Making Parishes Mexican

In the 1950s Mexicans moved into Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood, which had thirteen mostly Slavic parishes. The ensuing ethnic succession challenges the expected narrative of “white flight.” Catholicism offered common ground: the desire to maintain parish structures explains European Americans’ willingness to live and worship with Mexican newcomers. Mexican Americans and immigrants faced slights in the pews and at parochial schools, but parishes transitioned from exclusively European American ethnic enclaves to shared congregations. After 1960 some priests added Spanish Masses and celebrated the Virgin of Guadalupe’s feast day, opening the way to Mexican religious devotion. Mexican laypeople, bolstered by Cursillo training, worked with those clergy who acknowledged their distinct needs and strengths. Together they made the parishes Mexican.

Chicago Católico

This book uses the Catholic parish to view Mexican immigration and ethnicity in the United States with a focus on Chicago. For Mexican immigrants, the parish had an Americanizing influence on its members. At the same time, many Mexican Americans gained a sense of mexicanidad by participating in the parish’s religious and social events. This process of building a Mexican identity and community in Chicago began in the 1920s. The first parishes served as refuges and as centers of community and identity. Mexicans fiercely attached themselves to specific parishes in Chicago, much like European American groups before them. The book explores how Chicago’s expanding Mexican Catholic population, contained in just two parishes prior to 1960, reshaped dozens of parishes and entire neighborhoods. The laity, often with Spanish-speaking clergy, made these parishes Mexican. The third largest archdiocese in the United States has, in many ways, become “Chicago católico,” a place where religious devotions hold sway well beyond church doors. With its century-old Mexican population, Chicago presaged a national trend. Today Latinos comprise 17 percent of the US population. This book’s parish-level research offers historic lessons for myriad communities currently undergoing ethnic succession and integration around the nation.

A Successive Threat Theory of Police Expenditures

Ethnic succession theory is concerned with the process and consequences of racial and ethnic migration into and out of cities. Minority threat theory is a branch of conflict theory that is concerned with the extent to which racial and ethnic minorities are perceived as threatening to the powerful. In this article, we propose a blend of these theories called successive threat theory which posits that racial and ethnic groups are perceived as threatening when they first move into a city, but as they assimilate, the perceived threat dissipates. The primary contribution of this theory is the previously undeveloped and untested notion that different minority groups may serve as threats in different time periods. Using time series analysis of annual data on Chicago from 1893 to 1965, we find support for the theory.

Explaining Organized Crime

This chapter reviews the theoretical underpinnings of the alien conspiracy and ethnic succession theories as explanations for the emergence and continuation of organized crime in American society. It first considers the arguments of the alien conspiracy theory, as well as the cultural deviance theory upon which it is based, before discussing the claims of the social disorganization theory as the basis of the ethnic succession theory. The chapter also examines the theories of human ecology, cultural transmission, and differential social organization, along with delinquency theories and their relation to organized crime, with particular emphasis on recruitment issues. Finally, the chapter looks at the relationship between Gerald Suttles's conceptualization of the defended neighborhood and racket subcultures.

Conclusion

This book has has argued that traditional organized crime in America is directly related to the social conditions that were found in American society during the early years of the twentieth century, rather than the result of a transplanted Sicilian Mafia as claimed by the alien conspiracy theory. Additional evidence against the alien conspiracy thesis comes from sociologist William Chambliss's study of “Rainfall West,” a pseudonym given to the city of Seattle. This concluding chapter first considers the arguments of ethnic succession theory before discussing racket subcultures and street crew neighborhoods and how the failure of social control allowed organized crime to develop further. It asserts that organized crime in Chicago was not related to the emergence of the Sicilian Mafia but was the product of America's disorganized urban areas. It also highlights the importance of community social structure for recruitment issues and the influence of differentially organized community areas for the development and continuation of organized crime in Chicago.

Introduction

The field of immigration and ethnic history has changed over the years to include previously neglected topics such as gender and race as well as newer immigrant groups. This Handbook introduction lays out the book’s focus and suggests that many new questions in regard to assimilation, nativism, group identity, panethnicity, and ethnic succession, among others, can be asked to help clarify and understand this history. Essay authors from the disciplines of history, political science, sociology, linguistics, and film studies develop fresh models for comprehending contemporary America. For example, relatively new religious groups, new forms of immigrant communication, a resurgent nativism are all evident in present times. Contributors were also requested to propose future research needed and to present their thoughts about where the field seems to be heading.

Immigration, Ethnicity, Race, and Organized Crime

How immigration and ethnicity shaped delinquent youth groups (gangs) and adult organized crime syndicates (mobs) is examined. Ethnicity has played a key role in these organizations. Gangs and mobs used ethnic ties as an organizing principle to foster trust in their illicit activities. Scholars have usually applied the theory of ethnic succession to account for the changes in supremacy over the informal economy. Yet scholars have attached too much importance to the ethnic succession theory. To fully understand the underworld, scholars need to recognize interethnic cooperation, the persistence of class, and the rewards of whiteness.