of space-sharing across nested layers
including ethnicity, citizenship and length of residency.

Urban living in diverse cities
City living, where density, heterogeneity, competition and over-stimulation can result in a
mental and emotional shut-down and social anomie, is a context that can engender
“parallel lives” (Simmel [1903] 2005, Wirth [1930] 2005, Milgram 1970). According to
Fischer’s (1982, 258) findings on northern Californian communities in the late 1970s,
urbanism reduced the “respondents’ involvements with people drawn from the
‘traditional’ complex of kin, neighborhood, and church and slightly increased their
involvements with people drawn from more modern and more voluntary contexts of work,
secular associations, and footloose friendships.” Living in urban neighborhoods can thus
be an experience of what Lofland (1973) labeled as “a world of strangers.” Many
writings have discussed the fear and anxiety of encountering the unknown and navigating
the complexity in the city (e.g. Sennett 1970, Kristeva 1991 and Sandercock 1998a and
Page | 28

2003). These negotiations in complexity and differences tend to encourage the creation of
categories that rely mostly on the perception of visible differences to navigate the social
world (Allport [1954] 1979 and Lofland 1973). This type of navigation compass by
“categoric knowing” (Lofland 1973) can easily lend themselves to prejudice (Allport
[1954] 1979). Other forms of navigating complexities of urban life that diversity presents
include a pragmatic civility (Lee 2004), “a civility of indifference” (Bailey 1996) or an
avoidance of contact by hunkering down (Putnam 2007).

Thus, urban living in cultural diversity is particularly challenged by two seemingly
contradictory processes that in actuality may reinforce each other, namely an
overexposure to a perpetual process of contact through the sharing of space that can be
prone to contest and conflict, and a simultaneous ongoing process of social anomie. As
Chan (2013, 150) notes, “tensions arising from differences when tolerated but not
addressed can produce a pulling-in effect to avoid face-to-face engagement” and these
circumstances of strained contact or indifferent contact are especially vulnerable to
enduring stereotypes, fear and anxiety, prejudice and discrimination. According to
Allport ([1954] 1979, 367), “Chronic anxiety puts us on the alert and predisposes us to
see all sorts of stimuli as menacing.” Pettigrew and Tropp (2006, 767) building on
Allport’s contact hypothesis
3
find in their meta-analysis of 515 studies on intergroup

3
Allport’s ([1954] 1979, 281) describes his general prediction on the effect of contact, “Prejudice (unless
deeply rooted in the character structure of the individual) may be reduced by equal status contact between
majority and minority groups in the pursuit of common goals. The effect is greatly enhanced if this contact
is sanctioned by institutional supports (i.e., by law, custom or local atmosphere), and provided it is of a sort
Page | 29

contact, contact “can reduce feelings of threat and anxiety about future cross-group
interactions. Thus, more positive contact outcomes can be achieved to the extent that
anxiety is reduced.” These issues of intergroup contact are the subject of writings by
scholars including, Wise (2005), Smets (2006), Smets and Kreuk (2008), Valentine (2008)
and Wood and Landry (2008) who explore the effects of urban encounters and contacts in
neighborhood spaces.

Formation of Local belonging in diverse settings
4

In exploring the possibilities for the formation of intercultural space in diverse settings,
the understanding of if and how local belongings are formed in these multi-ethnic and
multi-national spaces is critical. Belonging is frequently conceptualized as a basic human
need that is constructed in social space. According to Maslow (1968, 34), “the needs for
safety, belongingness, love relations and for respect can be satisfied only by other people
i.e., only from outside the person. This means considerable dependence on the
environment.” Yuval-Davis (2006, 199) describes belonging as “an act of self-
identification or identification by others, in a stable, contested or transient way”. In a
study of the effects of globalization on local belonging to a residential place, Savage,
Bagnall and Longhurst (2005, 12) describe the approach to local belonging as “fluid and

that leads to the perception of common interests and common humanity between members of the two
groups.”
4
The literature review on local belonging and its discussion subsequently elaborated in Chapters 3, 4 and 5
are extracted from a forthcoming paper “Intercultural Climate and Belonging in the globalizing multi-
ethnic neighborhoods of Los Angeles” that has been submitted to editor for the special issue on “Belonging
and Exclusion in Public and Quasi-Public Space” in The Open Urban Studies Journal.
Page | 30

contingent” and as “a socially constructed, embedded process.” They are of the view that
“residential place continues to matter since people feel some sense of ‘being at home’ in
an increasingly turbulent world.” These findings are the subject of further study on the
politicized nature of belonging and home-making by Duyvendak (2011).

In the writings of how local belonging is formed, there are several familiar strands. First,
belonging is a choice (Savage, Bagnall and Longhurst 2005, Fenster 2005). Savage,
Bagnall and Longhurst (2005) conceptualize this choice as “elective belonging” where
the middle class people they interviewed articulate the right to move and settle in a place
that they accord functional and symbolic meanings. Choice is the power to decide and to
choose according to Fenster (2005, 227) and “the more choice people have the stronger
their sense of belonging becomes.” Second, belonging is a routine practice and freedom
of using and inhabiting urban spaces. Third, Devadson (2010, 2954) suggests that for
minorities and migrants, their belongings are formed through “their own engagement
with the places where they live” and “reflect a perception of being accepted by the
majority.” Fourth, belonging can also be formed through the sharing of ethnicity and
common cultures as exercised through the definition and maintenance of social
boundaries over time according to Barth ([1969] 1989). These ethnic identities and
belongings according to Gupta and Ferguson (1997a) will become more territorialized
with growing global immigration.

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Planning and Design of Urban Spaces for Diversity
In a special issue of Progress in Planning in 2009, the emerging research agendas in
planning were identified as “hot, congested, crowded and diverse” (Blanco et al 2009).
The future of American urbanism according to Talen and Ellis (2009, 184) will find itself
having to reconcile the “two conflicting trends” of compactness and diversity. Talen and
Ellis (2009, 184) outline four research areas that are critical to planning sustainable urban
growth. They are (1) why do some existing communities stay compact and diverse
without too much instability i.e., what are the successful examples; (2) what are the
planning policies, regulations and programs that have been efficacious in sustaining
diversity and what these set of conditions are; (3) what kind of planning processes are
conducive to promote and sustain diversity; (4) what is “the role of urban design and
physical planning in accommodating diversity” and how can the best practices and
standards be documented as a way to guide planning and designing of communities for
diversity.

This dissertation takes on research areas (1) and (4). However, it does so from a slightly
different starting point. Instead of beginning from successful communities, it looks at
existing settings of multi-ethnic and multi-national diversity that are anecdotally known
to experience conflicts over space-sharing because of its diversity. These contexts are
chosen because by engaging to identify the sources and manifestations of these tensions
in the sharing of space, a critical step is taken towards uncovering the possibilities for
intercultural understanding in urban spaces and the circumstances that are conducive to
conviviality. Thus instead of planning and design standards, I seek planning and design
Page | 32

principles that are conducive to catalyze meaningful contact through urban
interculturalism in everyday spaces of living.

A literature review of the writings by planning scholars about diversity suggests that the
majority of the works fall in the category of addressing the changes through adapting
procedural planning i.e., research areas (2) and (3) as noted by Talen and Ellis (2009).
Areas of emphasis include: increasing the sensitivity of planners to cultural difference
(e.g. Sandercock 1998b, 2000 and 2003, Umemoto 2001, Pestieau and Wallace 2003),
revising regulations and guidelines to accommodate diversity (e.g. Zelinsky 1990, Qadeer
1997, Burayidi 2000, Thompson 2003, Germain and Gagnon 2003) and making the
planning process institutionally inclusive (e.g. Baum 2000, Thomas 2000, Reeves 2005).
Fewer writings are found in the category of substantive planning and design outcomes
that are about the characteristics and criteria of multicultural or intercultural urban
programs and spaces (e.g. Fincher and Jacobs 1998, Amin 2002, Sandercock 2003,
Bollens 2006, Fincher and Iveson 2008, Wood and Landry 2008) even though there are
writings about “the good city,” “the just city” and “convivial cities” (e.g. Sennett 1990,
Young 1990, Peattie 1998, Briggs 2002, Fainstein 2006, Amin 2006) that address the
importance of diversity for city life.

Writings on urban public life and public space form a subset of the writings about the city.
However, they tend to be more theoretical, focusing less about specific outcomes but on
the explanation of the public realm and its evolution (e.g. Sennett 1970, [1974] 1992,
1989 and 1990, Lofland 1973 and 1998). In his writings, Sennett addresses the
Page | 33

eviscerating of city life by the preference for safe, orderly, homogenous suburbs. Sennett
points to the importance of living with human diversity, the healthfulness of conflicts and
the failure of urban planning to grasp the complexities of city life in its plans and designs.
Writing about the shrinking public realm as critically synthesized by Banerjee (2001)
include the “privatization of public life and spaces” (Davis 1990, Zukin 1995, Kayden
2000), “invented streets” (Sorkin 1992), the rise of “third places” (Oldenburg 1989) and
qualities of “convivial cities” (Peattie 1998).

However, there is a body of writings dating between the 1960s to early 1980s, beginning
with Jane Jacobs’s ([1961]1989) The Death and Life of Great American Cities that have
highlighted the importance of human diversity and the use of public spaces for
community-building and human flourishing. These writings have explored the criteria
and characteristics that make everyday urban spaces of sidewalks, the mix and density of
diversity of uses rich and flourishing for social life. The writings from this era made
almost obsolete by the postmodern turn and the paralysis imposed by the anti-planning
sentiments following urban renewal underscore the importance to understand the
interaction of people and the built environment through quantitative and qualitative
methods.

This body of work is developed by an interdisciplinary group of urban planners,
architects, landscape architects, urban designers, environmental psychologists,
sociologists and anthropologists, offers a tangible way forward to understand and address
the exigencies of global ethnoscapes that is not relying solely on abstract discourses.
Page | 34

Research about the image of the city and good city form (Lynch [1960] 1998 and 1981),
about social life in urban public spaces (Whyte 1980, Gehl [1987] 2011), planning in
pluralist cities (Appleyard 1976), the built environment of the urban neighborhood
(Banerjee and Baer 1984) demonstrate how physical form, design and functions of urban
spaces can affect the quality and experience of social life in cities using methods of
cognitive mapping, observation and interviews. These writings draw on the
phenomenology method of interpretation of experiences in space by scholars including
Tuan (1975 and [1977] 2011), Relph (1976) and Altman and Low (1992) who have
researched about place attachment and about the emotional ties and experience to the
spaces we inhabit and use. Writings that are in this genre include: Lawrence and Low
(1990, 492) focus on built forms as “a spatial articulation for the intersection of multiple
forces of economy, society, and culture,” Walzer’s (1995) “open-minded” space that is
conducive for active urbanity, Low’s (2003) innovative mixed methods combining
ethnographic observation, open-ended interviews, secondary data collection and
discourse analysis to understand and compare gated communities in New York and San
Antonio, and Talen’s (2008) writing on form-based planning of buildings and
neighborhoods that would encourage and accommodate social diversity.

In reviewing the “new directions in planning theory,” Fainstein (2000) observes that
planning discourse has disrupted the productive tension between procedural and outcome
planning. It has focused so much on procedural planning that it tends to “lack an object”
and “substantive content” and there is a lack of emphasis on developing “desirable
outcomes” such as framing “a model of the good city and then inquiring how it is
Page | 35

achievable” (Fainstein 2000, 451 and 470). This dissertation responds to Fainstein’s
(2000) critique by exploring what the “right rules, the right props, and the right places
and spaces” (Peattie 1998, 248) that create conviviality in settings of diversity are. This
type of local conviviality bears similarity to what Wise (2005, 184) describes as the
leveraging of “hopeful possibilities of the local” where “those on the ground can draw
some sense of comfort, care and belonging” that can positively and productively counter
the hostilities and “misanthropic thread that runs through the modern city” (Thrift 2005,
140)

Narratives of Los Angeles: segregation, sprawl, difference, disparity
Breaking away from the established monocentric urban growth pattern of modern cities
propounded by the Chicago School, the urbanism of Los Angeles is characterized by
spatial and social conditions that is “an exception to the rules of US metropolitan
development” (Dear 1996, 76). As the poster child of postmodern urbanism (Dear 1996,
Banerjee and Loukaitou-Sideries 1998, Ellin 1999, Soja 2000), Los Angeles is a city
without a clear center. Polycentric in urban form, connected by parking lot size freeways,
strip malls lined with signboards, a city that is spatially fragmented and fractal, and as
much socially and economically (Davis1990, Kunstler 1993, Dear 1996, Soja 2000).
Bobo et al (2000, 11) described Los Angeles as a “prismatic metropolis” because of “its
many colors, hues and cultures” represented in the large number of races and ethnicities.
Lefebvre (1986, 208) describes Los Angeles as follows,

Page | 36

It is extremely difficult to give an answer to the question of which city one likes
and dislikes, for detestable cities are also fascinating, for example, Los
Angeles....You are and yet are not in the city. You cross a series of mountains and
you are still in the city, but you don’t know when you are entering it or leaving it.
It stretches for 150km, twelve million inhabitants. Such wealth! Such poverty!
Chicanos, Salvadoreans.

Immigration and Diversity Trends
Allen and Turner’s (1996) analysis of the demographic change in Los Angeles between
1970s through 1990s illustrates that from 1970s onward the Latino population (made up
mostly by Mexicans) has been diversified by large number of Salvadorans and
Guatemalans arriving in the 1980s. The Chinese population has also become more
diverse as immigrants arrived from different parts of East Asia (Taiwan, Hong Kong,
China) and Southeast Asia. Further, as a whole the Asian diversity grew with the addition
of Filipinos, Koreans, Cambodians, Thais, Guamanians, Vietnamese, Japanese and
Samoans as well as Armenian and Iranian refugees. Analyzing the trends from 1990s to
2010, Myers et al. (2010, 12) found that “the total foreign-born population in Los
Angeles has leveled off and even begin to decline” by 2009. Instead, a new California
homegrown generation is now the majority with immigrants coming in after 2003 made
up of the five major nationalities: Mexicans, Guamanians, Salvadorans, Filipinos and
Koreans. Figure 1.1 shows an approximation of the immigrant population and their
regions of origins in Los Angeles County from before 1980 to 2010.

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Figure 1.1: Foreign Born and their origins in LA County. Chart by author.
Data Source from American Community Survey 2006-2010 Table B05007

Socio-economic and Socio-spatial disparities
According to Allen and Turner (1996, 25-26), the diversification of the city’s make-up
has not in fact meant less segregation as “Asians and Latinos are substantially more
segregated from Whites in Los Angeles County than in the average large metropolitan
area” and “because segregation values were somewhat closer to the high end of the scale
than the low end, Los Angeles is certainly closer to being a mosaic of geographically
separate ethnic communities than it is to being a residential melting pot.” This trend of
segregation (whether voluntary or involuntary) continues to be observed in the findings
of this research that even in ethnically diverse neighborhoods, the degree of mix and the
lived experience of the diversity can vary greatly, with some people living in vertical
ethnic enclaves in the midst of an extremely diverse setting. Figure 1.2 shows the
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300000
400000
500000
600000
700000
800000
900000
1000000
Before 1980 Entered 1980-
1989
Entered 1990-
1999
Entered 2000
or later
Total FB
Mexico
Asia
Other Central America
Europe
South America
Carribean
Other areas
Page | 38

mapping of ethnic diversity and distribution in 2010, exhibiting broad patterns of ethnic
clustering.

Figure 1.2: Ethnic diversity, density and distribution in Los Angeles County in 2010. Map by author.

What stands out anecdotally as well as empirically is that Los Angeles’s neighborhoods
are clearly divided into different categories of socio-economic affluence such as the
images of Beverly Hills and South LA would suggest. Socio-spatial segregation along
economic and racial lines was evident in different periods of urban growth and
development of Los Angeles (Soja and Scott 1996). As a gateway city for both domestic
and international migration especially from Central and Latin America and Asia, these
Page | 39

distinct socio-spatial divisions in urban life are made more complex by episodes of
xenophobia that is prevalent in Los Angeles throughout its history.

Periodically beginning with the Chinese Massacre in 1871, Los Angeles has undergone
several eruptions of social tensions expressed in riveting urban riots occurring along
multiple fault lines of socio-economic inequality, compounded with racism and
xenophobia as witnessed in the 1965 Watts riot and 1992 civil unrest. According to Soja
and Scott (1996, 10), “by 1970, sociological studies were beginning to show that Los
Angeles now rivaled Chicago as the most racially segregated of all American cities.”
With the post-1965 immigration following the Hart-Cellar Act in 1965, the nature and
pattern of racial segregation evolved because “the newcomers to L.A come from all
walks of life, but the very distinctive national origins of L.A. immigrants means that its
foreign-born mix is characterized not by diversity but by socio-economic polarization”
characterized by a “combination of high- and low-skilled immigrants” (Waldinger and
Bozorgmehr 1996, 16). Although the combination of different skill levels remains,
analyzing data from Census 2000 and beyond Myers et al. (2010) found that the
educational attainment of new arrival immigrants has increased in terms of an increase in
those with at least a bachelor’s degree with a concomitant decrease of those with no high
school education. In addition, immigrants have gained greater English proficiency and
homeownership over time, indicating some level of upward socio-economic mobility and
integration.

Page | 40

Urbanism or “a way of life” a la Louis Wirth in Los Angeles is thus marked by
multiplicity of differences and disparities. Across Los Angeles, we hear and find daily
this invitation, “I am not kidding! You have to see this place. It feels nothing like Los
Angeles!” What makes these differences and disparities noteworthy is the large urban
scale of Los Angeles. It is a city of “superdiversity” borrowing Vertovec’s (2007)
concept and as Putnam’s (2007) findings illustrate, diversity in American neighborhoods
can erode community life in addition to increased pressures of time and money, sprawl,
technology and mass media such as TV and personal mobile technologies and
generational change societal norms that Putnam (2000) found earlier in a separate study.
These factors are common and recurring in many globalizing cities. Los Angeles being a
large globalizing city is characterized by many of these social life eroding factors. These
factors are magnified by the large urban scale of the metropolitan area and present a set
of conditions that make “superdiverse” Los Angeles an important and interesting setting
to study the following: how the tensions emerging from globalizing diversity are
negotiated, what kinds of unproductive and creative capabilities for urban
interculturalism can emerge in the process of negotiating the tensions of diversity arising
from stability and movement, cultural differences and socio-economic disparities and the
juxtaposition of material and the imagined.

Overview of the Dissertation
I put together a montage of three globalizing multi-ethnic and multi-national settings in
Los Angeles (Central Long Beach, Mid-Wilshire and San Marino) of different income
levels as contexts to understand how intercultural living and the process of intercultural
integration are negotiated through the everyday s haring of space and lives between
Page | 41

different ethnicities, immigrants, Americans, the poor and rich etc. The terms “multi-
ethnic” and “multi-national” are used to convey a sense of the complex diversity when
ethnicity, nationality, identity, socio-economic variation intersect in real bodies and
space.
5
Please see Figure 1.3 for a map showing the locations of the three study areas.

5
It is necessary to point out that ethnic groups are not homogeneous as census data and overview
discussions of inter-ethnic dynamics often make it appear to be. For example, in Central Long Beach,
Cambodians are not one united group but a difference is made between the Cambodians who arrived in US
before the genocide and those who come after as refugees. Further, categories are created too between
those who do not live in Central Long Beach but merely visit or own businesses there versus those who live
there. Another differentiation is also made within the Asian ethnic group as a whole between the
Vietnamese and the Cambodians arising from a difficult political history between the two countries. In
Mid-Wilshire, a difference is made by the Koreans between the 1.5 generation Korean Americans and the
first generation Korean immigrants. Within the Latino ethnic group, it is important to differentiate between
Mexicans, Guatemalans and Salvadorans. In San Marino, Chinese are broken into many overlapping
categories, for example newcomers, origin (China or Taiwan), first or second generation such that it
reflects a difference to one’s sense of integration and affiliation if you identify yourself as an “Asian
American” or “Chinese American” or “American Chinese” or “Taiwanese American.”
Page | 42

Figure 1.3: Locations of the three study areas in Los Angeles County. Map by author.

These three case interpretations weave the voices of those who live, work, regularly use
and organize these settings to offer three glimpses into the socio-spatial diversity of the
conceived, perceived and lived spaces of “ordinary” Los Angeles (Amin and Graham
1997) that struggles daily with a conflation of socio-economic disparity, segregated
spatial environment and a history of inter-ethnic tensions that are made even more
complex by globalizing tensions. Through these narratives, I hope to shed light on the
following: (a) if and how income differences make a difference to the shaping of
intercultural relations and opportunities in diverse settings, (b) if and how ethnicity and
cultural differences matter in terms of the three globalizing tensions i.e., the tension
between stable communities and those on the move, the tension between different cultures
Page | 43

co-existing in space, and lastly, the tension between the material and the imagined and (c)
the possibilities and opportunities for intercultural understanding and integration in
everyday neighborhood spaces.

The goals and contributions of the dissertation are as follows:
(1) Through the understanding of everyday life experience, inter-ethnic interactions and
local belongings in spaces of ethnic and nationality diversity, this research identifies and
unpacks tensions arising from the multiple diversity and “superdiversity” (Vertovec 2007)
(often with different cultural norms, customs, expectations) living in quotidian contact
with each other. This research has chosen to focus on the influence of socio-spatial
dimension because of its relevance to globalizing cities and the relative silence of
empirical scholarship about the relationship of city space to opportunities of intercultural
relationship-building. Further the empirical findings more widely build on the research
about the erosion of American community life by Putnam (2000), especially in the face
of diversity and offers insights as to why that might be the case.

(2) Through comparing different neighborhoods of socio-economic affluence and ethnic
mix, this research uncovers variations and common patterns in the interpretations of
living in and with diversity that is not composed of White-Black or majority-minority
scenarios in a culturally diverse, globalized and segregated Los Angeles. The research
will generate future research hypotheses for the study of urbanism in Southern California
and inform plans and policies for different types of multi-ethnic settings within Los
Angeles. Its variation-finding strategy generated by differences also contributes to the
Page | 44

continuing research about urban comparative strategies that are conventionally inclined
towards comparing most similar cases but are increasingly challenged by globalizing
connections (Robinson 2011).

(3) Through employing a mix of methods (cognitive mapping, ethnographic and semi-
structured interviews, surveys, participant observations), this research offers insight about
how to approach the study of abstract socio-spatial concepts of neighborhood, boundaries,
territories and distance and how their perceptions shape community relations in
globalizing cities. It explores and operationalizes Lefebvre’s (1991) conceptualization of
social space production through empirical cases and builds on an interdisciplinary
scholarship about spatial behavior. To access the comparative socio-spatial narratives of
everyday life, I develop a framework that combines the theories of Lefebvre-Lofland-
Lynch (3L) in the form of a rotating tetrahedron to analyze and interpret the findings. I
will elaborate on the framework, parameters, experience, challenges and limitations of
the research design and comparative methodology in Chapter 2.

The presentation of the three case interpretations (Chapters 3 to 5) which I call “scenes”
to evoke the incompleteness and freezing of time that is inherent in any framing, are
presented in the order of how I conducted my fieldwork to convey a sense of the element
of passing time and discovery. This is done to counter the static nature that comparative
work of a space-focused dissertation tends to have.

Page | 45

Scene 1 (Chapter 3) begins in San Marino, a half-and-half enclave of affluent Chinese
immigrants, American Chinese/Taiwanese and White Caucasian Americans negotiate the
cultural differences to illustrate a case of how even with matching socio-economic levels
i.e., socio-economic integration, tensions of cultural difference can continue to shape
everyday social relations and local belonging alongside other tensions in the making of
ethnoscapes.

Scene 2 (Chapter 4) brings us to Central Long Beach. A socio-economically poor
neighborhood that is completely opposite in living conditions from San Marino, provides
a glimpse into how socio-economic challenges arising from common poverty can have a
seemingly contradictory quelling tendency but also an opposing tendency that plays up
the differences between ethnicities and cultures that in turn shapes the everyday social
relations and spaces of intercultural opportunities in the neighborhood.

Scene 3 (Chapter 5) is in Mid-Wilshire, a mixed or perhaps divided environment of rich
and poor, illustrates the fractal nature of globalization where cultural dimensions nest
with socio-economic characteristics in an intricate and complex fashion. The disparities
and differences bear their marks on the kind of fragmented social life and belonging in
this globalizing setting.

Chapter 6 pulls these three case interpretations together to compare and discuss the
patterns and possibilities of intercultural understanding in three diverse settings. It
considers how intercultural understanding is conceived by those who live in or work at or
Page | 46

regularly visit these three diverse settings, if intercultural understanding is lacking and
why, what the different dimensions for intercultural understanding opportunities are and
where these opportunities may lie geographically in each of the settings for intercultural
living and integration based on the analysis of the cognitive maps.

Chapter 7 pursues the concept of conviviality and space. It proposes that planning
institutions are central and responsible for the sustenance of intercultural “capabilities”
(Nussbaum 2011) including public spaces and programs that support and catalyze urban
interculturalism. The chapter discusses the opportunities and possibilities for building and
designing everyday relational spaces of conviviality by reframing public spaces in terms
of ice-breakers and bridge-makers.

Chapter 8 concludes with a summary of the key findings and a discussion of the
limitations of the research. The findings reveal that Los Angelenos live in fragmented
social spaces that do not support intercultural engagement and understanding. Although,
the city does not at this time suffer from open conflicts such as those in post-war divided
cities (Bollens 2006), the everyday social life in diverse settings in Los Angeles suffers
from unproductive tensions that pull people apart, similar to trends observed by Putnam
(2007) that living in diversity encourages “anomie or social isolation.” Without the
necessary infrastructural support from government institutions to build up intercultural
“capabilities” (Nussbaum 2011) to counteract the daily grind, this ongoing low-level
assault which has worn many down, will likely turn Los Angelenos further inwards and
hardened to live daily fleeting and routinized co-presence in diversity (Lofland 1998).
Page | 47

2. Approaching and comparing everyday social space:
framing, design, fieldwork and writing
As a social space of routines, the multi-ethnic and multi-national neighborhood is a
complex context of everyday social world made up of multiplicity of social interactions
and actors that according to a review of everyday life sociology by Adler, Adler and
Fontana (1987). However, space is often a backdrop for the study of social relations and
not an active component that shapes interactions. I am proposing through this dissertation
that the theories of Lefebvre (1991) on the production of social space, of Lofland (1998)
on the “relational web” of the public realm and of Lynch ([1960] 1998) on the bottom-up
cognitive mapping approach to obtain a collective (or “public” as Lynch thought of it) the
image of the city, when read and used together provide a theoretical and methodological
framework to approach the study of everyday social space. This theoretical framework
Lefebvre-Lofland-Lynch (3L) enables access, framing and analyzing these complex
everyday processes and experiences of living in socially diverse urban spaces that are
often uneventful, hidden and unconscious but make up the core substance of our lives and
shape our worldviews through routine quotidian life.

Lefebvre’s theory of the production of social space
Lefebvre’s (1991) triadic concept of social space production as at once perceived,
conceived and lived articulates not only the complex composition of social space that
transcends the limited binary space such as in Castells’s ([1996] 2000) initial version of
“space of flows” and “space of places” discussed in Chapter 1 but its “dialectically
interconnected dimensions or processes” that produced social space (Schmid 2008,
Page | 48

29).
6
The richness of Lefebvre’s “three-dimensional dialectic” of social space that
captures the material, mental and symbolic in what Schmid (2008, 33) describes as
linking “three moments that exist in interaction, in conflict or in alliance with each other”
provides a way into analyzing and understanding the complex experiences in relational
space and characteristics of socio-spatial tensions emerging in diverse globalizing
settings. A brief description of each of the triadic social space is as follows:

Perceived space (spatial practice) according to Lefebvre (1991, 413-4) refers to
“empirically observable” use of space that is “described and analysed on a wide range of
levels: in architecture, in city planning or ‘urbanism’ (a term borrowed from official
pronouncement), in the actual design of routes and localities (‘town and country
planning’), in the organization of everyday life, and naturally, in urban reality.” Perceived
space is that aspect of space that “can be grasped by the senses” which include seeing,
hearing, smelling touching and tasting (Schmid 2008, 39). Perceived space is sensuous
material space that is a space of practice.

6
While there are several interpretations of Lefebvre’s production of social space (with regards to the
dimensions and the dialectics), I have chosen to draw mainly from Christian Schmid’s (2008) interpretation
of the “three-dimensional dialectic” as it retains the continuous and dynamic process of interaction between
all three dimensions instead of dividing them into discrete spheres that undermine the integrity of
dialectics. In this regard, I also want to acknowledge the several valuable and insightful discussions I had
with Prof. Dr Christian Schmid at ETH Zürich between April 2012 and January 2013 for his insights into
Lefebvre’s theoretical intentions, contexts and tensions which helped me tremendously to think through,
conceptualize and appropriately apply Lefebvre’s theory to this dissertation.

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Lived space (representational space) is referred to by Lefebvre (1991, 39) as “space as
directly lived through its associated images and symbols, and hence the space of
‘inhabitants’ and ‘users’…It overlays physical space, making symbolic use of its objects.”
Lefebvre (1991, 362) explains further, “The user’s place is lived--not represented (or
conceived). When compared with the abstract space of the experts (architects, urbanists,
planners), the space of the everyday activities of users is a concrete one, which is to say,
subjective.” Lived space is thus a space of experience that has its source and basis “in
the practice of everyday life” (Schmid 2008, 40). Lived space is thus an extremely rich
dimension of social space that contains always “an inexpressible and unanalysable but
most valuable residue that can be expressed only through artistic means” (Schmid 2008,
40). It is fusion of the material and the symbolic aspects of life.

Conceived space (representations of space) is described by Lefebvre (1991, 38) as
“conceptualized space, the space of scientists, planners, urbanists…--all of whom identify
what is lived and what is perceived with what is conceived.” Conceived space is a
mental space that is composed by the coming together of perceived and lived space and
as Schmid (2008, 40) explains, conceived space is “an act of thought that is linked to the
production of knowledge.” Thus, conceived space, following Schmid’s (2008) broader
interpretation of “an act of thought” is a mental conceptualization of social space that
every inhabitant has and that is not limited to the representations of planners or scientists.

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Lofland’s relational web in the public realm
Lofland’s conceptualization of the “relational web” in the public realm offers a way to
describe the social interaction that makes up the perceived and lived space that in turn
informs and shapes the conceived space. While Lofland’s original formulation is for the
description of person-to-person interaction in the public realm, I think that applying
Lofland (1998) in the context of globalizing space of multi-ethnic and multi-national
neighborhoods is appropriate because these diverse settings are in perpetual struggle
between the “world of strangers” (Lofland 1973) of the public realm and the parochial
realm of familiar territories of local belonging. Thus it would be fruitful to understand
which pull is stronger and its implications for intercultural living and integration.

The four categories of relational types according to Lofland (1998, 52-59) are as follows:
1) fleeting relationships referring to interaction between people who are “personally
unknown to one another,” 2) routinized relationships that refer to the brief “the
interaction-as-learned-routine” between categorically known others, 3) quasi-primary
relationships that are encounters lasting between “a few minutes to several hours between
strangers or between those who are categorically known to one another” and lastly, 4)
intimate-secondary relationships that are “emotionally infused” and “relatively long-
lasting” in length of weeks and years.

Lynch’s cognitive maps as Conceived Space
Lynch’s ([1960] 1998, 6) application of cognitive mapping to understand how the city
environment is perceived through the production of mental maps of urban dwellers offers
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a valuable means to access the spatial cognition of the “two-way process between the
observer and his environment” in living the everyday life in an urban environment.
Lynch’s ([1960] 1989, 140) method required interviewees to produce a sketch map of the
city in addition to other detailed descriptions of routines through the city and distinctive
spaces which he used “to test the hypothesis of imageability”--the images of the city held
by the public and using that “to develop some suggestions for urban design.” Despite a
fair share of criticism that Lynch’s study was not scientific enough and was dependent on
the ability of the interviewees to draw, cognitive mapping has been used in different ways,
sometimes through sketching on blank sheet of paper, other times through a scaled base
map (Lee 1968, Orleans 1973, Appleyard 1976, Banerjee and Baer, 1984) because as
Stea (1974, 161) writes, “A cognitive map gives primacy not only to those things which
are visually prominent, but to things which are important for historical, economic,
political, and other reasons.”

A cognitive or mental map in effect is a conceived space a la Lefebvre (1991). The
mental map brings together the perceived and lived spaces of inhabitants. Conceived
space is not limited to the plans made by “experts” such as planners, architects and
engineers according to Schmid (personal communications, September 2012). Thus, every
individual who has a mental construct of space is capable of producing a conceived space
and the mental maps are representations of that space. During our discussion about
Lefebvrian interpretation of cognitive mapping, a differentiation was made however,
between sketch maps and mapping on scaled map base. Sketch maps are conceived
spaces that reflect the lived space rather than the perceived space, while mapping on a
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scaled map base enables the production of a cognitive map (conceived space) that
describes both the perceived space (actual spatial practice) and the lived space.

Applying Lefebvre-Lofland-Lynch (3L) framework: A rotating tetrahedron of social
space and intercultural space
While Lefebvre provided us with a dynamic “three-dimensional dialectic” to understand
the production of social space composition and process, Lefebvre was silent on how to
study these dialectics. It was particularly challenging to respect the ingenuity of
Lefebvre’s dialectics without analytically deconstructing the three-dimensional social
space into discrete artificial thirds in order to analyze the dialectics.
7
The 3L conceptual
framework I am proposing to operationalize Lefebvre’s “three-dimensional dialectic”
social space is in the form of a rotating tetrahedron (please see Figure 2.1).

7
Bertuzzo (2009) operationalizes Lefebvre’s theory production of space in her study of Dhaka’s
urbanization. Her approach divides the three dialectical spaces into a physical field (perceived), mental
field (conceived) and social field (lived) that makes use of different sets of tools to access. For the physical
field she uses associative walks, photos and analysis of routines, the mental field is accessed through
interviews and mental maps and the social field through participant observation.
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Figure 2.1: A rotating tetrahedron of the 3L framework to operationalize Lefebvre’s “three-
dimensional dialectic” of social space production. Sketch-up model by author with help from Ji-Jon
Sit.

The three planes of a tetrahedron represent the perceived space, conceived space and
lived space respectively. Imagine first the object of study is placed within the tetrahedron
(in this case how the tensions of intercultural living and integration is negotiated in
diverse settings). Then looking through the conceived space (i.e., cognitive map of
interviewees, Lynch [1960] 1998), we gain understanding of the perceived and lived
spaces of the globalizing multi-ethnic spaces through the mapping of boundaries,
territories and routines while retaining the holistic “three-dimensional dialectics.” Next,
imagine the tetrahedron is rotated so that now you are looking through the perceived
space and lived space frame using Lofland’s relational web. By analyzing the relational
web through interview questions about social relations, space-sharing and interaction
opportunities, we look through the perceived space of practice and lived space of
experience in order to access the hidden/mental conceived space or conceptions about the
social relations such as prejudice in multi-ethnic spaces that cannot be easily mapped
spatially. The rotating tetrahedron of conceived-perceived-lived space enables a
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systematic way to understand the “three-dimensional dialectic” all at once by holding the
creative tension between the dialectics in place during the process of analytical
unraveling through a process of layering the conceived-perceived-lived spaces so that a
parallel understanding of the multivariate processes and negotiations in globalizing
settings can be obtained. This framework will be operationalized in the discussion of the
three settings in Chapters 3, 4 and 5.

Taking this 3L rotating tetrahedron framework of the dialectics of social space further, I
am proposing that we can also fruitfully use it to study the possibilities of the dialectics of
intercultural space formation in these diverse settings. In Chapter 6, I begin with a
discussion of the descriptions of conceived intercultural space from the perspective of the
interviewees. Looking through this plane of conceived intercultural space, the barriers
that are embedded in the perceived and lived social space that work against the formation
of an intercultural space emerge. In Chapter 7, these barriers are examined in light of the
opportunities present in the perceived and lived social space for the formation of a
perceived and lived intercultural space in diverse settings. Following the mechanism of
dialectics, the interventions to create a new perceived and lived intercultural space are
proposed with the goal that the less visible conceived social space will be transformed so
that the “three-dimensional dialectics” are appropriated to produce an intercultural space.
In this extended rendition of the 3L rotating tetrahedron, Lefebvre’s dialectics of social
space is operationalized to not only analyze the processes in the production of social
space (as used in Chapters 3,4 and 5) but taken as an instrumental mechanism for the
production of a new socio-spatial synthesis, that of an intercultural space.
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Premise of Design: Qualitative, Variation-finding and Comparative
Foremost, the research is designed to seek understanding of the everyday process of
negotiating social interaction and the sharing of spaces in diverse settings. The study aims
to access the experiences and views of people who actually live, work or use the
neighborhood on a regular basis about living in diversity and with diversity that is of
different ethnicities, cultural practices and nationalities. For this purpose, a largely
qualitative mode of inquiry seems to be the appropriate tool because we know so little
about the interpersonal dynamics and the interrelationship between people and space in
diverse settings actually function. Intended as a variation-finding comparative multi-sited
research, the decision is to focus on settings that are inherently diverse rather than a
combination of homogeneous and heterogeneous ones (Robinson 2011). To this end, the
chosen settings have few things in common, except that they are located in Los Angeles.
They are of a different average household income level, different mix of ethnicities and
nationalities, different composition of immigrants versus native-born, different histories,
different institutional environment and different sizes.

Akin to Tsing’s (2005) “patchwork ethnography” to study globalizing processes, a mix of
ethnographic, semi-structured interviews, participant observation, cognitive mapping and
survey in addition to secondary sources were used to capture the socio-spatial processes
and manifestation of the negotiation in intercultural living and integration. After the
preliminary interviews, the decision was made to include a short survey at the end of each
semi-structured interview that specifically ask for opinions about the types and qualities
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of neighborhood space that is conducive to social interaction and intercultural
understanding. This is because while interviews provide deep and rich narratives, they
place a limit for aggregation which I think is valuable to planning and policy endeavors.
There is hence a tension between aggregation and the particular from the research design
to the field and in the writing.

The fieldwork was completed over two phases.
8
In May 2011, I conducted preliminary
interviews in each of the three neighborhoods. Between August 2011 and February 2012,
I interviewed residents, users, business owners, community organizers and municipal
officers. I participated in neighborhood events (e.g. fundraisers, Cambodian Arts festival,
MLK parade, farmers market), attended neighborhood meetings, including two
interviews with experts in human relations. In total, I conducted 100 interviews lasting at
least an hour each and another 40 ethnographic-style and shorter interviews during events,
meetings, walking and visiting the neighborhood shops and public spaces.
9
A total of 140
interviews and 68 surveys were filled out.
10
Table 2.1 shows the total number of
interviews in each setting, the composition of interviews and type. Appendix1 shows the

8
The research was cleared by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) as a “NOT Human Subjects Research”
on January 29 2011.
9
Each neighborhood had an approximately equal number of interviewees and representation of the relevant
major ethnic categories (Whites, Latinos, African Americans and Asians).
10
Of the 68 surveys filled out, 14 were conducted separately in the different neighborhood parks (Lacy
Park in San Marino, MacArthur Park in Central Long Beach and Burns Park in Mid-Wilshire). This was
thought necessary to increase the number of responses as several interviews did not end with the survey
because of time constraints of the interviewees.
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list of interviewees who participated in the semi-structured interviews and their
respective pseudonyms in each study area.

Study areas Semi-
structured
interviews

Ethnographic interviews
(include park visits)
Total (Surveys
Completed)
San Marino 30 14 44 (21)
Central Long Beach 34 19 53 (23)
Mid-Wilshire 34 7 41 (24)
Interviews with human
relations experts
2 0 2 (0)
TOTAL

100 40 140 (68)

Table 2.1: Total number of interviews in each setting, the composition and type

Key Challenges in Research Design
Selecting and Defining the study area
Multiple sources informed the selection of the three study areas including anecdotal
evidence, personal knowledge and observation, census research, local news, informal
preliminary interviews with planners in different cities in Los Angeles County where
there are culturally diverse populations etc. An initial criterion of selection is the
evidence of negative tensions arising from co-existing cultures (whether from different
ethnicities or between immigrants and native-born) in the area and that the ethnic
diversity is mixed with immigrants and native-born and not characterized by a distinct
majority-minority split.

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To this end, I found that “Central Long Beach”
11
(through a project about Southeast
Asian ethnoscapes in Los Angeles which is discussed in Banerjee, Chakravarty and Chan,
forthcoming) has experienced inter-ethnic conflict since the 1970s. While the negative
tension has calmed down in the last 10 years, the attempt to establish a “Cambodia Town”
has triggered unease between the Latinos, African-Americans and Cambodians who are
living and working in the area. One of the key characteristic of Central Long Beach that
stands out is also the poverty of the people and the living conditions in the area having an
average annual median household income level that is less than 60 percent of Los
Angeles County’s level of $55,476 in 2010.

The second study area, San Marino
12
, was selected largely through anecdotal evidence
and personal knowledge that undercurrents of tensions between the Chinese (mostly
wealthy immigrants from Taiwan, Hong Kong and China) and White Caucasian (native-
born) residents are present. San Marino, I thought would be an interesting case to study
because very little research about affluent ethnically diverse neighborhoods of rich
immigrants have been done even though the negative tension between its residents in San

11
“Central Long Beach” is a term that is used to refer to the central geographical location of the area
relative to the rest of the City of Long Beach as both a formal official reference and an informal reference
by people living in Long Beach to differentiate it from the well-heeled Eastside and Downtown Long
Beach. As a study area in this dissertation, it includes the area that has the following census tracts (based on
US Census 2010): 5751.01, 5751.02, 5751.03, 5752.01, 5752.02, 5753, 5754.02, 5763.01, 5763.02,
5764.01, 5765.03, 5769.01, 5769.03, 5769.04.
12
San Marino in this dissertation includes the census tracts 4641 and 4642 (based on US Census 2010).
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Marino has been an area of sporadic journalistic interest since the 1980s as an internet
search quickly demonstrates.

The parameters of the third study area are shaped by the characteristics of the first two
areas and the desire to have comparative axes that connect the three areas. The decision
to include a comparative socio-economic (income) axis influences the search for a mixed-
income area that is diverse. Annual median household income is seen as a good proxy
that determines the living conditions of the study area in Los Angeles where residential
choice and quality of living conditions are organized along socio-economic lines. Further,
as both Central Long Beach and San Marino have Asian populations (albeit different
ethnicity and nationality), I wanted to look for an area that also has an Asian resident
population. Based on these criteria, “Mid-Wilshire”
13
was finally decided as the third
study area.

A major challenge following the selection process was how to define the study areas
spatially in order to start systematically collecting data. A major consideration was that
each of the study area must have a public park and a public library. This was because an
objective of the dissertation is to understand the possibilities that public spaces in diverse
settings provide for intercultural understanding. Thus the park and the library would form

13
“Mid-Wilshire” is a term that has many different spatial extents. In this dissertation, it refers to the area
that includes the following census tracts (based on US Census 2010): 1923, 1924.1, 1924.2, 1925.1, 1925.2,
1926.1, 1926.2, 2110, 2112.01, 2112.02, 2113.1, 2113.2, 2114.1, 2114.2, 2115, 2117.01, 2117.03, 2117.04,
2118.02, 2118.03, 2118.04, 2119.1, 2119.21, 2119.22, 2121.01, 2121.02, 2141. Chapter 5 provides more
discussion about the boundaries of Mid-Wilshire.
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the center of each of the study area. Interestingly, while a spatial centrality was sought as
an organizing principle to define the study area, the findings indicated that these diverse
settings were only partially organized around these public spaces.

Overall, San Marino presented less of a challenge since it is a single municipality with
official boundaries. Central Long Beach and Mid-Wilshire, as the names suggest, are part
of a larger city. Which areas to include and exclude presented challenges as census tract
boundaries do not coincide with zip codes and other available documents about the areas.
In these two areas, the public parks and libraries were the two major orientating elements.
The geographical extent of each study area was a synthesis from a variety of sources
including the zip code boundary, preliminary interviews with residents and observations
from multiple site visits. It is meant to be a loose and working definition in order to have
a starting point that is consistent across the three areas, not a firm and complete set of
boundaries.

Researching about space: Cognitive mapping and interviews
Cognitive mapping as discussed earlier is viewed as an effective means to access the oft
“silent” dimension of space in everyday experience. As indicated above, one of the key
challenges of this study is defining the boundaries of the study area. But this challenge
also provided an opportunity to understand how boundaries of globalizing multi-ethnic
and multi-national neighborhoods are defined (conceived, perceived and lived)
14
by those

14
The process of social space production has all these three components so that one’s conceived boundaries
is a conception of spatial practice (e.g. where one walks or sees makers of divides) that is influenced by
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who live, work and use these settings. I analyze and compare the individual cognitive
maps as a collective conceived space using the filters of ethnicity and length of residency
in the three settings, guided by these following questions:
1. What are the conceived boundaries of the neighborhood (if they exist) and does
the way the boundaries are drawn give an indication as to how these boundaries
might be conceived?
2. Are there territories in the neighborhoods? What type of territories?
3. What is the relationship between routine geographies and the conceived
boundaries and territories in the neighborhood? Do boundaries and territories
limit the range and pattern of routine geographies?
4. Finally, what are the common issues that can be inferred from the mapping of
social space in these three multi-ethnic neighborhoods?
Instead of following Lynch’s ([1960] 1998) cognitive mapping technique of requesting
interviewee to sketch a map, I provided a Google street directory printed base map on
ledger-size papers. This was done as a way to normalize the bases of comparison across
three study areas as well as to minimize the different abilities and comfort level that
interviewees would have to draw. Google street maps were used because of their
popularity and familiarity for navigation purposes and this I thought would make the

one’s experience of fear or comfort or memory along that street as a lived space. In this sense, the mapping
in this study attempts to illustrate the dialectics of social space production through boundary, territory and
routine mapping.

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cognitive mapping exercise easier to understand. Naturally, there are limitations to
providing a street map rather than a blank sheet of paper because it would influence the
basis of how boundaries are conceived. As Lynch ([1960]1998) illustrated in his findings,
there are five elements that maps and collective images of the city are organized by. They
are the paths, edges, districts, nodes and landmarks. Streets behave like paths and in car-
centric Los Angeles, streets and their intersections structure the location of major nodes,
landmarks and districts. Hence, because everyday spatial cognition and navigation in Los
Angeles is constantly shaped by streets and their intersections, providing a Google street
map might not overly distort the mental map.
15

I used two Google street maps for each interviewee. One map is at a detailed smaller
scale (1:12,500) and another at a larger scale that includes surrounding regions (1:25,000)
so that I do not place an overly artificial boundary of the neighborhood by limiting the
geographical extent of the maps. I chose these two scales because they include the study
boundaries and the street names are visually legible although some interviewees had
difficulty reading them at the 1:25,000 scale. I found that the use of maps as a way to
orient the interviewees to talk about their neighborhood spatially had been an immense
help. One interviewee even made that remark that the map made it easier to talk about the
neighborhood!

15
I was informed by a community organizer who works with Cambodians and is himself a Cambodian in
Central Long Beach that Cambodians organize their neighborhood space using landmarks such as key
gathering social spaces e.g. the Grand Paradise restaurant as well as major road intersections.
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Challenges and Surprises doing multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork
The greatest challenge but perhaps also the richest insight about the research
methodology comes from the experience of conducting comparative fieldwork in three
very different urban settings and negotiating the angst of continuous border crossings,
even though these settings are all in Los Angeles metropolitan area. Each study area
presents a unique set of entry dynamics with different sets of organizations and network,
how inhabitants dress and open up in addition to reconciling academic concepts of cities
and street language used in cities. Susan Philips (1999, 95) describes the process of
fieldwork in her book Wall-bangin’: Graffiti and Gangs in LA which I think my
fieldwork experience shares,

Fieldwork is a slow and sometimes painful process. So much social and emotional
angst accompanies trying to get to know the people you want to work with. It
involves putting yourself where you do not belong, where you may not be wanted;
making painful social mistakes; having to deal with issues of race, trust, honesty,
money, class. Ethnographic fieldwork is made up of people with moods and
personalities. You have your unlucky days and your lucky days, which make
fieldwork something of an emotional roller coaster.

Multi-sited sequence
I began my interviewing in San Marino, followed by Central Long Beach and then Mid-
Wilshire. The fieldwork in each study area took about 2.5 months to complete with
overlapping weeks as I transitioned from one study area to another. Significant amount of
Page | 64

time was spent scheduling interviews and “sowing the seeds” in each site for future
interviews so that the fieldwork can proceed without too many breaks in between
interviews. Each study area presented fresh challenges in part due to the fact that they
belonged to different municipalities with unique sets of institutions and essentially, they
are demographically different. What seemed like a logical sequence of questions in San
Marino was rather awkwardly received in Central Long Beach and Mid-Wilshire. The
preliminary interviews were extremely helpful to get a sense of the different
communication realms although even after that, a few tweaks were required still in order
to come up with a set of questions that could be used across three sites.

Recruiting interviewees: opportunities and limitations
My pool of interviewees as being drawn from three groups—(1) the residents/users of the
neighborhoods including business owners, (2) community organizers who work locally in
neighborhood civic organizations (religious, social services) and city services (park,
library, police) and (3) the municipal decision-makers (e.g. planners, district
representative) in the city hall.

Group 1 was the hardest to recruit as no interview appointments can be set up ahead of
time and I had to approach strangers to ask if they would have at least 45 minutes to
assist me in my study. I had a fair share of rough rejections and polite ones and on
average for every two people I ask, I would get 1 rejection. To minimize narrow selection
biases and maximize diversity of viewpoints, I sought to recruit interviewees through
various sources, drawing and snowballing from different venues including public spaces
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(libraries, parks, community centers) and civic organizations (religious and social
services organizations) as well as from a variety of inter-personal social networks in each
of the three neighborhoods. However, the fieldwork proved that going to all these
different sites was an extremely difficult endeavor for a lone researcher because each of
these had its own challenges of entry. Snowballing potential through these interviews at
public spaces was extremely low although not completely absent. Across the three study
areas, the neighborhood libraries were the best places to recruit and conduct interviews.
Clearly the interviewee pool may not be representative of the study area and provide a
partial viewpoint that can be viewed further compromised by the self-selection because
those who agreed to the interview are likely to be more open and predisposed to social
interaction between strangers.

The neighborhood library was my base and entry point into the three study areas. The
librarians were very supportive and granted me permission to conduct interviews within
their premises. In Central Long Beach where there are few public spaces that are safe and
diverse, the library provides a safe and relaxing location for the interviews and the
interviewees to open up. For the similar reasons of a lack of free public and gathering
spaces, the neighborhood library at Mid-Wilshire was immensely valuable as an
interview pool from which I received two more contacts of friends of interviewees. The
library at San Marino was helpful as a place to interview regular users who live in
surrounding cities. The majority of the resident interviewees in San Marino came from
interpersonal social networks and referral from serendipitous meetings with people who
live there or who know of people who do.
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Overall, shorter and less structured ethnographic style interviewing without recording
was used most frequently in Central Long Beach with the Cambodian population because
I was advised by a local community organizer to refrain from voice recording or taking
notes as there was a general anxiety and suspicion among the Cambodians living in the
area about implications of partaking in a “formal-looking” study that reminds them of
government representatives (Ong 2003: xvi).

Process of Interviewing: Trade-offs and Surprises
Each semi-structured interview ranged between 45 minutes and 4 hours, despite the effort
to organize the interview to last about an hour. The ethnographic interviews were not
voice-recorded and they lasted between 5 minutes to 30 minutes. During the interviews, it
was always an act of trade-off between pursuing depth, having all the interview questions
completely answered so that a comparative analysis can be done and respecting the time
of the interviewees.

Before the start of each interview, I would introduce myself as a student from USC,
explain my study briefly and ask for permission to voice record. I would also inform the
interviewees that the interviews are anonymous and if they feel uncomfortable at any
point of being recorded, they should tell me to turn the recorder off. Surprisingly, all
interviewees gave me the permission to record and did not ask to have it turned off,
except during a brief part of an interview with a municipal officer.

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To begin, interviewees were asked if they lived, worked or regularly used the area around
the location of the interview. If the answer was “yes,” I would provide the two Google
street maps at two scales and ask them to locate where they lived with a star sticker on
whichever map that made most sense to them. While most of the interviewees were able
to comprehend the meaning of drawing a boundary without any assistance or direction,
some required more prompting. I was aware to minimize my influence as much as
possible, limiting my prompts to “you can circle, highlight the streets or box it,” “what is
the extent…which streets for example.” There were a few interviewees (about five) who
were not able to comprehend at all the meaning of boundary. The difficulties faced by
interviewees of the concept of boundary might have stemmed from a variety of reasons
including language and culture. Further, the spatial dimension of life is often an
unconscious backdrop to human activities and spatial cognition and awareness varies
across individuals (Lynch [1960] 1998, Whyte 1980, Steele 1981).

On the same map, interviewees were asked to mark out territories and the routine places
in the neighborhood with different colored markers. These markings were then
transferred digitally so that collective analysis for patterns can be undertaken. A series of
semi-structured interview questions about the interviewees’ perceptions of neighborhood
relations with regards to the sharing of space, belonging, ethnicity and immigration
followed. Lastly, I asked the interviewees about the opportunities for intercultural
understanding in the neighborhood. A short survey about the potential of neighborhood
spaces for building community relations and interviewees’ basic demographic was
collected after the interview if time permitted. I prepared four set of questions (for
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residents, for business owners, for community organizers and for municipal decision-
makers) that are mostly overlapping but with slightly different emphasis and sequence.
For example, with the municipal decision-makers, the interview was more focused on the
organization’s approach towards intercultural understanding and their responses to some
of the comments by neighborhood residents that I gathered from earlier interviews. As
much as possible, a similar sequence of questions was used across the three study areas.
However, there were times when the sequence of questions had to be tweaked to follow
the flow of the conversation. The set of questions (including the survey) is found in
Appendix 2.

Reflecting upon the process of interviewing, the cognitive mapping exercise was a useful
ice-breaker for most interviews, especially the neighborhood residents/users (Group 1
interviewees). It provided a transitional activity and a familiar object to initial
awkwardness. Some of the interviewees even remarked that it was fun. At the conclusion
of several interviews, the interviewees thanked me for allowing them an opportunity to
articulate their thoughts about inter-ethnic tension, for making them think and evaluate
how they are treating their neighbors. A couple of them even made new resolutions to be
more hospitable and reach out to their neighbors more.

Tensions in comparative analysis and writing
Topical or case-specific
Initially, I approached the writing from a topical perspective, presenting the findings from
each study area according to the issue and then providing a summary of the common
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patterns at the end of the chapter. Although this method was valuable as a means to
analyze and articulate the aggregate findings comparatively, the piece of writing was
difficult to navigate in terms of lacking a clarity because the three settings had
particularities that were important to write about but when juxtaposed, created a fuzzy
piece lacking in coherence.

In addition, the “report-style” style writing similar to what Lila Abu-Lughod (1991, 147-
149) describes the writing of culture tends to be “shadowed by coherence, timelessness,
and discreteness,” the “report-style” account of analysis and explanation sacrificed the
“ethnographies of the particular” that I think made stories have a profound impact. The
richness and diversity of the voices from the field were muted by my monotone voice.

This led me to experiment instead with the story-telling approach, presenting the three
study areas as three narratives of negotiating diversity. The stories are loosely structured
according to themes about sharing and negotiating social space. They are written in a way
to highlight the trends and patterns in each study area by weaving the voices from the
field with my interpretation of them. In this way, I attempted to hold the tension between
generalization and the particular in place, setting up the findings to allow for the
comparative analysis about the status and opportunities for intercultural understanding in
these three study areas to follow in Chapters 6 and 7.

The three stories offer and juxtapose three snapshots of negotiating diversity in Los
Angeles. Through these three glimpses, the work of gathering the common threads and
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differentiating between the “particularities” is left to the reader, following a similar
method of vignettes. Putnam and Feldstein (2003, 6) who adopted stories as an approach
to illustrate the cases of progress on social-capital building explains well what stories are
uniquely able to access,

We believe that stories, with their specificity and ability to express the complex
realities of particular people and places and their possibly unique ability to
express thought and feeling simultaneously, are the appropriate medium for
capturing a sense of how social-capital creation works in real life…The U.S.
Army uses the term “ground truth” to describe the real experience of soldiers in
the field-the moment-by-moment truth of being in combat, as opposed to
generalizations about combat or theories about how it should occur. In these
stories, we have tried to capture some of the ground truth of social-capital
creation-the ways it really happens rather than theories or frameworks describing
how it might or should happen.

Writing dialectics: frustration with operationalizing Lefebvre in writing
Writing about Lefebvre’s “three-dimensional dialectics” (Schmid 2008) was in itself a
challenge. How can dialectics be dialectical if they are broken up mechanically in
analysis in order to be written? How do I analyze and write in a way that preserves the
three-sided tensions that are inherent in this dialectical relationship? In addition,
Lefebvre’s descriptive terms for social spaces are rather jargon-like such that they require
so much explanation beforehand in order to be understood when operationalize. These
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are all issues that I experienced and found in writings that attempt to operationalize
Lefebvre’s theory on the production of social space.

These woes of attempting to operationalize Lefebvre while agonizing and stretching, they
helped tremendously in nudging me to think outside the box in order to apply Lefebvre’s
intuitively valuable but practically difficult theory. The 3L rotating tetrahedron
framework is the approach that I have come up with to resolve some of these inherent
contradictions and to hold the “three-dimensional dialectics” in tension in ways that
reflect the ingenuity of Lefebvre’s conception.

Practical matters facing the lone researcher: data and time
Clearly, comparative analysis and writing takes exponentially more time than a single-
case study as interdisciplinary research does. Striving for breadth, I think, requires an
individual to go beyond depth. Being the lone researcher in this study who attended each
interview personally, I gave up trying to do ad verbatim transcription for all of the
interviewees and relied on field notes, copious interview notes and voice-recordings as
my database. Going through 100 interviews that averaged around 1.5 hours, to reduce
raw data and organize them in order to prepare for analysis was itself a formidable task
(Miles and Huberman 1994). The time lapse during the analysis of the data of three study
areas also places a limit on the potentialities of conducting concurrent comparative
analysis for a lone researcher. Collaboration in multi-sited comparative research is the
way forward, especially in approaching diverse settings. Through the process of
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collaboration, I think data can be more rigorously collected, minimizing the potential
biases and widening the abilities of a lone researcher.

Addressing Limitations of Studying Diverse Settings
“Commuter Fieldwork”: A perpetual outsider?
This research is undertaken by what Ong (2003) quoting Judith Stacey (1990) terms
“commuter fieldwork,” typical of doing research within one’s own city. During the 2.5
months of interviewing in each study area, I would visit the study area two to three times
per week for interviews, ethnography and participant observation. The three study areas
are about 45 minutes by car each way and are part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area
where I live. Some may argue that such fieldwork suffers from being a perpetual outsider
and never gaining an understanding of the neighborhood as an insider, especially when
these neighborhoods are occupied by multiple groups and alliances. In this sense, some
would question the legitimacy of classifying this study as ethnography typically requires
one to live in the study area and be part of the everyday life of the neighborhood (Gupta
and Ferguson 1997b).

Sharing very familiar feelings with Susan Philips (1999, 95) in her description of her
experience of commuter ethnography in Los Angeles studying gang graffiti, commuter
fieldwork “called out the superficiality of the ties that I made with people, how
connections to them were driven by fieldwork and were therefore completely unnatural.”
These feelings were acutely felt particularly with interviewees who gave of their time
generously and those who felt comfortable enough to share their personal struggles.
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Further as the focus of this research is on negotiating cultures which is essentially deep
and meaningful to individuals and communities, I frequently feel that my non-group
focus in a bid to understand multi-ethnic neighborhoods can be cursory. This challenge is
likely a common one in approaching diverse settings where the focus of study goes
beyond ethnicity and the focus is on the process and interconnections between people.

Nevertheless from another perspective, this awareness of the lack of full immersion
offers a certain clarity that comes from the creative insider-outsider tension that is at the
heart of fieldwork. Quoting Philips (1999, 96),

As with most major cities, it is the nature of Los Angeles to segregate people.
This segregation makes you feel comfortable on your own turf and uncomfortable
on somebody else's. Because of the city's size (its famous sprawl), such zones of
comfort can be enormous but still manage to exclude entire populations from their
midst. I had to develop survival mechanisms for the hatred I encountered when I
crossed those boundaries. I certainly felt exhilarated when I did so successfully—
when I did fit in and felt welcomed and accepted, and even wanted. Ultimately,
the power of those moments made it possible for me to do fieldwork in a city
where divides of a few miles sometimes seemed greater than those separating
nations.

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Positioning the researcher and her access: Language, Culture, Ethnicity and Class
Being a fourth generation Singaporean Chinese female foreigner who is often mistaken
for a range of ethnicities and nationalities from Chinese to Thai to Filipinos to Korean to
Latina to Guam, undertaking this research about ethnicity and spatial behavior presents
practical opportunities and constraints as well as insights and blind spots. Frequently, the
effects of these double-edged paradoxes are hard to discern and isolate.

In San Marino, my identity as an overseas Chinese, a foreigner/immigrant in the United
States, and my ability to speak Chinese and English were extremely helpful in opening
doors to new Chinese immigrants, second generation Asian Americans and the overseas
Chinese American citizens from Taiwan and Malaysia. These same “advantageous”
personal features might have got in the way when interviewing White Caucasians about
their inter-ethnic relations with Chinese in San Marino. They might have felt
uncomfortable and guarded expressing their uncensored feelings. Foreseeing that this
might be a challenge, I confronted this ambivalence during the interviews, requesting the
interviewees to speak freely as much as possible. The sense of guardedness usually
dissipated as the interview progressed and the interviewees felt comfortable enough to
share their bad experiences.

In Central Long Beach, being Asian once again allowed me easier access to the
Cambodians and Vietnamese living and working in the area but it had its limitations as
well. Of note was the warm welcome I received in the Cambodian senior recreation
center where many seniors (many of whom were overseas Chinese Cambodians) greeted
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me with enthusiasm and asked if I spoke Mandarin and Southern Chinese dialects of
Teochew and “Gengdang” (Cantonese). As I could understand all three languages and
had enough speaking ability of Mandarin and Cantonese, it provided them a rare
opportunity to use their heart language instead of Khmer (which was the lingua franca
among Chinese Cambodians, mixed Chinese-Khmers and Khmers). Over lunch, I was
able to ethnographically interview these Cambodian seniors with a mix of Mandarin,
Cantonese and English. They afforded me insights into the experiences of being a
Cambodian refugee, especially some of the Chinese Cambodians who identified
themselves as Chinese and related to China but are more ambivalent about their ties with
the United States and Cambodia.

In Mid-Wilshire, I think my Asian ethnicity was less of an issue or advantage as
compared to my position as a woman researcher, albeit I could not discount its influence
in opening doors to Korean and Filipino women interviewees who might be predisposed
to feeling more comfortable talking to me. As a woman researcher, I was able to access
certain places such as playgrounds and “hang out” in parks to look for interviewees
without being questioned and I could easily approach mothers and nannies without
creating unease. Similarly, to avoid my Asian identity as a baggage to openness, I would
confront this ambivalence by informing the interviewee that I am from Singapore (not
Korean or Filipino) and I would ask them to be honest about their thoughts and feelings
as I would want to get as close to the reality of the relational dynamics in the
neighborhood. At Mid-Wilshire, my lack of ability to speak Spanish limited my access to
Page | 76

Latina nannies and mothers, many of whom did not feel confident or were able to speak
English.

Of the three study areas, I found greatest social angst conducting fieldwork in Central
Long Beach. Perhaps it was the longer commute on the worn tarmac of the twelve-lane
freeway passing through dreary industrial land and brown fields with electrical cables
that mentally widened and made more difficult to cross the social and cultural distance
between my upper middle-class and English-speaking diverse Westside neighborhood
and the socio-economically poor and multilingual diverse neighborhood in Central Long
Beach.

There was no “comfort zone” of a Starbucks café space or a nice park bench to hang out;
at least not until a new Subway café opened up on the northern boundary to provide me a
spot of respite to reflect and recharge in the field. Although with my black hair and
slightly tanned skin I could phenotypically blend in with the characteristics of Southeast
Asian and maybe even Hispanic, my age, gender, height, no kids and sunshades (a typical
accessory in most parts of L.A. but observably uncommon in Central Long Beach) made
me feel out-of-place. It did not help that I also stood out during times when I had to take
pictures of run-down buildings. The ambiguous ethnographic process of “hanging out”
could be quickly picked up in a neighborhood used to gang activities in the streets. For all
these reasons, the library provided a bona fide interview space where my identity was
acknowledged and approved by the library’s management and I could feel relaxed to
approach potential interviewees.
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A major limitation in Central Long Beach was my inability to speak Spanish and Khmer.
My Spanish-handicap limited access to Latina mothers, many of whom were immigrants
from Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador. However, I was able to interview two Latino
community organizers, a pastor of a Spanish-speaking congregation of Latino immigrants
and a handful of Latino young adults to gain an insight into the social lives of the first
and second-generation Latino communities. Not speaking Khmer also limited my access
to mostly educated and younger Cambodians who could speak English, albeit the
ethnographic interviews with Cambodian seniors who could speak Mandarin and
Cantonese helped to include more viewpoints. However, perhaps because of my Asian
descent and my gender, a few Cambodian ladies who could speak some English agreed to
be interviewed by me. As someone who had experience working with internationals
whose first language was not English, I was able to quickly adapt, understand and put the
questions across to these interviewees.

Interestingly, in Central Long Beach I found good rapport with African American
resident adults I met at the library, both men and women. I felt less anxious with these
library visitors as compared to the African Americans I met at the park or in the senior
center. The interviews with them unencumbered by language enabled conversations that
explored deeper nuances. My status as a minority, Asian and woman could have also
provided a “familiar” and “neutral” position with which they might have been able to
relate to better. A few of the interviewees thanked me for helping them to process, think
and articulate their feelings openly about race. Further during the interviews, I realized
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that these African American interviewees in Central Long Beach and in Mid-Wilshire
had minimal contact with Asians and I was likely the only Asian who they had
substantive contact with in their lives.

Expectedly, I felt more “at home” during interviews with municipal officers, community
organizers and leaders. This was particularly noticeable in my interviews with city and
park planners when technical language of zoning and design were used freely without
much need for translation. And likely, there could be closer balance of power relations
between the interviewer and the interviewee as I am also trained and practiced as a
professional planner before starting my doctoral studies.

A strong critique of this research could be leveled at its limit to English speakers in
diverse settings where English abilities are not equal and even lacking in some areas.
Thus the interviewees are not representative of the actual population living in a multi-
ethnic environment and the data is skewed against residents who do not speak English.
However, from another perspective, given that English is the expected lingua franca in
the United States across cultures, using English as the interview language focuses the
research to understand other reasons apart from language that could be barrier to
intercultural engagement and opportunities.

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3. Scene One: Negotiating cultural differences and
diversity in San Marino
A late sunny morning in May 2011, I arrived in San Marino for the first time to begin my
fieldwork. I have been living in Los Angeles for close to four years by then but have
never set foot in this part of town in broad daylight. Getting off the 110 freeway after
driving for close to an hour in traffic, I was glad to get onto the calmer and more
interesting landscapes of local streets. Driving past South Pasadena’s boulevard of
restaurants, I finally entered wide lanes of Huntington Drive where lush green trees lined
up along the median and by both sides. I have left the city of asphalt behind and have
entered the “City of San Marino, California.”

Over the next few months, I took different routes to enter San Marino and most times, I
had to look out for the sign “San Marino” or “San Marino City Limit.” Nested within
several cities like South Pasadena (to the west), San Gabriel (to the south), Rosemead (to
the east) and Pasadena (in the north), the fuzziness of San Marino’s exact borders can be
attributed ironically to its exclusiveness that has an effect to make its adjacencies look
just like it. Where San Marino begins and ends can be quite challenging to a visitor. What
I initially thought was San Marino, turned out to be South Pasadena on the left and San
Gabriel on the right. San Marino was a little further east down Huntington Drive, where
the roads are better paved, where houses are larger and perfectly kept up, where lawns are
well-watered and manicured and the quiet ambience of an established and well-heeled
suburb-city with large shady trees surrounds you. See Figures 3.1 to 3.4 for images of
San Marino.
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Figure 3.1: The tree-lined Huntington Drive forms the backdrop of a local favorite diner “Colonial
Kitchen” that has in recent years been bought and operated by a Chinese couple from China. Photo
by author.

Figure 3.2: A modest single-family house (by San Marino’s standard) up for sale by a Chinese realtor.
Photo by author.
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Figure 3.3: Parents and nannies watching their little children practice for Little League baseball in
Lacy Park during a weekday late afternoon. Photo by author.

Figure 3.4: Hauntington Breakfast School Fundraiser where Chinese breakfast of steam buns and
scallion pancakes are available alongside American breakfast of sausages and flapjacks. Photo by
author.
Page | 82

Entering San Marino
With a population of about 13,000, San Marino is a small and wealthy city in the San
Gabriel Valley. Exclusive, low density, quiet, wide streets, San Marino stands out from
its surrounding towns because of its strict zoning regulations that control the form, façade
and function of all uses. This exclusivity was obtained in order to “preserve
neighborhood character and protect property values” that were envisioned by its founders
100 years ago in 1913 (San Marino Residential Design Guidelines Brochure).

While the production of physical space has been preserved, San Marino as a social space
has evolved dramatically over the last 40 years. Starting from 1970s and accelerating
through the 80s and 90s, San Marino has undergone significant demographic changes in
its ethnicity mix. Transitioning from a predominantly White Caucasian suburb-city that
was the location of the former headquarters of John Birch Society (viewed by many as a
racist organization) to a residential area made up of 53 percent of wealthy Chinese
immigrants from Taiwan, Hong Kong and more recently, China. By 2010 according to
the US Census, San Marino has “lost its whiteness” (Chowkwanyun and Segall 2012,
Atlantic Cities, Aug 27 2012, Abendschein 2012, San Marino Patch.com, Aug 27 2012).
It has instead joined the league of “ethnoburbs” where many Chinese and Taiwanese
immigrants find their first foothold in the soil of Los Angeles (Li 2009, Cheng 2009),
bucking the pattern of urban ecological secession theory by the Chicago School
sociologists where poor immigrants were expected to arrive in the inner city first before
dispersing into the suburbs as they moved up the socio-economic ladder and assimilated
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(Park and Burgess 1925). Figure 3.5 shows the ethnic geography of San Marino and its
surrounding “ethnoburbs” in San Gabriel Valley with high concentrations of Asian
populations by 2010 (Medina 2013, The New York Times, April 28 2013).

Figure 3.5: The Asian “ethnoburbs” in San Gabriel Valley according to U.S. Census 2010. Map
prepared by author.

A different process seems to be unfolding in San Marino. It is increasingly becoming the
first destination of wealthy Chinese professionals and businessmen immigrants who have
moved straight into purchasing and living the American Dream. In fact, San Marino’s
million-dollar real estates are advertised in China and Taiwan as status symbol and a visit
to the city is a part of a tour of wealthy Chinese businessmen and Communist party
Page | 84

bureaucrats who are looking to invest in America (Ni 2011, Los Angeles Times, May 29
2011). See Table 3.1 for the demographic characteristics of San Marino between 2000
and 2010 and how they compare against the Los Angeles County figures over the same
period.

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LA County San Marino
2000
%
share
of
total 2010
%
share
of
total 2000
%
share
of
total 2010
%
share
of
total
Total Population Count 9,519,338 9,818,605 12,929 13,147

Nativity (*sample estimates)
TOTAL 9519338 9758256 12929 13114
Native 6069894 63.8 6280433 64.4 8122 62.8 8119 61.9
Foreign-Born 3449444 36.2 3477823 35.6 4807 37.2 4901 37.4

Race/Ethnicity
TOTAL 9519338
9,818,605
12929 13147
White alone 2946145 30.9 2728321 27.8 5699 44.1 4872 37.1
Black or African American alone 891194 9.4 815086 8.3 69 0.5 53 0.4
American Indian and Alaska
Native alone 26141 0.3 18886 0.2 0.0 0.0 1.0 0.0
Asian alone 1123964 11.8 1325671 13.5 6021 46.6 7010 53.3
Native Hawaiian and Other
Pacific Islander alone 24376 0.3 22464 0.2 7 0.1 2 0.02
Some other race alone 18859 0.2 25367 0.3 45 0.3 25 0.2
Two or more races 245172 2.6 194921 2.0 465 3.6 329 2.5
Hispanic or Latino 4243487 44.6 4687889 47.7 623 4.8 855 6.5

Language Abilities (*sample
estimates)
TOTAL 8791096 9098454 12281 12601
Speak English Only 4032614 45.9 3966317 43.6 6151 50.1 6561 52.1
Speak another language 4758482 54.1 5132137 56.4 6130 49.9 6040 47.9
(speak English "not well") 931298 10.6 935460 10.3 795 6.5 613 4.9
(speak English "not at all") 464049 5.3 502802 5.5 164 1.3 227 1.8

Average Median Household
Income (in 1999 and 2010
dollars) 42,189 55476 120200 151800
Data source: US Census 2000, US Census 2010, American Community Survey 5 year estimates (2006-
2010)
Tables from US Census 2000: (PCT001 SF2), (QT-P14 SF3), (PCT007 SF3), (PCT012 SF3), (P053 SF3)

Tables from US Census 2010: (P1 SF1), (P5
SF1)

Tables from American Community Survey 5-year estimates 2006 to 2010: (B0512), (B16005), (B19013)

Table 3.1: Demographic characteristics in San Marino compiled from US Census (2000 and 2010)
and the American Community Survey 5-year estimates 2006-2010

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Ironically nicknamed “Chan Marino” by many of its residents to highlight the ethnic
shifts (Hudson, 1990, Los Angeles Times, January 15 1990) that were not fully
welcomed, San Marino by 1990 was definitively transformed from a small exclusive
American town to become a node in the global “network society” a la Castells ([1996]
2000) where the CEOs of global companies live side by side with Los Angeles’s political
elites, doctors, lawyers, bankers and powerful businessmen from around the world. Other
than the Taiwanese and Chinese, affluent foreigners including the British, Germans,
Bulgarians, Russians, Hungarians, Japanese, Koreans, Cambodians, Burmese, Indians,
Syrians, Iranians, Cubans, Mexicans, Colombians, Canadians (about 37 nationalities in
total) live alongside Americans of different ethnic groups. San Marino is situated in the
flows of globalizing finance, information and peoples (Appadurai 1990 and 1991) where
its characteristics as a “space of flows” for the “network society” are daily challenging it
as a “space of places” where “a locale whose form, function, and meaning are self-
contained within the boundaries of physical contiguity” (Castells [1996] 2000, 453).

San Marino is caught between a “space of places” and a “space of flows,” akin to many
globalizing locales whose social space in all its dialectical dimensions of conceived,
perceived and lived space (Lefebvre 1991) have become less predictable, in ways that
exhibits the tension between stable communities and those on the move, the tension
between different cultures co-existing in space, and the tension between the material and
the imagined. As a resident real estate agent expressed with pithy candor to explain why
San Marino has not seen its home prices dip during the recent US economic downturn,
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“Old families, old money, new owners and international money” (Beale, 2011, Los
Angeles Times, January 31 2011).

“Could you please draw the boundary…?
“Could you please draw the boundary of the neighborhood from your point of view on
this map in yellow?”
16
One of the first people I asked the question to was Zack Shi. Zack
is an international student from China who has recently completed graduate school and
has relocated to Alhambra for six months. He drives to San Marino a few times a week to
study in the new and well-equipped library.

For Zack, San Marino is part of the northern region of cities that include Pasadena and
Arcadia that is wealthier and more ethnically diverse (except for Arcadia) than the
southern region of cities that include San Gabriel, Alhambra, Monterey Park, Rosemead
and Temple City which is mostly inhabited by poorer Chinese immigrants from China
rather than the wealthy immigrants from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam and China who
live in the north. I asked him if there is a border between these areas. Zack explained
pointing to the map (see Figure 3.6),

You can see the boundary really clearly. When you go to Alhambra, Monterey
Park, Temple City, you cannot even tell the difference between each other. When

16
My interviewees are made up of a mix of residents (native born and immigrants), people who work and
regularly visit San Marino of different ethnicities. Of the total of 44 people I talked to through both
ethnographic interviewing and recorded interviews of at least 1 hour long, 25 of them participated in the
cognitive mapping study.
Page | 88

you go to San Marino from Alhambra or San Gabriel, you can see a really clear
boundary. Like this part is really organized and have bigger buildings [pointing to
San Marino]. And this other part the buildings are not [pointing to Alhambra and
San Gabriel]… I don’t know the boundary but when I drive the car past this area,
they have a stone there and they say that this part is San Marino. You can see it
really clear-the difference between the two areas. Here [in Alhambra], you see the
banners written by Chinese and the Chinese immigrants live here. There is a
boundary [he draws an arbitrary line around Longden Drive]. When you pass
here you barely see a Chinese written banner.

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Figure 3.6: Zack’s map on a 1:25,000 Google Street Map (The star indicates the location where I
interviewed him in the library, yellow lines are boundaries, blue line is the routine journey he makes
from Alhambra to San Marino, blue arcs and polygon refer to Valley Boulevard (in the south where
Alhambra/San Gabriel/Rosemead are located) and Colorado Boulevard (in the north where
Pasadena is located) where he frequents, and green asterisk refers to the home of a friend who he
visits in the area.

What emerged with clarity when comparing the maps drawn by residents and people who
have worked in San Marino for at least a decade versus by regular visitors to San Marino
to use the amenities such as Crowell Library or Lacy Park is the coherence to the
municipal boundary. See Figure 3.7a for the collective boundaries drawn by residents and
long-time workers i.e., those who have worked in San Marino for 6 years and more and
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Figure 3.7b for the collective map of boundaries by regular visitors. The conceived
boundaries of San Marino as a neighborhood by the residents and long-time workers
cohere to the official municipal boundaries, while the conceived boundaries of visitors
are vague and include a larger area, often encompassing their residential location if they
live in the neighboring cities. This finding suggests that regular visitors who live close by
in South Pasadena or San Gabriel and use the Lacy Park and Crowell Library in San
Marino, conceive San Marino as part of their neighborhood but the reverse is not true!

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Figure 3.7a:
Collective boundaries
of San Marino by
residents and long-
time workers. (Dots
are residential
/work/use locations,
lines are boundaries,
pink/red lines/dots by
Asians, yellow
lines/dots by Whites)

Figure 3.7b:
Collective boundaries
by regular visitors.
(Dots are residential
locations, lines=
boundaries, pink/red
lines/dots by Asians,
yellow lines/dots by
by White Caucasians,
green dots/lines by
Latinos)

Page | 92

This degree of coherence of these conceived boundaries to the official municipal
boundaries even along the hard to differentiate northern boundary where the streets twist
and turn is significant and cannot be explained away by familiarity alone. This is because
boundaries and territories whether physical or social are social constructions that have
meanings for the groups involved (Barth [1969] 1989, Suttles 1972). Firstly, San Marino
as its own sovereign city, with a city council, police and fire department, clear
jurisdiction and two exclusive zip codes create a cognitive clarity in the residents that is
further reinforced in official documents of the city as a conceived space of exclusivity.
As Logan and Molotch (1987, 44) point out the importance of boundary clarity, “The
very boundaries of place, as well as the meaning of those boundaries, are a result of the
intersecting searches for use and exchange values.”

Secondly, San Marino’s exclusivity as a wealthy city nested in a “space of flows” of
poorer immigrants and neighbors, relies on the effort to differentiate itself from the
surroundings through its strict zoning and tree ordinance that controls the size of the
dwellings, the fences, the architecture and design of the homes and a top-ranking school
district that keeps its property values high and boundaries salient. Boundaries are means
of differentiation between the insider and the outsider that is not only conceived but in
every way perceived and lived, for example its neighborhood park (Lacy Park) charges an
entry for non-residents on weekends and a price discrimination to participate in July4th
celebration in Lacy Park. The concept of “elective belonging” by Savage, Bagnall and
Longhurst (2005) where people exercise their choice of neighborhood based on if and
how the place best articulates their identities and values is particularly applicable here.
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My argument is that this sense of “elective belonging” that builds on an exclusivity of
symbolic value of the lived space of San Marino creates a cognitive clarity of the
conceived space of San Marino by its residents and those who have worked in San
Marino for a long time.

Routine as boundary
“In terms of our neighborhood and where I go, it is probably up to whole of that area
even though I know that is not San Marino. That is the area I hang out the most…This is
not what I think San Marino is but this is just where I hang out.” Naomi Su, a resident of
San Marino outlines her neighborhood boundary with a yellow highlighter that includes
Old Town Pasadena with chain stores like Target, boutique shops, cafes and restaurants
in the north, the Asian restaurants and grocery shops along Las Tunas Drive San Gabriel
and Alhambra in the south and a small strip of Rosemead in the east where Chinese
grocery shops and restaurants are located. Naomi identifies herself as a second generation
Asian American transplant who is born in Taiwan but raised in New York City and has
lived in San Marino for ten years with her family. Her conceived neighborhood boundary
map follows the area of her weekly routine geography i.e., her perceived geography and
also is the places where her experience of the neighborhood are shaped by (lived space).
Similar to Naomi, several residents who frequently visit Pasadena and San Gabriel for
their amenities such as restaurants, supermarkets and church and to meet friends,
conceive their neighborhood boundaries as encompassing the area that they use and
“hang out.” For these individuals, their conceived boundaries of their neighborhood are
much more expansive, spatially and socially including the places they frequent.
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The collective routine geography of the interviewees suggests that many routinely move
beyond San Marino to use the commercial amenities in Pasadena to the north and
Alhambra/San Gabriel and even Monterey Park to the south. This is because San Marino
has limited commercial amenities to service its population. Kept intentionally as a
predominantly residential area through extremely stringent regulations that limit the size
and type of business signage and parking, commercial businesses especially restaurants
and cafes depend on a local clientele to sustain their profit-margins.

Taking a closer look at the routine map, a difference in the routines of White Caucasian
and Asian interviewees can be detected. White Caucasians orientate their routine
geography more within San Marino and towards Pasadena to the north where services
such as Starbucks, Coffee Bean, Corner Bakery, Indian, Thai restaurants, French bakeries
and bars can be found as seen in Figure 3.8a. In contrast, Asian interviewees map their
routine geographies to extend southwards to San Gabriel and even to Valley Boulevard,
where a major thoroughfare of mainly Chinese and some Vietnamese restaurants and
supermarkets in the San Gabriel Valley is located as illustrated by Figure 3.8b. However,
among the younger Asian interviewees (both first and second generation), their northern
boundaries extend both northwards to Pasadena where they eat, shop and meet friends at
restaurants, cafes and bars as well as southwards to San Gabriel where they visit its
restaurants.

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Figure 3.8a: Routine geography of White Caucasian interviewees in San Marino. Dots refer to
residential/working/use locations and squares refer to routine destinations. Dots with black outline
indicate that interviewee’s routines extend outside the confines of the larger scale 1:25000 map. Map
prepared by author.

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Figure 3.8b: Routine geography of Asian interviewees in San Marino. Dots refer to
residential/working/use locations and squares refer to routine destinations. Dots with black outline
indicate that interviewee’s routines extend outside the confines of the larger scale 1:25000 map. Map
prepared by author.

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Conceived Territories
Social space is not conceived as isomorphic even though San Marino itself seen from the
outside appears as an enclave of equally wealthy residents. Through the cognitive
mapping of territories, two kinds of overlapping conceived spaces emerged in San
Marino, namely socio-economic and ethnic concentrations. These social territories are
given names by interviewees that represent their social significance and spatial
characteristics.

The socio-economic concentration is also formally conceived in a zoning map by the city
(see Figure 3.9). The estate area and R1 area where the lot sizes are between 30,000
square feet and 60,000 square feet or even larger in San Marino is identified as the
enclave of the “crème de la crème” as Jennifer Meier a resident in San Marino for almost
50 years describes it or another long-time resident Lydia Li who is a first generation
immigrant Chinese from Taiwan describes the estate areas as the place where the affluent
“women of the hills” live.

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Figure 3.9: Zoning Map from the City of San Marino overlaid on the Google street map 1:25,000
used for cognitive mapping study. The dotted rectangle indicates the extent of the 1:12,500 base map
that was also provided as an alternative map for interviewees to use for cognitive mapping. Map
prepared by author.

This conceived exclusive area is contrasted with the smaller properties (12,000 square
feet) which are found south of Huntington Drive. This is a conceived geography that
according to Mary Philips was popularly recognized in the 1970s when she grew up in
San Marino. Mary explained to me while tracing out the different geographies of socio-
economic affluence that “North of the Drive” referring to Huntington Drive is where the
most expensive and exclusive properties are found. This is contrasted to the less wealthy
“South of the Drive” and lastly “B-tract,” referring to the southeastern corner of San
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Marino where properties are the smallest.
17
Lastly, there is the term “adopted child”
referring to the Mission district at the southwestern corner of San Marino that in terms of
neighborhood character, it is different than the rest of the city. Houses appear smaller,
denser and architecturally different.

With regards to ethnic concentrations, most residents feel that there is an even mix and
there are no evident concentrations. However, there are a few interviewees who pointed
out that there is a denser concentration of Asians living near the Carver Elementary
School area, Valentine Elementary School and the San Marino High School where homes
are smaller and cheaper. In recent years too according to John Shaw, who has worked in
San Marino for about a decade, immigration is rapidly changing the cultural landscape.
The homes around Lacy Park (between 15,000 sq ft to 30,000 sq ft) which used to
represent the “old money” of White Caucasians and a few Latinos are now fast becoming
increasingly Asian-owned. The area in the Northeast near San Marino High School where
homes range between 12,000 sq feet and 20,000 sq feet has now become an area
receiving the “new money” from immigrants of Chinese origin arriving from China,
Hong Kong and Taiwan. According to a Chinese real estate agent with overseas clients
who was interviewed (Beale 2011, Los Angeles Times, January 31 2011), “If you go to
mainland China and someone asks, 'Where do you live?,' San Marino represents that you
are wealthy."
18
However, a long-time resident Linhui Kao feels that the “crème de la

17
The interviewee did not explain what B-tract meant. It could refer to the tract housing typical in Los
Angeles.
18
In a weekly real estate flyer by Coldwell Bankers The View in early 2012, they observed that the luxury
property market in Los Angeles has been kept afloat mostly by Chinese investors from China. This trend
Page | 100

crème” estate area continues to be owned by the “old money” White Caucasians (see
Figure 3.10 for the collective concentration map).

Figure 3.10: Territories in San Marino. Map prepared by author.

Negotiating shared space in the exclusive zip codes 91108 and 91118
The appearance of order and quiet in San Marino may tend to mute the daily negotiations
in the sharing of perceived and lived space between different ethnicities and cultures.
Tracing back to sometime between the 1980s and 1990s, the tension between the new
Asian immigrants and the White Caucasian residents manifested in fights between Asian

was also reported by Los Angeles Times May 29 2011 in the report “San Marino is part of Chinese
delegation’s business tour.”
Page | 101

and White Caucasian children in the schools (Reinhold 1987, New York Times,
November 19 1987). During this time, San Marino saw the set-up of two pieces of social
infrastructure to negotiate the cultural difference. The Human Relations Committee
organized a “Dinner for 8” to pair two Asian couples with two White Caucasian couples
to initiate support and interaction across cultural boundaries but the initiative fell apart
shortly after two years due to the lack of interest and commitment. The Human Relations
Committee is no longer in existence because inter-ethnic relations have improved
according to a couple of long-time Chinese resident interviewees. The other initiative is
the Chinese Club of San Marino that was set up by a small group of residents from
Taiwan as a support group to organize and advocate for the interests of the growing
group of minority Chinese residents who were facing discrimination in the public schools
and in their access to resources in San Marino. The Chinese Club of San Marino
continues to be active in organizing community activities for the Chinese residents in San
Marino and to play the role of the intermediary between the Chinese and the non-Chinese
groups in San Marino.

The transcription from an excerpt of an online video Q&A from local news San Marino
Patch.com (March 20 2012) with the new mayor of San Marino for 2012-13, Dr. Richard
Sun
19
who immigrated from Taiwan in 1980 to the United States illustrates that tensions
in diversity continues to be proceed along many familiar conceived lines of differences

19
A new mayor, Mr Richard Ward, has since taken over on 13 March 2013. According to a phone
conversation on 18 March 2013 with the City of San Marino, they informed me that only the five council
members are elected and it is the decision of the five council members to vote who becomes mayor for one
year. The council members in 2013 are made up of three Chinese men and two White Caucasian men.
Page | 102

and boundaries that are constructed in the social space of San Marino as it finds itself
caught between a “space of flows” and a “space of places” (Castells [1996] 2000). These
social changes are clearly not practiced (perceived) and experienced (lived) without
unease and without negotiation as seen below:

SAN MARINO PATCH REPORTER. The population of San Marino is
comprised of a little over 50 percent Asians, Asian members. And of that
population, the majority is Chinese. How do you think the relations are currently
between the Chinese community in San Marino and the non-Chinese community?
MAYOR SUN. At the present time based on 2010 census, we have about more or
less like 13,000 population in our city. In other words, out of 13,000, 53 percent
are Asian Americans. Out of the 53 percent, 40 percent are probably Chinese
Americans, doesn’t matter whether you come from China, or Taiwan or from
other countries. At the present time, the relationship between the Chinese
community and non-Chinese community, I think it just cannot be even
smoother…I don’t know if you have ever attended the Mid-Autumn festival event.
Basically it is a community event. The Chinese community invited the non-
Chinese community to mingle together and vice versa. Like City Club’s events,
the Chinese community always attends the event too. We do see the communities
can mingle together. And also last year I took a delegation visiting Taiwan
including our city residents, including non-Chinese residents, even our city
officials, chief of police, city manager and their spouses going there too. And this
year I am taking another group of delegation to visit Danshui district in new
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Taipei City and to formalize the sister city relationship between City of San
Marino and new Taipei City of Taiwan. So those things are good because we are
promoting cultural exchange to have a better understanding.
SAN MARINO PATCH REPORTER. Alright, is there a way you would improve
the relationship in any way between the Chinese community and non-Chinese
community?
MAYOR SUN. I think communication is the best way. So, whenever you open
yourself, you feel like you’re part of a community. You communicate not just
within your own group. We encourage especially new immigrants to go out, to
meet more people, meet your neighbors, meet people even if you may not be
fluent in English but it’s okay. Say hello to them. Open up your communication.
Those relationships will be improved.

From the short excerpt above alone, social space in San Marino is negotiated through the
formation and activities of different social groups and clubs. A few common social
categories suggest the lines of differences and social tensions in San Marino: between the
Chinese and the non-Chinese community, within the Chinese community (Taiwanese and
the China Chinese and those from other countries such as Hong Kong), within the Asian
American group (the Chinese Americans and the non-Chinese Asian Americans),
between the Mid-Autumn Festival and the City Club events, between the new immigrants
and presumably, the old immigrants. Through the interviews, residents have also
identified other social groups that are widely recognized in San Marino. Here are three
interviewees and their categories which they observe:
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Luke McDowell who lives and works with the community in San Marino
observes that there are two parties, “old time San Marino folks” who based their
experiences in the 1950s and the “newer arrivals” made up of Asians and others
who are resisting the assimilation into the culture of the former group.

Naomi Su, a resident who participates in the school parents-teachers’ association
(PTA) activities informs me that there are two distinct groups who do not
socialize with each other. The new Asian immigrants as one group and the other
group, comprises the Asian American parents (e.g. the second generation and all
who speaks English) and the White Caucasian parents. The division between
these two groups is a core challenge that faces the PTA today. Naomi also
observes that there is a third group that is made up of the White Caucasian retirees
who are their distinctive group as their socialization patterns do not overlap with
the predominantly mode of social participation in San Marino, which is through
the schools’ activities.

Noah Yu, a second-generation Asian American resident who was born and raised
in San Marino explains that in the 1990s when he attended the public schools, all
the White Caucasians form one social group, and all the new immigrants or
“Fresh-off-the-boat” (FOBs) form another. The Asian Americans, America-born-
Chinese (ABC) and second or third generation Asian Americans form an in-
between group who get along better with the White Caucasians than the new
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immigrant children because these new immigrants cannot speak much English
and the second-generation Asian Americans cannot speak much Mandarin. These
groups would sit separately in the cafeteria and stereotypes of new immigrant
children as rude and trouble-makers are openly shared between the children.
According to parents with children in the public schools presently, this pattern of
socialization continues to persist.

These social groups are organized according to ethnicity, immigration, age, culture,
family with children or without, in addition to the categories of wealth that is tied to size
of property and the difference made between residents and non-residents. These
categories which are informed by the globalizing changes in the perceived and lived
space create a considerably complex relational web (Lofland 1998) that moves beyond
ethnicity to overlap with other old and new lines of conceived differences as suggested
above (Tajbakhsh 2001, Brubaker 2002, Vertovec 2007). Once formed, the conceived
space of categories has a salience of its own and acts to reinforce the differences that
have real implications for the negotiation in the perceived and lived space of San Marino.
Among the multitude of conceived categories, a common line of difference that of
“cultural” appears to be embedded in many of the categories. Dominique Fisher, a White
Caucasian resident of almost 40 years in San Marino, describes the changing neighborly
relations as San Marino undergoes transition (italicized emphases are mine),

Everywhere is safe, everywhere is home, everywhere is a place I feel comfortable.
Now I am not sure if you talk to every Caucasian they would say the same. I
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would hope they say the same thing. But I am sure they wouldn’t. I think that
people don’t embrace change and don’t embrace a multi-ethnic mix and a multi-
cultural approach to life. They want it the way it was and they are out of touch
with reality. It makes me very sad. I think they miss out on a lot. I think that any
of the people that I’ve met and talked to that are to some degree welcoming and
comfortable but there are some, you know…We had a house to the north of us a
number of years ago. A Chinese family bought it and they totally remodeled the
house. They finally moved in, which seems like forever to me. I went over and
said “Hi” as I would to anybody. They were there probably a few weeks…and
then they moved out. This was probably 2 years ago and they never came back.
They own the house. They’d done nothing with it. I mean, I think that is a
cultural thing. And it’s sad but I don’t get it. They have lights that go on
automatically, the gardener comes…But since that time, nobody lives there. I
mean they never came and said “We are leaving” or anything like that. And I
think it’s cultural…The house across the street from us, I know they are inhabited
by the helicopter kids. They live there and they go to school. We’ve never seen
them. It’s sad. There is no interaction in the neighborhood, the way it used to be.
And I think it is a cultural thing. The houses are prepped up and they are beautiful
but you never see a soul. Okay, you see the car but you never see anybody…I
don’t know it is very strange. To me, it is a cultural thing and you don’t like to do
anything against the cultural mores.

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Dominique’s words echo the thoughts of many White Caucasian interviewees I talked to.
There is a pervading sense shared amongst the White Caucasians that they do not quite
understand how the Chinese think, why they behave the way they do and make the
decisions they have made. “A cultural thing” that Dominique speaks to is often an
explanation given to the existence of the “invisible fences between groups” as John Shaw
aptly surmises when he responded to my question if the city is divided. Culture, is like a
metaphoric black box that Hall (1966) incisively concluded as the “hidden dimension”
embedded in one’s behavior which is often not well understood and has implications for
human relations.

Decoding the metaphoric black box
There appears to be two parallel sets of dialectics between the perceived-conceived-lived
spaces of the White Caucasians and Chinese, forming social worlds that are aptly
described by Cantle (2005) as “parallel lives.” However, these social worlds though
guided by its own philosophies clearly do not stay in parallel trajectories because social
space is ultimately shared as illustrated by Dominique’s experiences in the neighborhood.

In San Marino, direct negotiation of cultural differences through the quotidian social life
is to a large extent “invisible” in the public realm. This is because of first, the availability
of social support in the different ethnic-cultural cocoons provide a “comfort zone” where
challenges can be confronted with resources from within first. Second, “money can buy
you separation” as an interviewee incisively concluded about how wealth can provide
resources that would allow one to avoid negotiating with each other directly. As a result,
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informal and spontaneous negotiation is minimal outside hot button issues that daylight
the tensions of “cultural” differences and integration. The tensions of negotiating shared
social space in cultural diversity in San Marino are manifested in two major hot button
issues: (a) education of children and parenting values, (b) the handling of property as
Dominique alluded to above.

“Helicopter Kids” and “Parachute kids”
As a “space of flows,” San Marino is associated with plenty of imageries of the global
flow and mobility since the 1980s. “Helicopter kids” and “parachute kids” are
synonymous and they refer to the phenomenon of latchkey children who are living
without parents’ supervision, alone or often with the guardianship of older siblings or
relatives or nannies in large mansions and lavished material luxuries by their parents such
as expensive cars to drive around town. These kids have arrived from Taiwan, Hong
Kong or China and dropped off in the United States to attend its schools, learn English,
start a new life as an American, while their parents continue to work and live halfway
around the globe in order to earn the finances to support their children’s integration into
the new American life.

As a “space of places,” San Marino is associated with plenty of imageries of the good
local neighborhood life. It is valued by its residents for its safety, quiet and importance it
places on family life and good basic education opportunities for their children. Long-time
San Marino residents (who are White Caucasians) would recount to me how things are
not “the way it used to be” where children walked or rode to school, where neighbors met
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and talked with each other in their front yards while their children played together, when
there were block parties and kids played in the street with each other etc. Today, San
Marino is a place where kids are sent and picked up from schools in cars (many of them
spanking new luxury cars) where social life happened not in the streets but indoors in the
space of social clubs and homes reflecting a similar trend of a decline of neighborhood
community life in America that Fischer (1982) and Putnam’s (2000 and 2007) findings
reveal.

The tension between the “space of flows” and the “space of places” comes to the fore in
the phenomenon of “helicopter kids” that reflect the diverging cultural values of
children’s education and parenting values. There are several aspects of the split according
to the residents (both Asians and White Caucasians) who have children in schools (or
used to):

Firstly, White Caucasian parents view parental supervision as critical to the upbringing of
the children. Many of these “helicopter kids” are known to be spoiled and who badly
behave in schools. Leaving children by themselves or in the case of many Asian parents
leaving them in the neighborhood library until they get off work at 9pm or when the
library closes, exposes the lack of proper parenting that are looked upon poorly by many
San Marino residents who have precisely chosen San Marino as a family-friendly
community to raise children.

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Secondly, the emphasis by Asian immigrant parents solely on excelling in academics
rather than a well-rounded education that includes sport participation is viewed by some
of the Asian American and White Caucasian interviewees as a clear divergence of
cultural practices. The emphasis of academics has created the sprouting up of multiple
after-school tutoring centers in San Marino where Asian immigrant kids instead of
participating in sports or recreational activities find themselves in after-school classes
prepping way in advance of their cohort in school. This has created a tense and
competitive atmosphere in the public school classroom that has turned out to become
increasingly unproductive for the other students who are not engaged in similar after-
school academic prepping activities. According to some parents, teachers in these public
schools find it increasingly difficult to engage and fruitfully teach a classroom of students
where some already have advanced knowledge and others do not. Many White Caucasian
parents (including some Asian American second-generation parents) are taking their
children out of the public schools and enrolling them in private schools, accentuating
further the heavy Asian majority-Caucasian minority composition in middle schools and
high schools. This increasing lack of ethnic diversity in schools has become a concern for
second-generation Asian American parents who feel that San Marino is becoming too
Asian and not the diverse place they once sought to raise their children.

The divergence of the social worlds in the adult sphere is further reflected in the different
recreation activities of the children. Isabelle Anson, a mother with children in public
schools and a long-time resident, explained to me that Asian children tend to participate
in orchestra, swimming and tennis while White Caucasian children are involved in
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football, cheerleading and if they play a musical instrument, it is different from the
choices that Asian children normally pick such as violin and piano. In addition, Chinese
children end up taking Chinese classes rather than Spanish and going to Chinese School
classes instead of playing in Little Leagues that take place during the same time on
Saturday mornings. Towards the end of the interview with Isabelle, she expressed her
reservations about the opportunities to improve relations between the non-Chinese and
Chinese. Her thoughts echo the thoughts of many of the White Caucasians I interviewed.

The Chinese have their own Chinese Club here. It is a really big deal. They do
like a Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival. It is their fundraiser. They are raising money
for San Marino schools. I have gone to that. It is all like Chinese. It is like their
world. It is like “Welcome to our world!” It is all Chinese dances. They even
speak part of it in Mandarin. It is almost like if you are not a part of that, it is their
way of segregating. Honestly, I feel like the Caucasian community is out of the
way of trying to make the opposite. But I feel like people are starting to feel like
maybe the Asians now realizing that they are the majority now and are sort of
taking the feeling that “Huh, we are the majority. We don’t need to involve you
because we actually don’t need you. So we can actually do it our way because
there are more of us. To actually see that coming more than what I see that a few
years ago, that feeling and that animosity (a little bit), which is not what I desire.
No one wants that. My kids at the high school, they feel that. Not us at all. This is
not what we’ve taught them. They feel that on their own to their peers, the
segregation, which is so disturbing to me.
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Value of Property: use or exchange value?
Logan and Molotch (1987, 18-20) in their discussion of “places as commodities”
highlight the tension over the sharing of place that possesses both use and exchange
values that may shed light on the ongoing tension and friction between neighbors
experienced in San Marino,

The stakes involved in the relationship to place can be high, reflecting all manner
of material, spiritual, and psychological connections to land and
buildings…Contrary to much academic debate on the subject, we hold that the
material use of place cannot be separated from psychological
use…Homeownership gives some residents exchange value interests along with
use value goals.

Through the globalizing “space of flows” (Castells [1996] 2000) where global capital is
invested in San Marino’s real estate, construction of new homes and renovation of old
homes is an ongoing affair that ruffles the feathers of many neighbors in San Marino who
are caught between the use and exchange values of homeownership and intensifying
further the tension between those on the move against those who are in stable
communities. A city where residential property is regarded above all other uses, the city
council, the city officers as well as resident representatives who are appointed to the
Planning Commission and Design Review Committee in San Marino dedicates much
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effort and time to maintain this vision as written in the City Council homepage
(http://www.cityofsanmarino.org/city_council.htm):

San Marino was formed to protect your personal rights and to control the growth
and activities of the City in such a way that each individual resident will be
guaranteed a pleasant place in which to live with a minimum of nuisance, with
assurance that his property values will be protected by stringent zoning
regulations.

Different cultural values and practices between the Asians (Chinese, Taiwanese and
Hong Kongers) and the White Caucasians about house sizes, significance of numbers in
addresses, upkeep of property, value of property as home versus house, appreciation of
trees and as resident Lydia Li aptly coined the term, different “sensibilities” of aesthetics
and quality of the environment add up to generate the social friction in the everyday
perceived and lived spaces of San Marino. This in turn influences the formation of the
conceived space of categories where stereotyping (positive and negative) of neighbors
can exacerbate a black box mentality of cultural differences that further act to widen the
rift and tip the tension between neighbors in a negative direction.

For example, there is a pervasive characterization of Asians (Chinese) preferring bigger
houses rather than yard space as seen in the large number of houses being torn down by
new Chinese residents, completely remodeled and expanded in San Marino and then
frequently left unoccupied in the case of absentee homeowners or occupied by their
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“helicopter kids” or occupied only a few months a year or leased out to other families.
The tendency of Chinese immigrants to mansionize San Marino through enlarging their
living space or building new guesthouses as both a capital investment and for reasons of
accommodating extended family produces an ongoing friction that is built upon past and
new experiences, including witnessing how Arcadia, a city northeast of San Marino has
transformed from a city with modest-size homes into an Asian immigrant mansionization
example par excellence. In fact through my interview with the city officer, Arcadia is
held up as a poster child of what can possibly go wrong if tendencies for expansion and
tree removal are not kept in check. Arcadia is essentially the anti-thesis of what San
Marino wants to remain.

Related to the value of property is the association of Chinese residents concerned with
fengshui (a form of Chinese geomancy) that believes in how the positioning of the
property affects the quality and prosperity of one’s life. Homeowners have removed trees
both ignorantly and intentionally as I have heard anecdotally through poisoning trees that
“blocked” the path of prosperity from entering the home. Tree removal in this context has
become a catalyst of friction, pitting the “cultural” values of east against west and some
new Asian immigrant homeowners against many White Caucasian residents who value
the aesthetics of San Marino because of its large and mature greenery. This friction
resulted in a tree preservation ordinance created by the city according to Sandy Cheng, a
former long-time resident of San Marino. Sandy has witnessed the controversy brewing
and then subsiding over time through the diplomatic interventions by the Chinese Club of
San Marino that took on both the responsibility of communicating to new Chinese
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homeowners about the municipal guidelines on the removal and pruning of trees, thereby
somewhat mediating the misunderstanding between the Chinese homeowners and
existing Caucasian residents. Tree removal remains a sensitive concern nonetheless as
evident in an amendment (August 2011) to the tree preservation ordinance to introduce
new rules on the removal of rear yard trees.

Similar to many places in the United States, the fate of San Marino’s property value does
not stand alone but is intertwined with the education opportunities it provides in its public
schools. When the education standard in San Marino is high, as evident from how Asians
in their competitive and unrelenting pursuit for academics has kept the standard
extremely high, property value is propped up, as a long-time resident Jennifer Meier
explained to me. In San Marino, perhaps more than in other areas, the tension between
being a “space of flows” and a “space of places” that lies in the use and exchange value
of its property is made even more complex because of its entanglement with the “cultural”
differences toward the value of education. Together, these issues heighten the intensity
and complexity of the negotiation of the social space in San Marino between social
groups that represent multiplicity of social boundaries that are not fully ethnic-based but
are also defined by age, wealth, affiliation for example (Barth [1969] 1989, Roy 2001,
Brubaker 20002, Vertovec 2007).

Everyday negotiations in public space
Being a “private town” and an “indoor city” that is conservative, close and has a lack of
active outdoor public space, according to Bentley Wang who identifies himself as a
second generation American “son of immigrants” from Taiwan raised in San Marino,
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negotiation of intercultural living and integration in San Marino is largely carried behind
closed doors in club-like settings (Webster 2001). Active local clubs in San Marino
include the Chinese Club of San Marino, the parents-teachers associations (PTAs), City
Club of San Marino, Rotary Club, alumni clubs (e.g. University of Southern California or
the National Taipei University. Negotiation to a good extent is self-selective, including
the location where negotiation takes place and if there is any at all.

Other than Lacy Park and a few cafes, public spaces where residents can informally
socialize are few. The type of informal daily encounters and negotiation in public spaces
are mostly limited to the sidewalks or front yards on the street block where one lives.
Even these encounters have become fewer and further in between because of the shifts in
the cultural values and lifestyles of families who have moved in. Many of the White
Caucasians I interviewed expressed that most of their Asian neighbors keep to themselves,
do not take too much of an effort to build or sustain neighborly relations. Like Dominique
Fisher’s experience, many of the interviewees both White Caucasians and Asians
(Chinese) describe their relationships with their neighbors as largely routinized in the
sense of having both simple and complex categoric knowing
20
(Lofland 1973). They may
know each other’s last names, ethnicity, sometimes occupations and perhaps the number
of children they have. As Linhui Kao a first generation immigrant from Taiwan who has
lived in San Marino for over twenty years expresses succinctly in Mandarin, her relations

20
Lofland (1973, 15-16) defines categoric knowing as “knowledge of another based on understand of his
roles and statuses” and this form of knowing can be simple when information is obtained visually and
complex when information is obtained both visually and verbally.
Page | 117

with neighbors are “ 淡淡” translated as “bland bland,” nothing special or particularly
deep. Many of the interviewees do not actually see their neighbors very much because of
long working hours, frequent travel, privacy, absence and different timetables.

If they do, it is usually while walking the dog, strolling or coincidentally if both were in
the front yard getting into the cars. Hence, negotiating through daily encounters is brief,
fleeting or non-existent in some cases. This negotiation is also made more difficult and
increases the incentive to avoid contact because of the significant proportion of residents
who are first generation new immigrants who speak little to no English (7 percent) versus
the high percentage of those who only speaks English (52 percent) in 2010.
21
There is a
preference expressed by those I interviewed to stay within their “comfort zones” of
sharing similar language and cultural mores. Thus in San Marino, one sees informal
socialization kept most frequently to within ethnicity and/or nationality rather than cross-
ethnic or mixed-ethnic groups among the adults in the public space such as the seating
arrangement of parents while watching the Little League or during community events.
The Chinese sit with Chinese, The Koreans sit with Koreans and White Caucasians with
White Caucasians and rarely is there a spontaneous mix. Sandy Cheng, a first generation
immigrant from Taiwan who speaks excellent English and considers herself an Asian
American or Chinese American shares her experience living and building intercultural
relations in San Marino,

21
From American Community Survey 5 year estimates 2006-2010 Table B16005.
Page | 118

People tend to congregate with their own kind. Caucasians do their own thing,
Chinese do their own thing. There are a few things that they do together and a few
people may have been really involved in the mainstream things. I am one of them.
But even then I don’t think I know them that well. We do things together and
meet great people and form great friendships. But I don’t know how well I know
them.

Forming local belonging and everyday integration
22

Sharing living space in multi-ethnic and multi-national settings such as San Marino is a
negotiated process that involved feelings of overt as well as covert anxiety to adapt to the
stranger foreigner who displays culturally different habits and behaviors (Kristeva 1991,
Sandercock 2003). These anxieties are also intensified in diverse settings as a result of
the ambiguity in the characterization of its social space which fluctuates and lies in
between the public and parochial realms. Lofland (1998, 10-14) defines public realm as
the physical location where relations are with “strangers or categorical” and parochial
realm as “characterized by a sense of commonality among acquaintances and neighbors
who are involved in interpersonal network that are located within ‘communities’.” Thus,
the lived space of multi-ethnic neighborhoods is a continual process of defining who
belongs and who does not. As such, how belongings are formed at the local level has

22
Part of this section on the formation of local belonging and everyday integration in Chapters 3, 4 and 5 is
taken almost ad verbatim from my paper titled “Intercultural Climate and Belonging in the globalizing
multi-ethnic neighborhoods of Los Angeles” that has been submitted for as part of a special issue in “The
Open Urban Studies Journal.”
Page | 119

implications for the formation of everyday integration in spaces of ethnic and cultural
diversity.

The writings reviewed in Chapter 1 indicate that belonging formation is substantively
articulated in the social and physical dimensions of the public-parochial realm. The
analysis of how local belongings are formed in the three multi-ethnic neighborhoods in
Los Angeles reveals that interviewees’ feelings of local belonging are oftentimes tied to
the relations they have in the public-parochial realm. Table 3.2 shows a summary of the
distribution of replies and a tabulation of the list of reasons to the following questions,
“Have you ever felt like an outsider in this neighborhood?” and “Do you feel like you
belong? Why and what makes you feel like you belong?”

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Do you
feel like
you
belong?
(response)
Central
Long
Beach
(CLB)
Mid-
Wilshir
e (MW)
San
Marino
(SM)
Total
No. of
responses
Reasons cited in order of frequency
(neighborhood/s where reason is cited)

Yes 10 9 9 28 :Having interpersonal relations with neighbors
(CLB, MW, SM)
:Ethnic commonalities and differences (CLB,
MW, SM)
:Having local knowledge of the neighborhood
(CLB, MW, SM)
:Participating in the neighborhood community
(CLB, SM)
:Feeling a sense of home (CLB, SM)
:Having the right to belong (CLB, MW)
:Having access to public spaces and amenities
(CLB, MW)
:Sharing same values as neighbors (MW, SM)
:Living or working in neighborhood (MW, SM)
:Proximity to friends and families (MW, SM)
:Owning property (SM)
:Birthplace (CLB)
:Choosing to belong (CLB)
Yes and
No
(Perhaps)
2 6 6 14 :Ethnic commonalities and differences (CLB,
MW, SM)
:Wealth differences are too stark (CLB, MW)
:Language difficulties in communicating with
neighbors (MW)
:Different demographic characteristics (SM)
:No community engagement (SM)
No 2 3 2 7 :Bad or lack of interpersonal relations with
neighbors
(CLB, MW, SM)
:Different values of living (CLB, MW)
:Too many pockets of ethnic concentrations (MW)
TOTAL 14 18 17 49 -

Table 3.2: Feelings and reasons of belonging in the three study areas

From the list of reasons, three reasons emerge common in all three areas as critical for the
formation of local belonging. They are namely (1) having good interpersonal relations
with neighbors, (2) presence of ethnic commonalities and differences as well as (3)
having local knowledge of the neighborhood such as knowing the people, where to go
and more. Together, these reasons suggest that formation of local belonging is in fact
more socially and communally orientated than what has been suggested in some of the
Page | 121

writings and that the formation of local belonging can be shaped by the intercultural
climate of the public-parochial realm of the neighborhood. In San Marino, having
interpersonal relations with neighbors and having a local knowledge of the neighborhood
stand out as the two major conduits of forming local belonging which can facilitate
everyday integration:

Interpersonal relations
A warm welcome to the neighborhood has gone an extra mile in helping the formation of
local belonging in newer residents. Perhaps significant in its impact because of its rarity,
the atmosphere and act of initial welcome by neighbors to the neighborhood has left a
deep impression on several of the interviewees. They affirm their local belonging quickly
when asked and with great certainty and fondness recall the respect, appreciation and
warmth that they received upon arrival in the neighborhood. Even though these
encounters are brief, they are powerful in that they are able to counteract other bad
experiences to configure a rare but positive intercultural space. In fact, receiving these
acts of welcome has changed the way Naomi Su a Chinese American views neighborly
relations. Raised in New York City and having lived in different cities around the word,
she did not think that neighbors are people who care or she would have a need of them
until she relocated to San Marino where she was welcomed by her new neighbors. That
experience was so powerful that she expressed with conviction that she felt like she
belonged more in San Marino than any other previous places she had ever lived in. Her
sentiments were shared by Noelle Lu, recent immigrant from China in San Marino, who
was grateful for the effort her neighbor took to engage her about Chinese culture. This
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was an important act of kindness and intercultural engagement that remained with her
despite the several episodes of negative experience she and her family have encountered
as a new immigrant with little spoken English when she first arrived in the neighborhood.

Having local knowledge of the neighborhood
Having a good knowledge of the neighborhood in terms of how it works, the people who
live around you, where things are located and simply what is the pulse of the
neighborhood can help to form feelings of local belonging especially for the immigrants
in these multi-ethnic neighborhoods (Devadson 2010). Local knowledge and familiarity
come with time spent in the neighborhood and building relationships and networks
require time. The findings show that among those who feel they belong because of their
local knowledge of the neighborhood have lived and/or worked in the neighborhood for
at least a decade.

In San Marino, local knowledge also comes from participation in the social activities in
the neighborhood such as fundraising, neighborhood clean-up and school activities. This
is especially significant in a city where volunteerism is exalted and valorized in an
affluent neighborhood that regards more highly time and sacrifice made for children’s
education than financial wealth per se. In San Marino, to belong is to participate and as
such, through participation in the community, an individual gains social exposure,
increase one’s contact with neighbors and earn social acceptance. Linhui Kao who is
unsure about her local belonging to San Marino expressed that it could be due to her not
Page | 123

taking part in any community club or group even though in every way, San Marino is a
safe space and it is her home.

Formation of belonging is tied to the structure of the social space, especially in San
Marino where socialization more so today than before is structured by clubs that are not
too different in substance from the gated communities that Webster (2001) writes about
from an economic resource allocation viewpoint. The social space of San Marino is thus
semi-private and semi-public, depending on which clubs one is involved in. For example,
the Rotary Club and San Marino City Club only until about a decade ago only accepted
White Caucasian men as members. The Chinese Club of San Marino was started by first
generation Taiwanese immigrants as a support and an organized voice to fight for the
equal treatment of Chinese in San Marino. Parents-Teachers Associations (PTAs) are
clubs for parents to volunteer their time and work for fund-raising cum participation in
their children’s education. And there are alumni clubs of the University of Southern
California and 台大 (National Taiwan University) that are active in San Marino because
of the number of alumni represented in the city.

Through the activities of these clubs, opportunities are presented for residents in San
Marino to productively negotiate the cultural difference through connections and
friendships over joint projects. According to the interviewees who have been active
participants, they were able at least for a season of their lives to develop the routinized
Page | 124

relationships
23
to a deeper quasi-primary or even intimate secondary level, although the
latter is rare inter-ethnically. Other less official channels are usually formed through the
children between women such as play dates (more typical of White Caucasians and
second-generation Asian American mums) and birthday clubs (more typical of first
generation Chinese immigrant mums). The birthday clubs are tight-knit social support
networks where intimate-secondary relationships are built around facing the same
struggles, sharing a tacit common culture and speaking in Mandarin.

While these findings reaffirm Maslow’s (1968) view that belongingness is very
dependent on the environment and other people for the most part, they also highlight
Fenster’s (2005) and Savage, Bagnall and Longhurst’s (2005) findings that belonging is
also a decision of choice. Oftentimes as the interviewees in this study have explained,
belonging is a matter of fit between the values of the neighborhood and the individual.
Similarly in San Marino, local belonging is often “elective” and a choice practiced by the
interviewees who buy into San Marino for the values (both pecuniary in terms of property

23
Lofland (1998, 52-59) describes routinized relations as “interaction-as-learned-routine” between
categorically known others which “in some instances the relational routine is so well known to both parties
that they can go through the motions without giving much thought or psychic energy to the exchange.” The
other three categories of relational types are: 1) fleeting relationships referring to interaction between
people who are “personally unknown to one another,” 2) quasi-primary relationships are encounters that
lasts between “a few minutes to several hours between strangers or between those who are categorically
known to one another” and lastly, 3) intimate-secondary relationships are “emotionally infused” and
“relatively long-lasting” in length of weeks and years.

Page | 125

values and philosophical in terms of its focus on education and family-oriented) it offers.
San Marino is thus an example of the Tieboutian club space that people choose to live
(“voting with their feet” so to speak) in places that provide them with the amenities
according to their preferences (Banerjee and Verma 2005).

However, exercising the choice to electively belong by expressing it through their
engagement with the Tieboutian club space may or may not result in the feeling that one
belongs because local belonging is dependent on the social milieu of the locality. This is
illustrated well in the findings of San Marino that among the six interviewees who share a
sense of ambivalence in their local belonging in San Marino, five are first generation
immigrants from Taiwan and China who for reasons mentioned above about differences
in culture, language and age find it difficult to fully feel like they belong even though
they have all chosen to live in San Marino. This is a stark contrast when compared to the
White Caucasian residents in San Marino who expressed their sense of belonging and
inclusion in San Marino. Therefore, forming local belonging is not fully “elective” in the
way that engaging in Tieboutian club space may suggest but it comes with negotiating
barriers and social boundaries that can include some and exclude others. Formation of
local belonging is thus more “selective,” dependent on more nuanced dimensions of
inclusion and exclusion at play in the wider social milieu.

Page | 126

4. Scene Two: Negotiating poverty and diversity in
Central Long Beach
“I am Marteese Owens and I am just trying to survive,” an African American man in his
early thirties whom I have met and talked to for the past half hour in the air-conditioned
and comfortable Mark Twain neighborhood library told me matter-of-factly one
afternoon in October 2011. An awkward silence lingered between us for a few seconds. I
had been interviewing Marteese about his everyday experiences living in Central Long
Beach, what his conceived boundaries of the neighborhood are, where he goes and who
he meets during his routines in the neighborhood and what he thinks about the inter-
ethnic relations and social interactions in the neighborhood. Expecting to get an answer
similar to the many residents I have interviewed in Central Long Beach and other parts of
Los Angeles about how they identify themselves in a diverse neighborhood, Marteese’s
reply which was neither about his ethnicity nor his nationality was poignant and offered
me a deeper understanding of the everyday lived space of Central Long Beach.

My first visit to Central Long Beach was in February 2010 on a field visit to study the
immigrant landscapes of metropolitan Los Angeles. Long Beach according to the US
census has one of the largest concentration of Cambodians, if not the largest in the United
States, and East Anaheim Street in Central Long Beach based on Google map search is
the street that has many Cambodian businesses such as restaurants, grocery shops,
jewelry stores and many other supporting services including civic organizations like the
United Cambodian Community and Cambodian church services. The foray into the
neighborhood began at Mark Twain Library which is designated as the heart of the civic
Page | 127

district space on East Anaheim Street by both the city and envisioned by the leaders of
“Cambodia Town” as the heart of the cultural district. Walking along the busy
thoroughfare of East Anaheim Street, I remember distinctly feeling the vibes of the rich
urban life pulsating through the grey cracked walls, the neon-lit “open” sign, the vacant
lots, the iron-bar clad of several shop windows, the Khmer script, the fast-food outlets,
the bodega, the school children of African, Latin American and Asian descent and the
Latino mothers with their babies and toddlers in prams walking home in the setting sun. It
was a landscape very different from what I had seen in other parts of urban Los Angeles
and it reminded me of places a few thousand miles away in Southeast Asia where I grew
up. Please see Figures 4.1 to 4.4 for photos of Central Long Beach.

Figure 4.1: Multiple families live in “single-family” looking houses. Photo by author.

Page | 128

Figure 4.2: Walking as a routine travel along East Anaheim Street on a weekday afternoon. Photo by
author.

Figure 4.3: Sidewalk as playground on a Saturday afternoon. Photo by author.

Page | 129

Figure 4.4: The “center” of Cambodia Town along East Anaheim Street. Photo by author.

As one of the most diverse cities in the United States, the ethnic diversity in Central Long
Beach can be hidden from even its residents as one of the community organizers I
interviewed informs me. Randy Jones, who works in Central Long Beach but lives in
East Long Beach where its population is mostly made up of White Caucasians and where
streets are wider, lawns kept up and trees line the sidewalks. Many of his neighbors have
not visited Central Long Beach and never heard of a Cambodian community there. Long
Beach from his point of view is a “segregated city” in terms of who you see or not see
daily. Randy related to me that it was only after living a decade in Long Beach before he
met any Cambodian. A short three miles drive eastwards along East Anaheim Street
quickly transformed from dense and run-down urban dwellings to suburban single-family
houses on tree-lined streets with green lawns and blue skies. Poverty and color give way
to wealth and whiteness. The juxtaposition is just as stark going south towards the ocean
Page | 130

and downtown Long Beach with sidewalks line with chic cafes, boutiques and spanking
new loft apartment buildings. Figure 4.5 shows the Census 2010 geographic distribution
of the different ethnic groups in Central Long Beach and East Long Beach.

Figure 4.5: Geographic distribution of the different ethnicities in 2010 according to US Census. Map
created by author.

With an average household median income of about $33,000 in 2010 (less than 60
percent of LA County’s), Central Long Beach
24
is a socio-economically impoverished

24
Central Long Beach in this study refers to the census tracts that are enclosed by Redondo Avenue and
Long Beach Boulevard on the East-West axis and Pacific Coastal Highway and East 7
th
Street along the
North-South axis. This is the area where about 55,000 people live.
Page | 131

area that according to several community organizers receive direct food distribution up to
twice a month. Many of them walk to collect their food and these bi-monthly
distributions serve up to 500 families of all ethnicities in four hours. From my interviews
with White Caucasians and African-Americans who have lived and/or worked in the
Central Long Beach for many decades, it was apparent to me that the area was
predominantly made up of White Caucasians in the earliest times and it became mixed
with African Americans in the 1950s, the Latinos and Mexican immigrants from the
1970s onwards and eventually the Cambodian refugees who arrived in the late 1970s
through the 1990s (Needham and Quintiliani 2007).

Today, Central Long Beach is made up of three predominant groups: Latinos (58 percent),
Asians (19 percent) and African Americans (14 percent). It accounts for an immigrant
concentration that is 1.5 times greater than the City of Long Beach as a whole. Amongst
its foreign immigrant population, Mexicans make up 60 percent and Cambodians, 18
percent.
25
The other immigrant residents are from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, the
Philippines and Vietnam. In total, 42 nationalities are represented in this neighborhood.
Table 4.1 gives the demographic characteristics of the area in 2000 and 2010.

25
American Community Survey 2006-10 (Table B05006) shows the following: Long Beach city’s foreign-
born population is 27 percent; its Mexican immigrants make up 48 percent of the total foreign-born and
Cambodians, 8 percent.
Page | 132

LA County Central Long Beach
2000
%
share
of
total 2010
%
share
of
total 2000
%
share
of
total 2010
%
share
of
total
TOTAL POPULATION
COUNT
9,519,338 9,818,605 57,433 53,156
Nativity (*sample estimates)
TOTAL 9519338 9758256 57371 53295
Native 6069894 63.8 6280433 64.4 30778 53.6 31504 59.1
Foreign-Born 3449444 36.2 3477823 35.6 26593 46.4 21791 40.9

Race/Ethnicity
TOTAL 9519338
9,818,605
57371 53156
White alone 2946145 30.9 2728321 27.8 3829 6.7 3699 7.0
Black or African American
alone 891194 9.4 815086 8.3 8340 14.5 7288 13.7
American Indian and Alaska
Native alone 26141 0.3 18886 0.2 170 0.3 130 0.2
Asian alone 1123964 11.8 1325671 13.5 12034 21.0 10078 19.0
Native Hawaiian and Other
Pacific Islander alone 24376 0.3 22464 0.2 374 0.7 256 0.5
Some other race alone 18859 0.2 25367 0.3 28 0.05 153 0.3
Two or more races 245172 2.6 194921 2.0 1546 2.7 974 1.8
Hispanic or Latino 4243487 44.6 4687889 47.7 31050 54.1 30578 57.5

Language Abilities
(*sample estimates)
TOTAL 8791096 9098454 51128 48257
Speak English Only 4032614 45.9 3966317 43.6 13609 26.6 13312 27.6
Speak another language 4758482 54.1 5132137 56.4 37519 73.4 34945 72.4
(speak English "not well") 931298 10.6 935460 10.3 10330 20.2 7507 15.6
(speak English "not at all") 464049 5.3 502802 5.5 5333 10.4 4615 9.6

Average Median Household
Income (in 1999 and 2010
dollars) 42,189 55,476 20,700 32,700
Data source: US Census 2000, US Census 2010, American Community Survey 5 year estimates (2006-
2010)

Tables from US Census 2000: (PCT001 SF2), (QT-P14 SF3), (PCT007 SF3), (PCT012 SF3), (P053 SF3)
Tables from US Census 2010: (P1 SF1), (P5 SF1)

Tables from American Community Survey 5-year estimates 2006 to 2010: (B0512), (B16005), (B19013)
Table 4.1: Demographic characteristics of Central Long Beach compiled from US Census (2000 and
2010) and the American Community Survey 5-year estimates 2006-2010

Page | 133

Demographic transition to heterogeneity has been rough in Central Long Beach. From the
1980s up to 2000, residents, community organizers and business owners whom I have
interviewed recalled days of street shootings, active gang activities, blatant drug dealing,
bullying, robbing and attending funerals of relatives, friends and neighbors weekly. It
was a “war zone,” a “tough neighborhood” and violence became banal between the
different ethnicities quoting the words of Latinos and Cambodians of different ages
whom I spoke to.

Kosal Sok, a Cambodian refugee from the genocide who arrived in the late 1970s to
Central Long Beach explained to me how Cambodians were considered “a newcomer, the
new kid on the block” and were not welcomed. He recounted poignantly how he was
kicked in his behind while working at a store and then made fun of, while Cambodian
kids were bullied in school by other kids from other ethnicities and at times blatantly
robbed by these kids of their new shoes or backpacks while walking to school. At school,
Cambodian children who had spent years in refugee camps without education were
misplaced into grades that matched their age but not their knowledge level. At home,
parents who were themselves coping with the trauma and the shock of being taken from a
“jungle to a civilized city” with a new American culture and language could not and did
not know how to help their children. Many of these children negotiated these harsh daily
realities by joining gangs for protection. The gang culture places these Cambodian
children in a different society. Kosal explained to me the mindset of these Cambodian
children, “To them, they protect me. Every problem, they take care of me. They buy me
new shoes. When I am hungry, they buy hamburger for me.” Many of these Cambodian
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youths, if they did not die in gang violence, found themselves locked up in prisons.
Teenage girls got pregnant and had babies out of wedlock. In his usual soft steady voice,
Kosal told me, “This generation got lost.”

Today while confrontational conflicts and violence that terrorize public social life and pit
one ethnicity against another have subsided due to multiple interventions such as gang
intervention, education, increased police patrolling and social support programs, the
challenges arising from commingled poverty and ethnic diversity remain a difficult
reality to negotiate
26
. The designation of a stretch of East Anaheim Street as “Cambodia
Town” met with resistance and tensions, one of which was the fear of violent
repercussions that might jeopardize the uneasy calm between the ethnicities that took
almost three decades to reach. The tortuous process filled with disagreements and
disappointments took more than a decade (from 2000 to 2011) to gain official acceptance
and was eventually renamed “Cambodia Town Cultural District” (Chan 2013). This
episode reflects the wider workings of the tension between stable communities and those
on the move, the tension between different cultures co-existing in space, and the tension
between the material and the imagined in the process of negotiating the sharing of space
in the making of ethnoscapes in Central Long Beach (Appadurai 1990, Gupta and
Ferguson 1997a).

26
Shootings and graffiti tagging are less frequent but certainly not absent as the gangs continue to work out
their differences in public space. Latino gangs active in Central Long Beach include the East Side Longos,
West Side Longos, Barrio Pobre and Barrio Small Town. Asian gangs include Asian Boyz and Tiny Rascal
Gang. The main African-American gang in the area is the Rolling 20s Long Beach Crips.
Page | 135

Where is Central Long Beach?
“Do you live in this area or neighborhood?” I approached a young bespectacled Latina
reading a book on table card games at the Mark Twain Library where I begin many of my
days of fieldwork in Central Long Beach. “Yes,” she said softly. Laura has just finished
high school and is working part-time in a fast-food joint in Long Beach. She has lived in
the neighborhood for 15 years and considers Long Beach as the place of her birth. I
showed her a Google street map of the area surrounding the library. I asked Laura, “Can
you place a sticker star to show me where you live?” and “please draw the boundary of
the neighborhood from your point of view on this map.” Figure 4.6 shows Laura’s map.

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Figure 4.6: Laura’s cognitive map on a 1:12,500 Google Street Map: Star= home, Yellow=conceived
neighborhood boundaries, Orange= ethnic concentrations of A.A (African-American), H.
(Hispanic=Mexicans) and A. (Asian=Cambodians), Pink strip= space to avoid because of stabbings,
Blue circle= Routine destinations of Mark Twain Library and 15
th
Street market, Pink circles: good
places to meet different ethnicities (Whittier Elementary, Top value supermarket on 10
th
Street and
St Matthew’s Church on 7
th
Street).

Laura is one of the interviewees of different ethnicities who live, work or regularly use
Central Long Beach and participated in the three-part interviews involving an individual
cognitive mapping exercise, a semi-structured interview and a survey to uncover the
geographies of the social space that is made up of dialectically conceived boundaries and
territories, perceived routines and lived experiences in a diverse neighborhood (Lefebvre
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1991, Schmid 2008).
27
These individual maps were then transferred onto a collective
layer to analyze for the presence or absence of common patterns.
28

Conceived Boundaries and borders in Central Long Beach
The six most frequently marked boundaries are major street corridors in Central Long
Beach as seen in Figure 4.7. These streets are namely Cherry Avenue, Orange Avenue,
Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, Pacific Coastal Highway (PCH), East Anaheim Street
and 7
th
Street. Of these six streets, Cherry Avenue emerges as the strongest boundary
where people conceive the limits of their neighborhoods in Central Long Beach to be,
while East Anaheim Street where the boundary polygons overlap emerges as the border
zone running east-west because of its “porosity” (Sennett, The Public Realm Quant essay,
http://www.richardsennett.com).

27
Majority of the interviewees in Central Long Beach study area use the map base 1:12,500 rather than
1:25,000 to locate where they live and where the boundaries of the neighborhood are on the map.
28
The number of actual responses to questions on boundary, territories and routine vary. In Central Long
Beach, 26 interviewees were able to understand and respond by drawing a boundary or boundaries, 13
identified territories of significance and 20 provided information about their routine geographies.

Page | 138

Figure 4.7: Collective map of conceived neighborhood boundaries in Central Long Beach of those
who live, work or regularly use the area (1 dot represents interviewee’s residence or working or use
location in the neighborhood. Pink/red dots and corresponding lines refer to location and boundaries
drawn by Asian interviewees, Green = Latinos, Yellow = Whites and Blue = African Americans).
Map prepared by author.

There are a few possible reasons why Cherry Avenue is conceived as boundary. From my
personal experience traveling on foot and driving in Central Long Beach, Cherry Avenue
is extremely difficult to cross. Traffic is heavy or cars are driving recklessly fast along
this street road that leads to Interstate Freeway 405. In addition, interviewees also
conceive that Cherry Avenue is the divider between the poorer and more dangerous
Central Long Beach and the slightly better neighborhoods east of Cherry Avenue.
Together, these factors make Cherry Avenue a strong boundary. According to Kylie
Page | 139

Brendon, who has relocated to Central Long Beach in the last five years and lives east of
Cherry Avenue, her advice to friends visiting and those looking to move into Central
Long Beach is “to stay on the east of Cherry Avenue” because it is safer. Figure 4.8
shows the geography of danger in the Central Long Beach.

Figure 4.8: Geography of danger in Central Long Beach according to interviewees. Map prepared by
author.

A closer examination of the six major boundaries revealed that they coincide with spaces
that are avoided in Central Long Beach, particularly at night as seen in Figure 4.8. The
interviewees avoid Pacific Coastal Highway (PCH) because of the drug dealing and
prostitution there, while Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue (between 7
th
Street to PCH) is
avoided because of gang activities, drugs and shootings by Latino and African American
Page | 140

residents. Similarly, the area west of Cherry Avenue and north of 7
th
Street is pointed out
by a White Caucasian interviewee as a no-go zone. Other places to avoid according to
long-time residents in Central Long Beach because of personal experiences of being
mugged or knowing friends who have been shot or news of shootings and fights include
particular blocks along Lemon Ave, Cerritos Ave, Lewis Ave and a back alleyway
between Gaviota Ave and Rose Ave.

The space of danger and avoidance hence demonstrates the complex “three-dimensional
dialectics” (Schmid 2008) which the rotating tetrahedron in Figure 2.1 illustrates. The
actual “spatial practices” (perceived space) has been shaped by observing actual criminal
activities that in turn influence the routine geography. Further, the experience of being
mugged or having heard of relatives being attacked has created a lived space that is
fearful and circumscribed in social activities. These influences in the perceived and lived
space together with local news reports of crime (conceived space) make the geography of
fear and danger an extremely palpable and powerful element that fragments the social
space in Central Long Beach further.

Comparing the boundary maps through the filters of ethnicity, length of residency and
citizenship status (immigrant versus native-born), the most notable differences emerge
along the line of residency length.
29
Newer residents conceived the neighborhoods in
Central Long Beach in neat rectangles that are well-bounded by roads that they are

29
New residents have been in Central Long Beach area between 3 months to 5 years. Long-time residents
are those who have been in the area between 6 and 40 years.
Page | 141

familiar, conscious to remain within a circumscribed geography and not wander outside.
Long-time residents articulate their conceived space of their neighborhoods in Central
Long Beach using a variety of ways that vary from large polygons of those who have
traveled in the area by automobiles or worked as community organizers, to detailed level
of highlighting street names and in marking out ethnic concentrations as a way to
differentiate where their neighborhood is and where it is not.
30
Figures 4.9a and 4.9b
illustrate the conceived maps of newer and long-time residents respectively.

30
Compared to the newcomers who have an approximately 0.6 square miles (1.5 square kilometers)
neighborhood area, the long-time residents vary between 0.04 square miles (0.1 sq km or a few blocks) and
2.0 sq miles (5.2 sq kilometers). The 0.04 square miles neighborhood size belongs to a resident who has
lived in the neighborhood for 20 years and it consists of well-marked streets she uses regularly and is
comfortable and feels safe doing so. In comparison, the 2.0 sq miles neighborhood expressed by a polygon
belongs to an interviewee who has worked in the neighborhood for 20 years. Her familiarity with the
neighborhood is defined by the car she drives from her home from another part of Los Angeles to work
every day. There are resident community organizers whose conceived neighborhood boundaries are made
up of smaller neighborhoods as well as political and service boundaries that can extend to 4 sq miles (10.5
sq kilometers).

Page | 142

Figure 4.9a: Conceived neighborhood boundaries of new residents including those who work and
regularly use Central Long Beach between the last 3 months and 6 years. Map prepared by author.

Figure 4.9b: Conceived neighborhood boundaries of long-time residents including those who has
worked and used the area for more than 6 years and up to 40 years. Map prepared by author.
Page | 143

The size of neighborhoods for long-time residents in Central Long Beach can be as
circumscribed as the newcomers, suggesting that the area is fragmented into many
smaller neighborhoods. Long-time residents, especially those who are raised in the
neighborhood tend to have a smaller neighborhood area with a higher level of specificity
such as the perceived space is organized by specific blocks, a keener sense of ethnic
territories and danger spots. This would be possible because of the length of time spent in
the neighborhood, their long exposure to the places and infrastructure of the area through
their daily “spatial practices” (perceived space) over different life stages and the rich
lived experiences in the neighborhood. The regular practice of walking in Central Long
Beach gives them a palpable familiarity of the social space.

There are slight variations across ethnicities in terms of conceived neighborhood
boundaries, which can be influenced by the residential locations of the interviewees.
Majority of the White Caucasian and African American interviewees conceive their
neighborhood boundaries to be spatially oriented towards the east. The size of their
neighborhoods is also about the same size, while Latinos and Asians have boundaries that
are more centered along the East Anaheim Street axis and their conceived neighborhood
sizes vary, Figures 4.10a and 4.10b illustrate the difference.

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Figure 4.10a: Conceived neighborhood boundaries of White Caucasians and African Americans.
Map prepared by author.

Figure 4.10b: Conceived neighborhood boundaries of Latinos and Asians. Map prepared by author.
Page | 145

What is more distinctive in terms of everyday social space is the perceived space of
routine practice. The routine maps show that the routines of White Caucasians (yellow
lines and squares) are more expansive and oriented toward Downtown Long Beach, the
beach and East Long Beach, with the exception of one interviewee who visits the skate
parks in Central Long Beach. For the African-Americans (blue lines and squares), their
routine geographies bring them in all directions. Comparatively, the perceived space of
routines for the Latinos and Asians are more circumscribed. Routines are oriented around
East Anaheim Street, with a handful of young Latinos regularly using the beach and
Downtown Long Beach. In fact according to community
organizers who worked with the impoverished Cambodians and Latinos, majority of them
do not go to Downtown Long Beach or elsewhere and that their social life is centered and
limited to Central Long Beach. See Figure 4.11 for the collective routine map.

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Figure 4.11: Routine paths and places in Central Long Beach
(1 dot represents interviewee’s residence, working or use location in the neighborhood. Pink/red
squares and corresponding lines refer to routine destinations drawn by Asian interviewees, Green =
Latinos, Yellow = Whites and Blue = African Americans). Map prepared by author.

The collective routine map reveals that East Anaheim Street is a corridor that is
frequented for its public amenities such as the library and park as well as the corner stores
and grocery shops. It is a space where residents intersect during their routines and a
business corridor where Asian, mostly Cambodian shops and restaurants are interspersed
with Latino businesses. Visibly, it is a space of intermixing and porosity where the
residents from the area north and those from the south cross the street to use its spaces.
Figure 4.12 shows the routine destinations along East Anaheim Street.
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Figure 4.12: A zoomed in version of the routine map, highlighting the density of routines along East
Anaheim Street. Map prepared by author.

However, a closer study of the routines shows that the routine tendencies of Asians are
toward Asian stores and grocers. And the Latinos visit Latino grocery shops. Randy
Jones who has worked in Central Long Beach over the past decade shared with me his
observation of the everyday patterns of social life along East Anaheim Street that is more
than a routine spatial practice,

INTERVIEWER (MYSELF). Do the different ethnicities mix?
RANDY. They don’t mix
INTERVIEWER (MYSELF). Why?
RANDY. Fear and tradition! [pauses for a few seconds] People are afraid of
people who don’t look like them. And there are a lot of gang activities that
probably got a lot of people spooked. An African-American guy encounters a
group of Latino guys. He is not going to start a wonderful multicultural encounter.
And there are also not so many opportunities for people to mix…The Latinos go
to Latino groceries and they only speak Spanish. The Cambodians go to the
Cambodian groceries, the Seng Heng market and the Kim Long market where
they speak Khmer. It’s diverse but segregated.”
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Conceived Territories: Gangs and Ethnicities
The language of territories is a recurring trope in the interviews with residents,
community organizers and municipal officers as they describe the everyday social space
of Central Long Beach. It is used in direct reference to gangs, to the “war zone,” to the
new “Cambodian Town cultural district” and in subtle references to relations between the
different ethnicities. As Altman and Chemers (1980) and Gupta and Ferguson (1997a)
discussed in their writings, the salience of territories lies in its dual properties of being
simultaneously real and imagined, demonstrating the dialectics of conceived-perceived-
lived space in the way they reflect and manifest the social relations in a locality (Suttles
1972) and ultimately hold implications for the development of intercultural integration or
lack thereof. In Central Long Beach, territories are made more complex and contested by
the multiplicity of political boundaries represented in the area. Central Long Beach is
divided into four municipal council districts (District 6, 2, 1 and 4), creating a social
space that is dialectically complex.
31

Gang territories
The presence of gangs and their territories is a daily consciousness that organizes the
routines, structures social life and influences development planning in Central Long
Beach. Everyday social space in Central Long Beach is palpably shaped by gang
activities and territories. Eric Alvarez, a community organizer who has been working in

31
Majority of the interviewees are living and/or working in District 6 and District 4 and a couple in District
2 and District 1.

Page | 149

the neighborhood for several years candidly informs me that my question for the
boundaries of the neighborhood in Central Long Beach may be misdirected because it is
not about the geography of a neighborhood boundaries but a geography of territories,

The area west of the flood control, that was the area called Westside Longos.
That’s another gang area. But that’s how Hispanic folks interpret neighborhoods.
They don’t interpret it as like you live in the east side of Long Beach or west side
Long Beach. You live in the Rolling Crips neighborhood. That’s how they
communicate it. That is how they interpret it. The kids around it.

I asked Eric to outline the gang areas for me and I combined his sketch with the sketch
from the police officer to produce Figure 4.13 that illustrates the gang territories in the
area. In total there are eight gangs
32
active in Central Long Beach.

32
Barrio Small Town, East Side Longos, Barrios Pobre, Westside Longos, Insane Crips, 18
th
Street,
Rolling20s, Tiny Rascals.
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Figure 4.13: Gang territories and danger areas (in pink) that residents avoid in Central Long Beach.
Map prepared by author.

The territories overlap with each other and where they overlap and collide, these fuzzy
territories coincide with spaces that residents avoid (in bright pink, see Figure 4.13). 20
th

Street is such a place where the territories of Rolling 20s, Insane Crips, 18
th
Street and the
Tiny Rascals overlapped with the space of danger as identified by interviewees. I was
informed by the police officer that the Insane Crips, the 18
th
Street, the Rolling 20s gangs
are pushing their expansion southwards from the City of Los Angeles into the territories
of the East Side Longos resulting in turf wars. Ben Rodriguez, an early 20s self-identified
Mexican American has been living on that street for 10 years, would avoid walking by
himself at night along 20
th
Street because he had experienced negative encounters of
racial slurs such as “beaners,” “wetbacks” being thrown at him and given dirty looks by
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people in his age group. Ben’s experience along 20
th
Street is not unique. Calvin Jenkins,
an elderly self-identified “Black” man who has recently moved into Central Long Beach
recounted to me his experience driving along 20
th
Street one night,

It is rough. One night, I was driving at 9pm at night. One guy was running away
from another two guys. They were carrying sticks and rocks….It shows my biases.
They appear to be poor and struggling and young. They don’t appear to have jobs
looking at the way they dress. It is not fair to do it but that’s the way we are.

Apart from 20
th
Street, Alamitos Avenue is also a boundary much like Cherry Avenue in
terms of cutting off interaction and mixing on both sides of the road due to a sense of
danger arising from both vehicular and street violence. Randy Jones works with youths
and during our interview, he echoes the thoughts of Eric Alvarez about gang activities.
Randy explained to me that the youths’ awareness of gang territories are heightened
because the danger they face from gangs are more acute than adults. As a result,
engagement of youths are directly structured and constrained by the location of gang
territories. Merry’s (1981, 143) analysis of danger in a multi-ethnic neighborhood (Dover
Square) describes a similar danger that shapes the social space in Central Long Beach,
especially the space of the young (youths and those in the 20s) who are targets of gangs
and bullying. She writes,

It is not simply the risk of crime that Dover Square residents find dangerous, but
the chance of random, vicious, unwarranted attacks by a stranger who belongs to
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a hostile group. Dangerous experience far more than crime. Insults, mockery,
racial slurs, harassment, and flirtatious sexual comments that assault a person’s
sense of order, propriety and self-respect awaken feelings of danger even though
they contain no threat of actual physical violence.

This conceived geography of fear (made up by the interaction of actual practice and lived
experience as well as mental conceptions through local news report) limits the range of
routines (“spatial practices” or perceived space), fragments and shrinks the lived social
space of possibilities for positive social interaction. These boundaries and territories are
metaphorically like fortress walls, not protecting the residents within but walling them in
by pushing those who live inside and outside away from each other. Within the bounds of
the walls, danger also lurks in alleyways and certain blocks associated with gang violence.
As poignantly described by not just one, but several young residents in their 20s, the
neighborhood is “a ghetto!”

Ethnic Concentrations
Central Long Beach, like many ethnically diverse neighborhoods, appears visibly mixed
to the casual eye. However, the cognitive maps reveal that in fact, the conceived space of
Central Long Beach by at least half of the interviewees reveals the presence of ethnic
concentrations (see Figure 4.14). Some interviewees, especially those who have been
raised in Central Long Beach (namely the young Latinos and African-Americans) are
sensitized to subtle differences in the social space. These residents can identify ethnic
concentrations at the block scale, while the newer residents tend to mark out larger
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swaths of ethnic territories.
33
Interviewees who are long-time residents of all ethnicities
agree that there is a tendency for apartment buildings to quickly become ethnic
concentrations because apartment managers favor tenants who share the same ethnicity as
him or her.

Figure 4.14: Collective map of conceived territories and areas to avoid in Central Long Beach. Map
prepared by author.

An interesting pattern emerged in the mapping of territories. The presence of Asian
ethnicity was ignored by many African-American and Latino interviewees even though

33
The new residents identify territories that are two to five times larger than the residents who have grown
up in the neighborhood. These long-time residents usually identify territories that are a block length to at
most five to six blocks in area.
Page | 154

existentially Asians as an ethnic group is larger than the African-American population.
There were more references about African-Americans by Latinos and vice-versa. The
only consistent mention of an Asian concentration referred to the Asian businesses along
East Anaheim Street. There are a few possible reasons for this gaping silence about why
the Asians are referred to as the “invisible” population by many interviewees.

First, Asians as compared to Latinos and African-Americans are rarely visible in the
public spaces or on the sidewalks because very few of them walk. Their perceived space
is traversed by car even if it is just a few blocks due to a fear of danger. Second, the
Latino and African-American gangs are more active in Central Long Beach and this may
have heightened the presence of each other while reinforcing the relative absence of the
Asians. Further, the invisibility of the Asians are emphasized in different dimensions of
the lived space including the competition for jobs that appear to be mostly between
Latinos and African-Americans according to residents like Marteese as well as the
general conception that African-Americans are being “run over” by Latinos according to
Calvin Jenkins. Alina Daniels, another African American resident in her early 20s who
has been raised in Central Long Beach, shares her thoughts about the inter-ethnic
relations in the area, “To be honest, I really don’t keep my eyes on the Cambodian people
and Asian people coz’ they are really not in conflict of the international racial part we
have going on in our building, in our surrounding areas. It is majority Mexicans and
Blacks. The Cambodian people and Asians, you know, they keep to themselves.”

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Another interesting finding is that the Asian interviewees’ conceived space of Central
Long Beach does not contain any ethnic concentrations. For them the diversity of the
area is more distinctive. This could be due to the fact that most of them drive and are not
as sensitized to the differences that were noted by those who walk. For the Asians who
walk, their routine route is extremely circumscribed such as Munny Ly a resident who
came from Cambodia 30 years ago. Munny goes for her stroll on a set circuit of two to
three blocks radius around her house every morning. During other times, she travels by
car to the library, to the gym, to the restaurants and the grocery shop that is within five
minutes walking distance from her home.

Negotiating Shared Social Space
John Turner, an articulate African-American man in his early 30s who have lived in
different parts of Long Beach and for many years in Central Long Beach, recounts a
familiar story that I have heard and will hear many more times through my interviews
here,

As far as meeting people around here, it’s kind of normal in a way that certain
people like to stick to their own people. The ghetto is kind of like that. This part
of town is rather ghetto. This is the way it goes. People want to stick to their own-
racial and people they already know. They are not so much into meeting new
people. For example, there is a pool hall down the street where a lot of guys play
pool. The guys are mostly Asian. I try to go there a few times, but I find that I am
not really welcomed…They are all Asians and they are all doing their own Asian
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thing. I am kind of an outsider. ‘You don’t know our food, you don’t know our
custom. We don’t want to teach you.’ Just not really welcomed there. It is one of
the things you just have to accept…if I go to another pool hall like Lakewood, I
will be accepted. This pool hall here is small and there is a small group of guys
who go there and they don’t care for outsiders.

Across ethnicities, common expressions used to describe the social relations between the
different ethnicities include “sticking to their own,” “sticking to themselves,” “minding
their own business,” “everyone for himself,” reflecting the socio-spatial fragmentation by
ethnic differences that led to experiences of exclusion and inclusion along ethnic lines.
According to Barth ([1969] 1998, 15), the process of how ethnic boundaries are formed is
extremely significant in understanding the socio-spatial dynamics in diverse settings. He
writes,

The critical focus of investigation from this point of view becomes the ethnic
boundary that defines the group, not the cultural stuff that it encloses. The
boundaries to which we must give our attention are of course social boundaries,
though they may have territorial counterparts. If a group maintains its identity
when members interact with others, this entails criteria for determining
membership and ways of signaling membership and exclusion. Ethnic groups are
not merely or necessarily based on the occupation of exclusive territories; and the
different ways in which they are maintained, not only by a once-and-for –all
recruitment but by continual expression and validation, need to be analysed.
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Thus, ethnic boundary is foremost a negotiated social space that draws on both real and
imagined properties to reify itself but it also has the power to mute negotiation by
“canalizing social life” (Barth [1969] 1998, 15).

During my fieldwork visits, I observed repeatedly that recreation is enjoyed with people
of the same ethnicity. I verified this observation with the residents like John Turner and
asked if he had experiences engaging with other ethnicities through recreation. He told
me that most of the time the choice of recreation itself separates the ethnic groups.
Latinos play soccer, while African Americans play basketball and the White Caucasians
are on a beach with a book. However, there are rare occasions when African Americans
and Latinos play basketball together and compete through a friendly game. According to
both African American and Latino interviewees, the reason for the rarity of mixed teams
is because the Latinos tend to speak Spanish while playing and that makes it difficult for
the Blacks to be included. This pattern of minimal socialization is also observed among
the elderly at McBride Recreation Center where African American male seniors play pool
while Cambodian male seniors sit in another room to chat and the Cambodian women
seniors socialize almost exclusively with each other through dance lessons taught by a
Filipino or African-American teacher.

Aggressive and Passive negotiation
Sharing space in Central Long Beach is a daily negotiation of the tensions arising from
the complex nesting of differences in ethnicity, cultural practices and preferences, gangs,
Page | 158

poverty and physical danger that tend toward divisions. The aggressive negotiation
practiced and experienced in the perceived and lived space frequently uncovers the more
subtle passive negotiation in the conceived space of mental representations. For instance,
verbal negative ethnic stereotypes are casually being tossed around in Central Long
Beach according to the interviewees in a variety of social circumstances. Sometimes as a
racial slur to provoke discord and fights by gang members and other times, over mundane
concerns such as sharing parking space. Repeated frustration with “Mexicans” hoarding
street parking space in a dense neighborhood that faces shortage of parking has led to
fights (literally, verbally and metaphorically) over the right to use space. This has further
resulted in a formation of negative stereotypes about Latinos being inconsiderate.
Sometimes this stereotyping can lead to cold wars between next-door neighbors.

The process of negotiating diversity is made more difficult by the limited abilities of the
population to speak a common language, English. According to Census 2010 (see Table
4.1), 73 percent of the resident population speaks a language other than English, about
half of whom do not speak English well or at all. Munny explained to me why she does
not engage the Laotian or Spanish neighbors she meets each day during her walk around
her neighborhood, “Mexico no speak Cambodia, Cambodia no speak Mexico.” Chenda
So, a community organizer who has lived in the Central Long Beach for decades speaks
to the practical implications when cultural differences nest with harsh socio-economic
conditions that face the Cambodian refugees as well as the other ethnicities who live in
areas of poverty and crime,

Page | 159

If you talk about the issue of fitting in, nothing is the bigger issue than language
access.
These people are very friendly people. When they trust you, they are very loyal…
The negative part of it is that if you don’t make initiative and connect…Asians
don’t do networking. They don’t go to the neighborhood park and they know little
about each other. They don’t talk to each other and they keep to themselves. The
lower the income has more crime, they tend to close the door and shut the door
and so that they don’t get help…The kids learn how to survive in the tough
neighborhood…When you hit a little more crime area, you keep to yourselves
more. So what kind of relationship are you going to develop? You are not going
to have a free environment where you can trust each other when you don’t even
talk to each other.

The perceived and lived space in Central Long Beach is hence fragmented by socio-
cultural isolation, characterized as islands of ethnic cultures floating side by side in co-
presence without much productive interaction. The interpersonal relations between
neighbors of different ethnicities in Central Long Beach can thus be described as made up
of largely “routinized” negotiations, where brief “interaction-as-learned-routine” are
conducted between “categorically known” others (Lofland 1998, 54). Lofland (1973, 15)
explains “categoric knowing” as the “knowledge of another based on information about
his roles or statuses…That is, one knows who the other is only in the sense that one
knows he can be placed into some category or categories.” In this context, ethnicity as a
convenient visual information seems to dominate other forms of classification since
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verbal exchange is limited by both language and opportunities, creating a conceived
space of mental representations that are outlined by ethnicity traits that can be positive as
well as negative.

In making the contrast between East Long Beach where he lives and Central Long Beach
where he works, Randy Jones observed that people in Central Long Beach are “more
honest” with race in that no one has the problem when ethnic categories such as “Who is
the White guy or that Asian person you were talking to?” are thrown around and used in
everyday conversation. There is an acceptance to the use of ethnicity to negotiate the
diversity rather than a shying away from it. Ethnic differences and boundaries are
continuously reified through everyday social life to the extent that there is a pervasive
practice of “unreflective unconcern” and pragmatism (Bailey 1996, 122) toward ethnic
stereotypes.

Passive routinized negotiation in Central Long Beach is characterized in the “hi-byes”
encounters on sidewalks between neighbors such that neighbors of different ethnicities
who may have seen each other for decades do not develop relationships beyond visual
familiarity. Through the interviews, jadedness in relationship-building across ethnic lines
was evident. Repeated disappointments, hard to surmount barriers for an individual who
is resource-poor, the unpredictability of street crime that keeps everyone on their toes and
an overall uneasiness that old wounds between ethnicities could erupt any moment
because of a random or gang-affiliated act can quickly pit one ethnicity against another.

Page | 161

Local Belonging and Everyday Integration
Analysis of responses to the questions, “Have you ever felt like an outsider in this
neighborhood?” and “Do you feel like you belong? Why and what makes you feel like
you belong?”, suggests that having good interpersonal relations with neighbors and
having local knowledge of the neighborhood such as knowing one’s neighbors and the
environs are key elements in the formation of local belonging in Central Long Beach.
Table 3.2 in Chapter 3 provides an overview of the feelings and reasons of belonging to a
neighborhood.

Having local knowledge
Akin to San Marino, having local knowledge is a key factor to the formation of local
belonging in Central Long Beach. However, unlike San Marino, local knowledge of the
neighborhood comes more with time and less from participation in the social activities
per se since there are fewer organized activities comparatively and the civic realm is
passive and apathetic.

Ahn Dao, a Vietnamese immigrant who has been operating her business in Central Long
Beach for almost 20 years but lives in another part of Los Angeles felt that the length of
time in the neighborhood has enabled her to get to know and earn the trust of her
customers and her customers’ families and their lives. The neighborhood is now part of
her life where she spends more time there than at home. These reasons give her a strong
sense of belonging to the neighborhood. Anh’s views reflect many of the other
interviewees who have lived or worked in Central Long Beach for a long time. Getting to
Page | 162

know the neighborhood, the nooks and crannies, the people and community not only
grows an attachment but also empowers an individual with confidence from having that
knowledge to navigate the diverse public-parochial realm.

Good interpersonal relations
Having good interpersonal relations with neighbors is very important to one’s sense of
belonging in the neighborhood i.e., to not feel like an outsider. It is thus a double-edged
sword because bad interpersonal relations with neighbors can also be the “push” factor
and this is particularly the case if the individual is a minority. For White Caucasian
interviewees like Randy Jones, Jonathan Anderson and Rich Taylor, they feel like they
belong because they are socially accepted by all the ethnicities and have developed good
relations with them. Rich Taylor has in the last two years moved into Central Long Beach
and has many Cambodians as neighbors feels that he belongs. He explains,

I am accepted by the Cambodian community - all facets of it. I am like a son
almost to a lot of them…The Hispanics know that I am a cool guy and Black
people know I am a cool guy. All kinds of people who know me cover for me. It
is pretty ok for me to go anywhere.

Conversely, there are those who feel acutely the lack of local belonging because their
relations with neighbors are not congenial. Marteese Owens who has lived a long time in
Central Long Beach and Calvin Jenkins who has recently moved into the area, both
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African-Americans feel strongly that they are, quoting Calvin, “serving time here.” I
probed Marteese more why he felt the lack of local belonging:

INTERVIEWER (MYSELF). Have you ever felt like an outsider in this
neighborhood?
MARTEESE. All the time. You are taught to stay away from certain people
because you don’t want a conflict. Instead you tend to stay around your own, in
your own little area, in your own cubicle.
INTERVIEWER (MYSELF). Who are these people? Is it ethnicity or race?
MARTEESE. No. It is the ignorant mentality of certain people. It is not really a
race. They always have to cause problem in order to feel good.
INTERVIEWER (MYSELF). Do you feel like you belong?
MARTEESE. I don’t think so. I think I should be somewhere else.

Marteese’s experience articulates a weariness that is not unlike many of the long-time
residents in Central Long Beach. Long periods of living in co-presence with a lack of
good interpersonal neighborly experiences across ethnic lines can result in a
disenchantment that erodes the sense of local belonging in diverse settings.

In summary, the analyses of the collective maps of the conceived boundaries, territories
and “spatial” practice of routines reveal that the social space of Central Long Beach is
fragmented by several major boundaries made up of major street corridors, zones of
danger, gang territories and routine destinations that have ethnic-based clientele. While
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the overlapping ethnic concentrations do not for the most part inhibit routines and
“spatial practice,” their presence in a demographically diverse setting highlights the
social fragmentations, the micro-segregation (whether voluntary or involuntary) and
social exclusion at work in diverse settings. The interviews about how social space is
shared and negotiated further reveal that co-presence in diversity pervades the everyday
social life and is acutely experienced particularly by those who live there. They point to
the tensions of diversity that can resist and limit the possibilities for an integrated social
space and a cultivation of a local belonging. Finally, the findings from the cognitive
mapping and interviews indicate that Central Long Beach may be conceived physically as
a neighborhood by its inhabitants given the corroboration of common boundaries and
zones of danger by the interviewees. However, socially, its everyday perceived and lived
space of Central Long Beach is in fact characterized by fragmentations that are structured
along ethnic lines and practices.

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5. Scene Three: Negotiating Fragmentation and
Diversity in Mid-Wilshire
“From this neighborhood, I believe that it is diverse somewhat because right here it is
filled with the white population. But when you heading to Beverly [from Beverly
Blvd/Normandie Ave towards Downtown], you are heading to the Latino community,”
Luciana Garcia a Mexican-Guatemalan second generation young Latina who was using
the internet facilities at the Wilshire Branch Library to do research explained to me her
conception of neighborhoods in Mid-Wilshire. Luciana continued, “If you head down
from here to Beverly Center [towards the west], you feel like it is diverse because you see
mostly Asian and White communities. It is weird because you are in a community you
feel like you don’t belong to. But when you are there [pointing to the Beverly
Blvd/Normandie area], people are more friendly, you talk to more people. You know it.
You are used to your own color.”

Luciana has grown up in Mid-Wilshire and lived in two very different locations. Her
previous residence was a few streets from the library where it was quieter and that
“people dress nice” and there were more opportunities to speak English. Currently, she
lived in the midst of the Latino community at Beverly Blvd/Normandie Ave where it is
noisy with big families, tired workers and “people dress whatever.” Please see Figure 5.1
for Luciana’s map showing the two different types of neighborhoods in Mid-Wilshire.

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Figure 5.1: Luciana’s picked the 1:12,500 google street map to express her conceived space. Yellow
outline shows the western neighborhood and eastern neighborhood; Orange outline illustrates ethnic
concentration; Pink highlights show spaces she avoids, Blue circles are places she visits regularly.

Luciana is not alone in perceiving, experiencing and conceiving the socio-spatial
fragmentations in Mid-Wilshire as the collective map of conceived neighborhood
boundaries in Figure 5.2 illustrates.
34
“Mid-Wilshire” is a colloquial term used to refer to
a wide geographical area around the mid-point of the 16-mile long commercial spine
Wilshire Boulevard that runs from downtown Los Angeles to the Pacific Ocean. Mid-
Wilshire is in reality a collection of neighborhoods, cultural and ethnic enclaves that take

34
The interviewees who participated in the cognitive mapping study comprise of a mix of ethnicities
(namely White Caucasians, Latinos, Koreans, Filipinos, Chinese and African-Americans), immigrants and
native-born, new and long-time residents..
Page | 167

the form of districts, buildings, shops and individual routines. Hence, spatial boundaries
and territories play a salient role in the negotiation of everyday social life between
different ethnicities and cultures (Tajbakhsh 2001).

Figure 5.2: Collective conceived neighborhood boundaries in Mid-Wilshire. Map prepared by author.
(1 dot represents an interviewee’s resident or working location in the neighborhood. Pink/red dots
and corresponding lines refer to location and boundaries drawn by Asian interviewees,
Green=Latino, Yellow= White Caucasian, Blue=African American)

Anecdotally, the significance of gerrymandering and the contestation over boundaries
catalyzing division was vividly experienced multiple times over the past decade in this
dense area. The most recent is the redistricting of council districts following Census 2010
Page | 168

when community organizers and residents of Koreatown requested for one council
district to represent Koreatown instead of being split into four districts. Another episode
concerns the tension in the negotiation between the Koreatown, Little Bangladesh and El
Salvadoran communities over their boundaries and territories. Yet another contention was
between the exclusive Wilshire Country Club and the former Community Redevelopment
Authority (CRA), when new landscape improvements highlighting Korean cultural
motifs along Olympic Boulevard by the CRA unleashed retaliation from the country club
that “This is not Koreatown!” These recurrent episodes over boundaries and territories
point to the centrality that ethnicity and nationality play in “reterritorializing” the spaces
of globalizing cities through global immigration, challenging the neat lines of place and
identity (Gupta and Ferguson 1997a).

Mid-Wilshire
35
, in many ways for me, is a snapshot that captures the polarities of Los
Angeles par excellence all within 2.5 miles. Wealth juxtaposes with poverty, dense
apartments with large mansions and a cultural diversity that mingle but also live “parallel
lives” in vertical and horizontal enclaves (Cantle 2005). From Vermont Avenue to La
Brea Avenue (only 2.5 miles apart), median household income in 2010 ranges between

35
“Mid-Wilshire” in this dissertation refers to the area between Vermont Avenue and La Brea Avenue on
the East-West axis (2.5 miles) and Melrose Avenue and 8
th
Street on the North-South axis (1.4 miles). It is
formed by 28 census tracts, two zip codes, represented by two neighborhood councils (Greater Wilshire
Neighborhood Council and the Wilshire Center-Koreatown Neighborhood Council), three council districts
(District 4, 13, 10), at least 13 neighborhood associations, cultural districts and business improvement
district, not to mention several special planning districts.

Page | 169

$26,000 and $130,000. High population density in apartments gives way to tree-line
streets, manicured lawns and large mansions in Hancock Park that then transition to high-
rise condominiums. Figures 5.3 to 5.6 show the scenes from the everyday social space in
Mid-Wilshire.

Figure 5.3: “Candyland” of Mid-Wilshire, a popular term to describe the big mansions and posh cars
that are eye candies to carjackers. Photo by author.
Page | 170

Figure 5.4: To see and be seen, alfresco dining in Larchmont Village. Photo by author.

Figure 5.5: A day in Koreatown in Mid-Wilshire. Photo by author.
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Figure 5.6: As houses give way to apartment buildings near Western Avenue. Photo by author.

As home to immigrants from over 100 nations, particularly Guatemala, El Salvador,
Mexico, Korea, the Philippines and Bangladesh, Mid-Wilshire is a multi-lingual salad
bowl where about 76 percent of its residents speak a second language other than English.
In 2010, the three largest ethnic groups in Mid-Wilshire are made up of Latinos (42
percent), Asians (34 Percent) and White Caucasians (18 percent). Between 2000 and
2010, the Asian and White Caucasian populations have increased while the Latino and
African-American populations have declined in the area. Table 5.1shows the
demographic change.

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LA County Mid-Wilshire
2000
%
share
of
total 2010
%
share
of
total 2000
%
share
of
total 2010
%
share
of
total
Total Population Count 9,519,338 9,818,605 97,930 96,070

Nativity(*sample estimates)
TOTAL 9519338 9758256 103218 100970
Native 6069894 63.8 6280433 64.4 40067 38.8 41978 41.6
Foreign-Born 3449444 36.2 3477823 35.6 63151 61.2 58992 58.4

Race/Ethnicity
TOTAL 9519338
9,818,605
103218 96070
White alone 2946145 30.9 2728321 27.8 17416 16.9 17694 18.4
Black or African American
alone 891194 9.4 815086 8.3 4454 4.3 3863 4.0
American Indian and Alaska
Native alone 26141 0.3 18886 0.2 117 0.1 110 0.1
Asian alone 1123964 11.8 1325671 13.5 30451 29.5 32247 33.6
Native Hawaiian and Other
Pacific Islander alone 24376 0.3 22464 0.2 125 0.1 48 0.0
Some other race alone 18859 0.2 25367 0.3 267 0.3 337 0.4
Two or more races 245172 2.6 194921 2.0 2214 2.1 1469 1.5
Hispanic or Latino 4243487 44.6 4687889 47.7 48174 46.7 40302 42.0

Language Abilities
(*sample estimates)
TOTAL 8791096 9098454 95044 94458
Speak English Only 4032614 45.9 3966317 43.6 21949 23.1 23002 24.4
Speak another language 4758482 54.1 5132137 56.4 73095 76.9 71456 75.6
(speak English "not well") 931298 10.6 935460 10.3 20401 21.5 20457 21.7
(speak English "not at all") 464049 5.3 502802 5.5 7408 7.8 7840 8.3

Average Median Household
Income (in 1999 and 2010
dollars) 42,189 55,476 32,200 44,800

Data source: US Census 2000, US Census 2010, American Community Survey 5 year estimates (2006-
2010)
Tables from US Census 2000: (PCT001 SF2), (QT-P14 SF3), (PCT007 SF3), (PCT012 SF3), (P053 SF3)
Tables from US Census 2010: (P1 SF1), (P5 SF1)

Tables from American Community Survey 5-year estimates 2006 to 2010: (B0512), (B16005), (B19013)

Table 5.1: Demographic characteristics of Mid-Wilshire compiled from US Census (2000 and 2010)
and the American Community Survey 5-year estimates 2006-2010.

Page | 173

Fraternal Twins: Mid-Wilshire conceived
“The big dividing line”
Wilton Place is “the big dividing line,” says Marcus Kenny the municipal officer who I
interviewed one afternoon in the Los Angeles City Hall. Marcus recounted to me how
neighborhood activists proposed to split the Mid-Wilshire area along Wilton Place in
2001 but the proposal was swiftly rejected by the city. During our interview, he
repeatedly used the word “mix” to describe the landscape, people and developments in
Mid-Wilshire while simultaneously identifying how there are different sets of challenges
that east and west of Wilton Place face. By mapping ethnicity data from US Census 2010,
the divisions in the social space of Mid-Wilshire mentioned by Luciana and Marcus can
be graphically represented (see Figure 5.7).

Page | 174

Figure 5.7: “The big dividing line” and the approximation of ethnicity distribution and density in
Mid-Wilshire in 2010. Map prepared by author.

The phenomenon of the fraternal twin cities (east and west Mid-Wilshire) is visually
poignant from this map. Western Avenue (a four-lane major commercial corridor), to an
even greater extent than Wilton Place separates Mid-Wilshire into two halves. Together,
they form the threshold of where Asian and Latino populations transition abruptly into an
area with White Caucasians interspersed with Asians. Western Avenue is also the
institutional boundary between the Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council that
represents the “westerners” and the Wilshire Center-Koreatown Neighborhood Council
that represents the “easterners” of Mid-Wilshire. These divisions are also visible in the
collective neighborhood boundaries map in Figure 5.2 which illustrate that many of the
Page | 175

interviewees conceive the area between Wilton Place, Western Avenue and the adjacent
Oxford Avenue as the start and end of their neighborhood boundaries. According to
Tania Johnson, an African-American resident who relocated from the eastern to the
western neighborhood in the last year, recounted how some restaurants she frequented in
Larchmont Village, a 275 meters (0.2mile) street lined with boutique stores in western
Mid-Wilshire, consider Western Avenue (located 1.25 km or 0.8miles to the east of
Larchmont Boulevard) as the geographical limit of their delivery service.

By disaggregating the collective map of conceived neighborhood boundaries into eastern
and western Mid-Wilshire using Western Avenue as the dividing line, Figures 5.8a
(eastern) and 5.8b (western) show residents in eastern Mid-Wilshire conceive their
neighborhoods as smaller units that range between three to seven blocks
36
in radius with
the exception of one resident who travels daily to Los Angeles City College (LACC),
north of the 101 Freeway in his car. In comparison, the residents in western Mid-Wilshire
(most of whom drive), their conceived neighborhood boundaries are much larger. In fact
by examining the routine maps of the everyday “spatial practices” or perceived space
(Lefebvre 1991), many residents in western Mid-Wilshire travel to different parts of Los
Angeles outside Mid-Wilshire such as Glendale, Eagle Rock, Santa Monica, Monterey
Park and Hollywood as part of their routines, while more easterners stay within Mid-
Wilshire for their everyday social life (the residential dots with a black outline indicate
that residents travel outside the bounds of Mid-Wilshire as part of their routine
geography). Figures 5.9a and 5.9b illustrate the collective routine maps of the residents

36
Each block measures about 125 meters (0.08 miles) by 225 meters (0.15 miles).
Page | 176

from eastern and western Mid-Wilshire respectively. Comparing them, these maps reveal
that there are very few places where easterners and westerners overlap their routine
geographies and mingle. Van Ness/Burns Park and Mid-Wilshire Branch Library are the
core gathering points and to a lesser extent, Larchmont Village, Koreatown Plaza and LA
City College.

Page | 177

Figure 5.8a: Conceived neighborhood boundaries of eastern residents. Map by author.

Figure 5.8b: Conceived neighborhood boundaries of western residents. Map by author.
Page | 178

Figure 5.9a: Routine geographies of eastern residents. Map by author.

Figure 5.9b: Routine geographies of western residents. Map by author.
Page | 179

Analyzing the conceived neighborhood boundaries and the perceived routine geographies
across ethnicities, differences in the patterns of social space especially between the White
Caucasians and Asians emerge. The White Caucasian residents, most of whom live in
the western Mid-Wilshire, have well-defined and circumscribed neighborhood
boundaries. Oriented westward in their routines, Larchmont village forms a vital core of
their neighborhood social space. Jenny Fellow, a White Caucasian artist who lives in the
eastern Mid-Wilshire, drives to Larchmont village many times a week for its cafes. For
her, Larchmont Village while not conceived as part of her neighborhood, it is core to her
routine and everyday social life. Conversely, the neighborhood boundaries of Asian
residents are articulated in a variety of shapes and sizes. Some conceive their
neighborhood as the entire Mid-Wilshire and extending beyond to Beverly Hills, while
others have circumscribed boundaries that are 3 blocks in radius. The routine geographies
of Asian residents are also the widest in range with all the Koreans living in or visiting
Koreatown regularly for its shops, churches and restaurants, a few Filipinos traveling
north towards East Hollywood for the Filipino grocery shops and others going west
towards Fairfax area for its public parks, shops and restaurants.

In Mid-Wilshire, length of residency can affect how boundaries are conceived and drawn.
The longer one lives in Mid-Wilshire, the level of precision of how neighborhood
boundaries are conceived increases, especially if they walk and use the local amenities.
These long-term residents who have lived in Mid-Wilshire for more than a decade and
are familiar with their surroundings are able to quickly pick out the different
Page | 180

neighborhoods around them in addition to their own. Alison Haynes for example, has
lived on the western side of Mid-Wilshire near Western Avenue for 30 years and has
been active in organizing the neighborhood for as long. When I asked if she could show
me the neighborhood boundaries, she paused and ended up drawing me three sets of
boundaries. Her immediate neighborhood is conceived as a 3 by 4 blocks unit where she
feels comfortable dropping by neighbors’ homes. The medium sized neighborhood unit
represents her routine geography where she walks to corner stores, cafes and grocers. The
large boundaries represent the Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council that her small
neighborhood is part of.

“Brackish waters” and “Ethnic bubbles”
Larry Gans, a long-time resident of over twenty years who has lived in different locations
in western Mid-Wilshire appropriately characterizes the area as “brackish waters!” Ethnic
concentrations, social-economic lines of difference and areas of danger overlap and mix
in with each other. More residents in Mid-Wilshire conceived the presence of territories
than in San Marino and Central Long Beach and in comparison, social space in Mid-
Wilshire is conceived to be more complex and nested as the mapping of territories reveal.
Figure 5.10 shows the composite territories map in Mid-Wilshire.
Page | 181

Figure 5.10: A composite map of the fractal landscape of ethnic concentrations and territories in
Mid-Wilshire. Map prepared by author.

Eastern Mid-Wilshire is composed of multiple small overlapping territories of Latino and
Asian populations, Latino gang territories and blocks and swaths of dangerous areas
conceived by those living in eastern as well as western Mid-Wilshire (Suttles 1972).
Similar to the residents in Central Long Beach, residents from eastern Mid-Wilshire,
many of whom walk or take public transport, indicated Latino, African-American and
Asian concentrations at the block level microscale, whereas the residents from western
half mark out bigger swaths of territories belonging to certain ethnic groups such as
Hassidic Jews, White Caucasians and Asian populations.

Page | 182

There are several interrelated explanations that may have contributed to the
fragmentation of the social space conceived in eastern Mid-Wilshire as reflected in the
mapping of boundaries and territories. First, the area is made up of several Korean,
Bangladeshi, Mexican, El Salvadoran business clusters rather than the physically
contiguous nature of conventional ethnic enclaves as suggested by the concept of
Koreatown and Little Bangladesh. For example within the boundaries of Koreatown, 6
th

street has a lot more Korean businesses, while 8
th
Street has more Latino
37
businesses and
along a short stretch of 3
rd
Street where Little Bangladesh is, Bangladeshi businesses
(restaurants, grocery shops, gas stations) occupy only a couple of street corners. It is not
surprising to see Korean clothing stores on 3
rd
Street located between businesses owned
and run by Bangladeshis and Latinos next door, servicing a largely Latino clientele.
Hannah Youn, a community organizer and resident of the area sketched me a diagram
(see Figure 5.11) to explain how the expansive services and amenities operated by ethnic
groups such as Latino bodegas, Korean supermarkets, churches, restaurants, car-repair
shops, hairdressers etc scattered all throughout the area minimize the need of Latinos or
Koreans to engage and attempt to integrate. The same could be said for many of the
White Caucasians who would see Larchmont Village as their daily social space whether
or not it is functionally closer.

37
In fact, I was informed by a community organizer in addition to several residents that the “Latino” is a
label that is not welcomed in an area where Central Americans such as Guamanians, Salvadorans and
Hondurans want to differentiate themselves from Mexicans because of the hardships and bullying many of
the Central American immigrants had to endure when they crossed the border into Mexico on their way to
California.

Page | 183

Figure 5.11: Hannah’s sketch of ethnic bubble. K or KC= Korean concentration, H or HC =
Hispanic/Latino concentration

Second, apartment buildings especially in eastern Mid-Wilshire are essentially vertical
ethnic enclaves according to the residents I interviewed similar to a pattern in Central
Long Beach. This ethnic bubble is particularly non-permeable in the case of some
Latinos, Koreans and Filipinos who tend to live in apartment buildings or condominiums
with a concentration of their nationalities/ethnicities. This is true even for Luciana Garcia,
a young second-generation Mexican-American who crosses borders to visit the library
and Larchmont Village now and then in western Mid-Wilshire. She shares that her
contact opportunities with different ethnicities are in the respective descending order:
Latinos, African-Americans, Koreans and Chinese and lastly White Caucasians.Although
territories of ethnic concentrations are conceived mentally, they have material realities in
the perceived and lived space of Mid-Wilshire (Gupta and Ferguson 1997a). However,
for the most part, these boundaries and territories do not overly circumscribe the daily
Page | 184

routines in Mid-Wilshire. They are porous to a large extent likely because of the density
and compactness of amenities in Mid-Wilshire. In this sense, they behave more like
“borders” that maintain a degree of socio-spatial openness (Sennett, The Public Realm
Quant essay, http://www.richardsennett.com), nuanced in nature and negotiated (Barth
[1969] 1989, Suttles 1972).

Fears of difference and danger
“When I am here at Oxford, I feel like I am in my own community…From there I don’t
worry. Just a couple more blocks I am home,” Luciana tells me her daily geography of
fear and marks Oxford Avenue on the map with an orange highlighter. I probed and
asked her what makes her anxious and if there was indeed a sharp boundary between the
Korean and Latino territories as she walks home from the library through her comfort
zone at Oxford Street. She replies,

Probably, ya. I guess one of the auto shops near there. They are all right there.
They work. They have their own shops and restaurants. When you come to the
Latino community, that’s home. When I am there, I am calm. Nothing is going to
happen to me here because I am near my community…We don’t see Koreans and
Japanese as danger for us and probably the African-Americans, you fear.
Sometimes, oh damn, they are here! When you see a group of guys hanging
around, you think like something might happen to me. With the White community,
we actually never have communication with them. People start judging- “Those
white people don’t like us.”
Page | 185

Like Luciana, Michael So an international student from Korea who has lived in eastern
Mid-Wilshire for the past year, expresses the anxiety he feels around non-Koreans who
live around him,

MICHAEL. I don’t know exactly but the other races, I have fear of them.
INTERVIEWER. Why?
MICHAEL. The problem is English. It is hard to understand each other…When I
drive to school, I see kind of Mexican place. I feel this is Mexican place, I just
drive through. And when I see Korean thing, I feel this area is ok.

The experiences of Luciana and Michael illustrate how fear and anxiety in the presence
of selected ethnic groups are conceived but also perceived in the way they influence the
routine geographies and lived in terms of how everyday social life is experienced in
diverse settings (Lefebvre 1991, Schmid 2008). Their words do not stand alone but recur
in many other interviews, even for those who do not cross these ethnic boundaries daily.
Courtney Bateman and Nancy Lau, who have worked and lived respectively in western
Mid-Wilshire for more than two decades views the area of western Mid-Wilshire as
“African-American challenged.” Both Courtney and Nancy have personally encountered
the anxiety and prejudice that surround the African-American presence in their
neighborhoods. Courtney explains when I asked her if race or ethnicity is an issue in
Mid-Wilshire,

Page | 186

It can be. I think that there is very few African American people here…In
Larchmont recently in one of the homes, there was a home burglary. Actually I
don’t think they got in but the cameras captured the individuals. The two
individuals were African American men in their twenties and then there was some
crime on the Boulevard recently and there were photos of an African American
man….and so I say amongst owners of businesses on the Boulevard, if they see an
African American man in their twenties, they are likely to look him over very
carefully and be very suspicious because of recent crimes and because of just our
general society’s stereotypes about African American men in their twenties… The
diversification of this area is African-American challenged.

The experiences of Courtney and Nancy are exactly as those described by the police
officer (Sergeant Caleb Torres) I interviewed. While driving along the streets of Mid-
Wilshire in the LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department) patrol car for our interview,
Sergeant Caleb showed me the different Latino gang territories in eastern Mid-Wilshire
and explained to me that residents and business owners, especially those north of
Wilshire Boulevard are fearful of the African-American presence because of the repeated
robberies by African-Americans in the area. During the interview, he explained to me
why it is hard to get rid of these everyday forms of prejudice and discrimination,

People don’t have a reset button …If it did not happen to them, they can tell you
about an incident that happened to somebody they knew and they carry that with
them…You hear those statements, “You know, they are all like that,” “That’s
Page | 187

how they are.”…I can’t tell him or her that he or she is wrong. They are making it
based on personal experiences they had or what they have seen…We can’t push
reset. Officers can’t push reset either. People would love it if an officer or any
person would judge a person based on what happened at that moment. But that is
not possible because if it is baggage or experience, you carry that with you. You
will be a fool not to. This experience can help us remain safe. You always have
those things.

In addition, the bad memories of the 1992 Los Angeles civil unrest where some African-
Americans took part in the street violence in Mid-Wilshire and the small African-
American resident presence in the area may have reinforced these anxieties around
African-Americans. Together, these factors breed an atmosphere of distrust, suspicion
and anxiety that dialectically feed itself to produce a discriminatory and fragmented
social space.

The social space is further fragmented, particularly in eastern Mid-Wilshire, by the
danger spots that are to be avoided. These areas have strong salience for shaping the lived
space of everyday social life in the area because they alter the routine geographies of
residents. These are streets and spaces perceived (through personal direct observation and
experience or indirect knowledge from friends’ experiences) and conceived (through
local news or reports) to have gang activities and violence, prostitution and drugs. These
areas include Hoover Street, an active zone of turf wars between the 18
th
St gang (a
Mexican gang) and the rival MS gang (made up of members from El Salvador and
Page | 188

Honduras). Other areas of gang-related violence include the area immediately south of
Freeway 101, various blocks scattered throughout eastern Mid-Wilshire such as
8
th
Street/New Hampshire Avenue, the southern part of Mid-Wilshire where South LA
gangs such as the Blood gangs (made up of mostly Blacks) are expanding northwards.
Western Avenue is also another space known locally as an active zone for prostitution.

Insidious Nesting of Differences
Living with difference is an experience that has real and imagined components. Through
the interviews, residents in Mid-Wilshire allude to insidious associations of ethnicity
(color), wealth/poverty and danger that have produced categories of negative stereotypes
and influenced how differences are negotiated in everyday social space. The mapping of
territories in Figure 5.10 illustrates how Mid-Wilshire is conceived as an intricate mosaic
of territories, a “supderdiverse” (Vertovec 2007) space where overlapping ethnic and
national identities are overlaid with the disparity of wealth, density and danger to create a
social space that is extremely complex and fragmented (Tajbakhsh 2001). This type of
environment is fertile for the impersonal “categoric knowing” in order to navigate the
diverse differences in “a world of strangers” (Lofland 1973) that may in turn be
vulnerable to the breeding of negative stereotypes and prejudices (Allport 1954).

In Mid-Wilshire, ethnicity is frequently interpreted as a currency of wealth, and wealth,
an indicator of safety. Eastern Mid-Wilshire is perceived by interviewees (from both
eastern and western Mid-Wilshire) as the area with poor Latinos and Asians where gang
activities are located and hence dangerous, while western Mid-Wilshire is where wealthy,
Page | 189

well-educated, professionals live and hence safe. Mark Adams, an African-American
resident in western Mid-Wilshire outlined the stereotypes that divide the east and west to
me while we sat at a Starbucks café one late January morning,

You would have it [conflict] in this area [referring to eastern Mid-Wilshire]
because of the lack of education and insecurity. This area [pointing to western
Mid-Wilshire] at the spiritual level, they live in abundance. They understand that
there is plenty for everybody. They have space, enough room, enough parks,
enough water and enough air. Here [eastern Mid-Wilshire] people live in the
opposite. They don’t feel there is enough. So they are going to take. If this group
going to move in here [western Mid-Wilshire], what are you going to do? They
live in fear [eastern Mid-Wilshire] and they live in abundance [western Mid-
Wilshire]... When there is a feeling of lack or when your security is threatened,
that is what causes racism. If someone moving in here [western Mid-Wilshire], it
would cause major chaos and vice versa. It is socio-economic but when they
physically show up, it becomes racial… The white person will be given a benefit
of a doubt and the possibility to get with the program.

These fears created by the sharp juxtaposition of disparity and differences generate
unproductive tensions that form barriers for intercultural living in diverse settings. My
exchange with Liz Joo, a resident who lives in western Mid-Wilshire points to a insidious
nesting of real and imagined differences that threatens daily the socio-spatial porosity of
Mid-Wilshire, where the conceived mental space of danger is so strong that it alters one’s
Page | 190

“spatial practice” (perceived space) i.e., where one goes and how and create a lived space
of heightened difference and fear.

INTERVIEWER. Is there much diversity amongst the people living around here?
LIZ. There actually is. I would say my street there are Whites, Koreans and
Mexicans… Probably the next street over is probably Mexicans. I actually don’t
walk that way ever. Not even once. It feels dangerous actually. One street east of
me. I don’t go east of here- of where I live. I never do.
INTERVIEWER. Why?
LIZ. Because it is not safe. There are actually like police reports before that there
are assaults. We have gotten it before. People have break-ins. You can tell
because it is all apartments. My street is condo…and starting from this street it is
like all multi-million dollar homes. And I am sure it is all White. So it is kind of
diverse in this square because you see whites, you see some Asians.
INTERVIEWER: Would you mark it down for me?
LIZ. White is all of Hancock Park, right? I don’t know where Hancock Park is. I
just know on my street there are Koreans.
I: How do you tell that it is predominantly White at Hancock Park?
LIZ. 100 percent. I have never seen anybody else. From the house? No [you can’t
tell]. Living there? No. If you are walking there, ya. But actually coming out from
the house, it is all White. If you see a non-White, coz’ it is the maid. They are
walking the dog. Or they are like, you can tell, they are the maids.

Page | 191

Everyday negotiation of shared space
Bearing characteristics of a fractal social space with overlapping boundaries and ethnic
bubbles (Appadurai 1996), the sharing of space in Mid-Wilshire is an intense ongoing
process of negotiating tensions in the perceived and lived space that arise from
differences in ethnicity, nationality, identity, values, practices, wealth and imaginations
(Gupta and Ferguson 1997a, Amin 2002, Sandercock 2003). Through the interviews,
residents in Mid-Wilshire present an acute awareness that there is a necessity to negotiate
their dialectical social space including the mental representations (conceived space)
respectfully across differences whether one likes it or not. Tania Johnson, an African-
American who lived in a majority Latino neighborhood in eastern Mid-Wilshire for a
decade before moving to western Mid-Wilshire shares her thoughts about negotiation,

It is all cultural and you just adapt to the culture of the neighborhood…You have
to be diplomatic and have to have some skills you have to exercise when you are
not familiar with culture. And that is all these communities is all about, culture, is
just the culture, learning from each other and figuring how we are going to get
along. What are the concessions we can make to live in peace and harmony.

The interviews reveal that there are dual concurrent processes of negotiation. On the one
hand, “categoric knowing” is pervasive and consistently deepened by the fleeting and
routinized rituals of daily interaction or lack thereof even between next-door neighbors
Page | 192

(Lofland 1973 and 1998)
38
. On the other hand, these fleeting and routinized relational
types while appearing as passive in the way that it retains status quo, it can be seen as an
active process of negotiating the complex fractal social space, as research into stranger
interaction in public space has shown (Goffmann 1963, Lofland 1998).

“LA Small Talk”
Living in “brackish waters” requires courage and finesse to engage because the complex
conditions are capable of turning relationships hostile. Residents in Mid-Wilshire have a
set of negotiating skills that Mark Adams, a resident in western Mid-Wilshire aptly
named as “LA small talk.” Lofland’s (1998) static classification of relational types
becomes dynamic as “fleeting” encounters with strangers at a mall or a café or the
sidewalk can transform into a “quasi-primary” and “routinized” encounter. It is
“routinized,” because these exchanges occur in the everyday public spaces of cafes,
grocery shops and malls that these interviewees frequent and “quasi-primary” because the
process of exchange is highly personal. For example, smiling, making eye contact,
complimenting another’s accessories such as shoes, hair, clothes, dogs, children.

38
The four categories of relational types are: 1) fleeting relationships referring to interaction between
people who are “personally unknown to one another,” 2) routinized relationships that refer to brief “the
interaction-as-learned-routine” between categorically known others, 3) quasi-primary relationships are
encounters that lasts between “a few minutes to several hours between strangers or between those who are
categorically known to one another” and lastly, 4) intimate-secondary relationships are “emotionally
infused” and “relatively long-lasting” in length of weeks and years.

Page | 193

For Chloe Castillo and other immigrants who have observable markings of difference
because of the way they look or speak English with a foreign accent, they often get asked
where they are from. Between neighbors who are not personally known i.e., “familiar
strangers” (Milgram 1974) from the same apartment building or street block, “small talk”
about the weather, what was going on in the neighborhood or building and what one was
doing during the weekend or about each other’s children characterized the daily
negotiation living in urban diversity. Lucas Alvarado, a resident in his 20s who has been
raised in eastern Mid-Wilshire, identifies himself as an American with “Mexican descent”
describes to me his neighborhood encounters with the African-Americans who are
“familiar strangers” on his street block,

INTERVIEWER. What do you talk about?
LUCAS. Just about the day, like small chit-chat on the porch, in the front of the
building.
INTERVIWER. Do the people live in your building?
LUCAS. They are pretty young, a couple of young people around my age, less
than 30 [who live] in my building and the building in front of me. It is not really
much of like talking to get to know each other. Talking to spare some time
because we are there... It is basically just saying “hi.” Greetings. It is kinda like,
“What you up to?” We talk something about the block, like people, stuff like that,
what is happening on the sidewalk. The other day, a girl got mistreated by her
boyfriend. We are just talking about that. It is not like we are sharing stories or
anything like that. It is kind of like very small talk.
Page | 194

“Hunker down”
Sharing space is both a voluntary and involuntary act. While some would adopt a “LA
small talk” process to negotiate the tensions in diversity, others adopt a “hunker down”
mentality (Putnam 2007). Min Young, a Korean immigrant who has lived in eastern Mid-
Wilshire for two years describes her daily experience living in her condominium building
mostly occupied by Koreans located in a neighborhood that has a mix of Latinos and
Koreans,
Mostly in apartment complex, they don’t know each other well. They just close
their door and don’t know who lives next door…People are individualistic and we
don’t interact too much. Here, Hispanics and Koreans ignore each other. They
don’t say hi. You can tell that they are not happy to live with each other.

While language barrier could be a factor that contributes to the lack of communication
given that 30 percent of residents do not speak English well or at all in Mid-Wilshire (see
Table 5.1), the findings seem to suggest that it is not a singular factor but a bundling of
conditions that explain the pervasive “hunkering down” mentality in these diverse
settings. Expectedly, the bundles across the “big dividing line” of eastern and western
Mid-Wilshire are different.

Eastern Mid-Wilshire
The high-density and extremely diverse living in eastern Mid-Wilshire creates conditions
for “categoric-knowing” a la Lofland (1973) that in turn has contributed to the
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pervasiveness of negative stereotypes. As Amin (2002) points out, contact is no guarantee
for a dismantling of stereotypes. In fact it could worsen and validate the prejudices. It is
not uncommon during the interviews to hear residents of all ethnicities associate certain
set of behaviors with ethnic cultures. For example Chloe Castillo, a Filipino immigrant
describes her experience living in eastern Mid-Wilshire for five years,

Most of the people living around here are like Mexicans [lowered her voice] and
Filipinos. We don’t like and we don’t talk. We have nothing to do with each other.
They [Mexicans] just ignore us. They don’t help. Sometimes you need to ask a
favor to move the car a little so you can park.

The stereotypes pervasive in the area include the following: First, Latinos are frequently
labeled as Mexicans even though there are more Central Americans than Mexicans in
Mid-Wilshire. Second, Mexicans/Latinos are associated by both Latinos and others as
holding frequent and noisy fiestas that go too late into the night. Mexicans also drink
frequently, get drunk and into fights, littering the streets with broken glass and urine.
Third, Asians are observed (by both Asians and non-Asians) to keep to themselves,
inward and family-focused and do not mingle. Specifically, Koreans have been thought
of by both Koreans and non-Koreans as unfriendly. Quoting Hei Ryung Park, a Korean
immigrant I met at the Burns Park who was with her friend Min Young picnicking on the
grass while watching the children play in the playground,

Page | 196

We don’t talk to anybody at the market. It is the Asian style. Korean people [the
first generation] are weird. Mexicans always say hi. The second generation
[Korean Americans] says hi. All Koreans are like that. We grow up like that. It is
for protection. In Korea Japan, China, no money people always polite towards
those who have. They always think they want something. Sometimes you look
sweet and nice, people think you are not a brave person. It is better to have a
serious face to appear stronger and braver.

Beneath the veneer of a passive tolerance, the dynamics of sharing social space is filled
with tension and requires daily negotiation. The bundling of negative stereotypes, with
the friction that can come with living in high density with different cultural habits,
produces a highly differentiated social space where negotiation is more intense and
palpable. As Sergeant Caleb Torres, a police-officer in Mid-Wilshire aptly describes with
a metaphor,

LA can be viewed like a powder-keg always waiting for one little match to blow
up into something big because we do have many different cultures here, a lot of
history in the city, a lot of tensions in the past that can crop up again. Most of the
residents here were not here during the 92 riots. It does not mean much to them.

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Western Mid-Wilshire
Nancy Lau, a resident of thirty years who lives in the area west of Wilshire Country Club
where large houses are lined by mature lush green trees, responded thoughtfully to my
question over tea one January afternoon, “How would you describe your relationship
between you and your neighbors?”

It is not real connected in terms of the concept of neighborhood. It is basically a
place to live and you do your business. It is not a traditional neighborhood where
you actually know your neighbors… It is not a neighborhood where children
played with each other-that kind of neighborhood… Our children went to private
schools. Their connection was at school… Like Sarah across the street, her
children go to a Jewish school. His child goes to school in Brentwood. None of
the children really know each other or play with each other. We know the families
and names and maybe what they do. There is really no interaction in terms of
neighborhood, community, recreation. They don’t even play in the same soccer
team. You do your own thing, you live here but your activities are elsewhere. So
it is not a traditional neighborhood.

Nancy goes on to explain that people in the neighborhood have resources that enable
them to be selective and not be bounded by locality or be dependent on others. There is
hence less a need to negotiate the sharing of space because like what Mark Adams, a
resident of western Mid-Wilshire explained earlier, western Mid-Wilshire lives in
abundance. There is enough for everyone.
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Western Mid-Wilshire is also an area that my interviewees have described as a place with
a different set of values from eastern Mid-Wilshire. Residents like Matthew Cruz and
Mark Adams described to me the “professionalism” in the neighborhoods they live in.
Professionals value respect of each other and the social standards, “they know how to act
and carry themselves,” “they look all stable,” they are educated, self-reliant, possess a
work ethic and “has a FICA score of 702,” according to Mark Adams. Professionalism is
an equalizer that can mute active negotiation.

Like Nancy, Matthew and Mark have very little contact with their neighbors who are
made up of mostly Jews, East Asians, Indians and Filipinos. There is a tacit expectation
that neighbors respect each other’s privacy by demonstrating a silent social tolerance of
the different cultural habits of all ethnic groups. For example, one should accept that the
Jews, Asians and Indians keep to themselves and do their own thing. This bundling of
abundance and professionalism allows residents to be selective in negotiating the tensions
living in diversity. The hot-button issues that residents negotiate actively over are about
neighborhood aesthetics, traffic and safety. These issues are the focus of discussions at
the Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council that represents the residents and
neighborhoods in western Mid-Wilshire where new proposals and land uses are
scrutinized for their form, traffic generation and safety concerns. Hence unlike eastern
Mid-Wilshire, neighborhoods in the west can get organized for negotiation when “you
threatened their boundaries” according to Charlie Brooks, who has lived in various
locations in both east and west Mid-Wilshire over the last decade. Charlie’s view is also
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shared by Nancy Lau who is of the view that “In this particular area, there is still the
influence of the well-to-do. They still have a lot of power to control what is going
on…When you call your councilman, they really respond. The neighborhood still holds
its clout in terms of the resources it can command.”

Local Belonging and Everyday Integration in Mid-Wilshire
The lived space of Mid-Wilshire is a symbolically charged space as Luciana’s simple
words articulate so powerfully, “It is weird because you are in a community you feel like
you don’t belong to.” Local belonging is not only perceived in the disparities of wealth
that are manifested in the everyday landscape but also very much conceived in a daily
space that is structured by categories of ethnicity, nationality, professionalism etc in a
locality that is diverse and highly fragmented by cross-cutting differences like Mid-
Wilshire. Local belonging according to Savage, Bagnall and Longhurst (2005, 12) is
“fluid and contingent” and “a socially constructed, embedded process” that one’s
“residential place continues to matter since people feel some sense of ‘being at home’ in
an increasingly turbulent world.” In Mid-Wilshire, there is not one process personified
but multiple ongoing ones:

Take One
In western Mid-Wilshire, the strong identification with “professionalism” and values
create a sense of “elective belonging” to a residential place that Savage, Bagnall and
Longhurst (2005) posit. People choose where they live because of the values that the
locality possesses that are in sync with what they believe and how they want to live. In
addition, the presence of neighborhood associations and councils provide the possibility
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for a local belonging to form that seems to facilitate the process of negotiating differences
and diversity as part of integration. On these institutional platforms, neighbors through
their participation are offered opportunities to get to know each other, possibly
developing “fleeting” encounters into “quasi-primary” relations through joint decision-
making on matters that affect the neighborhood.

Take Two
In eastern Mid-Wilshire, ethnicity plays a nuanced element in the formation of local
belonging where the myriad of languages and ethnicities has created geographies of
“ethnic and racial moorings” (Amin 2006, 1016) that joins and divides. For the Koreans,
Latinos and Filipinos, proximity and presence of co-ethnics facilitate the formation of a
sense of “being at home” that Savage, Bagnall and Longhurst (2005) discussed. Yumi
Lee, a Korean immigrant resident articulates the nuances that ethnicity can have on one’s
sense of local belonging in a globalizing multi-ethnic locality that has multiple ethnic
territories and complex identities, “Half and half. I live in here. Because my husband’s
friends are born here but I sometimes misunderstand them [because of English]. I belong
because many people speak Korean in LA.”

Take Three
Mid-Wilshire encapsulates the polarities, differences and diversity of Los Angeles that
for a handful of residents, it is this quality that makes them belong. “Wonderfully weird”
with all its “eclectic” diversity according to Larry Gans, a resident near the border of east
and west Mid-Wilshire, is the reason of why he belongs. For Alison Haynes, the diversity
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in the urban setting of Mid-Wilshire is what she and her husband sought. She feels that
she “totally” belongs in Mid-Wilshire where she buys her baked goods from a Korean
bakery “Paris Baguette,” she shops at the halal grocery shop and a cornerstore operated
by Bengalis. She talks to Persian, Korean, German neighbors all within the same
neighborhood block. Mid-Wilshire is where diversity is not binary. Nancy Lau, a second-
generation Chinese American gives her take on belonging in diversity within the tensions
of globalizing places,

I think the neighborhood is more blended in terms of acceptance and attitude. I
don’t see any kind of hate. It is beyond tolerating. I think that is the beauty of LA
and this area. In order to not only survive, but to make the best of what you have,
you have to embrace. There is no way to get around it. You have to embrace what
changes you see, you have to embrace how this person is dressed, you have to
embrace that they are darker skin than you… Look at the different groups that
make up the Latinos, the Nicaraguans, Guatemalans, they bring all kinds of
tamales, just look at the tamales they are all different and different ways they are
made and each one tastes different. That is the diversity we need to look for. I
think we are coming there. I think LA is the best example of what diversity can
look like. Not just physical appearances but to be more open about embracing the
culture. You can’t avoid it. You drive by and you see the different kinds of fruit
from South America. How by adding a little brown sugar, it changes the flavor...It
is just beautiful…Being different is not bad…You got to be open or else you will
become isolated soon it becomes more difficult for you to live, especially when
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you identify the Mid-Wilshire area. You see all of that. You go to Alvarado and
6
th
, you see the pushcarts and variety of food in “pop-up” mom and pop
restaurants. You go to LACC [Los Angeles City College], you see Armenians,
East Indians. It is great…we just love LA. We really do.”

Perhaps this is what Kristeva (1991, 13) had in mind when she wrote, “Living with the
other, with the foreigner, confronts us with the possibility or not of being an other. It is
not simply--humanistically--a matter of our being able to accept the other, but of being in
his place, and this means to imagine and make oneself other for oneself.”

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6. Gathering the Patterns of Intercultural
understanding (ICU) in diversity
Cultural diversity is a visible and audible presence in the everyday life of ethnoscapes
(Appadurai 1990) of the multi-ethnic and multi-national settings of San Marino, Central
Long Beach and Mid-Wilshire in Greater Los Angeles. As discussed in Chapters 3, 4 and
5, neighborhood boundaries and territories in these globalizing settings are socially
salient, yet overlapping and fuzzy (Barth [1969] 1998, Suttles 1972, Altman and Chemers
1980, Amin 2008). They manifest the ongoing tensions of diversity between people and
place (Appadurai 1990 and 1996, Gupta and Ferguson 1997a). These tensions are made
more intricate by their “superdiverse” inhabitants (Vertovec 2007) who have rich and
shifting cultural identities that Appiah (2006) has referred to as culturally “contaminated.”
As the case interpretations of the three diverse settings illustrate, the social space of these
settings is characterized by co-presence of diversity and a “civility of indifference”
(Bailey 1996) to diversity rather than as forms of substantive and convivial intercultural
engagement between people of different ethnicities and nationalities.

Producing a dialectical Intercultural Space
The three scenes of diversity-living portray a dialectical social space (triadic between
perceived, lived and conceived) (Lefebvre 1991) that “stress[es] cultural difference
without resolving the problem of communication between cultures” and “speculate[s] on
the gradual erosion of cultural difference through interethnic mixture and hybridization”
(Amin 2002, 967). These are the characteristics that cannot produce a dialectical
intercultural space in diverse settings. As outlined in Chapter 1, an intercultural space
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emphasizes interaction and dialogue as a means to engage the differences between
cultures (Amin 2002, Wood and Landry 2008, Wood 2009, Meer and Modood 2012). It
does so by transforming quotidian routines or spatial practices (perceived space) and
everyday experience of social life (lived space) to break out of mere co-presence into
convivial living arrangements. These together can in turn reshape the mental conceived
space into an intercultural consciousness i.e., a conceived intercultural space.

Interculturalism builds upon the “contact hypothesis” by Allport ([1954] 1979) and
Pettigrew and Tropp (2006 and 2011), establishing that interpersonal relations, contact
and exchange can reduce intergroup anxiety and prejudice. It is action-oriented and pro-
active, seeking to address the social frictions as well as the social indifference in
diversity-living that can potentially threaten the social cohesion and welfare of the city.
Therefore, a dialectical intercultural space is necessarily an integrative one that
considers the dialectics of conceived, perceived and lived space (Lefebvre 1991) are
placed in the context of the tensions of diversity in globalizing settings.

Intercultural understanding (ICU) as a proxy to intercultural space
Intercultural understanding (ICU) is referred in this dissertation as “engaging in mutual
learning and adaptation between different cultures and ethnicities” about the different
practices, expectations and values of culturally different individuals. ICU is regarded as a
critical function in culturally diverse spaces to facilitate the production of an integrative
intercultural space that is socially productive and can “hold cities together” (Aristotle in
Nicomachean Ethics) (Sachs 2002). Conceptualized by this dissertation as a process and
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an outcome of “urban interculturalism” (Amin 2002), ICU focuses on repetitive learning
about cultural differences through lightly programmed activities in and through the
everyday spaces of neighborhoods such as the public spaces like the park, library,
sidewalks and semi-public spaces of cafes, community gardens for example, as well as
larger organized events or programs that focuses on educating about intercultural
dialogues and against prejudice. In other words, it refers to the kind of productive
negotiation that can lead to increased mutual understanding between individuals and
groups via purposeful contact and positive exposure i.e., cognitive and experiential
learning. ICU thus aims to increase the capability and capacity of individuals on all sides
for reciprocity that can open opportunities to transforming friendships between different
ethnicities and nationalities.

Is ICU necessary? Is it adequate?
Why is ICU necessary? What is wrong with “civility of indifference” (Bailey 1996)?
Should not individuals be left alone to initiate relationships across ethnic and national
lines? The anonymity of city-living in a “world of strangers” (Lofland 1973) and the
necessary coping response to the overload of sensory stimuli (Milgram 1970) can create
the conditions for the “civility of indifference” to become particularly common in cities.
An environment of indifference can be problematic in diverse settings precisely because
of a pervasive sense of a lack of belonging, social anomie and conflicts of varying types
and degrees. Instead, civil sensitivity to differences and not civil indifference is necessary
for the emerging “cosmopolis” of today (Sandercock 2000 and 2003). Indifference erodes
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goodwill, undermines building of trust and supports pervasive forms of social exclusion
that eventually impairs the social cohesion that cities seek.

In this dissertation, ICU is regarded as a partial means to counteract the tendency for a
“civility of indifference” and hardened cynicism in those who live in diversity that may
have come through repeated negative experiences, disappointments over inter-ethnic
relationships combined with fear and suspicion that can eventually lead to withdrawal
and isolation of individuals. Through interventions in the perceived and lived space such
as with the learning of new practices and interpersonal experiences, ICU is a process that
seeks to nurture the mind to create new perspectives about culturally different individuals
while developing new capabilities to live with diversity. ICU forms a critical foundation
for productive cross-cultural relationships to develop and to fight back at the subtleness
and unconscious racial biases that individuals can possess according to Beattie (2013)
that are capable of snowballing into conflicts, rooted prejudice and division if left
unexamined.

Status check: ICU in Los Angeles
To find out if the perceived and lived social space was falling short of intercultural
understanding, interviewees were asked if ICU is lacking or not in their neighborhoods
(based on their personal conceptions of what ICU is). Among these interviewees, a
random subset of them was asked again if ICU was lacking based on the dissertation’s
working definition of ICU as “engaging in mutual learning and adaptation between
different cultures and ethnicities.” Figure 6.1a and Figure 6.1b shows the distribution of
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responses respectively. Comparing Figures 6.1a and 6.1b across the three settings, there
is significant fraction of interviewees who upon considering the working definition have
reassessed the status of ICU in their neighborhood from “not lacking” to “lacking.”

Figure 6.1a: Percentage distribution of views about the status of intercultural understanding (N=61)

Figure 6.1b: Distribution based after the working definition is given (N=34)
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Central Long
Beach
Mid-Wilshire San Marino
Not lacking
Depends
Lacking
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Central Long
Beach
Mid-Wilshire San Marino
Not lacking
Depends
Lacking
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Central Long Beach
Majority of interviewees in Central Long Beach feel that “ICU is lacking.” The common
strands of reasons given were the presence of negative stereotypes that obstruct an
openness toward others, the lack of resources for communication (be it time, language
abilities, place or programs) and the “survival” mentality because of poverty that turns
residents inward rather than have a desire to reach out. Eric Alvarez a community
organizer who has worked in Central Long Beach for almost a decade and very familiar
with the demographic dynamics of the area explains to me how poverty can make the
intricate nesting of local circumstances more complex that can result in ICU lacking,

Nobody cares… If they are not in poverty and have a little more money, they
probably would care. They would have more free time… Poverty and free time go
hand in hand. They have all the free time…to educate themselves. They have free
time to seek knowledge but yet they don’t take advantage… This is because
people live in a box. That means your mind is predetermined by what you would
do, what you are going to eat.

Several interviewees who were raised in Central Long Beach are of the view that there is
in fact a recognized shared crisis of poverty and hardship. However, despite being aware
of common struggles, the common poverty perpetuates an acceptance of status quo of
lukewarm relations in part because there is a missing common platform for productive
intercultural relations to form. This lack of interest in cultivating intercultural relations in
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Central Long Beach could be a phenomenon of what Bailey (1996, 121) describes as
“habitual ethnicity.” Bailey (1996, 123) explains the concept based on his research about
Bisipira in India, “In short, ethnicity in Bisipara, by its very pervasiveness, was taken for
granted, and until recently it remained below the threshold of ideological debate. It was
not an ideology to be argued and defended; it was simply an ethos, a way of life that
people followed.”

Mid-Wilshire
In Mid-Wilshire, some interviewees feel that their neighborhoods are multi-cultural and
thus there is daily exposure and respect for cultural differences. For example, Jenny
Fellow a White Caucasian resident who has lived in the neighborhood for over twenty
years feels that there is no lack in ICU because the neighborhood is ethnically mixed and
that people of different ethnicities appear to be interacting with each other such as while
waiting to pick up their children from schools. In addition, some interviewees who have
lived in the area for a long time like Larry Gans from western Mid-Wilshire, is of the
view that there are no short of opportunities in the perceived and lived social space of
Mid-Wilshire through online Craigslist and local sport clubs to meet people of another
ethnicity who live in the area.

However, other interviewees feel that the spirit for ICU is not lacking per se but the
multiplicity of languages (e.g. Spanish, Korean, Tagalog to name a few) without a
common lingua franca has made the communication barrier difficult to cross, resulting in
an unwillingness to engage. In addition, as Hannah Youn a community organizer for
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eastern Mid-Wilshire explains, the presence of multiple ethnic enclaves providing
residents with the daily services in the ethnic languages creates ethnic independence and
minimizes the need to interact. This view was also shared by Korean and Latino residents
in eastern Mid-Wilshire. Thus, the desire for ICU is not lacking but the means to ICU is.
There is a shared sense among several interviewees that more coordinated intervention by
the city is required to plan opportunities for the engagement of different ethnicities and
cultures present in the area and break out of mere co-presence.

San Marino
Comparing San Marino to Mid-Wilshire and Central Long Beach, interviewees in San
Marino share a sense that the lack of major conflicts, the presence of a demographic
resident mix and institutional representation of immigrant groups in the city council are
testimonies that there is ICU in San Marino. Jack Hartford a White Caucasian who has
worked in the city for many years feels that the level of ICU has increased compared to
20 years ago with the greater diversification of ethnicity, sensitivity in the public services
to cultural differences and that the recent mayors are both Chinese. His views are shared
by Nick Chang, an immigrant from Taiwan who has lived in San Marino for over twenty
years,

In the early 80s and 90s, [this lack of understanding] is true. But now gradually,
through the efforts of Chinese Club and Chinese school, most people gradually
understand the Chinese and Asian culture, also through the Human Relations and
“Dinner for eight.”… Over the past 20 years, they gradually understand a little bit
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about the Chinese culture. Of course it is very hard to understand the whole
Chinese culture, even myself cannot pick up 100 percent. At least they don’t look
at Chinese like a big monster anymore.

While there is an overall recognition that institutional representation has become more
equal and there is less blatant discrimination in San Marino, the interviewees (White
Caucasians and Chinese) feel that on the interpersonal and group level, there is still a lack
of substantive engagement between the various ethnic and sub-cultural groups. For
example, the new Asian immigrants have little to no social and informal interaction with
the second generation Asian Americans and with the White Caucasians according to
resident Naomi Su. This separation is even starker with the white retirees who are not
involved in any school-related events to be in contact with the new Asian immigrants and
young second-generation Asian Americans, unless they have connections through church
or alumni clubs.

On the dimension of mutual adaptation, the interviewees from San Marino who are
immigrants from Taiwan and China feel that the Asians have taken more initiatives to
adapt and assimilate than the White Caucasians. The adaptation process on the part of
White Caucasians is more passive as compared to Asian immigrants because of the need
to learn a new language and culture. However, Jonathan Lin a Taiwanese American
interviewee who immigrated from Taiwan to San Marino with his parents as a child
thinks that the adaptation should be seen in the context of how the perceived and lived
social space in San Marino transformed with the new diversity from Asia,
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Adaptation is a more of a natural progression. For example my family moves into
the street. The White family will naturally have to adapt to our existence. For
example, back then my house was occupied by a White family and every Sunday
they would have activities but now they don’t have that anymore and that would
be the change in their lives.

In San Marino, there are also interviewees who feel that it is not exactly an issue of lack
of ICU per se because people know the cultural differences and there are many resources
if one is willing to learn about another ethnic culture. Lydia Li, a Chinese American
resident who has immigrated from Taiwan as a child and lived in San Marino for almost
20 years is one of them,
Lydia’s take on whether ICU is lacking before the working definition is given:

No, I don’t think so. They know intercultural understanding. You can’t change
people. Intercultural is bullshit thing to me because people are who they are.
People want to be with people similar as they are. Expecting total assimilation is
ridiculous…You need to understand but you don’t need to like it so that you don’t
judge people incorrectly… It is not lacking because you can read about the
differences between Asian and non-Asian in the local papers. If you don’t, then
you are putting your head in the sand…we have been 50 percent for more than 10
years. If you choose not to learn, then what can you do?

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And her response about “adaptation” after the working definition is given:
I would have an issue with adaptation. Why do you have to adapt? Intercultural
understanding means you understand. It is a cognitive function. It is not an action
you are demanding from people. You are demanding people to have that cognitive
exercise. You want people to say, ‘I want to learn about you and your culture,
what certain things represent so that I have an understanding of why you do
certain things. But I don’t have to like it. The mistake is that you want people to
be like you. You want the Chinese to be like Americans and Americans to be
Chinese. You can’t! We are who we are. And if you have that kind of definition
for ICU, then you will never achieve it. It will be zero success. But if you define
as understanding each other’s differences and similarities, period. Ya, you can
achieve it.

Overall, the lack in ICU is also thought to be generation and ethnic group nuanced. For
example, the young are believed to have more access to ICU and thus greater ICU exists
between the younger generation of different ethnicities due to the influence and
opportunity of mixed schooling and sharing of American culture. In addition, Asian
ethnicities in comparison to other ethnicities tend to be more inward and less open to
learning about others. Further, the attainment of ICU depends on a host of factors
including community involvement, resources and personality as Lucas Alvarado, a self-
identified “Mexican descent American” resident in the eastern half of Mid-Wilshire
explains,

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It depends on the individual. At a younger age, he is more likely to be able to
communicate with different people, especially because they can speak English
and be able to communicate with other people and how active you are in the
community. If you are not active in the community, you are just stuck in your
apartment.

Ground-up Conceptions of ICU: Conceived Intercultural Space
What appears to be absent in the discourses and research about interculturalism are the
conceptions about interculturalism by the inhabitants in diverse settings. About half of
the 100 interviewees (including municipal officers and community organizers) were
asked for their conceptions of ICU and Table 6.1 presents the four major strands of
conception of ICU in the three diverse settings.

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Interviewees’ conceptions of Intercultural understanding Neighborhood
(no. of responses)
Total no.
of
responses
1 Seeking empathetic understanding through a knowledge of
customs, language, personal values, backgrounds, hopes and fears
e.g. (how kids are raised, why they do what they do, people’s
perspectives on issues)
San Marino (SM):6
Central Long Beach
(CLB):8
Mid-Wilshire
(MW):4
18
2 Learning to appreciate different aspects of cultures and their
practices (e.g. cooking, food, tradition, customs, language, habits,
music, drama and literature)

Learning as well as accepting and adapting to the different practices
SM:3, CLB:2, MW:5

SM:3, CLB:0, MW:2
15

3 Recognizing common humanity, common needs, values, looking
out for each other and working together
SM:0,CLB:1, MW:4 5
4 Having tolerance SM:0, CLB:0, MW:2 2

Table 6.1: Descriptive definitions of intercultural understanding (ICU) derived from interviewees’
responses
39

Seeking empathetic understanding
A major conception of ICU based on the analysis presented in Table 6.1 is that of seeking
what I term “empathetic understanding” of another individual of a different ethnicity by
getting to know their cultural group’s customs, language, values as well as the
individual’s background, hopes and fears that goes beyond group characteristics. The
learning of language, customs and values of different ethnicities and nationalities is thus
regarded as a context within from which people’s lives are shaped by. This form of ICU

39
(Tabulation is based on the grouping of responses from interviews into categories that emerged from
coding analysis) (*Please note that not all the interviewees were asked this question and there were others
who were unable to give a definition or description. One interviewee in Mid-Wilshire provided two
definitions (4) and (5), thus the total number of responses do not indicate the number of interviewees who
responded to the question.

Page | 216

seeks a substantive understanding of the person rather than the knowledge of the group
cultural traits that are embodied in the individual. This kind of personal knowledge
provides a potential basis for future development of intercultural friendships.

The interviewees who conceive of ICU as a means of seeking empathetic understanding
are made up of mostly first-generation immigrants and second-generation Mexican
Americans. Their conceptions may be informed by their mixed, hybrid and “superdiverse”
identities that resist easy categorization along lines of ethnicity or nationality, and thus
they could have developed a greater sensitivity to approaching cultural differences (Barth
[1969] 1998, Roy 2001, Appiah 2006, Vertovec 2007). An example of this empathetic
conception of ICU is from Luciana Garcia, a second-generation Mexican American
resident in eastern Mid-Wilshire,

What we could possibly do to bring different ethnicities and races together and
understand their cultures and their differences and at least have a common
understanding between each other so that we won’t have stereotypes come in
between us.

Learning to appreciate different cultural practices
Further, ICU is also conceived by others as a process of learning to appreciate and gain
knowledge of different aspects of group culture including cuisine, customs and language
as well as the habits and lifestyle preferences of different cultural groups. Although
contemporary anthropological theories have widened the framing of culture to be
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internally plural and not bounded by a group identity necessarily (e.g. Abu-Lughod 1991,
Gupta and Ferguson 1997a), conceptions of cultural differences as group differences that
are manifested by “a body of beliefs and practices in terms of which a group of people
understand themselves and the world and organize their individual and collective lives”
(Parekh [2000] 2006, 2-3) remain as the defining characteristic of a culturally different
other. To have ICU between individuals hence refers to a cognitive learning about group
identities, traits and practices that can explain the differences between people of different
ethnicities and nationalities so that proper respect can be given. However for this group
of interviewees, learning is purely cognitive and for social decorum purposes. From their
point of view, there is no need to accept and adapt to the different practices.

However, a small part of this group of interviewees conceives ICU as going beyond
learning. In fact, learning is a means to learn how to adapt and accept. ICU is
incorporation and blending in because this is seen as a respectful and practical way of
living with diversity. In Nick Chang’s conception using a mix of English and Mandarin, a
first generation Taiwanese American who has lived in San Marino for over 20 years says
the following,

You educate them about your culture and you learn their culture. That’s how we
exchange experience, education and daily activities. You have to learn those and
blend into it. As the Chinese saying goes, 入乡随俗. When you are in a new
place, you learn their culture, accept it and blend into it.

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Recognizing Commonalties and Bridging Differences
Another way that ICU is conceived by those who live, work or regularly use diverse
settings is as a process of recognition of common humanity. ICU thus has a bridging
quality that brings about a universal recognition that we are all humans with “a lot in
common and same values such as opportunities for your children, healthcare, education
etc.,” according to Tania Johnson a resident of Mid-Wilshire. Culture, from the
perspective of this group of interviewees, may differentiate one person from another
based on how they look or influence the way they conduct their everyday lives but that is
a veneer that once surpassed, would reveal a deeper universal core of human needs,
motivations and desires. ICU is conceived as a vehicle to bring about a common
understanding critical to living well. Jonathan Anderson, an interviewee who regularly
visits Central Long Beach conceives ICU as follows,

It is different for each and every person and is what they want to make it…It is
people getting along, people understanding each other, people of different races
uniting, looking out for one another.

Going beyond recognition to action, ICU is also conceived by this group of interviewees
as a means to enable the building up of social capital (Putnam 2000). With good
understanding of each other, ICU can help people work together and achieve social
cohesion in diversity. According to Damien Torez a community organizer in Mid-
Wilshire who has organized many neighborhood meetings, the process of engaging with
each other has shown to generate a sense of camaraderie between different ethnicities
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living in the neighborhood when they realize that “we are in the same boat.” Thus, ICU
as a process of engagement and exchange has the potential to act as bridges by revealing
the common struggles and challenges of a community as well as highlighting the
common humanity in each of us.

Tolerating
“Intercultural tolerance,” as one of the two interviewees from Mid-Wilshire explains is a
prerequisite to ICU because tolerance opens doors and allows time for engagement and
future understanding to happen. While this is a positive spin on tolerance as affording
openness, the practice of contemporary tolerance of diverse cultural practices in fact co-
exists with certain conceptions of multicultural practice and assimilation policy which do
not positively engage in the understanding of cultural differences but regard minority
differences as something negative to put up with until such time they “melt away” (Alba
1985, Gleason 1992, Taylor 1994, Schönwälder 2010). According to Gutmann (1994, 22)
there is a difference between toleration and true respect and it lies in the action of seeking
and learning,

Toleration extends to the widest range of views, so long as they stop short of
threats and other direct and discernible harms to individuals. Respect is far more
discriminating. Although we need not agree with a position to respect it, we must
understand it as reflecting a moral point of view…A multicultural society is
bound to include a wide range of such respectable moral disagreements, which
offers us the opportunity to defend our views before morally serious people with
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whom we disagree and thereby learn from our differences. In this way, we can
make a virtue out of the necessity of our moral disagreements.

Gutmann’s view is also shared by Kelly Douglass a community organizer from Mid-
Wilshire who feels that ICU has to go beyond tolerance to highlight the interesting and
positive aspects of each culture. Kelly states,

The ability to see the other person as a fellow member of a human family,
connected to humanity but in such a way that leaves space for expression of
difference… It does not require or assume we are alike in anyway…It is beyond
tolerating but enjoyable.

Barriers against the formation of ICU
An analysis of the reasons given for the lack in ICU by interviewees reveal that these
three diverse settings are challenged by a similar overlapping set of barriers in the
perceived and lived social space (albeit to a different extent in the way they are bundled
and nested on scales of individual, neighborhood and societal) as well as unique bundles
of barriers as shown in Table 6.2.

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San Marino Central Long Beach
(arranged in order of
frequency of being cited)
Mid-Wilshire
Barriers

(Unique
barriers
are in
bold)
1.Lack of openness and comfort
zone (14)
2.Lack of time (5)
3.Language (3)
4.Lack of personal initiative
(3)
5.Lack of community space (2)
6.Self-sufficiency (1)
7.Lack of common interests (1)
1.Negative stereotypes (9)
2.Lack of openness and comfort
zone (6)
3.Language (6)
4.Poverty (6)
5.Gangs (4)
6.Lack trust/ knowledge of
neighbors (4)
7.Lack of community space (3)
8.LA Bubble Lifestyle (3)
9.Territories (2)
10.Lack of common interests (1)
11.Lack of time (1)
1.LA Bubble Lifestyle (7)
2.Language (6)
3.Lack of openness and
comfort zone (6)
4.Territories (4)
5.Negative stereotypes (3)
6.Lack of community space
(3)
7.Lack of time (2)
8.Self-sufficiency(2)
9.Lack of access to cultural
facilities (1)

Table 6.2: Patterns of Barriers to ICU in diverse settings arranged in order of frequency cited by
interviewees. Bold indicates barriers unique to the setting.

A lack of openness and the formation of “comfort zones”
The barrier to the formation of an intercultural space in all three settings is the lack of
openness to share one’s culture or the willingness to learn about another. This
observation is consistent with Putnam’s (2007, 137-151) findings that present evidence of
“residents of all races tend to ‘hunker down’” and “at least in the short run, seems to
bring out the turtle in all of us” in the ethnically diverse neighborhoods of America.

There are two pertinent patterns that have emerged with regard to the lack of openness in
the perceived and lived social space of these settings that have implications for the
formation of an intercultural space. First, Asians whether they are the Cambodians,
Filipinos, Koreans or Chinese are associated across all three settings as exhibiting a lack
of willingness and desire to share their culture or learn about another culture in their
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neighborhoods. Asians are perceived as family-oriented, have low civic participation and
keep to themselves. Second, these three settings are embedded with “comfort zones”
rooted in the sharing of ethnicity and language (Allport [1954] 1979, Barth [1969] 1998,
Beattie 2013). “Comfort zones” are essentially ethnic boundaries and territories that are
created and maintained by inhabitants voluntarily in order to navigate the social space of
these diverse settings (Barth [1969] 1998, Suttles 1972).

These two interrelated patterns are most strongly felt in San Marino where half of the
population is made up of Asians, namely ethnic Chinese from Taiwan, Hong Kong and
more recently China. Through the interviews with White Caucasian residents, there is a
common sentiment that it is difficult to befriend Asian neighbors in San Marino. Asians
are perceived to keep to themselves and are not keen to learn about other non-Chinese
culture or to actively share about their Chinese culture. This prevalent common
perception prompted me to probe several of the ethnic Chinese interviewees in San
Marino for their responses to it. Sandy Cheng, a first-generation self-identified
Asian/Chinese American who has lived in the United States for about forty years and
speaks eloquent English shares her take about whether Chinese has adapted to the
American culture in San Marino,

I really don’t think, probably a handful of people are really assimilated. People all
have their comfort zones. Even as assimilated as myself, I prefer to speak Chinese,
to eat Chinese food and to watch Chinese TV. I can do both. I enjoy both. But
when it comes to choices, I would choose a Chinese restaurant 90 percent of time
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over Western food. But the second generation is probably quite assimilated. It
really depends on the family. Some who move there would never speak a word of
English, who watch Chinese TV program, who read Chinese newspapers, go to
the Chinese grocery to shop and they speak Chinese only in the house.

Nick Chang, another Chinese American and a first generation immigrant from Taiwan
who lives in San Marino, explains why there is so little overlap in social activities
(especially informal socializing with White Caucasians in daily social life is minimal)
even though for him, speaking English is not a problem and that he has many
opportunities to meet White Caucasians through his participation as a volunteer in San
Marino’s civic organizations (note the interviewee’s repeated use of “comfort zone”),

Basically, Number 1, it is my personality. I am low profile. If not necessary, I like
to just keep everything in my family and myself. Second, my comfort zone. I feel
comfortable speaking Chinese with my family. It does not necessarily mean that I
am uncomfortable speaking English. I can speak English and communicate with
other people. But when you talk into deep then I can’t continue. That is the
problem. Like when they talk about where they come from, what they used to do.
I cannot continue the conversation. They know that and then they change the topic.
This is because of my background and I am brought up overseas in Taiwan. They
received education here, like their childhood and school time, and their
background, totally different. And the things we learn and the things they learn
are totally different. The way they learn from here, is totally different from the
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way we learn from other countries. In Taiwan, we only receive. We don’t give in
the classroom. We just listen and try to learn...Here you are encouraged to voice
out your opinion from first grade…As a first generation here, your comfort zone is
always going to a place where your social activities involved in something you
talk to your friends and your acquaintances in your mother language. Even if you
educate other people and get mutual understanding of other cultures. But you still
don’t feel comfortable to engage in any social activities with the Caucasians at
some point, only if you need to… But as far as your daily activity, you still want
to be in your comfort zone. You want to engage in any activity that is Chinese
speaking. You are more familiar with the people around you.

Drawing from the interviews and the excerpts above, “comfort zones” are created and
continuously maintained through the following elements: sharing of a common language,
common experiences, struggles and backgrounds such as those faced by first generation
immigrants, a tacit understanding of cultural values and practices, and more subtly, the
ability to enjoy the nature of small talk and humor that can at times be influenced by the
cultural contexts one is raised and the experiences that come from it. From Sandy’s and
Nick’s description of their personal experiences, one’s openness even if it is not
compromised by a lack of language capabilities, the lack of shared experiences and
preferences even in food choices and a profound discomfort in the presence of
differences and foreignness (Kristeva 1991) can converge to form real and imagined
barriers against ICU. The experience of repeated interface with unresolved differences
and foreignness can gradually erode the openness and enthusiasm of encountering the
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other, particularly when the reward of venturing out of the “comfort zone” to engage can
sometimes end in awkwardness and discomfort. Naomi Su, a second-generation self-
identified “more Asian American” interviewee who feels closer to the Caucasian culture
than to an Asian immigrant culture shares that she has made attempts to engage the new
immigrants from China by reaching out to them and joining their parties several times.
However because of her limited Chinese language capabilities and the tendencies of the
new immigrants and other first-generation immigrants to speak Mandarin, she found it
difficult to connect and continue the relationships.

Sandy’s description of the “comfort zone” follows the contours of the “ethnic bubble”
that is also observed in Mid-Wilshire and Central Long Beach, where different ethnicities
visit their own ethnic shops and live in enclaves so that there is little need to interact
across ethnic lines in diverse settings for their everyday activities. In eastern Mid-
Wilshire and Central Long Beach, the lack of openness among Asian and Hispanic
groups, was also pointed out by interviewees of all ethnicities and nationalities. Asians
and Hispanics are perceived to be as family-oriented and tend to socialize within their
language and ethnic groups rather than engaged in inter-ethnic socializing. The lack of
language capability particularly among the first generation immigrants creates further
isolation from those who speak English, thereby hardening the walls of the “comfort
zones” and “ethnic bubbles.” Diverse settings are thus particularly fragmented by
overlapping “comfort zones” and “ethnic bubbles” of all kinds that act as barriers to ICU.
They are the practical and salient forms of ethnic boundaries which Barth ([1969] 1998,
10) has succinctly observed as being made up of “social processes of exclusion and
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incorporation whereby discrete categories are maintained despite changing participation
and membership in the course of individual life histories.”

Negative Stereotypes and Ethnic Profiling
The dominant presence of negative stereotypes as a barrier to ICU is mentioned most
frequently in Central Long Beach. Stereotypes, are defined by Allport ([1954] 1979, 191-
2) as “whether favorable or unfavorable, a stereotype is an exaggerated belief associated
with a category. Its function is to justify (rationalize) our conduct in relation to that
category” and that “the stereotype acts both as a justificatory device for categorical
acceptance or rejection of a group and as a screening or selective device to maintain
simplicity in perception and in thinking.” Beattie (2013), quoting Fiske (2005) shows that
the use of categorization is a common way we navigate social life, much similar to what
Lofland (1973) wrote of “categoric knowing” in urban social life. These categories when
at work with emotions and motives can produce prejudice according to Fiske (2005),
which is an “overgeneralization from ignorance or from limited experience to something
much more general” (Beattie 2013, 69). Thus, negative stereotyping manifests in
circumstances where there are few opportunities for substantive engagement and can
become a barrier for future interaction.

Negative stereotyping is pervasive in Central Long Beach and prejudice is experienced
by all ethnicities there. One oft cited example by both Latinos and African-American
residents is the stereotypes that these two ethnic groups have of each other, especially
prevalent among the young adults, impeding interpersonal and intercultural relations to
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develop between them. Evangeline Flores, a young American-Mexican resident who
grew up in the neighborhood gave this response to my question if there is understanding
between different ethnicities in the neighborhood,

I don’t think they understand each other. They treat each other bad. They don’t
understand how their culture is and sometimes make fun of it. They make fun of
their religion, how they dress and how they live and their skin color. They don’t
see how they live and their culture.

The other Latinos who I interviewed told me that racial slurs are being flippantly tossed
around, such as Latinos are being called “beaners” or “wet backs” and in turn African-
Americans are called “N.” At times, these stereotyping are non-verbal, such as the looks
that are given. Ben Rodriguez a young Mexican American resident shares his experience,

There is not enough learning…like our backgrounds and where we came from.
What we had to do, what we are now….People just go on discriminating and do
all that stuff. They don’t understand it. They judge first. They judge
people…They don’t say out loud sometimes but you can tell they are saying it. It
is just like the look they give you. I understand those things.

From a more nuanced perspective, Marteese Owens, an African-American resident who
was also raised in the neighborhood, explained to me in a careful low whisper about his
difficult experiences in sustaining friendship with Mexicans because efforts of ICU are
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entangled by the negative tensions of ethnic gang culture and the tendencies of pervasive
negative stereotyping between these two groups that can poison any growth:

Everybody grew up with everybody. I used to have a Mexican friend and I used to
go to his house to eat burritos, tacos and carne asada and all kinds of different
things…We know of each other but just tend to outgrow it. You tend to want to
go back to your own culture that you know more of...it becomes sort of a hatred.
It has been like that though for a long time where your best friend sees you
walking down the street. Then some of his buddies start fighting you and then all
of a sudden you see him. He would not say anything about it like ‘That’s my
friend!’ He just turns back and goes about his way...It kind of make you upset to
see that you thought this person was your best friend who you grew up with all
your life and he did not want to have anything to do with you. For what reason? It
has to be for something his cousins or his older brother or younger brother or
anything. You never really ever know but it seems like at a whim they can turn
your back on you. It could be because of culture… People stop their knowledge of
other cultures at a certain age or certain time in life.

I probed Marteese for an explanation why building relations with different ethnicities in
Central Long Beach had been so difficult and futile. He explained,

Let’s say I am Black, he is Mexican. I know my cousin and probably how jealous
he would be because we grew up together. I don’t want him to do anything bad to
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my Mexican friend. So I kind of pull away because I don’t want him to do
anything to hurt him [his Mexican friend] or get himself [his cousin] into trouble.
It is a dead end. So I am trying not to get anybody hurt and so I pull away. And
probably like my cousin is in a gang and my Mexican friend is in a gang. You
don’t want to be the one who lights that match.

We just need more white people to come to the park and library to hang out
because that is keeping everything off balance...Most of the white people who
come around are the police. The police sometimes throw their ignorance out there
at certain people. They don’t like certain people and so they will mess with the
bunch and try to nick pick and see who it is. But they are not around enough to do
that to figure out who is really the bad apple. They just pry us. The Asians are not
tripping anyone, the Mexicans are not tripping anyone. But now the police are
tripping. Why did the police trip? What did y’all do? Now we start looking at
each other like what are they messing with us now? If we have more white people
probably in there, the police probably would not do that. Because they would be
like they are friends, they are not trying to make deals, whatever. They nick pick
on us to figure out why we are hanging out…There is always somebody trying to
break up the group. So we tend to stay away from the groups because there is
always somebody trying to break up the group, so why try? When we finally
having a good time. Now the police is trying to mess it up. Blacks and Asians
don’t fight, even the Samoans. For some reason, I don’t know why, it always
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affects the Mexicans. [He lowers his voice]. The police always influence the
Mexicans to turn their backs on us.

The LA “bubble” lifestyle
Metallic bubbles: Car-centric city with few public spaces
The car culture in Los Angeles where everyone is always on the go in metallic silos that
compress the time and space between their bubbles of existence is a barrier to the
formation of an intercultural space. The replacement of walking by driving minimizes the
opportunities for interaction and getting to familiarity with the strangers who have
become neighbors (Sandercock 2000). Putnam (2000, 213) has identified “the car and
the commute,…are demonstrably bad for community life” as “we are spending more and
more time alone in the car.” Likewise, interviewees, especially those who live in Mid-
Wilshire have identified that the car-centric city that is Los Angeles, has discouraged
walking and resulted in a lack of public spaces and recreation nodes in Mid-Wilshire
where people cross paths, slow down to have more face-time with their neighbors. Liz
Joo, a 1.5 generation Korean American resident who lives in a condominium in western
Mid-Wilshire articulates this lack of opportunity in her neighborhood,

There is no contact because there is no space to. Where do you go where you see
other people? There are not many restaurants. It is not like you go to someone’s
house when you don’t know them. Larchmont, which is one-block long is the
only place you kinda can walk around and eat….where would you bump into
somebody?...If it was a culture where a lot of people are walking, let’s say San
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Francisco or New York, maybe you would see many of your neighbors’ faces. I
want to see my neighbors sometimes but I can go like four, five months, my next
door neighbor, coz’ if you miss them in the elevator, you are not going to see him
and I don’t know when he goes to work. I can go for a long time without seeing
any of my neighbors. There are just no opportunities. Maybe if there is a gym. If
there is some place like you are doing something.

Similar views were also shared by several interviewees in western Mid-Wilshire. Tania
Johnson, an African-American female resident in her 30s who relocated from the eastern
half to the western half of Mid-Wilshire told me that although living in the eastern Mid-
Wilshire was culturally isolating because she was surrounded by Spanish-speakers who
she could not communicate with, she at least saw families and people out on the streets
talking to each other there. However in the western neighborhood she sees fewer street
activities and social interaction between neighbors. People are mostly into individual
activities of dog-walking, jogging or strolling with their children.

Ethnic bubbles: residential enclaves and routines
In the eastern neighborhoods of Mid-Wilshire, the norm of apartment living and ethnic
enclaves can exacerbate the cultural isolation felt by individuals. As discussed in Chapter
5, the social space of eastern Mid-Wilshire is made up of ethnic enclaves that are both
horizontal and vertical. Many interviewees find themselves in apartment buildings that
are occupied by mostly Filipinos, Koreans or Latinos. For Luciana Garcia and Eileen
Corez, two Latino American second-generation interviewees who have lived in both parts
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of Mid-Wilshire, the presence of Hispanic enclaves in the eastern part makes it hard for
Latinos to have contact with other ethnicities. Latinos, perhaps more than other
ethnicities in eastern Mid-Wilshire, tend to not only live in vertical ethnic enclaves but
also horizontal ones, thereby thickening the “ethnic bubble” effects. The frequency of
meeting another ethnicity according to Luciana’s personal experience over all the years
she has lived in the eastern half is in the sliding order of Latinos, African Americans,
Koreans, Chinese and lastly White Caucasians. Eileen Corez explains why,

Where there are a lot of Hispanics, they don’t get the opportunity. It could be to
the point that they are so solid until that they are used to it and not want to try new
things. Over here [referring to the western Mid-Wilshire] it is more open. It is
more closed-off over here [referring to the eastern Mid-Wilshire] because there is
more of one race.

Survival bubbles: Eking out bread and fame
In addition, Los Angeles is also recognized as a survival city where people have come to
seek fame, fortune and to make a living. People are working two jobs to make ends meet
and there is no time to interact or get to know neighbors and the different cultures they
live with. ICU is an “irrelevant” process according to Larry Gans, a White Caucasian
resident who has lived in the Mid-Wilshire area for over 20 years. He elaborates,

The reality is in Los Angeles, people come here to make money. Pure and simple.
The relationships that get established basically for me were through my children
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primarily. I have met people through college who are my friends but we are like
ships passing each other through the night because we are busy doing our own
things…As far as different cultures and stuff like that, I honestly feel that it is
kind of irrelevant. It is like everybody is like the moths attracted to the light.
There is a bright light means that it is a lot of revenue source where you can make
a lot of money, desirable things about life. Like in Los Angeles people like the
weather. There are a lot of things to do. You know you are attracted to a place like
that. You can have a good quality of life. But as far as at work whether you are
working with somebody who is Hispanic or Asian or Caucasian, who
cares?...Intercultural understanding is not an issue. Everyone is trying to survive.
That’s the reality in Los Angeles to me.

In Central Long Beach, the trope of LA as a survival city is also mentioned as a barrier to
ICU in the neighborhood where a majority of its residents are below the poverty line.
Three community organizers representing three different civic organizations who work
with many undocumented Latino immigrants and Cambodian refugees provided a similar
explanations that poverty and fear draw these residents inwards. Their concerns with
survival is so overwhelming that there is practically no capacity to understand their own
culture or a desire left to engage and reach out. It is a closed mentality. Residents keep to
themselves and these tendencies are exacerbated by the presence of gangs and crime in
the neighborhood that make the environment not open and secure to trust and engage.
The community organizers also identified poverty as a cause of the high level of
transience in the rental population that has led to a lack of civic and social commitment.
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Chenda So, a community organizer who works with Cambodian refugees explain the
daily struggle to survive and the tendency to stay within their groups poignantly,

The first generation they came with their own historical genocide era and scarcity
mentality. I have to look out for myself otherwise I am not going to make it. At
the same time, the downside is that I learn to live with what little means I have.
Instead of thinking of- if I would go for higher education and advanced job; if I
adapt and integrate into the mainstream society, I could enjoy the opportunity.
They did not think that because I was told, realistically, you can only achieve the
American dream if you speak well, have a higher education and get a job. If you
have neither, you just barely make it out there. People who eat rice and soy sauce
every week to get by and then Downtown where people throw food…When you
throw in the people from the low income community African American, Hispanic
and Cambodian, they start to have their own territory. Then you see gangs. And
the idea was to defend themselves. The idea is to have my group and that is your
group. And then what would that make to the society?

Crafting Opportunities for Intercultural Space
Re-conceiving space-planning in the city hall
Through the interviews with municipal officers (including planners) in all three settings,
these diverse spaces are more often than not conceived in economic and business
development terms in the cases of Central Long Beach and Mid-Wilshire. In San Marino,
social space is conceived and structured by property zones and values. Although all three
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settings were recognized as culturally and ethnically diverse by their respective municipal
officers, space is largely isomorphic with the exception of economic differentials. The
“planning imagination” by and large continues to follow the “old model” for a metropolis
that Sandercock (2003, 207-210) outlined in the last chapter of her book Cosmopolis II:
Mongrel Cities in the 21
st
Century to contrast with “a planning imagination for the 21
st

Century” that is befitting for a cosmopolis. According to Sandercock (2003), the “old
model” for metropolis planning was based on instrumental rationality rather than a
“communicative and value-driven rationality,” comprehensiveness and document-
focused rather than people-centered, city-hall rather than community-directed initiatives,
singular “public interest” rather than “multiple publics” and an insistence on its apolitical
function rather than “become transparently political.”

Planners of these three settings informed me that there is no focus on the cultural
dimension in the spatial planning of these diverse settings. Instead, the focus is solely on
the form of the development i.e., how it looks (Central Long Beach), how compatible
new architecture is to the neighborhood (San Marino), what the use is for and whether or
not it is in compliance with the zoning code (Mid-Wilshire). While there are public
consultation in the form of review meetings with the community and public outreach that
are sometimes in different languages, planning of these three diverse settings continues to
follow a pre-existing Euclidean mindset of technocratic instrumental rationality that has
not been comprehensively restructured to address the local conditions of diversity.

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The interviews also reveal that by and large planners are shielded from the frictions of
everyday space-sharing that arise from the tensions of diversity between those who are
stable versus the mobile, between different cultures living in close proximity and between
the real and imagined differences, with the exception of San Marino, where neighbors
who oppose new developments are vocal in confronting the city hall for reviews and
referendums. To this end, framing spatial planning to encourage social interaction across
ethnic and cultural lines is not considered a planning agenda. Instead, objectives for
improving accessibility through better transportation, transit connectivity and safety are
the core agenda in Central Long Beach. In Mid-Wilshire, the objectives are purely urban
form (in terms of scale and density) oriented. They are about preserving the historic
districts in western Mid-Wilshire and creating jobs, employment and housing
opportunities in eastern Mid-Wilshire. In San Marino, the planning mandate is mainly to
preserve the well-maintained single family homes with distinct architectural styles. Social
interaction in the community is usually seen as a by-product of improving pedestrian
environment but not as a planning goal.

In comparison to the imaginations and conceived space of interviewees who live, work or
regularly use these diverse settings, these municipal officers’ conceived space is more
simplified (Lefebvre1991). Space is also conceived by the city hall to be more economic
than social, more functional than relational, more discrete than nuanced. To this end, the
formation of intercultural space will indeed face an incredible road block unless urban
space is re-conceived in the language of human relations. Sandercock (2003, 221)
advocates “expanding the language of planning” that “can encompass the lived
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experience of mongrel cities.” From her perspective, a cosmopolis needs to be a “city of
memory” where cultural heritage plays a role; it needs to be a “city of desire” where
public spaces encourage spaces of spontaneity, spectacle and engagement; it needs to be a
“city of spirit” where symbolism of life is allowed to manifest in the activities and built
space.

Re-conceiving urban space as a terrain of interpersonal relations and encounters require
that plans become explicitly relationship-centered not just “people-centered” because in
the name of social welfare, too often homes had been torn down for businesses, local
well-being traded for global renown. Particularly for diverse settings, a new conceived
intercultural space is critical to the balancing of the tensions of diversity so that creative
tensions rather than unproductive negative tensions can be harnessed as cities undergo
globalizing changes. In the following two sections, I outline the opportune dimensions of
re-conceiving planning interventions in San Marino, Central Long Beach and Mid-
Wilshire for an intercultural space.

Re-newing opportunities
An analysis of the survey question with 68 interviewees to find out what they would like
to know about a neighbor of another ethnicity/nationality reveals that interviewees across
all three settings would like to know most about the background of their neighbors such
as where they come from, why they are here, who are they and what they do (see Figure
6.2). Learning about cultural cuisine and customs are secondary. These findings
corroborate with the conceptions of ICU presented in Table 6.1 which illustrates that ICU
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is conceived by many as seeking empathetic understanding of another culturally different
individual(s) through a better appreciation of their cultural and personal contexts.

Figure 6.2: The opportune dimensions of cultivating ICU (N=68). Y axis: The mean score is
computed by taking the sum of the inverse of the scores given (1 indicates most important), and then
taking the mean of the total score so that it can be compared across the three settings since each
neighborhood has different number of responses. X axis refers to the dimensions of intercultural
knowledge that interviewees would like to learn about a neighbor of a different ethnicity/nationality.
See Appendix 2 for the survey question.

The findings in Figure 6.2 highlight the dimensions that planners of intercultural space
should consider how urban space can be reshaped in ways that enable these exchanges
between neighbors and individuals of different ethnicities and nationalities. These
dimensions point to the importance of creating spaces and activities in these spaces for
both intentional exchange of information such as neighborly expectations as well as
informal spaces of convivial socializing that are conducive for people to get out of their
“comfort zones” and have an openness to get to know and being known by neighbors.
0.00
0.10
0.20
0.30
0.40
0.50
0.60
0.70
0.80
0.90
Background of
Person (who
they are, what
they do, why
are they are
here)
Cuisine Customs Neighborly
Expectations
Philosophy to
raise children
Religious Views Others
(language,
aesthestic
preferences)
Mean Score
San Marino
Central Long Beach
Mid-Wilshire
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Possibilities include block parties, safe and pleasant sidewalk spaces, a walking rather
than driving environment, common projects. The planning and design considerations to
reshape the perceived and lived social space into an intercultural space will be addressed
in the following chapter 7.

Re-mending fragmented and divided social spaces
Across the three settings, the conceived space as represented in the boundaries and
territories maps and the perceived space of routines reveal that the social space in each of
these settings is fragmented by vertical and horizontal territories, some are ethnic and
others are more exclusionary based on economic values and concerns for safety. In each
of this setting, different forms of voluntary routine enclaves can be found (for example,
the ethnic shops along East Anaheim Street in Central Long Beach that serve ethnic-
specific clientele, Larchmont Village in Mid-Wilshire that is mostly frequented by White
Caucasians living on the wealthier western half, and the routines of White Caucasians
and Asians are split into the north-south direction respectively with few opportunities
within San Marino where paths cross).

To enable the emergence and growth of an intercultural space that is perceived and lived
(not only conceived), there is a need for planners to pay attention to the locational
geography of these fragmentations and divisions. Bollens (2006 and personal
communications in September 2009) emphasized through his research findings on
postwar cities that socially and politically fractured urban space must be sensitively
approached. Locations of new planning initiatives can either be a blessing or bane to the
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peace of the city. Thus, these lines of fragmentation are areas of sensitivity as well as
opportunity. Here are several planning and policy recommendations for the three settings:

Opportune locations in San Marino
San Marino is “an indoor city” as Bentley Wong, who has lived and now worked in San
Marino aptly describes (see Chapter 3). Although San Marino has a large and beautiful
Lacy Park and new and well-kept Crowell Library, there are very few public spaces in
San Marino where residents are encouraged to linger. Starbucks café and the small plaza
space where a bakery, ice-cream shop and two restaurants are located, are the only two
places where some residents go. Most residents would drive to Pasadena in the north or
Alhambra in the south to socialize.

To improve the ICU in San Marino, there is a critical need to provide more places for
residents to meet within San Marino that is not at each other’s homes. The gathering
points in San Marino are diffused to little clusters that are unconnected and visually
incognito, identified by the names of the restaurants or stores most visible from the road.
San Marino has a North-South divide that reflects the split between the wealthiest-less
wealthy respectively by the large and wide Huntington Drive so that few people ever
choose to cross the street on foot, preferring to drive across the street!

An opportunity for consideration is to convert the wide, grassy and shady tree-lined road
median along Huntington Drive into a ICU garden with a jogging track and water
fountains and sitting area. A traffic lane can be converted to part street parking and part
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garden extension. Like a central artery for the heart, the traffic median along Huntington
Drive can become a viable place that encourages more “outdoor community life and
meeting opportunities for residents. This median can also become a night garden and
space for community life in the evening if it is properly lit and complemented by
opportunities for alfresco activities and drinks at night. Its strategic location for use to
encourage ICU will be a bold statement by the city that ICU is important and core to the
future of San Marino’s flourishing diversity.

Opportune locations in Central Long Beach
Based on the analysis of the boundaries, territories and routine maps, East Anaheim
Street emerges as a potential area for initiatives that can grow an intercultural space for
Central Long Beach (see Chapter 4). Its mix of ethnic shops in the present form has
created porosity that borders have (Sennett, Quant on website), where paths intersect and
a level of exposure to another ethnicity is visually present. However, in its present form
without intervention, East Anaheim Street will continue to be a mosaic of routine ethnic
enclaves. The intention to explicitly make East Anaheim Street a space of intercultural
exchange will need to be balanced with considerations to strengthen the East Anaheim
Street as the spine of Cambodia Town.

Another opportune area for intervention is the streets of danger and avoidance in Central
Long Beach, especially Cherry Avenue, 20
th
Street, 7
th
Street, Pacific Coastal Highway
and Martin Luther King Junior Avenue. The lack of safety and violence on these streets
has made social interaction in Central Long Beach more circumscribed and less open.
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Along these streets, attention should be given to introducing active community activities
and spaces so that there are the “right eyes on the street.” These streets should be
punctuated with community activities in the day and night. Multiple small community
gardens, satellite gathering spaces for the neighborhood, and business development
opportunities can be given to innovative business that generate foot traffic. Decision for
business development must be more judicious in Central Long Beach, judged on how
much they contribute to community and safety rather than how many jobs they create.

Lastly, more intercultural programs and activities should be planned for MacArthur Park,
Mark Twain Library. From the routine maps, these two places are naturally suited
because of its present accessibility to different ethnicities but as discussed in Chan (2013)
and in Chapter 7, they are not presently programmed and used for intercultural purposes.
These two spaces can be strengthened to be the hub for intercultural learning and
engagement.

Opportune locations in Mid-Wilshire
In Mid-Wilshire, the “big dividing line” between Western Avenue and Wilton Place is a
strategic location to mend the division of income and ethnicity differences between
eastern and western Mid-Wilshire (see Chapter 5). Multiple strategic and attractive
neighborhood pedestrian crossings and attractive sidewalks could be considered along
Western Avenue that would connect the eastern side and western side of Western Avenue
to the “diversity popular” Wilshire Branch Library and Van Ness Burns Park. With these
infrastructure established, activities and posters that encourage ICU can be planted along
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these “global intercultural corridors” that are material (perceived) and symbolic (lived)
investments to facilitate convivial intercultural living.

In eastern Mid-Wilshire where vertical residential enclaves and multiple neighborhoods
and territories are found, more common social spaces that encourage intercultural
exchange could be provided. Sidewalks are one such opportune resource from which new
common social spaces can be crafted from (see Loukaitou-Sideris and Ehrenfeucht 2009).
They are like the arteries of eastern Mid-Wilshire where inhabitants walk to amenities
and their social exposure along the street is greater. Planners can consider ideas such as
introducing “parklets” along key streets to expand the sidewalks into viable places of
meet-the-neighbor spots (Allen, Westways, June 2013). These “parklets” that are built on
street side parking space can be designed by multi-ethnic teams made up of residents on
the block with the vision of creating comfortable, accessible and safe spaces that would
encourage intercultural exchange and understanding. They can even be called “ICU pods”
to emphasize the purpose and vision of these pods. These “parklets” can be located and
connected up with special pavement cues such as a simple red line that marks the
Freedom Trail in Boston and be used for neighborhood festivals and night-outs.

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7. Ice-breakers and Bridge-makers: Building everyday
relational spaces of conviviality
To live together in the world means essentially that a world of things is between those who have it
in common, as a table is located between those who sit round it; the world like every in-between,
relates and separates men at the same time. The public realm, as the common world, gathers us
together and yet prevents our falling over each other, so to speak. What makes mass society so
difficult to bear is not the number of people involved, or at least not primarily, but the fact that the
world between them has lost its power to gather them together, to relate and to separate them. The
weirdness of this situation resembles a spiritualistic séance where a number of people gathered
around a table might suddenly, through some magic trick, see the table vanish from their midst, so
that two persons sitting opposite each other were no longer separated but also would be entirely
unrelated to each other by anything tangible.
(Hannah Arendt [1958] 1998 The Human Condition, p.52-3)

A desire for good interpersonal relations in diversity
The findings indicate that there is a desire in most people to relate to and understand well
those with whom they live. But there exist multiple barriers and for some, multiple bad
experiences. These barriers are not isolated but bundled with the complex environmental
attributes of physical and non-physical dimensions. They are socially significant because
good interpersonal relations with neighbors are critical to the formation of one’s sense of
belonging in a neighborhood regardless of level of affluence.

In the quote above, Arendt ([1958] 1998) spoke of the importance of the public realm as
a social space to relate to others and warned that when it is undermined (such as
shrinking or complete disappearance), we will be left with a relational vacuum between
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two strangers that is far from being convivial but instead is an awkward space of non-
relation. Thus, individuals and collective society are vulnerable to losing their
“capabilities” to interact socially and productively if attention is not paid to securing a
public realm that is conducive for human development. These “capabilities” as Nussbaum
(2011, 20-21) defines them, “are not just abilities residing inside a person but also the
freedoms or opportunities created by a combination of personal abilities and the political,
social, and economic environment.” According to Nussbaum (2011, 33-4), the
capabilities for emotions and to form affiliation are among the ten central capabilities that
“a decent political order must secure” for human development. These capabilities focus
on the dimension of human association and “being able to have attachments to things and
people outside ourselves” and “being able to live with and toward others, to recognize
and show concern for other human beings, to engage in various forms of social
interaction; to be able to imagine the situation of another.” Nussbaum’s concept for the
capabilities of emotion and affiliation fleshes out the relational need in humans for
friendship that Aristotle describes in Nichomachean Ethics (mentioned in Chapter 1) as
more fundamental than justice in securing the social cohesion and peace of cities.

The threat of losing our “capabilities” in globalizing multi-ethnic and multi-national
cities is indeed imminent, if not already present. In the three diverse settings of San
Marino, Central Long Beach and Mid-Wilshire, the opportunity that co-presence in
diversity offers for differences between cultures to be learned over time has not in fact
transform into significant growth in the “capabilities” for intercultural understanding
(ICU) for integration (Amin 2002, Putnam 2007, Valentine 2008). Instead, physical
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proximity with diversity produces mostly unproductive tensions and fleeting or routinized
contact between different ethnicities and nationalities.

I am making a case in this chapter that institutional initiative and intervention is required
to reverse the situation of growing social apathy in wealthy, mixed and poor globalizing
and ethnically diverse settings
40
in line with Nussbaum’s (2011) advocacy for human
dignity and social justice via “creating capabilities” as a public policy responsibility. As
Peattie (1998, 248) writes in her discussion of “convivial cities,”

In human happiness, creative activity and a sense of community count for at least
as much and maybe more than material standard of living. Planning can enhance
the possibility for conviviality…Conviviality cannot be coerced, but it can be
encouraged by the right rules, the right props, and the right places and spaces.
These are in the domain of planning.

This chapter’s specific focus will discuss the possible props, places and spaces in diverse
settings that can be created and shaped to encourage intercultural engagement, learning
and integration. Making use of Lefebvre’s (1991) theory of the production of dialectical
social space through the 3L rotating tetrahedron, this chapter discusses how the perceived
space (“spatial practice) with its rules, props, places and spaces may be reshaped in light
of the barriers in order to arrive at the conceived space (“representations of space”) of

40
Interview discussions with the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations also help to
reinforce this view.
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intercultural understanding (ICU) discussed in Chapter 6. By re-crafting everyday urban
spaces, the intention here is to make use of the dialectical logic of social space to
influence the everyday “spatial practice” in ways that change the daily lived space
(“representational space”) of urban social life experience from fleeting, routinized and
unproductive frictional encounters to a rich intercultural space. With the transformations
in the perceived space (practice) and lived space (experience) from a social space to an
intercultural space, the conceived space (mental representations and associations) of
residents in diverse settings will also be reshaped from a social to an intercultural
consciousness.

Urban interculturalism: Mobilizing everyday social space
As reflected in the three narratives of negotiation of social space in settings of diversity,
social space is composed of the “three-dimensional dialectic” of perceived-lived-
conceived space that is at work but not immediately visible in the everyday social life
(Lefebvre 1991, Schmid 2008). To this end, I think it shares a fundamental likeness to the
“urban unconscious” that Amin (2010, 3) defines as “public spaces, physical
infrastructure, public services, technological and built environment, visual and symbolic
culture.” These dimensions of the “urban unconscious” according to Amin (ibid.) “have
an important role to play in regulating social response to difference” because “the
entanglements of humans and non-human elements are increasingly being recognised in
social theory, to account for human being, behaviour, sentiment and orgnaisation” (Amin
2010, 5). The question is therefore not whether these “silent fixes of urban order” (Amin
2012, 65) are indeed an influence but what kind and to what extent. It is in the context of
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how everyday space (perceived space) can be mobilized to create productive
opportunities for intercultural contact and practices in order to allay anxiety between
people (Pettigrew and Tropp 2006 and 2011) that I would like to discuss the intercultural
possibilities of neighborhood spaces (public, semi-public, parochial, private) in the three
settings of cultural diversity in Los Angeles.

Intercultural potential of public space
INTERVIEWER. How important are encounters in public spaces
41
with another
ethnicity?
LYDIA LI (A RESIDENT OF SAN MARINO). Public spaces don’t really matter.
Public spaces, you go there because you have a goal, not to meet people. You go
there because you take care of your children, mostly children-based. And unless
the kids have similarities, meaning that your kids are both playing tennis and you
have the same coach. People are brought together because of similarities in
culture, in interests, in whatever. You can’t force people.
INTERVIEWER. Do you think how you are treated in public spaces and how you
see other people are treated, how you feel in it, the type of diversity or lack of it,
makes a difference to removing some of these barriers to make relations more
positive?
LYDIA. In public spaces, you have a lot of diversity there but you have no
information about the people around you. Therefore it is much easier for you to

41
Lofland (1998, 8) defines it as “Public spaces (whatever their ownership) are generally understood to be
more accessible (physically and visually) than private spaces.”
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make conclusions based on immediate assessments, which oftentimes are not
necessarily justifiable. For instance if you go to the library and you see all these
Chinese kids running around with no supervision. What is your immediate
reaction? “Those Chinese people!” You don’t know what the background is but
you see a lot of Chinese there. Americans pick up their kids, drop them off. They
are with their kids in the library. So I think public space is more detrimental to
better understanding than helpful because there is no source of connectivity.
INTERVIEWER. What if there is no public space, would it help understanding?
LYDIA. No. Neutral. I just think public space worsens. So not having public
space, you don’t worsen it. It is what it is. Whatever it is, it is. That’s how I see it.
Sometimes when you see something that is negative, it basically builds on your
negative perception. It almost validates it even though it is inappropriate to use
that as a validation. But people do use that to validate their initial assessment of
who that person is. Public space is actually not a good space for that unless you
use the public space to have multicultural, intercultural activities. But just public
space alone, without any purposeful activity, I think it is almost negative.

Lydia’s views on public space shares many familiar threads with the candor insight by
Amin (2002) that habitual contact without substantive engagement in a “thrown-
togetherness” (Massey 2005) can act to harden negative perceptions and conceptions of
differences. In addition, public spaces while intended as accessible to all, in reality would
exclude some, especially those who are already prejudiced as Amin (2002) points out.
Thus, Amin (2002, 967-8) articulated his verdict on the current condition of public space,
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“The city’s public spaces are not natural servants of multicultural engagement…In the
hands of urban planners and designers, the public domain is all too easily reduced to
improvements to public spaces, with modest achievements in race and ethnic relations.”

While Lydia’s and Amin’s verdicts on the use of public space for intercultural
understanding (ICU) are troubling, they point to not the irrelevance of public space but
how currently designed and programmed spaces fail to serve diverse settings well.
Amin’s (2002, 960) dissatisfaction with public spaces as sites of multicultural
engagement turned him to focus on a concept of urban interculturalism which he
describes as “the negotiation of difference within local micropublics of everyday
interaction.” The focus here is on “local sites of everyday encounter” such as colleges,
sports associations and music clubs, multi-ethnic common ventures like community
centers and gardens which are programmed to allow people to step away from their
routine environments to enter into a prosaic process of “cultural transgression” that can
challenge old ways of thinking and begin new forms of relationships (Amin 2002, 970).
Amin’s call for programmed spaces in the “modern zones of encounter” (Wood and
Landry 2008) such as neighborhoods, schools, workplace, marketplace, beach, park,
libraries, sport, arts etc. seeks to transform open-ended local public spaces including
“third places”
42
of cafes, shops etc. where informal public life unfolds today (Oldenburg
1989) to spaces of opportunities for urban interculturalism.
43

42
“Third places” according to Oldenburg (1989, 16), in contrast to first and second places i.e. home and
work respectively, refer to “a generic designation for a great variety of public places that host regular,
voluntary, informal, and happily anticipated gatherings of individuals beyond the realms of home and
work.”
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The proposals of Amin (2002) and Wood and Landry (2008) represent a shift from the
short-lived eventful festivals of masses, abstract cross-cultural dialogues, or vague
notions of celebrating difference to the everyday concrete, spatial practices and lived
experiences of diversity in the mundane neighborhood spaces of intercultural contact.
According to Bollens (2006, 67) whose work on peace-building in divided cities
emphasizes the importance of public space in cities seeking peace because “it is in the
streets and neighborhoods of urban agglomerations that there is negotiation over, and
clarification of, abstract concepts such as democracy, fairness, and tolerance.” The focus
on the prosaic practice and experience in urban space (perceived and lived space) to
transform the conceived space of mental associations and values highlight the necessity
to reconsider the role of core public spaces in urban areas, namely the neighborhood park
and library
44
in settings of diversity and discuss their efficacy as a conduit for growing
the capabilities to negotiate intercultural living and integration.

43
However, in Amin (2012, 79), the scope of sites are expanded to include all other “physical spaces-
streets, retail spaces, libraries, parks, buildings-in which being with other humans and non-humans shape
sensibilities towards the urban commons, unknown strangers and multiplicity. They include public services,
infrastructure and collective institutions where attitudes and expectations related to the city as a collective
resource, provisioning system and source of welfare are formed. They include the city’s public sphere-
symbolic, cultural, discursive and political- which collective opinions and affects of community and its
constituents circulate.”
44
A note on community or recreation centers: The interview initially set out to also include community
centers or recreation centers as well but realized that there is either no community center (in the case of
Mid-Wilshire) or if there is one- recreation center (San Marino) or a cultural center (Central Long Beach)-
many interviewees do not know of them and very few to none ever make use of these facilities.
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Public neighborhood parks
The neighborhood park, especially in Mid-Wilshire is viewed as a space of resource by
its inhabitants. It is perceived as a space where children can socialize and play with others
of different ethnicities and abilities. It is also a social space for parents to gather and
receive parenting advice and support from other parents. Burns Park (popularly known as
the Van Ness Park by its users to reflect its location at the southwest corner of Beverly
Boulevard and Van Ness Avenue) is a neighborhood pocket park in Mid-Wilshire where
parents and nannies travel to by car and many of them by foot from eastern Mid-Wilshire
to bring their children, grandchildren, toddlers to the playground. Children of different
ethnicities find playmates in each other, mothers and nannies of different ethnicities look
out for each other’s kids, children share toys and food, and conversations between
mothers and nannies about their children unfold. At Burns Park, western and eastern
Mid-Wilshire mix and mingle. Please see Figure 7.1 for a photo of Burns Park. Although
similar observations of children of different ethnicities playing with each other are also
made in the playgrounds at Lacy Park (San Marino) and MacArthur Park (Central Long
Beach), I did not observe parents interacting as much or at all with each other even
though their children might play together. Playgrounds in parks are a highly interactive
social space that hold potential for intercultural exchange through sharing an urban
commons with those who are at the same stage of life. They also serve as a powerful
reminder of what can be possible if ethnic or nationality differences are not barriers to
interaction.

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Figure 7.1: The activities in the playground can be seen from all angles in Burns Park. Photo by
author.

Parks are also used for sports that can offer one the opportunity to enjoy a common
activity with strangers of other ethnicities, such as playing tennis, soccer or basketball,
albeit these experiences are not too common (Loukaitou-Sideris 1995). Sport is another
“modern zone of encounter” according to Wood and Landry (2008) which can foster
intercultural exchange and understanding. Although people tend to recreate with those
they already know, there are times when teams do not have enough people to compete or
play, thus, bystanders or those sharing a court might get invited.

In Central Long Beach, sports are played usually in single ethnic groups such as an all
African-American team and a Latino team. There is also a sport-ethnic pattern, e.g.,
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basketball-African-American, soccer-Latino. However, according to Joshua Hernandez,
Marteese Owens and John Turner, all of whom grew up in Central Long Beach, there are
occasions when Latinos compete in a friendly way with African-Americans and
sometimes (rarely), there are mixed teams. According to Joshua Hernandez, a second-
generation Mexican American, the reason that amongst Latinos there is a tendency to
speak in Spanish and it is hard for the African-Americans to join in. In addition, Marteese
explains that there are different styles of basketball playing between the African-
Americans and Latinos, so it is simply not as compatible and fun in a mixed team.

Building camaraderie through doing sports with people of other ethnicities has been a
way that helps Michael So, a Korean international student who feels out of place in areas
outside his comfort zone of Koreatown and school, to feel integrated when he
communicates with people of other ethnicities often in the park or when asked to join in a
game of basketball. He says, “even if it was brief, actually I like to talk and I feel better
about the other race. They are humans also. They like talking like me. They are good,
they are nice...With more English I can get along with them.”

Parks are also viewed as a release valve in city-living. It is an open space to rest, relax
and recreate with friends. It is a deliberate space that slows urban life down. Yumi Lee, a
new Korean immigrant who does not feel confident about her English is of the view that
a park provides opportunities for more quality interaction. This is based on her
experience that users are there to take time to relax and as such, the atmosphere is less
rushed and tense. The slower rhythm offers her an opportunity to communicate in English
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with others because there is less pressure to have to speak quickly and make
embarrassing mistakes. For Yumi, being able to speak more easily and be understood by
others helps her to feel a greater sense of local belonging to the community. A public
park in this instance is an intercultural space that grows the “capabilities” of emotion and
affiliation as discussed by Nussbaum (2011) and lays the foundation for intercultural
friendships to form.

Lastly, parks are associated with spaces of community gathering. In San Marino, Lacy
Park is the location for several major events for the city, for example, the July 4
th

fireworks and the Annual Pancake Breakfast as well as a location for birthday parties and
picnics. In Central Long Beach, the Cambodia Cultural Festival is held in the MacArthur
Park each year, which is also a meeting point during the week for some Cambodian
seniors who sometimes bring their lunch to picnic near the playground. I have also seen
the MacArthur Park being used as an open-air classroom for pre-school programs. In
Mid-Wilshire, the pavilion area with tables and benches at Burns Park is used for baby
shower parties, high school graduation party, birthday parties around the year and a
gathering spot for Latino nannies to connect over food as they watch their kids play in the
park.

Essentially, parks in neighborhoods function as spaces that enable both formal and
informal social life to unfold. The opportunities that public parks create in disrupting the
mind-numbing rhythm of routines through their physical landscape, diversity of uses,
symbolic and collective experiences and their free access (in most cases) can serve as an
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infrastructure for intercultural understanding (ICU). This is because this disruption has a
potential (if harnessed well) to persistently challenge the social norms and cultural mores
of globalizing diverse settings by affording the opportunity to move beyond mere co-
presence and co-mingling to engage in activities that “culturally transgress” (Amin 2002),
nurture one’s intercultural capabilities and create new lived spaces of intercultural
experiences.

Public neighborhood libraries
As one of the “modern zones of encounter” in Wood and Landry (2008), the public
library is slowly but increasingly regarded as a space of resource, not only in terms of
book knowledge but more so as a space of social knowledge, infrastructure and conduit
of neighborhood social life (Putnam and Feldstein 2003, Fincher and Iveson 2008, Wood
2009). Putnam and Feldstein (2003, 49-50) identified branch libraries as “the new third
place” (not included in Oldenburg’s list of third places) that share with third places the
characteristics of “a gathering place” and “face-to-face” contact. Public libraries are also
seen as “spaces with a diversity of uses and users” that promise “a chance to explore
different identifications, even to discover interest, desires and capacities that they did not
even know they had until the moment of encounter” by Fincher and Iverson (2008, 185-
193), which could lead to productive social encounter and conviviality.

It was apparent from the interviews (many of which were conducted in neighborhood
libraries of the three areas) that the foremost value of the public library is its free access
and the diversity of users that it attracts. It is consistently referred to as a “neutral” and
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“not biased” space (also mentioned by Wood and Landry 2008) more so than a public
park that can be territorialized by some groups at the expense of others (Amin 2002,
Chan 2013). The library as compared to the park is a more managed setting and elicits a
behavior of decorum. This may be the reason for the sense of safety and the reduced
anxiety that interviewees feel can aid in creating an openness that is helpful for
interaction. Marteese Owens, a resident in Central Long Beach who uses the library
regularly to study, compares the library to the park as a better location for social activities,
“You’ve got tables, books, you’ve got a building and nice air-condition…The police will
come here fast… You don’t want to be open all the time, you got to be watching your
back.” Please see Figure 7.2 for a photo of the Mark Twain Library in Central Long
Beach.

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Figure 7.2: Safe, quiet and well-equipped Mark Twain Library in Central Long Beach. Photo by
author.

The neutrality of the library as a public space is related to the presence of diversity of
users according to Fincher and Iveson (2008) and particularly the interviewees in Central
Long Beach and Mid-Wilshire. Some of the interviewees explained, the people who
come to the library tend to already be more pre-disposed to being amongst diverse people
and ethnicity rather than in parks where the tendency, unless forced otherwise, is for
people to cluster with friends. As such, the library provides the setting for diverse
ethnicities and nationalities to gather and increase the likelihood of their meeting and
exchanges through its programs and through sharing a common space. The visibility of
diverse ethnicities socially interacting in a public space, according to several interviewees,
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is an important factor for intercultural living whether one uses the space or not because it
signals that social life is inclusionary and that the individual can also be accepted in the
neighborhood. By way of visibility, it challenges and reframes the mental conceived
space that has the potential to lead to new spatial practices (perceived space) of urban
interculturalism and lived experiences of productive diversity living.

The neighborhood library is also perceived as a space of familiarity and regularity. It is a
public space with regular patrons, where counter staff and patrons recognize each other
and check in with each other about their day, where patrons recognize each other and are
willing to help each other watch their bags or computers while they step out. Familiarity
is not to be dismissed because its value if harnessed could deepen the “relational web”
(Lofland 1998) in globalizing multi-ethnic and multi-national settings beyond the
numbing fleeting and routinized social life that pervades Los Angeles. In Mid-Wilshire,
where the fragmentation of social life is so acute, the Wilshire Branch Library where I
conducted many of my interviews is valued by its patrons as a place to meet people
regularly. While these encounters may raise the question of how it can be sustained and
scaled up into something more substantive (Valentine 2008), I argue that familiarity
provides a pre-condition to begin conversations that hold the potential for more
substantive intercultural exchange whether in the library or in other settings where you
bump into a familiar face. Familiarity breeds conviviality in intercultural living and not
contempt in these diverse settings according to the responses of interviewees. Matthew
Cruz, a young Filipino American who uses the Wilshire branch library to study says in
response to my question if casual conversations can actually facilitate intercultural
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understanding (ICU), “It is important because you get to talk to each other even if it is a
brief time you talk to each other. If you have a question and they answer you, that’s a big
thing because you get to talk to people of another race or ethnicity with no problem.”

The importance of library as a space of resource that is predisposed and conducive for
diversity according to interviewees who use it and also those who do not, makes the
library an extremely critical piece of the intercultural infrastructure. However, it is
important that we recognize that the intent of many existing library spaces do not make
them a “natural servant of multicultural engagement” (Amin 2002). The library in its
current configuration and use is regarded by many interviewees as not a socially
interactive place. Instead, libraries are built for individual activities and activities like
personal reading and studying. The tacit social understanding is that the library is a quiet
“modern zone of contact” a la Wood and Landry (2008), where conversations are
discouraged and quiet repose is valued!

However, the library’s sole use as a quiet zone of individual activities has increasingly
been complemented by its use as a community meeting space. Due to the lack of public
resources for community centers or recreation centers, the library in these three contexts
(San Marino, Central Long Beach and Mid-Wilshire) have doubled up as community
event spaces for neighborhood meetings, talks and programs. For example the libraries in
San Marino and Central Long Beach built in the last decade have rooms for such
purposes. The libraries in all these places are also the information dissemination centers
for activities in the neighborhood as shown by the posters, brochures and notices pinned
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up on the bulletin boards. Further, these libraries equipped with free computer access and
wireless services have also become spatial magnets as the number of free public spaces
shrinks over time. Particularly for resource poor settings, the public library according to
Chan (2013, 160) is “read as a space of investment for the future both metaphorically and
physically” and “a strong and tangible signal to the resource-poor neighborhood that the
library is a space of change.”

Relational “third places” in the neighborhood
Apart from the neighborhood park and library, I wanted to find out what other types of
relational spaces i.e., urban spaces that are good “third places” to meet and get to know
the people in the neighborhood of different ethnicities and their cultures. I began by
analyzing the routine “spatial practices” of interviewees (in terms of routine destinations)
in Figures 3.8a, 3.8b, 4.11, 5.9a and 5.9b and comparing against the list of good “third
places” in the three diverse settings according to the interviewees.
45
Table 7.1 displays
the findings of the routine destinations (italicized) and good “third places” in the
neighborhoods which are mentioned at least four times are highlighted in bold in a matrix
that I adapted based on Lofland’s (1998) categories of the public realm. It starkly shows
that there are very few “third places” in all three areas, especially in the category of
parochial (neighborhood) social spaces.

45
These findings are augmented by the information from participant observation in many of these spaces.
Page | 262

Intercultural
Space/
Opportunity
San Marino
(routine destinations are italicized)
Central Long Beach
(routine destinations are
italicized)
Mid-Wilshire
(routine destinations are
italicized)
Public
(free and open
to all)

Lacy Park (6),Crowell Library (5),
Recreation Center (2), Church (2),
Sidewalks: dog walking or strolling
(3)

Mark Twain Library (4),
Sidewalks: strolling or
skateboarding (2), Ethnic
churches (2), Playing soccer
(1), School Pick-up area (1)
McBride Park, Khmer Buddhist
temple, Antioch Church,
Whittier elementary school
Burns Park (7),Wilshire Branch
Library (4), Shatto Park and
Recreation Center (1), Lemon
Grove Park (1), Churches
(different) (4), Sidewalks, dog
walking (2), Front yards (2),
public bus (1, School Pick-up
area outside school (1),Bus Stop
Parochial
(neighborhood)

High School swimming pool/field
(2), Little League baseball (2),
Neighborhood Watch Meetings (2),
Block Parties (1), Post Office
Neighborhood meetings (3),
Neighborhood clean-up (1),
Halloween Party (1)

Post office
Semi-public
(paid use)

Starbucks café @ San Marino
Avenue (7), Jasmine café and
AlmaB ice-cream plaza area (3),
Huntington Park & Library (3),
Restaurants: Colonial Kitchen,
Noodle world and Yoshida (3,
Mission Street shops and Julienne
café/restaurant, Tony’s Pizza, Hair
salon, UPS Delivery Services
Pharmacy
Sophy’s restaurant (1), My Ly
Café, Different Cambodian
restaurants, different corner
stores, different small grocery
stores and chain supermarkets,
Anna Nail shop

Grocery shops (different
including chain and small
ethnic-grocers) (4), Koreatown
restaurants (different) (3),
Larchmont Village cafes (2),
Starbucks (1), Malls (1),
Different fast-food joints and
restaurants, Different
corner/supplies stores
Bars, Barber, Gym, Gas station
Private/Club
(by
membership)

Parents-Teachers Association
(PTA) activities (9), Chinese Club
(6), City Club (6), Rotary Club (3)
USC Alumni Club (2), Homes of
Friends and Relatives, Workplaces
Homes of friends and relatives
In the bus to school
Korean Youth Association (1),
Homes of friends, Tennis Club
Events Fourth of July picnic and
fireworks (4), Mid-Autumn
Festival (4), Dinner for 8 (3)
(program has ended), Newcomer
Welcome Party (2), Annual Pancake
Festival (2), Christmas on the Drive
(1), Hauntington breakfast (1),
Arbor Day (1), Welcome Wagon (1)
Martin Luther King Parade
(4), Cambodian New Year (3),
Cinco de Mayo (1), Dance Fest
(1)

National Night-Out (2),
Larchmont Farmers’ Market (1)
Outside the
neighborhood
Restaurants and cafes in Old Town
Pasadena, restaurants, stores and
shops along Las Tunas and Valley
Boulevard in San Gabriel and
Alhambra (different) (5)
Bible Study in Pasadena
Target Retail Store in Pasadena
Vons Supermarket in Pasadena
Mexican Restaurant in South
Pasadena
Church in San Gabriel
Costco Wholesale in Alhambra
How’s supermarket and Starbucks
café at San Gabriel Boulevard
Twohey’s Diner and In/Out Burger
in San Gabriel, Ralph’s supermarket
in San Gabriel,
Bars and restaurants in
Downtown Long Beach (4)
Different Bars and restaurants
along Broadway and 4
th
street
(3), City colleges and Schools
(3), Cherry Park (1), Signal
Hill Park (2), Beach
14
th
Street/Pacific Park aka.
Black Mike Park, Stearns Park,
Lincoln Park, Drake Park
Food for Less supermarket,
King Taco restaurant, Little La
Lune restaurant, Pho Hong
Phat restaurant, LB Thai
restaurant, Fresh and Easy
Supermarket,WalMart
Shops and restaurants at
Belmont Shores and The Pike
Los Angeles City College
(LACC) (3), Hollywood YMCA
(2), Bible Study and Church in
Hollywood, Workplaces In
Downtown LA and Hollywood,
Different chain and ethnic
grocery shops, Restaurants at
Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood,
Pan Pacific Library, Flea
Market, cafes and restaurants
near LACC

Table 7.1: Routine destinations and good intercultural “Third Places” in the three areas (italicized
and bold places indicate routine spaces that are good for intercultural understanding)
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San Marino
Table 7.1 shows that the routine destinations where the interviewees visit regularly i.e., at
least once a week are made up of public spaces (park, library, post office) and semi-
public spaces (cafes and restaurants) located in and outside the neighborhood. Of these
places, Lacy Park and Crowell Library, post office, Starbucks café, Tony’s Pizza, the
small plaza area with a cluster of Sweet and Savory bakery, Alma B ice-cream, Jasmine
Café and San Marino Seafood restaurant and Old Town Pasadena (outside San Marino)
are spaces where the interviewees of different ethnicities routinely visit and contribute to
a mix of ethnicities in that space. In addition to these mixed everyday spaces, there is the
presence of voluntary routine enclaves that are formed along ethnic lines. Mission Street
shops including Julienne’s (a high-end café restaurant) are routine destinations of White
Caucasians, while the shops, cafes and restaurants along Las Tunas Drive and Valley
Boulevard in San Gabriel-Alhambra area are patronized by mostly Asian Chinese.

However, many of these routine destinations in the neighborhood apart from Lacy Park,
Crowell Library and Starbucks café and the Alma B/Jasmine Café plaza area were not
mentioned as good intercultural third spaces. In San Marino, its relational spaces are
provided by social clubs such as the parents-teachers association (PTA), the Chinese
Club of San Marino and the City Club of San Marino as discussed in Chapter 3. The
Starbucks café in San Marino is also the only corner coffeehouse of the neighborhood
where residents meet outsiders and use it as their social-networking site such as meeting
other fellow PTA parents, etc.

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Central Long Beach
In Central Long Beach, the routine destinations of the interviewees (made up of different
ethnicities) in the immediate neighborhood area include public spaces like Mark Twain
Library MacArthur Park, California recreation center park and semi-public spaces such as
Cambodian Hak Heang restaurant and My Le café along East Anaheim Street. Public and
semi-public spaces outside the neighborhood include the beach, Signal Hill Park,
Downtown Long Beach and the clusters of bars and cafes along 4
th
Street and fusion
Asian Sophy’s restaurant along Pacific Coastal Highway. Similarly, there is also a pattern
of voluntary routine enclaves in Central Long Beach. These are mostly made up by small
ethnic-based Latino and Cambodian grocery shops that are run and cater to the resident
Latino and Asian clientele.

One pattern unique to Central Long Beach (based on the routine maps of the interviewees)
is that the routine destinations where White Caucasians, Latinos and African-Americans
are all present in the mix are found outside the neighborhood such as the beach, the shops
and restaurants in Downtown Long Beach, bars and cafes. Asians from the neighborhood
appear to not visit these same places but instead only visit selected public/semi-public
spaces such as library, parks and Asian restaurants. In terms of good “third places” to
mingle and get to know different ethnicities to gain intercultural understanding (ICU),
there are few to none in Central Long Beach apart from the Mark Twain Library.

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Mid-Wilshire
Routine destinations where a mix of ethnicities can be found in Mid-Wilshire include
public spaces such as Burns Park, Shatto Park and Recreation Center, Wilshire Branch
Library, the post office and semi-public spaces such as McDonalds fast-food and the
French-Korean bakery Paris Baguette. There are many options for corner stores, grocery
shops, restaurants and cafes in Mid-Wilshire as routine destinations. Outside the
neighborhood area per se, Pan Pacific Park and Los Angeles City College are the other
two notable public/semi-public spaces where interviewees of different ethnicities
frequent. Following the pattern of San Marino and Central Long Beach, there are also
voluntary routine enclaves in Mid-Wilshire. The Larchmont Village while not exclusive
to White Caucasians is clearly a routine destination for more White Anglos than either
Asians or Latinos. The Koreatown restaurants and cafes is another routine enclave where
most of its clientele are made up of Asians. Lastly, similar to Central Long Beach, ethnic
grocery shops catering to majority Korean or Filipino clientele can also be found in Mid-
Wilshire.

In Mid-Wilshire, the pattern of routine destinations indicates that there are more spaces
where Latinos and Asians mix in Mid-Wilshire than where Latinos or Asians mix with
White Caucasians. Latinos and Asians can be found in spaces like the parks, library,
McDonalds and Los Angeles City College. Other than the Burns Park and Wilshire
Branch library, there are few to no spaces where there is a mix of Latinos and Asians
with White Caucasians. The absence of African-American population in the mix is likely
due to the small resident population in the area. Among the African-American
Page | 266

interviewees, the places they frequent where there is a mix of ethnicities include the
Wilshire Branch Library, churches and Larchmont Village. Like Central Long Beach,
Mid-Wilshire lack good “third places” for intercultural understanding (ICU) based on the
interview responses other than Burns Park and Wilshire Branch Library.

All three areas are lacking in “third places” in the parochial (neighborhood) category.
Very few existing good intercultural spaces or activities mentioned by the interviewees
are actually routine activities in everyday spaces. The extreme lack of opportunities for
prosaic intercultural interaction, particularly in Central Long Beach and Mid-Wilshire
may partially explain the more acutely felt lack of intercultural understanding (ICU) in
these two areas as discussed in Chapter 6. In these three areas, events which are often
thought by some community organizers as effective in generating inter-ethnic
understanding are not shared by the residents. For example, the 4
th
of July celebration at
Lacy Park in San Marino is frequently mentioned by community organizers and
municipal officers as a great gathering and connecting event in the city. However,
residents express reservations that these events are not designed or planned with the
purpose of allowing people to get to know each other. The crowds tend to drive people
inwards to stick with those they already know, as research has shown that people tune out
in crowded and overstimulating urban experiences (e.g. Milgram 1970, Wessel 2009). In
fact, events are places where people who already know each other cluster together. They
are an extended form of the social club or special interest group gathering opportunities,
so to speak, rather than events that are inspired and organized with the common interest
of the entire community in San Marino, as Jonathan Lin a resident in his 30s states.
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New relational activities in new “third places”
Given a dearth of relational “third places” in these three areas, the question arises, “How
can neighborhood spaces be improved to encourage relationship-building between
neighbors of different ethnicities?” Figure 7.3 shows the types of social infrastructure and
activities that those who live, work and use the three areas think can help to build the
intercultural “capabilities” of living in and with diversity.

Figure 7.3: Interviewees’ suggestions on how to improve neighborhood spaces so that they can
encourage relationship-building between neighbors of different ethnicities
46

46
40 interviewees (excluding municipal planners) responded to this question in the semi-structured
interview with suggestions (8 from San Marino, 17 from Central Long Beach and 15 from Mid-Wilshire).
The chart reflects a total of 52 responses because a few interviewees provided more than one suggestion.
Please note that these suggestions were not given based on predetermined categories. Instead, the responses
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Organize
interactive
programs and
intercultural
events
Provide
meeting and
mingling
spaces
Ensure safety in
public spaces
Increase access
to information
about cultures
Create fun
gathering
spaces (e.g.
bars, game
arcades, movie
theaters)
Provide
language
learning
Collaborate
between
institutions to
plan and
organize
Do nothing
because it is too
late
San Marino
Central Long Beach
Mid-Wilshire
Page | 268

Interactive programs and Intercultural events
In Mid-Wilshire, the suggestions are for more programs to be held in public spaces such
as arts festival in the park, programs that target families of all ethnicities, get-togethers
through sport events, movies in parking lots as well as more daily offerings of social
activities like yoga in the park, exercise boot camps, etc., which are currently being
offered by private initiatives in the Burns Park and the Pan Pacific Park. These activities
are seen as opportunities for people to meet, share a common activity, get to know each
other and break out of the fleeting relations to explore the possibility of developing quasi-
primary or even a potential for intimate-secondary relation (Lofland 1998) in everyday
social life.

In Central Long Beach, free events and free programs are viewed as critical recreational
opportunities because of the poverty of the area. Many of the residents cannot afford
common recreation options such as going to the movies, visiting museums or aquariums,
or going to a café which may be taken for granted in other contexts. The suggestions are
for more free events that are intentionally geared towards intercultural exchange and
away from events that celebrate one ethnic or cultural group. The major events in Central
Long Beach include the Martin Luther King’s Parade, Cinco de Mayo and the
Cambodian New Year Parade or Cultural Festival. Figure 7.4 shows a photo of the 2012
Martin Luther King’s Parade. The municipal officers and some community organizers

were coded, categories were formed based on the coding analysis and then the responses are tabulated
accordingly to reflect the frequency.
Page | 269

who I interviewed regard these events, especially the Martin Luther King’s Parade, as an
multi-ethnic event based on the volunteers because of the framing of the content about
civil rights rather than African-American civil rights per se. However, these events are
not explicitly planned for intercultural exchange and understanding. It is festive and
convivial while it lasts but it faces the same shortcomings of any large events, i.e., that
you go with those you know, stick with them and perhaps you learn a few new things
about the different types of civic organizations in the city but then you return to face the
same negotiation of diverse relations in your daily life without being equipped
substantively with new intercultural capabilities. I am not saying that these events are not
capable of making incremental changes to how we think about intercultural relations, but
sharing Amin’s views, these events are good in and of themselves in terms of creating
new opportunities and commonalities of connection that Fincher and Iveson (2008, 183-4)
describe as “groove” but there needs to be reinforcement, revisiting, refreshing, re-
investing in weaving these convivial moments into the daily fabric and rhythm of life in
diversity.

Page | 270

Figure 7.4: Martin Luther King Junior Parade January 2012. Photo by author.

Providing access to free programs in everyday public spaces to recreate and socialize is
necessary for a neighborhood. Matthias Menendez, a community organizer who works
with undocumented Latinos holds the view that specific programs that help build up the
relations of African-American and Latino youths who face mutually entrenched
prejudices are especially urgent and important. Marteese Owens, an African-American
resident in his 30s, who was raised in and still lives in the neighborhood suggests the
following,

Maybe if you have some kind of program that people together… Basically if you
have like grown-ups and a good atmosphere talking about some good but not like
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really trying to change any things or try to improve anything. Like the library kind
of an atmosphere, they could kind of like fall into the puzzle, “Oh I am trying to
do such and such…” Everybody sits at the table and they people talk of what they
are doing type of thing. “I like music,” “Want to play chess?” but it could be done
in the library. You got to have somebody who is promoting it and actually start
off that kind of program…Instead of it [the library] closing, it turns over and then
becomes “We have something at the library, a get-together.” A video-game night
or something like that and it can be anything. You’ve got tables, books, you’ve
got a building and nice air-condition.

Meeting and mingling spaces
Interviewees from all three areas desire for more neighborhood meeting and mingling
places, such as a community room with programs in Central Long Beach and a farmers’
market for San Marino. Overall, this shortage is most acutely perceived by those who live,
work and regularly visit Mid-Wilshire inspite of the multitude offerings of semi-private
spaces of restaurants and cafes in Koreatown and Larchmont Village. The issue therefore
is not one of insufficient mingling spaces per se but the type of meeting places. The great
variety of options such as churches, parks, cafes, and grocery shops contribute to
community diffusion as residents use different places and there are no common meeting
and gathering points. Instead, residents desire parochial “third places” that are smaller in
scale such as meeting spaces which are designed for neighborhood gatherings, to build
familiarity and ownership through repeated intermingling in that space. Larchmont
Village is the type of “third place” for Mid-Wilshire but used mostly by White
Page | 272

Caucasians for that kind of neighborly mingling. It is a “third place” where regular and
familiar contacts with fellow patrons are experienced in cafes like Coffee Bean and Tea
Leaves, Noah’s Bagels and Starbucks. Although it is not a space that is exclusive to
White Caucasians, Larchmont Village is at present not the kind of neighborhood space
that encourages intercultural exchange and integration because it does not attract a
diversity of users.

Interviewees from both western and eastern parts articulate a lack of public and parochial
spaces within the neighborhood, such as parks, plazas and interaction-friendly places in
the neighborhood where people’s paths can intersect. There is a great desire for the type
of free and accessible “third places” where they can meet fellow residents in the
neighborhood regularly, such as a social hall, a community room or a local coffeehouse
to read or meet people from the neighborhood, especially for those in their 30s and 40s to
meet. Tania Johnson, a resident in her 30s, feels that while mothers, children and seniors
have parks to go to for social interaction, those in their 30s and 40s who would like to
connect with other fellow residents often do not have the space of opportunity to do so. In
addition, some residents also feel that there are no opportunities for residents living in
western Mid-Wilshire to get to know the eastern part and vice-versa. Luciana Garcia, a
second-generation Mexican American resident who perceives this division strongly,
having lived in both western and eastern Mid-Wilshire, suggests that more intercultural
exchanges such as walking tours to highlight and celebrate the cultures and resources of
eastern Mid-Wilshire can be created to slowly diminish the disparity of knowledge and
Page | 273

anxieties between the two parts of Mid-Wilshire that Kelly Douglass, a community
organizer described as “a benign apartheid!”

Building intercultural “capabilities”: Ice-breakers and Bridge-makers Spaces
What are the intercultural “capabilities” that can be built into the everyday urban spaces
to transform proximity of ambivalent co-presence and conflicts in diversity into
productive conviviality necessary for intercultural living and integration? And how can
seeds of intercultural “capabilities” be sown in the relations between people through the
social spaces of a neighborhood? Findings from this research and other writings point to
the necessity of intentionality for intercultural understanding (ICU) to create the
opportunities to share and exchange socially (Amin 2002, Bollens 2006, Wood and
Landry 2008, Wood 2009). Intentionality is required to grow the commons that can work
against the unproductive multiple divisions and fragmentations that are inherent in
diversity as evident in the three settings as well as from Putnam’s (2007) findings.
Investment is required in nurturing the “affects of togetherness” (Amin 2010) that are
capable of producing the “prosocial everyday form of kindness” and compassion (Thrift
2005) that can spread the “micro-moments of hope” and belonging (Wise 2005) in
settings of tensions of diversity so that the vitality and peace of cities can be secured.
It is possible to identify two facets of this capability that can create a dialectical
intercultural space out of the social space in diverse settings. I call them the “ice-breakers”
and “bridge-makers” referring to the social triggers and long-term infrastructure
respectively that can grow the intercultural “capabilities” in everyday urban space so that
public spaces can become “natural servants” of intercultural engagement (Amin 2002 and
Page | 274

2008). Based on the findings and critiques in other writings, there is a strong indication
that these dimensions must be pursued in tandem, neither one having a privilege over the
other.

Ice-breakers: Triggering opportunities for intercultural interaction in everyday
encounters
Wise (2005, 178) through her study of the demographic changes of a suburban
neighborhood from White Caucasians to Asian immigrants in Australia wrote that
“hopeful relations” rely “on some form of ice breaker” that can lead to future acts of
reciprocity, hospitality and care between ethnicities that eventually provide hope and
belonging in multicultural settings. Ice-breakers are purposeful triggers to break the ice of
frozen relations between people that might have hardened by apathy, guardedness and
fear, anxiety or hostility that occupies the interstices of social spaces. These social
triggers move an observer to action and practice. They can be conceptually seen as the
spark that gets the dialectics of intercultural space moving so that the perceived space of
practice triggers the formation of a lived intercultural space that can in turn through
multiple experiences transform the conceived social space to an intercultural space.

Ice-breakers require spontaneity as well as “light touch” programming as Fincher and
Iveson (2008) and Wood and Landry (2008) described. They are what William Whyte
(1980, 94) in his study of The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces in New York City
concluded as “triangulation.” Triangulation refers to a “process by which some external
stimulus provides a linkage between people and prompts strangers talk to each other as
Page | 275

though they were not.” External stimuli include temporal or ephemeral unexpected events
or crisis that can pique curiosity and a sense of shared crisis, as well as more enduring
opportunities such as shared interests, common and joint activities (Whyte 1980, Gehl
[1987] 2011, Peattie 1998, Amin 2002 and 2006, Wood and Landry 2008).

Children and dogs
In the three settings, I found that children and dogs are two consistent ice-breakers
between total strangers and the familiar strangers in our midst. In Mid-Wilshire and San
Marino, parents recall times in the playgrounds and parks when children who play
together break the ice between the parents who would exchange information about their
cultures, parenting challenges and advice. Many parents would recount how their social
worlds with other adults are expanded and deepened through their children’s
relationships. Children are more open and interculturally adept than their parents to cross
the multiple lines of difference that are drawn and entrenched with age. Nancy Lau from
Mid-Wilshire remembered the socializing patterns at soccer practices and playgrounds
when her children were growing up, where the younger the children, the more likely the
parents would get along. Naomi Su in San Marino also observed that the openness of
parents to befriend another parent is perhaps the greatest among first-time parents based
on her personal experience of raising three children in San Marino.

Dog-owners in Mid-Wilshire and San Marino describe how their dogs are often the
trigger to start a conversation with neighbors who they may have routinely seen walking
their dogs in the neighborhood or park. Dog-owners chat about their dogs, where they
Page | 276

live, how often they walk their dogs, etc. These conversations can be viewed mostly as
casual and do not lead to a sustained relationship beyond sharing a same timetable. Dog-
walking on sidewalks and in parks share many of the characteristics of Oldenburg’s
(1989) “third places” in that they exhibit elements of neutrality, inclusiveness,
accessibility, conducive to conversation, congeniality, “plain and modest,” “playfulness,”
and regularity.

Food and Eating
Food and the act of eating is another ice-breaker. They provide a “common denominator”
(Gehl [1987] 2011) in diversity and redirects our focus to the humanity in each of us.
Sharing the same food and act of eating, whether or not at the same table, provide a
momentary common encounter that can trigger a connection, empathy and an opportune
basis for social exchange and intercultural understanding (ICU), especially between
strangers with nothing else in common. Food lightens the mood and always draws people
together as all community organizers will acknowledge its efficacy. Through Wise’s
(2005) case studies in diverse neighborhoods in Australia, she illustrates that food is a
form of hospitality and goodwill that opens possibilities for other forms of connection
and recognition across ethnic lines. Further, food and culture are so tightly woven
together that it is often the natural ambassador and port of entry into another culture,
habits, practices, background, history and worldviews. It is a means to explore and
understand another culture. However, while food promises much as an intercultural
ambassador of goodwill and understanding, it will remain a superficial form of ICU if we
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never go “beyond the samosas”
47
to include activities that lead to substantive learning
and sharing of lives between different cultures.

Visual familiarity
Visual familiarity is an ice-breaker according to residents from all three contexts. The
“familiar stranger” (Milgram 1974) is someone whom one recognizes visually but never
speak to. Visual familiarity is likened to Zajonc’s (2001, 224) research that shows “a
benign experience of repetition can in and itself enhance positive affect,” to the point that
it tips over fear and anxiety which results in a verbal exchange of greeting that creates
potential to become a substantive relationship. Familiarity lowers people’s guard and
invisible walls that separate people from each other. Familiarity creates a sense of safety
and social comfort that is critical in the process of “cultural transgression” (Amin 2002)
that is part of intercultural understanding and integration. Familiarity is a core
characteristic of “third places,” the basis of quasi-primary and intimate-secondary social
relations and reciprocity. To establish and grow familiarity, there is clearly a need for
daily and routine meetings. This can occur in many fleeting, spontaneous and unplanned
bumping into each other (serendipity) or through “frequent meetings in connection with
daily activities” (Gehl [1987] 2011, 19) such as activities that encourage walking (Jacobs
[1961] 1989) , e.g., strolling in the neighborhood, dog walking, gardening in the front
yards etc..

47
This is a phrase that came up during a discussion about how cheap our sense of intercultural exchange
and understanding can become if we never go “beyond the samosas” that I had with a friend and colleague
Ileana Apostol one evening over dinner at Tibits, a popular Swiss vegetarian bistro in Zürich (January
2013).
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The unexpected and curiosity
The unexpected event and crisis combined with human curiosity are catalysts to the
breaking of ice among strangers and the familiar strangers (Whyte 1980 and Gehl [1987]
2011). Once again the unexpected event or crisis throws all those who are present into the
same circumstance, no matter how evanescent it is. Laura Nunez, a second-generation
Latino who is raised in Central Long Beach recounted how the only time all the
neighbors on her block talked to each other was when a really loud car crash accident
brought all the neighbors out of their houses and caused them to talk. While that level of
social interaction was not sustained a week after the accident, such unexpected events or
crisis behave like a festival where conviviality disrupts the humdrum and offers
momentary glimpses to what a few words of kindness, compassion and care can produce,
namely, a sense of sharing the “affects of togetherness” (Amin 2010). These affects can
build up the central capabilities of emotions and affiliations (Nussbaum 2011) in that they
grow a sense of local belonging that can in turn facilitate intercultural living and
integration.

Curiosity is the nemesis of apathy. Curiosity is a natural ice-breaker. It pushes one out of
the snares of the comfort zone that stymie and decay the individual. Curiosity is found
aplenty in children but beaten out of adults. It is the element that catalyzes change and
growth when something different and new crosses one’s path. It is thus a catalyst for
intercultural exchange and understanding. It shares many similar characteristics with how
conviviality is described by Peattie (1998, 247) as “autonomous and creative intercourse
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among persons and with their environments.” Through activities such as multicultural
fairs and food, conversation-provoking and interactive public art and posters about the
different cultures (e.g. Hank Willis Thomas’s photography on race, see James Estrin’s
blog in New York Times, June 7 2012), street performances of ethnic arts and hybrid
cultures, the curiosity of the passerby is piqued to at least stop, linger, reflect and discuss
at that point or later in another setting. How can our urban spaces be planned and
designed to be more surprising, where “conditions in which people’s sense of need to
know each other and of an overriding common purpose trump their ignorance, fears and
prejudice?” (Wood and Landry 2008, 215).

Bridge-makers: Planning and designing intercultural opportunities
Although the multi-ethnic and multi-national settings in this study are not divided like
postwar Mostar or Sarajevo that Bollens (2006, 116) studied, his argument that the role of
urban planning as a bridge-maker is critical to cities that experience tensions arising from
cheek by jowl cultural diversity is worth taking note. He writes,

The seemingly mundane issues of city building are those that will make the future
of this city. Negotiated rules and procedures of a post-war society and the
structuring of its public authority are absolutely necessary for moving forward of
a city and its society. Yet in the end, only the urban policy and implementation
arm of public authority has the ability, and responsibility, of making genuine
contributions to people’s daily lives in their neighborhood, stores, markets, and
public settings.
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Urban planners, designers and policy-makers, as Bollens pointed out, have the
responsibility and the ability to be bridge-makers, and to repair broken walls and streets
to secure the goodwill of the city. Thus, a core responsibility of urban planning is to
create urban spaces that make cities flourish. It includes a relational dimension that has
always been part of the social reform ideals of planning (Friedmann 1987) but gradually
eroded by the planning process that has become more economically and financially
driven and encumbered by technical and political demands. Investing in bridge-making
through city-building efforts that craft spaces that build up intercultural “capabilities” is a
critical aspect for Los Angeles. A police officer in Mid-Wilshire likened Los Angeles to a
“powder keg” that is waiting for a random match to light it up. Over the last fifty years,
the city has experienced episodes of civil unrest that have involved some form of inter-
ethnic misunderstandings, violence and fights between different ethnicities, whether or
not these inter-ethnic frictions are the “real” cause. Based on the empirical findings in the
three settings, Los Angelenos continue to experience varying intensities of cold war such
as the existence of “invisible fences” of cultural differences in San Marino, a “benign
apartheid” in Mid-Wilshire and the “segregation” in Central Long Beach as some of the
interviewees have described. Yet in these three culturally diverse areas of critical need,
the relational dimension for urban space planning is often not part of comprehensive
planning. The responsibility of building neighborly relations if present is largely left to
other functions of the municipalities that are not tasked to do spatial planning.

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Relational urban spaces
To find out which kind of everyday urban spaces are conducive for building up the
intercultural life in diverse spaces, I asked interviewees to rank a list of typical
neighborhood spaces where they think are good places to have conversations with a
neighbor of another ethnicity or nationality that can lead to intercultural understanding
(ICU). The interviewees were asked to differentiate between those they have visual
familiarity i.e., people they recognize or have seen before (“familiar”) and those who they
are meeting for the first time (“stranger”).
48

Figure 7.5: The most likely place to start a conversation with another ethnicity or nationality that
would lead to ICU (N=61). Y-axis show the cumulative ranking score based on the inverse of the
rankings.

48
The survey uses an open-ended scale, allowing interviewees to determine the range of the ranking but
requiring them to use “1” to indicate most likely. The inverse of the rank is then used to compute the
cumulative score for each space. The higher the score, the better is the space to have conversations that lead
to intercultural understanding (ICU).
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Familiar
Stranger
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Findings in Figure 7.5 shows that good spaces where conversations could likely lead to
ICU are made up of a mix of public and semi-public spaces such as parks and libraries,
neighborhood restaurants and cafes, community events and religious places of worship as
well as the private space of the home. Parks are considered the most likely space for
those with visual familiarity and those who are meeting the first time to have a
conversation that could lead to ICU. As discussed earlier, good neighborhood parks are
spaces that attract a diversity of users and perceived as a relaxing space. Parks are also
where community events are frequently held and are conceived as a space for community
building. Community events and libraries are two other types of social spaces where
“familiar strangers” (Milgram 1974) and first-time strangers might have opportunities to
enter into conversations that can lead to ICU. Libraries are ranked lower than parks and
community events because they are as spaces for self-study and not interaction even
though libraries have increasingly become central spaces of community gathering and
significance as discussed earlier in the Chapter (Fincher and Iveson 2008, Wood 2009).
As spaces become less public such as in semi-public spaces of neighborhood restaurants
and cafes, and private space of the home, the opportunity for ICU conversations with first
time strangers become more circumscribed. Overall, these spaces possess the
characteristics of places to sit, places to socialize and places that are safe to linger.

Visual familiarity can in most places increase the likelihood of ICU conversations
between 1.3 to 2.8 times based on the findings in Figure 7.6. This means that casual
encounters are not unimportant. In fact, repeated visual encounters between neighbors of
different ethnicities and nationalities will increase the likelihood of ICU and in addition,
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it expands the set of relational spaces deem good for ICU conversations. Familiarity
makes conversing with a neighbor of another ethnicity and nationality in semi-public
spaces such as neighborhood cafes and restaurants more probable, Sidewalks, sport
events, block parties and grocery stores become potential intercultural spaces. The private
space of the home which is viewed as a good place for building ICU becomes a real
possibility as neighbors will be three times more likely to invite neighbors of another
ethnicity and nationality to his or her home if the person is visually familiar.

Figure 7.6: Places where familiarity matters most for ICU conversations (N=61). Y-axis show the
ratio of familiar: stranger.

Qualities of urban spaces of ICU
Planning spaces for ICU requires a finesse of “light touch programming” (Fincher and
Iveson 2008, Wood and Landry 2008) with an awareness of tensions and a sensitivity of
differences. It requires embedding social opportunities in urban spaces through a
1.0
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
2.0
2.2
2.4
2.6
2.8
3.0
Familiarity Index
ICU conversation
Page | 284

willingness to test out different forms of land use regulation that has productive social
interaction as its objective. Instead of technical efficiency, it encourages people to pause.
Instead of economics of density, it recomputes the logic based on opportunities for
productive meetings and conversations.

Taking a step forward in “light-touch programming” of everyday urban spaces to
transform them to become good places for ICU, I surveyed interviewees for their views
on the qualities of urban spaces which they feel are conducive to building intercultural
understanding (ICU) between different ethnicities and nationalities through intercultural
“spatial practices” (perceived space) and experiences (lived space). I asked this question
to begin a conversation of what the socio-spatial characteristics of urban spaces that
matter to the flourishing of everyday social life in diverse settings might be, with the
purpose to inform the “mundane” concerns and interests of urban planners and designers
(Bollens 2006). Figure 7.7 shows the findings of the list of qualities of spaces that
interviewees considered important in encouraging productive contact and intercultural
understanding (ICU) that can lead to the formation of a dialectical intercultural space.

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Figure 7.7: The qualities of public spaces that encourage productive contact and intercultural
understanding (N=68).

a) Dimensions of Safety and Interaction: Lingering, Visibility and Comfortable
Safety is ranked as the most important quality amongst the six qualities of public spaces
that encourage productive contact and ICU between ethnicities. This is because safe
spaces encourage pleasant lingering to experience the place, activities and interaction.
Walzer (1995, 324) states that a “open-minded space” such as a city park, street, squares
and courtyard, encourages lingering, which is the prerequisite to “provide alternative
patterns of activity and encounter” instead of “single-minded space” such as zoned
business and residential areas, highways and green-belts that “moves us quickly through
the public, non-intimate, and unpredictable world.” Lingering is also a characteristic of
good “third places” where people enjoy hanging out and engaging in informal exchange
of ideas and chat (Oldenburg 1989).
Spaciousness
10%
Quiet
11%
Neutral
13%
Accessible
13%
Common
Activities
16%
Organized
Programs
16%
Safe
19%
Others (parking,
frontyard, clubs,
green space)
2%
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Safety of public spaces is a quality that is mentioned too, for example by Jacobs ([1961]
1989), Whyte (1980), Lynch (1981), Fincher and Iveson (2008), and Wood and Landry
(2008) in their discussion of the characteristics of good urban spaces for living and
interaction. Often people who are in the public space perform the voluntary control and
safety of the streets and sidewalks according to Jacobs ([1961] 1989). Whyte (1980, 63),
in his study of urban spaces writes, “The best way to handle the problem of undesirables
is to make a place attractive to everyone else.” With regards to enlivening urban spaces
and to secure its safety, urban designer Jan Gehl’s ([1987] 2011, 29) writes, “People and
human activity are the greatest object of attention and interest.”

Associated with securing safety and attracting of people is the quality of visibility of
human activities (Gehl [1987] 2011). Lynch (1981) writes about the importance of
legibility and transparency of space to the “sense of the city” which is a critical
performance dimension of good city form. Many visitors to Burns Park have chosen to
bring their children there because a major part of their sense of safety in the park is due to
the fact that they are able to see their children playing easily as a result of how the park
space is designed, its modest size, in addition to safety features such as a fence around the
playground, its cleanliness, and other parents forming a watch community that looks out
for the safety of each child. Visibility is also symbolic in the instance of revealing who
can be included in the public space and how inclusive and diverse social interaction is in
the neighborhood for some of the interviewees.

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Safety and comfort are linked. Oldenburg (1989) and Fincher and Iveson (2008) highlight
the importance of a home-like comfort to the flourishing of social interaction. While
much can be said that not all homes are safe and comfortable, good spaces that encourage
the lowering of one’s guard and a willingness to be open to engage with people one does
not know require someone to feel safe, welcomed and be relaxed. Mark Twain Library in
Central Long Beach and Crowell Library in San Marino were described by interviewees
as spaces where they feel safe, comfortable like at home, congenial, and relaxing. These
two public spaces are also considered as good spaces for intercultural opportunity in
Table 7.1 above.

b) Dimensions of Neutrality and Accessibility: Physical and Symbolic
Neutrality of the urban space is also a quality of successful “third places,” according to
Oldenburg (1989, 22), because “neutral grounds” are “places where individuals may
come and go as they please, in which none are required to play host, and in which all feel
at home and comfortable” so that there is less social baggage attached and frees people to
engage as individuals. Wood and Landry (2008, 191) have also noted the importance of
the “sense of neutrality of the space that encourages users to interact” in the new series of
libraries in London (the Idea Stores) that is communicated through its design of its layout
and space. Once again, neutrality in the design, location, function and symbols of an
urban space is an extremely important quality in divided cities as Scott Bollens pointed
out in a personal communication in September 2009. He said that if these spaces are to
facilitate contact and meaningful exchange, they have to be extremely sensitive to the
fault lines in the community. In fact the concept of neutrality of public space was a key
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quality that was mentioned time and again during the preliminary interviews in Central
Long Beach as an extremely important criterion because of the gang activities in the area
and the fragile relations in this multi-ethnic setting. Perhaps it comes as no surprise that
amongst the interviewees who ranked neutrality as a top quality, half of them are from
Central Long Beach and the half is from Mid-Wilshire where social space is fragmented
by ethnic, socio-economic and other special interest group territories.

Accessibility is interpreted in two interrelated dimensions, namely physical and symbolic.
Clearly, an urban space needs to be physically accessible if it is going to be used. But
more importantly, accessibility’s symbolic dimension relates to whether one feels that
one can and is welcomed to enter to use the space. As mentioned above, visibility aids
accessibility in the sense that it signals to the user whether this is a park or “third place”
for a certain group or for all ethnicities. This symbolic quality of accessibility is tied to
Amin’s (2008) quality of “multiplicity” of public spaces that facilitates the formation of
collective culture through urban public spaces. Mixed users and uses are qualities of
conviviality and vitality of urban spaces (Jacob [1961] 1989, Oldenburg 1989, Sennett
1990), particularly in already diverse settings because they indicate and can facilitate the
level of intercultural living and integration. In this regard, accessibility of an urban space
is related to its neutrality. A neutral space has more potential to attract all ethnicities to
use it and this enables the urban space to serve as a conduit to intercultural encounters
and understanding.

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However, as I have argued elsewhere, there is “a nuanced tension between intentionality
and neutrality” (Chan 2013, 160) if the objective is intercultural engagement because
while they can reinforce each other in a positive direction, they can also do so negatively.
To be intentionally neutral, it requires a space not to be predisposed to encouraging any
type of activities or interaction that would cause the balance to tip in any direction. This
is foremost a dilemma of public parks so much so that the promise of a park for
intercultural engagement can be undermined because of a lack of programming. I have
argued previously that “neutrality is a good starting point to design a civic space, but
without an explicit intentionality for intercultural programs that engage the current needs
of its neighborhood population, its capacity to be a good intercultural space where
interaction can lead to dismantling of stereotypes and new appreciation of cultural
diversity is undermined” (Chan 2013, 160).

c) Making meaningful contact and conversations: Beyond Quiet and Spacious
A noisy space is not conducive for conversation and an overly quiet space is awkward to
talk. A small and tight space is uncomfortable to linger in but an overly large space can
feel threatening and unpleasant. Although the qualities of quietness and spaciousness are
considered relatively less important than the other characteristics, according to the
interviewees in the three areas for encounters that can be productive towards ICU,
research by urban designers, environmental psychologists as well as anthropologists have
shown that the ambience of space is influenced by how well its spatial ergonomics fit
human needs. About only a third of the interviewees ranked these two qualities as a top
consideration. However, as Gehl ([1987] 2011, 163) writes quoting Kevin Lynch and
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Gary Hack (1962) in Site Planning, a social context is “immediately comfortable and
well dimensioned” with a dimension of 25 meters (82 feet) in order for people to see
facial expressions and should not exceed 110 meters (360 feet) for observing events.
Similarly, as Gehl ([1987] 2011) found that a good place for conversation should not
have background noise that is beyond 60 decibels, otherwise, it requires people to sit or
stand a lot closer than may be socially comfortable.

Perhaps with greater importance than spaciousness per se is the availability of seating,
rest and refreshment spots (Whyte 1980, Gehl [1987] 2011, Oldenburg 1989, Fincher and
Iveson (2008). As Gehl ([1987] 2011) drawing evidence from the study of proxemics by
Hall (1966) on the pattern of seating arrangement and conversations, Hall demonstrated
that conversations are inhibited when chairs are placed far apart or back to back versus
when chairs are placed around a table. As Whyte (1980, 28) found through his
observations of social behavior in urban plazas, he concluded that seats create “social
comfortable” arrangements and that the presence of food attracts people. In Fincher and
Iveson’s (2008) discussion of libraries and community center/drop-in center, the factors
that make up the quality of “homey” environment often include amenities that allow
people to relax, such as seating areas to interact as well as food and drinks facilities
including a kitchen in the community center where meals are prepared together.

What I think is missing in many of the libraries, if they were to turn into community
gathering and meeting spaces, is the need for decompression spaces where people can
feel free to talk and chat over some food and drinks. The Santa Monica public library is
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extremely well-provided in that regard where the indoor space flows naturally into an
open-air courtyard where a small café with alfresco seating and a used bookstore are
located (see Figure 7.8). As Putnam and Feldstein (2003, 291) emphatically points out
sharing their insights of the built environment to social capital creation,

Again and again, we find that one key to creating social capital is to build in
redundancy of contact…Common spaces for commonplace encounters are
prerequisites for common conversations and common debate….Because local
arrays of built space and communication technology act as ‘background structural
factors” in most of our cases, their true importance is not always manifest.

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Figure 7.8: Santa Monica Public Library designed to allow for quiet repose and also social
interaction. Photos by author.

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d) Organized programs and common activities: Unsteady and Symbolic
The dilemma whether to program or not to, is a struggle that planners and designers face
consistently. Should urban spaces be what Walzer (1995) figuratively calls “open-minded”
spaces or “single-minded” spaces? And what are the consequences? According to the
survey, interviewees recognize that safety is necessary but not adequate to create contact
and produce meaningful exchange of ICU. There is a desire for help to engineer the
contacts in ways that matter to improving relations. This survey finding corroborates the
earlier finding in Figure 7.3 where interviewees feel that organized programs can catalyze
interaction that can improve understanding between ethnicities.

Amin (2002, 2006, 2008 and 2010) has been a strong proponent for explicitly organized
and programmed opportunities that purposefully confront the cultural differences in a
prosaic manner, not only cerebrally but in a way that involves one’s being. Amin (2002,
969-970) writes,

Cultural change in these circumstances is likely if people are encouraged to step
out of their routine environment, into other everyday spaces that function as sites
of unnoticeable cultural questioning or transgression. Here too, interaction is of a
prosaic nature, but these sites work as spaces of cultural displacement. Their
effectiveness lies in placing people from different backgrounds in new settings
where engagement with strangers in a common activity disrupts easy labeling of
the stranger as enemy and initiates new attachments. They are moments of
cultural destabilization offering individuals the chance to break out of fixed
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relations and fixed notions, and through this, to learn to become different through
new patterns of social interaction.

Sharing Amin’s (2002) position for the need to be intentional and to have programs in
order to bring cultural change are Robin Toma, Executive Director of the Los Angeles
Human Relations Commission and Ray Regalado, a senior intergroup relations specialist
whom I interviewed. They are of the view that there is a need to create programs in
schools, in neighborhoods and workplaces to get people to socially interact, engage and
grow relations with other ethnicities and cultures, instead of “hunkering down” in their
comfort zone and within their cultural groups (Putnam 2007).

“Multiethnic common ventures” such as community gardens create opportunities for
“small practical accommodations” between ethnicities that can result in a deepening of
intercultural understanding (ICU) over time (Amin 2002, 970). However, there is also a
component of shaking loose the moorings (whether from cumulative negative
experiences of discrimination, being rubbed the wrong way, past grievances or simply
unchallenged stereotypes) which require more targeted social spaces and programs that
“unsteady” assumptions about people, places or activities that can be achieved through
both physical and symbolic measures (Amin 2002, 2008). For example, English
conversational get-togethers can be organized in the park rather than in the classroom
around different themes of food and cultures. During part of these sessions, short
structured lessons that build intercultural “capabilities” can be introduced such as how to
start a conversation with someone from a different culture. To encourage cross-ethnic
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interaction, participants can be grouped together with someone from another ethnic group.
In order to facilitate adult participation, programs can be organized for their children
during the get-together session.

Good intercultural spaces
Good intercultural spaces are planned and designed to encourage productive encounters
between different cultures. They are bridges, initiating connections, sustaining productive
relations and building intercultural “capabilities” (Nussbaum 2011). These bridges are
spaces with lasting qualities that attract diverse ethnicities, encourage lingering and open-
mindedness, homey with places to relax and let your guard down, spaces to sit and chat
over food and drinks, modestly spacious and not too quiet in order to be socially
comfortable for conversations, sensitively located and designed to address differences
and tensions in the diverse community, intentional in creating opportunities for
engagement through challenging the set cultural assumptions people have of each other
and the spaces around them. Good intercultural spaces are also bridges embedded with
ice-breaker props to initiate connections such as play areas for children and dog-owners
to gather and interact, movable chairs, food offerings and places to sit down, eat together
and have conversations that go “beyond the samosas,” public art that piques curiosity and
starts conversations between strangers and familiar strangers, posters and activities that
provoke thought about common misunderstandings and prejudices that can be placed at
different street corners and on public transportation to slow people down for reflection
and nudge them toward conversations of intercultural understanding (ICU).

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An outdoor library I chanced upon in Lugano (Switzerland) Parco Civico while not
explicitly intercultural, has the making of a potentially fruitful space that has many of the
characteristics including being an “open-minded” space a la Walzer (1995) that attracts
one to stop and encourages lingering, homey and safe yet unsteady in how it intersects
the uses and users of library (a typical indoor space for passive activities) with the park (a
typically outdoor space for active activities) and a space to read but also for meeting and
conversation. There were drawing boards for children, movable chairs to read at, a
mobile café to grab a cup of coffee and tables and chairs to just sit and interact or relax.
The entire set-up is visibly diverse, interactive and homey even though it is in the middle
of the park. Figure 7.9 shows a photo of the weekend outdoor library.

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Figure 7.9: Park and Read in Lugano Parco Civico, Switzerland on a Saturday afternoon in April
2012. Photo by author.

Paradoxes exist between all these qualities that promise to transform settings of diversity
from a dialectical social space to an intercultural space, There is a need for safety but
also unsteadiness, there is a need for routine contact but also surprises and curiosity to
break the tendencies of habitual contact to reproduce set assumptions, there is a need for
everyday encounters but also the eventful, there needs to be intentionality but also
neutrality and lastly for conviviality in diversity, there is need for common interests and
the gathering of the “like-minded” (Peattie 1998). These paradoxes require that
productive ice-breaking and bridge-making efforts in globalizing multi-ethnic and multi-
national settings are to be approached with creativity and finesse that holds the tension of
each paradox in its place.
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8. Concluding thoughts and future research
Los Angeles is embarked on a strange experiment: trying to run not just projects, not just gray
areas, but a whole metropolis, by dint of ‘togetherness’ or nothing. I think this is an inevitable
outcome for great cities whose people lack city public life in ordinary living and working.
Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities ([1961] 1989, 73)

This study has demonstrated that globalizing multi-ethnic and multi-national settings
experience at least three types of tensions of diversity arising from the formation of
ethnoscapes (Appadurai 1990): They are the tension between stable communities (e.g. the
host community, long-time residents) and those on the move (e.g. new immigrants), the
tension between different cultures co-existing in space, and lastly, the tension between
the material and the imagined (Chan 2013). Through three different urban scenes of
diversity in Los Angeles, namely San Marino (Chapter 3), Central Long Beach (Chapter
4) and Mid-Wilshire (Chapter 5), I have illustrated how these tensions are unfolding with
varying emphases, speeds and combinations to fragment and “reterritorialize” (Gupta and
Ferguson 1997a) the social spaces in these culturally diverse settings, producing friction
along nested lines of new and old affiliations (Tsing 2005).

Operationalizing Lefebvre’s (1991) theory of the production of space by employing a
Lefebvre-Lofland-Lynch (3L) rotating tetrahedron, I have fleshed out how the
negotiation of everyday space-sharing in diverse settings involves an overlapping and
simultaneous socio-spatial process of mental representations of urban space, spatial
practices and symbolic experiences in urban space i.e., the “three-dimensional dialectics”
of conceived-perceived-lived space (Schmid 2008). Developing this conceptualization of
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a 3L rotating tetrahedron further as a mechanism for urban intervention, I illustrate how if
we follow the logic of the socio-spatial dialectics, the social space in these diverse
settings can be reshaped to become an intercultural space referred to in Chapters 6 and 7.
Analyzing the empirical findings of this study and other writings on “urban
interculturalism” (e.g. Amin 2002, Sandercock 2003, Bollens 2006, Fincher and Iveson
2008, Wood and Landry 2008), I gave recommendations on the locations and types of
strategic planning interventions in each of the three settings as well as the dimensions of
good spaces for intercultural understanding and conviviality.

This study was designed to be variation-finding through qualitative and multi-sited
research about how the process of everyday integration in globalizing settings of diversity
spaces is negotiated, and the possibilities that public spaces in these diverse settings may
provide them with opportunities for intercultural understanding (ICU). Through the study,
several common characteristics were found in the three different settings of diversity that
are valuable for future research and consideration for planning and designing of diverse
settings:

Prosaic assaults on tensions of diversity
A variety of negotiation tactics are used to respond to the tensions of diversity across the
three settings. They include: “hunkering down” (Putnam 2007) through “comfort zones”
and “ethnic bubbles;” “a civility of indifference” (Bailey 1996) that is manifested in the
fleeting and routinized relations in the public realm (Lofland 1998); small talk; flippant
racial slurs particularly among youths and young adults; as well as open violence
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motivated by gangs that are usually organized along ethnic or nationality lines. From
these three scenes of diversity, the findings indicate that the tensions of diversity are not
productively engaged due to a lack of opportunities and institutional support for creative
learning of cultural differences that can transform mindsets and develop new skills to live
with diversity.

The insidiousness of these prosaic negotiation tactics lies in their repetitive banality as
low-level assaults on intercultural living that escape critical attention. Although there are
certainly occasions of convivial experiences in these diverse settings, they are inadequate
to build the intercultural “capabilities” (Nussbaum 2011) that can help to negotiate the
tensions of diversity with finesse and counteract the excessive frictions over the sharing
of social space that can make diversity an adversity to the flourishing peace of the city.

Divided and fragmented social space
Social space in these globalizing settings of diversity is intricate because of a complex
nesting of social categories including ethnicity, nationality, income, class and cultural
values deriving from history as well as modern values such as professionalism. These
social categories are capable of reinforcing each other in ways that can produce divisions
between inhabitants of diverse settings through real and imagined “cultural differences”
between Chinese and non-Chinese communities in high-income San Marino for example;
through insidious associations of certain ethnicity/nationality with socio-economic well-
being and safety, while others with poverty and danger in mixed-income Mid-Wilshire;
or through the perpetuation of living “parallel lives” (Cantle 2005) in different daily
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routines that are structured along language and ethnic lines rather than spatial proximity
in low-income Central Long Beach. Further, interpersonal relations with neighbors in
these diverse settings are frequently thin, characterized by mere co-presence and made up
of fleeting encounters with “personally unknown to one another” and routinized
interaction between “categorically known others” (Lofland 1998, 52-9). These real and
imagined categoric divisions act together with thin relations between inhabitants across
categories to reinforce other community-eroding circumstances such as personal
technology and car travel habits (Putnam 2000) that further fragment social relations and
pull people apart.

The fragmentation of social space in wealthy and diverse neighborhoods such as San
Marino and western Mid-Wilshire and poor diverse settings such as Central Long Beach
and eastern Mid-Wilshire is driven by slightly different bundle of forces, albeit all
settings are embedded in the tensions of diversity. In wealthier settings, individual
preferences for a Tieboutian space of club-based interaction and privacy seem to
dominate. In poor diverse settings a host of factors drive the fragmentation: a lack of
practical access through language or other life opportunities; daily danger in their public-
parochial spaces; and their vulnerability to local political gerrymandering in a space that
is resource-needy but with a large voter-base. To this end, the concepts and processes of
boundary-drawing, territory-making and border-crossing are thus extremely salient for
future research about the socio-spatial dynamics in diverse settings.

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Salience of boundaries, territories and borders
Globalization discourses have the tendency to emphasize the loosening of fixed
boundaries because of the deterritorializing tendency of globalizing processes. While it is
true that the very presence of rich global diversity in urban settings is evident in the less
encumbered movement across geographical space, the formation of social boundaries to
“reterritorialize” physical space as predicted by Gupta and Ferguson (1997a and 1997b)
as well as writings of Suttles (1972) and Barth [1969] 1998 about social territories and
ethnic boundaries respectively, has not abated. The findings in this study demonstrate
through the combined use of cognitive mapping and semi-structured interviews that in
fact socio-spatial boundaries and territories are conceived, perceived and lived by
inhabitants as they share the everyday urban social space (Lefebvre 1991).

The cognitive maps illustrate how inhabitants’ conceived space of their neighborhood
boundaries and social territories overlap, while the mapping of their perceived space i.e.,
their routine geographies, in contrast show more instances of divergence. This disparity
between inhabitants’ social milieu of ethnoscapes as represented by the concept of
“neighborhood” in this study is composed of a complex set of elements that may include
everyday practice, life experience, knowledge, fears, memories, familiarity and even
environmental characteristics. In the mapping of these social spaces, major street
corridors, density, landscape cues such as property spacing, signages and the mode of
travel in the neighborhood (whether walking or driving) influence how inhabitants
conceive their social space that have consequences for the way they use and live in these
urban settings of cultural diversity.
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Although physical territories are present in the clustering of ethnic shops in districts such
as Koreatown and Cambodia Town or in vertical residential ethnic enclaves and ethnic
gang turfs, the dense and diverse spatial character of these three settings minimize
complete exclusionary tendencies and contiguity typical of physical territories. Thus, of
greater relevance and interest are social territories, with regards to what they are, how
they overlap in these globalizing multi-ethnic spaces and the implications the territories
have for intercultural living and integration.

Social territories such as “comfort zones” and “ethnic bubbles” often rooted in cultural
variables such as language, values and habits are formed in diverse settings of wealth and
poverty alike. These social territories have direct spatial articulations such as influencing
where Asian and White Caucasian mothers sit while they watch their children participate
in the mixed Little League games or where one would routinely visit for daily amenities.
The lack of opportunities for shared experiences resulting from “comfort zones” and
“ethnic bubbles” can reduce intercultural understanding. These “comfort zones” and
“ethnic bubbles” while helpful as survival buoys and safe havens in diverse living are in
fact double-edged swords which can exacerbate the discomfort, prejudice, fear or anxiety
between different ethnicities and nationalities as a result of reducing the permeability that
open borders allow for exchange, interaction and understanding. Therefore, social
boundaries, territories and borders are extremely pertinent in the planning of diverse
settings. Future research is required to better grasp their roles in the process of
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negotiating intercultural living, how they regulate inclusion and exclusion in diverse
social spaces in ways that can shape local belonging and integration.

Socio-economic integration does not mean intercultural integration
Globalizing multi-ethnic spaces are embedded with “superdiversity” (Vertovec 2007) that
goes beyond ethnicity, nationality or income or education to include combinations of
these social and cultural categories that come with different cultural habits and practices,
languages, philosophies, food and social mores that can join and divide people physically
and symbolically. The findings indicate that matching socio-economic levels between
different ethnicities and nationalities may not lead to intercultural integration. San Marino
is a case in point where “cultural differences” between the Chinese and non-Chinese
residents in the city do not dissolve with matching affluence or socio-economic
integration; and for that matter, common poverty does not either. The lack of intercultural
engagement and the process of cultural isolation are experienced in wealthy and poor
neighborhoods alike. The following two patterns that have emerged through this study
suggest that socio-economic indicators like income and property ownership are
inadequate measures of integration and cannot be expected to bring about integration in
globalizing settings of diversity. Instead, research and policies on integration should
focus on more nuanced variables such as the following:

“(S)elective” Belonging
Savage, Bagnall and Longhurst (2005) termed the concept of “elective belonging” to
refer to the middle-class people in Britain sharing a common right to move and live in
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places that have functional and symbolic meanings. In this study, I have argued that
residents of San Marino share a similar sense of “elective belonging” where the decision
to invest and live in San Marino is carefully weighed to consider the values of education,
safety and property ownership as reflected in the clear articulation of the conceived
space of San Marino’s boundary by its residents in Chapter 3. This sense of “elective
belonging” in San Marino is also reinforced by differentiating the insiders (residents)
from outsiders (those who do not live in San Marino) in the perceived and lived social
space such as charging “outsiders” entrance fees for the use of Lacy Park during the
weekend.

An alternative pattern of local belonging has emerged in these diverse settings through
the study. I identify this pattern as “(s)elective belonging.” “Selective belonging” is
particularly common among immigrants (even the second-generation) in all three settings
who do not feel that they belong entirely in the neighborhood. As the findings show, the
formation of local belonging is not entirely dependent on an individual’s choice in these
diverse settings but more contingent on their relations in the public-parochial realm i.e.
the wider environment and other people.

In diverse settings, having good interpersonal relations with neighbors, having a good
local knowledge of the neighborhood and sharing ethnic commonalities and differences
are key dimensions of what forms local belonging. There is a limit to how much
individual choice can be exercised in determining whether one belongs. The sense of
ambivalence that manifests in “selective belonging” is especially shared by those who
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experience discomfort or even experiences of discrimination because of language
challenges, socio-economic disparity, customs and ethnicity. Kristeva’s (1991, 15) keen
observation and interpretation of the feelings of the floating foreigner well articulates that
ambivalence,

No one points out your mistakes so as not to hurt your feelings, and then there are
so many, and after all they don’t give a damn. One nevertheless lets you know
that it is irritating just the same. Occasionally, raising the eyebrows or saying “I
beg your pardon?” in quick succession lead you to understand that you will
“never be part of it,” that it “is not worth it,” that there, at least, one is “not taken
in.”…Thus, between two languages, your realm is silence.

Belonging is thus more “selective” than “elective.” Local belonging is articulated in
tangible ways such as home ownership, having local knowledge, having good
interpersonal relations but also as Kristeva (1991) points out, in ways that are selectively
profound and nuanced like feelings of acceptance or rejection. Selective belonging can
co-exist with elective belonging as in the case of long-time immigrant residents in San
Marino who have electively chosen San Marino because they identify with its values and
amenities. But at a deep and difficult to articulate level, San Marino is not a place where
they feel fully accepted and fully belonged.

Page | 307

The Asian archetype in diversity
Be it the Chinese/Taiwanese/Hong Kongers in San Marino or the Cambodians in Central
Long Beach or the Koreans and Filipinos in Mid-Wilshire, there is a consistent pattern of
how Asians respond and are perceived to respond in diverse settings. This socio-cultural
phenomenon is significant given that Asians are currently the fastest growing group of
immigrants in the United States (Medina 2013, The New York Times, April 28 2013) and
a “superdiverse” (Vertovec 2007) category that comprises of different ethnicities,
nationalities, historical experiences, resources, income levels and more.

There are however, several archetypical characteristics of Asians that are perpetuated by
Asians and non-Asians, which are significant for policies on intercultural living and
integration. Asians of different origins are often perceived through filters of positive
stereotypes in the United States as hardworking and family-oriented. Asians also appear
to respond to diversity by turning inwards to preserve their roots, language, traditions,
food and culture and tend to only seek partial integration in spheres of highest exigency
such as learning the language and adopting socio-economic mobility. In Los Angeles, we
see not a reduction in official and unofficial ethnic towns but more imageries, places and
territories (Gupta and Ferguson 1997a) that celebrate the clustering of different Asian
cultures such as Koreatown, Little Bangladesh, Cambodia Town, Little Saigon, Filipino
town, Thai Town, Little Persia etc. As some Asian interviewees describe, these ethnic
towns provide a sense of pride to their culture as having a home away from home and
space to secure a heritage for future generations.

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This trend of Asians “sticking to themselves” is not exclusive to the first-generation
Asian immigrants only. Much 1.5 generation i.e., immigrants who arrived as children and
raised in the United States and second generation immigrants who have grown up in
ethnically-mixed school environments may be more comfortable around other ethnicities
and have friends of different ethnicities as compared to their parents or the newer
immigrants. But the significance of sharing similar upbringing experiences and values
with other Asians, the diversity of their parents’ social circle as well as having common
experiences of being treated as a foreigner because they do not fit the archetype of a “real
American” (healthy, wholesome, and white) (Gupta and Ferguson 1997b, 11) can all
work together to discourage intercultural living and opportunities to further intercultural
understanding.

An argument for institutional support to build intercultural capabilities
The above characteristics of diverse settings indicate that negotiation of diversity requires
the continuous crossing of social boundaries. Crossing boundaries is challenging because
these social boundaries are systemic and hard to overcome by the effort of an individual.
The difficulties and fear of embarrassment, anxiety of change and exhaustion can quickly
overwhelm an individual to inaction. Institutional vision and support are extremely
critical to build up the intercultural “capabilities” of the public realm defined as “the
freedoms or opportunities created by a combination of personal abilities and the political,
social, and economic environment” by Nussbaum (2011, 20-21) so that the co-presence
in diversity can transform into mutual understanding that lays the foundation for
relationship-building. As Peattie (1998, 248) argues, “Conviviality cannot be coerced, but
Page | 309

it can be encouraged by the right rules, the right props, and the right places and spaces.
These are in the domain of planning.”

However, interviews with municipal planners indicate that planning for intercultural
living and integration is not a criterion in these diverse settings. Instead, the focus is on
the hardware and infrastructure for business development and maintenance of property
values. Social interaction is a bi-product of creating safe public walking environments to
promote health and business development. Although walking environments have the
potential to create more co-presence opportunities in diverse settings, these urban spaces
are not crafted with the intent and design to facilitate intercultural understanding (ICU)
and engagement between different ethnicities.

The importance of a public realm to the social fabric of diverse settings is self-evident.
Public realm is a relational social space to learn from others, how to live with each other
and develop intercultural “capabilities” (Arendt [1958] 1998 and Sennett 1970). The
findings in this study indicate that public space matters to ICU. As several of the
interviewees explain, the sheer visibility of diverse ethnicities intermingling in the
everyday neighborhood spaces is powerful in that it is a message of inclusion and signals
the possibilities for intercultural understanding in the neighborhood. Beyond visibility,
public space also provides the possibility for more interactive programs and intercultural
events in public spaces according to the residents in all three settings.

Page | 310

However, as Amin (2002, 967-8) notes with candor, today’s public spaces are not
“natural servants of multicultural engagement.” Intercultural public spaces need targeted
and “light-touch” programming (Fincher and Iveson 2008) if encounters between
different ethnicities and nationalities were to become productive and transformative
towards intercultural integration. More thought is required to reshape public spaces and
create new relational public “third places” (Oldenburg 1989) that are conducive to
convivial meetings, mingling and engaging in ICU as discussed in Chapter 7.

The public-parochial realms in diverse settings require planners with new “planning
imaginations” (Sandercock 2003) to come up with the “the right rules, the right props,
and the right places and spaces” (Peattie 1998, 248) that can trigger opportunities for ICU.
Ice-breakers and bridge-making infrastructure (both human and non-human) are
necessary investments to nurture momentary and incremental encounters so that they
have the possibility to transform into ICU. Encounters of “triangulation” (Whyte 1980)
through children and dogs, food and eating, visual familiarity and the planting the
unexpected surprises that pique curiosity, all help to catalyze conversations and other
forms of social interaction that might be otherwise hard to begin. Meeting and mingling
urban spaces that are safe, comfortable, encourage lingering, accessible and neutral, with
possibilities to sit, rest and refresh, homey and relaxing yet challenging are critical
common grounds through which people are nudged towards discovery and transformation.

Page | 311

Concluding thoughts…
One major limitation of this study is its scale and scope. More interviewees need to be
included because the research is about a phenomenon of negotiating “superdiversity”
(Vertovec 2007) so that the findings can be stronger and better corroborated. In terms of
scope, the process of negotiating diversity is both experiential and functional such that
the multiple dimensions are interrelated. Thus, more expertise in various other disciplines
can be brought to bear on boundaries, local belonging, identity formation and public
space use in order to understand the nuances of intercultural living and everyday
integration in and through ordinary urban spaces. My effort here represents but a glimpse
of the tip of an ice-berg.

The intuition that shaped this dissertation has been the underlying conviction that the
ordinary spaces we live in shapes the everyday interpersonal relations within. Yet we
know so little about the everyday interconnections within those spaces, particularly in the
context of globalizing diversity. Integration is not an abstract process. It is a concrete,
tangible yet profound process that is continuously but silently at work through the
ordinary encounters on the street, the routine transaction over the counter, the surprise
acts of kindness and hospitable smile that deliver a glimmer of hope of being included in
a café, the looks and unwelcoming tone in one’s voice toward the other in the train, the
isolation in the co-presence of diversity in the public park, the words that betray one’s
hidden prejudice at the market and the words that uncover the genuineness of seeking
empathy and understanding between next-door neighbors.

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Urban space sharing and negotiation across ethnicities, cultural practices and habits will
intensify, pressuring municipalities to either find ways to superficially co-exist or to
flourish human relations. I would like to suggest from the findings that there is a
tendency in our optimism to conceive of an intercultural conviviality that is greater than
what the transient moments of social encounters typically allow. Inculcating intercultural
“capabilities” in ordinary everyday life is a “hidden” dimension (Hall 1966) that falls into
the interstices of responsibilities between institutions. Skills to negotiate and cross
boundaries, the opportunities and freedom to maintain relationships across differences
need to be continuously nurtured and strengthened beyond the schools and university
halls in the everyday urban spaces of neighborhoods so that fear, anxiety, stereotyping
and exclusionary practices can be kept at bay in culturally diverse cities. Like a tightrope
walk, negotiating tensions of diversity is delicate. Its success lies in grasping the
intricacies of various social processes at work and creatively regulating the intensity of
the tensions between extremes so that convergence of diversities afford opportunity for
individual growth and increases the capabilities of cities to hold together.

Page | 313

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Appendices
APPENDICES 1.1-1.3:

List of Interviewees for the Semi-Structured Interviews in the three study areas
Interview Group refers to:
(1) Residents/users of the neighborhoods including business owners;
(2) Community organizers who work locally in neighborhood civic organizations
(religious, social services) and city services (park, library, police);
(3) Municipal decision-makers (e.g. planners, district representatives) in the city hall.

APPENDIX 1.1: SAN MARINO

Code
Interview
Group Age
Native-born/
Immigrant
(country of
birth)
Ethnicity
(description of
nationality or
ethnicity if given)
Self-
identification Pseudonym
SM1 2
not
given not given White not given not given
SM2 3
not
given not given Latino not given not given
SM3 1 30s native-born White not given not given
SM4 1 40s native-born White not given not given
SM5 1 70s native-born White not given not given
SM6 1 70s native-born White not given not given
SM7 1
not
given
immigrant
(Hong Kong) Asian not given not given
SM8 1
not
given native-born White not given not given
SM9 1 70s native-born White not given
Dominique
Fisher
SM10 1 50s native-born
White (Croatian,
German, Irish) not given Mary Philips
SM11 2 50s native-born
White (American
Caucasian) not given John Shaw
SM12 3 40s native-born White not given not given
SM13 3
late
20s native-born
White-Latino
(Mexican,German,
Norwegian,Swedish) not given not given
SM14 2 40s native-born White not given Jack Hartford
SM15 1
late
20s
immigrant
(China) Asian (Chinese) not given Zack Shi
SM16 2
not
given not given White not given
Luke
MacDowell
Page | 328

SM17 1 40s
immigrant
(Taiwan)
Asian (Chinese from
Taiwan)
"I feel like an
American.
More Asian
American
second
generation." Naomi Su
SM18 1
not
given
immigrant
(Taiwan) Asian
"I am first
generation,
Asian/Chinese
American." Sandy Cheng
SM19 1 50s
immigrant
(Taiwan) Asian
"I am still
Chinese." Linhui Kao
SM20 1 40s
immigrant
(Japan) Asian
"American
Japanese" not given
SM21 1 40s native-born White not given Isabelle Anson
SM22 1 60s
immigrant
(Taiwan) Asian
"Chinese living
in San Marino,
first generation,
I am an
American
citizen." Lydia Li
SM23 1 70s native-born White (Caucasian) not given Jennifer Meier
SM24 1 30s
immigrant
(Taiwan) Asian (Taiwanese)
"Taiwanese that
is
Americanized" Jonathan Lin
SM25 1 50s
immigrant
(Taiwan) Asian
"Chinese
American" Nick Chang
SM26 1
not
given
immigrant
(Taiwan) Asian not given not given
SM27 1
not
given
immigrant
(Taiwan) Asian not given not given
SM28 1 30s native-born Asian
"American-born
Chinese" Noah Yu
SM29 1 30s native-born Asian
"Officially, I
am an
American, son
of immigrant
parents" Bentley Wang
SM30 1 40s
immigrant
(China) Asian
"An American,
a 中国人
(China
Chinese)" Noelle Lu

Page | 329

APPENDIX 1.2: CENTRAL LONG BEACH

Code
Interview
Group Age
Native-born/
Immigrant
(country of
birth)
Ethnicity
(description of
nationality or
ethnicity if given)
Self-
identification Pseudonym
LB1 2
not
given not given White not given not given
LB2 2
not
given not given White not given not given
LB3 1 50s native-born White (American) not given not given
LB4 1
early
20s native-born African-American not given Alina Daniels
LB5 1 50s
immigrant
(Cambodia)
Asian (Cambodian,
Khmer) not given Munny Ly
LB6 1 30s native-born African-American not given John Turner
LB7 1 15-19 native-born Latino (Mexican) not given
Joshua
Hernandez
LB8 2 50s
immigrant
(Cambodia)
Asian
(Cambodian)
"Cambodian-
American, I am a
Long Beach
resident." Kosal Sok
LB9 1 15-19 native-born Latino (Mexican)
"Hispanic,
sometimes
Mexican" Laura
LB10 1 50s native-born White (homeboy)
"Native, people
call me homeboy
alot" Rich Taylor
LB11 1 30s native-born
African-
American/America
n/Indian/Other
"I am XX and
trying to survive" Marteese Owens
LB12 1
early
20s native-born Latino
"Mexican
American" Ben Rodriguez
LB13 1
early
20s native-born
Latino (Mexican-
American)
"Mexican
American" not given
LB14 2 50s native-born African-American not given not given
LB15 2 60s native-born
White (Half
Sicilian, half-Scot-
Irish)
"I am a native
from XX (U.S.
State)." Randy Jones
LB16 2
not
given not given African-American not given not given
LB17 2
not
given
immigrant
(Cambodia) Asian not given Chenda So
LB18 2 50s native-born Latino not given not given
Page | 330

LB19 2 30s
immigrant
(Cambodia) Asian (Cambodia) not given not given
LB20 1 15-19 native-born Latino
"American
Mexican"
Evangeline
Flores
LB21 2
not
given
immigrant
(Thailand) Asian not given not given
LB22 2
not
given native-born White not given Kylie Brendon
LB23 2
not
given
immigrant
(Cambodia) Asian not given not given
LB24 1 50s
immigrant
(Vietnam)
Asian
(Vietnamese) "Always Asian" Anh Dao
LB25 2
late
20s
immigrant
(Mexico) Latino American Eric Alvarez
LB26 2 40s native-born White (Caucasian) not given not given
LB27 3
not
given not given White not given not given
LB28 2 60s
immigrant
(Cambodia) Asian
"Cambodia is my
homeland" not given
LB29 1
late
20s native-born White
"A native from
XX city"
Jonathan
Anderson
LB30 2 40s
immigrant
(Mexico) Latino (Mexican) not given
Matthias
Mendenez
LB31 3
not
given not given White not given not given
LB32 1 15-19 native-born African-American not given not given
LB33 1 60s native-born African-American not given Calvin Jenkins
LB34 3
not
given not given White not given Nick Jenson

Page | 331

APPENDIX 1.3: MID-WILSHIRE

Code
Interview
Group Age
Native-born /
Immigrant
(country of
birth)
Ethnicity
(description of
nationality or
ethnicity if given)
Self-
identification Pseudonym
MW1 2
not
given not given White not given not given
MW2 1 40s
immigrant
(South Korea) Asian not given Min Young
MW3 1 40s
immigrant
(South Korea) Asian not given Hei Ryung Park
MW4 1 30s native-born White (Irish descent) not given not given
MW5 1 40s
immigrant
(Mexico) Latino (Mexico) not given not given
MW6 1 30s native-born White not given not given
MW7 1 40s native-born
White (US Jewish
White) not given
Courtney
Bateman
MW8 1 30s
immigrant
(Mexico) Latino (Mexico) not given not given
MW9 1 30s
immigrant
(South Korea) Asian (Korean) Michael So
MW10 1 70s native-born White not given Alison Haynes
MW11 1 30s native-born
African-American-
Latino not given Charlie Brooks
MW12 1 60s native-born White (Caucasian) not given Jenny Fellow
MW13 1 30s
immigrant
(The Philippines) Asian (Filipino)
"Filipino-
American
because I live in
the US but
Filipnio at
heart." Chloe Castillo
MW14 1 15-19 native-born
Latino (Mexican-
American)
"More Mexican
than
Guatemalan." Luciana Garcia
MW15 1 50s
immigrant
(The Philippines) Asian (Filipino)
"Naturalized
immigrant, US
Citizen and
Filipino." not given
MW16 1 30s
immigrant
(South Korea) Asian "I am Korean." Yumi Lee
MW17 1
late
20s native-born Asian (Filipino) "Citizen" Matthew Cruz
MW18 1
not
given not given White not given not given
MW19 2 60s native-born White not given not given
Page | 332

MW20 2 30s
immigrant
(South Korea) Asian (Korean)
"Bi-cultural,
bilingual, 1.5
generation,
America is
home. With
how I
look...Asian
American." Hannah Youn
MW21 2
not
given not given White not given not given
MW22 3 30s native-born White (USA) not given Marcus Kenny
MW23 2 30s
immigrant
(Mexico)
Latino (Mexican
Hispanic) not given Caleb Torres
MW24 1 60s native-born Asian
"Chinese-
American" Nancy Lau
MW25 2
not
given not given White not given Kelly Douglass
MW26 1 30s native-born African-American
"A dreamer,
wants to change
and grow,
women…I am a
Californian." Tania Johnson
MW27 1
not
given
immigrant
(Mexico) Latino
"I am an
immigrant." not given
MW28 1 15-19 native-born
Latino (Honduran
and Black) not given Eileen Corez
MW29 1 50s native-born African-American
"Angleno, part
of this
community." Mark Adams
MW30 2 30s
immigrant
(El Salvador)
Latino-White-
American Indian
(Salvadoran) not given Damien Torez
MW31 1 50s native-born White (American) not given Larry Gans
MW32 1 40s
immigrant
(South Korea) Asian (Korean)
"An American
because I was
educated here
and I know the
system." Liz Joo
MW33 1
early
20s native-born Latino (Mexico)
"Mexican
descent, semi-
American
culture." Lucas Alvarado
MW34 3
not
given not given African-American not given not given

Page | 333

APPENDIX 2: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS AND SURVEY

Interview Questions for Group 1

RESIDENTS INTRODUCTION BUSINESS OWNERS INTRODUCTION

1. Do you live in or near this area/neighborhood?

2. Where do you live? (STAR sticker)

3. Could you please draw the boundary of the
neighborhood from your point of view on this
map in yellow?

4. How long have you lived in this
area/neighborhood?

5. Where were you born and raised?

1. Do you live in or near this area/neighborhood?
Where do you live?

2. How long has your business been operating in
this area/city?

3. Could you locate your business with a (STAR
sticker)?

4. Could you please draw the boundary of the
neighborhood from your point of view on this
map in yellow?

5. Where were you born and raised?

INDIVIDUAL ROUTINE NEGOTIATIONS
(COGNITIVE MAPPING)

BUSINESS SPACE AS ROUTINE
NEGOTIATIONS

I would like to understand about your daily life and social
interactions in this neighborhood. Could you tell me a
little about this neighborhood and your routine living
here:

6. Is there much diversity among the people who
live in this neighborhood? Are they
concentrated in different areas of the
neighborhood? If so, could you mark for me on
the map in Orange the different concentrations?

7. Are there spaces you avoid? Could you show
me in PINK where these spaces are? Why?

8. Where do you go regularly i.e. at least once a
week? Could you mark the places with a BLUE
PEN and tell me
a. Who do you meet in these places?
b. How do you feel about your
encounters with the people in these
places?
c. Do you talk to the people you meet in
these places? What makes it difficult
to initiate conversations? Who are the
people you talk to? Why?
d. What do you talk about?

9. Do you have friends you visit in this
neighborhood? Could you mark for me where
they live and their ethnicity with a GREEN
PEN?
10. Who are your neighbors? Where do they come
from?
11. How would you describe your relationship
between you and your neighbors?

6. Why did you locate the business here?

7. Who are your customers? Have they changed?

8. Are your regulars made up of those who live or
work in San Marino? How do you tell?

9. Can you describe the type of contact your
customers have with one another?

10. How would you describe your relationship with
your customers?

11. What is the role your business and shop serve in
this neighborhood?

12. In your opinion, is this shop used as a place to
meet and to get to know neighbors of different
cultures and ethnicities living and working in
this neighborhood? How so? Why?

13. Has the neighborhood changed since you started
your business here?

14. If so, how has your business changed with the
neighborhood? Why?

15. Has it been hard to conduct business in a multi-
ethnic setting?

16. How have you catered to a more multi-ethnic
crowd? Staffing? Menu?

Page | 334

NEIGHBORHOOD LEVEL NEGOTIATIONS

NEIGHBORHOOD LEVEL NEGOTIATIONS
12. Is this neighborhood divided? How so? Why?

13. What issues do people care about and “fight
over” in this neighborhood?

14. Does the shared use of neighborhood space
cause friction? Which space? What type of use?

15. Has ethnicity/race come up as a point of
tension? What about immigrants?

16. Was your identity as an
IMMIGRANT/NATIVE ever been an issue
living in this neighborhood? Is it difficult to
integrate into this neighborhood? Have you ever
felt like an outsider in this neighborhood? Do
you feel like you belong in this neighborhood?
Elaborate.

17. Did you ever experience discrimination in this
neighborhood? If not, do you know of anyone
who may have? How do you feel about this?

17. What are business owners here concerned with?
What do they “fight over?”

18. Has ethnicity/race come up as a point of
tension? What about immigrants?

19. Was your identity as an
IMMIGRANT/NATIVE ever been an issue
living in this neighborhood? Is it difficult to
integrate into this neighborhood? Have you ever
felt like an outsider in this neighborhood? Do
you feel like you belong in this neighborhood?
Elaborate.

INTERCULTURAL UNDERSTANDING
STATUS AND OPPORTUNITIES

INTERCULTURAL UNDERSTANDING STATUS
AND OPPORTUNITIES

18. Do you think intercultural understanding is
lacking in this neighborhood? Why? (ICU
defined as engaging in mutual learning and
adaptation between different cultures and
ethnicities)

19. What forms of inter-cultural understanding
between neighbors who are ethnically/culturally
different can most improve relations in this
neighborhood?

20. How important is the neighborhood
PARK/LIBRARY/COMMUNITY CENTER as
a place for residents living in the neighborhood
to meet and get to know each other and their
different ethnic cultures? Why or why not?
Could you rank them with 1-3 (1 indicates the
best and 3 the least)?

21. Are there other places in or outside the
neighborhood that serve this purpose better?
Why? Could you mark for me in RED PEN the
places you think serve this purpose better?

22. How can neighborhood spaces be improved to
encourage relationship-building between
neighbors of different ethnicities?

20. Do you think intercultural understanding is
lacking in this neighborhood? Why? (ICU
defined as engaging in mutual learning and
adaptation between different cultures and
ethnicities)

21. What forms of inter-cultural understanding
between neighbors who are ethnically/culturally
different can most improve relations in this
neighborhood?

22. How important is the neighborhood
PARK/LIBRARY/COMMUNITY CENTER as
a place for residents living in the neighborhood
to meet and get to know each other and their
different ethnic cultures? Why or why not?
Could you rank them with 1-3 (1 indicates the
best and 3 the least)?

23. Are there other places in or outside the
neighborhood that serve this purpose better?
Why? Could you mark for me in RED PEN the
places you think serve this purpose better?

24. How can neighborhood spaces be improved to
encourage relationship-building between
neighbors of different ethnicities?

Interview Questions for Group 2 and Group 3
COMMUNITY ORGANIZERS (Group 2)
INTRODUCTION

MUNICIPAL OFFICERS (Group 3)
INTRODUCTION
1. Do you live in or near this area/neighborhood?

2. Could you please draw the boundary of the
neighborhood from your point of view on this
map in yellow?

3. How long have you worked lived in this
area/neighborhood?

1. Do you live in or near this area/neighborhood?

2. Could you please draw the boundary of the
neighborhood from your point of view on this
map in yellow?

3. How long have you worked lived in this
area/neighborhood?

INSTITUTIONAL ROUTINE NEGOTIATIONS INSTITUTIONAL ROUTINE NEGOTIATIONS

4. Is there much diversity among the people who
live in this neighborhood? Are they
concentrated in different areas of the
neighborhood? If so, could you mark for me on
the map in Orange the different concentrations?

5. What would you say are the major issues that
concern your organization in this
neighborhood? Why? Does the presence of
multiple ethnicities and cultures living in
proximity create unique challenges for the
neighborhood? Why?

6. How important is intercultural understanding as
a value and criterion in the plans and policies
for this neighborhood? (ICU defined as
engaging in mutual learning and adaptation
between different cultures and ethnicities)

7. How has the organization respond to the
presence of different ethnicities and cultures in
its programs?

4. Is there much diversity among the people who
live in this neighborhood? Are they
concentrated in different areas of the
neighborhood? If so, could you mark for me on
the map in Orange the different concentrations?

5. What would you say are the major issues that
concern municipal decision-makers (like
yourself) in this neighborhood? Why? Does the
presence of multiple ethnicities and cultures
living in proximity create unique challenges for
the neighborhood? Why?

6. What are the principles and values that guide
the planning of this neighborhood?

7. How important is intercultural understanding as
a value and criterion in the plans and policies
for this neighborhood? (ICU defined as
engaging in mutual learning and adaptation
between different cultures and ethnicities)

8. How does the city take into account the
intercultural interaction and understanding in:
a. its conception of plans and policies
for the neighborhood?
b. its planning and design of
neighborhood spaces?

9. Do you plan for neighborhood spaces to be used
to encourage intercultural understanding? If you
don’t and you need to, how would you do so?

NEIGHBORHOOD LEVEL NEGOTIATIONS NEIGHBORHOOD LEVEL NEGOTIATIONS

8. Is the neighborhood divided? How so? Why?

9. What issues do people living and working in
this neighborhood care about and “fight over?”
Why?

10. Does the shared use of neighborhood space
cause friction? Which space? What type of use?
Why?

10. Is the neighborhood divided? How so? Why?

11. What issues do people living and working in
this neighborhood care about and “fight over?”
Why?

12. Does the shared use of neighborhood space
cause friction? Which space? What type of use?
Why?

11. Has ethnicity/race come up as a point of
tension? What about immigrants?

12. Have there been any reports of discrimination
or hate crimes?

13. Was identity of IMMIGRANT-NATIVE ever
been an issue in this neighborhood? Is it
difficult to integrate into this neighborhood?
Does the neighborhood face concerns of who
belongs and who does not e.g. insider-outsider?

13. Has ethnicity/race come up as a point of
tension? What about immigrants?

14. Have there been any reports of discrimination
or hate crimes?

15. Was identity of IMMIGRANT-NATIVE ever
been an issue in this neighborhood? Is it
difficult to integrate into this neighborhood?
Does the neighborhood face concerns of who
belongs and who does not e.g. insider-outsider?

16. In your opinion, Why do you think this is the
case? How may they be resolved? Has the city
taken any action toward that end?

INTERCULTURAL UNDERSTANDING
STATUS AND OPPORTUNITIES

INTERCULTURAL UNDERSTANDING
STATUS AND OPPORTUNITIES

14. Do you think intercultural understanding is
lacking in this neighborhood? Why? (ICU
defined as engaging in mutual learning and
adaptation between different cultures and
ethnicities)

15. What forms of inter-cultural understanding
between neighbors who are ethnic culturally
different can most improve relations in this
neighborhood?

16. How important is the neighborhood
PARK/LIBRARY/COMMUNITY CENTER as
a place for residents living in the neighborhood
to meet and get to know each other and their
different ethnic cultures? Why or why not?
Could you rank them with 1-3 (1 indicates the
best and 3 the least)?

17. Are there other places in or outside the
neighborhood that serve this purpose better?
Why? Could you mark for me with a RED PEN
the places you think serve this purpose better?

18. How can neighborhood spaces be improved to
encourage relationship-building between
neighbors of different ethnicities?

17. Do you think intercultural understanding is
lacking in this neighborhood? Why? (ICU
defined as engaging in mutual learning and
adaptation between different cultures and
ethnicities)

18. What forms of inter-cultural understanding
between neighbors who are ethnic culturally
different can most improve relations in this
neighborhood?

19. How do existing neighborhood spaces
(PARK/LIBRARY/COMMUNITY CENTER)
support intercultural understanding between
neighbors?

20. In order of importance, can you indicate which
of these civic spaces serve the goal of
intercultural understanding best? (1 indicates
best, and 3 the least)?

21. Are there other places in or outside the
neighborhood that serve this purpose better?
Why? Could you mark for me in RED PEN the
places you think serve this purpose better?

22. How can neighborhood spaces be improved to
encourage relationship-building between
neighbors of different ethnicities?

A: SHORT SURVEY ON NEIGHBORHOOD SPACE

1. Where in the neighborhood are you likely to start a conversation with a neighbor (a fellow resident of this
neighborhood)? Please rank only spaces that apply
(1 for most likely, 2 for less, 3 for lesser, 4, 5, 6…).

Neighborhood Space Person you
recognize/seen before
Person you are
meeting for the first
time
Name of place
(please state, if possible)
Park
Library
Recreation center
Neighborhood Cafes
Neighborhood
Restaurants

Grocery Stores
Church/Temples
/Mosques

Community events
Block parties
Sports Events
Museum/Exhibits
Sidewalks
Others:

Now consider a neighbor of another ethnicity/nationality:
2. Where is a good place to have conversations that can lead to inter-cultural understanding? Please rank only
spaces that apply (1 for most likely, 2 for less, 3 for lesser, 4, 5, 6…).

Neighborhood Space Person you
recognize/seen before
Person you are
meeting for the first
time
Name of place
(please state, if possible)
Invite them home

Park
Library
Recreation center
Neighborhood Cafes
Neighborhood
Restaurants

Grocery Stores
Church/Temples
/Mosques

Community events
Block parties
Sports Events
Museum/Exhibits
Sidewalks
Others:

Consider neighbors of different ethnicities/nationalities who you may recognize but not know each other:
3. What are the qualities of a public space that can encourage deeper contact and inter-cultural
understanding between them?

Qualities Please rank the
qualities that apply
(1 for most
important)
Description, if any
Safety

Quiet

Organized programs for the
public

Spacious

Accessible spaces

Common Activities

A Neutral Space i.e. not
belonging to any groups

Others (please state):

4. If you get an opportunity to meet and get to know a neighbor of another ethnicity/nationality, what would
you like to know about him/her?

Qualities Please rank the
qualities that apply
(1 for most
important)
Description, if any
Cuisine

Philosophy to raise children

Religious Views

Neighborly
expectations

Customs

Background of Person (e.g. who
they are, what they do, why they
are here? etc)

Others (please state):

B: DEMOGRAPHY
Would you mind spending the next 2 minutes answering the questions below? Please check what describes
you best.
Your Gender:
Male
Female

Your Age (years):
15-19
20-24
25-29
30-39
40-49
50-59
60-69
70-79
80 and above

Education
No schooling
Nursery to 4
th
grade
5
th
to 10
th
grade
11
th
to 12
th
grade
High School Graduate
Some college
Bachelor’s Degree
Master’s Degree
Professional school
Doctorate degree

How many children do you have?
0
1-2
3-5
6 and more

How long have you lived in the United States?
Born and Raised
Less than 1 year
1 - 5 years
6 - 10 years
11 - 15 years
16 - 20 years
21 years and more

Your ethnicity/race and nationality (Check all that apply):
Race Categories Check Nationality and Ethnicity (please
state)
Hispanic or Latino
White
Black or African
American Indian and
Alaska Native

Asian
Native Hawaiian and
Other Pacific Islanders

Middle Eastern
Other ethnicity/race
(please state):

Are you a:
Description Check How long have you lived at the
current address?
Renter
Homeowner

What language/s do you use to interact with your neighbors?
English
Cantonese
Chinese
Hindi
Khmer
Korean
Spanish
Taiwanese
Tamil
Thai
Vietnamese
Others:

……..THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR TIME!……….

Would you like to be contacted for future interviews? If so, please leave your name, and a way to contact you
(either email address or phone number):

Abstract (if available)

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University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

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Asset Metadata

Creator Chan, Felicity Hwee-Hwa (author)

Core Title Shades of conflict and conviviality: negotiating intercultural living and integration in Los Angeles's globalizing multi-ethnic spaces

School School of Policy, Planning and Development

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Policy, Planning, and Development

Publication Date 09/04/2013

Defense Date 04/29/2013

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Boundaries,Central Long Beach,conviviality,everyday integration,globalizing,intercultural understanding,Lefebvre,Los Angeles,Mid-Wilshire,multi-ethnic spaces,OAI-PMH Harvest,public space,San Marino,sharing space,tensions of diversity,territories

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Banerjee, Tridib K. (committee chair), Hoskins, Janet A. (committee member), Myers, Dowell (committee member), Renteln, Alison Dundes (committee member)

Creator Email felicityhh@gmail.com,hweehwac@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-291486

Unique identifier UC11288155

Identifier etd-ChanFelici-1786.pdf (filename),usctheses-c3-291486 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-ChanFelici-1786.pdf

Dmrecord 291486

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Chan, Felicity Hwee-Hwa

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA