Black and Latino neighborhoods were far more segregated than white ethnic enclaves

Evidence

Already in 1940 ethnic white neighborhoods were far from uniform in their ethnic composition. Neighborhoods in which blacks or Latinos lived tended much more to be overwhelmingly black and Latino. Identifiably “Irish” areas of cities included just 3 percent of the total Irish population, and most of New York’s Italians did not live in Little Italy, for instance. By contrast, 93 percent of blacks lived in neighborhoods that in the categorical formation of race in the United States can be characterized as majority black. The construction and containment of Chinatowns within major metropolitan centers at precisely the same time reinforces the ethnoracial logic at work here. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 368

Categorization

• XREF: Contradicts the common ‘immigrant enclave’ narrative where ethnic ghettos are presented as equally segregated; speaks to the melting-pot myth Debates around assimilation. — connects to: Neighborhoods isolated from city and white support could not sustain segregation — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 222