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Volume eight of Research in Urban Sociology focused on race and ethnicity in New York City. Our original idea when planning that volume was to contrast the ethnic landscape of New York City with that of Los Angeles, and to suggest that while the outpouring of studies from the Los Angeles School proclaims that Los Angeles is different from other cities – and thus is a signifier of the metropolis of the future – the creation of new ethnic landscapes is hardly limited to Los Angeles. Indeed, there is a rich history of both older and newer scholarship concerning ethnic communities in New York City, and we sought to update both the research and to offer a point of comparison between the studies of Los Angeles and other cities.

Dominant in the urban sociology literature on immigrant incorporation is the role of ethnic enclaves – ethnic neighborhoods that provide a “port of entry” or “context of reception” and help facilitate incorporation in the host society by generating informal resources, networks, and institutions that provide linguistic and cultural services and products (Portes & Rumbaut, 1990). While New York City's stature as a global city is replete with nostalgia about historic ethnic immigrant neighborhoods, contemporary immigrant settlement is once again transforming urban landscapes not only by renewing enclave formations but by creating numerous multiethnic, multiracial neighborhoods (Hum, 2004). As often cited, in no other historic period has New York City received as diverse a range of people from all over the world – certainly, this diversity is reshaping local neighborhood landscapes.

Some chapters provide us with a snapshot (intentional) of ethnic community across the city. Others look closely at a particular place. Still others look across the whole ethnic landscape of the city. Neither individually nor as a whole collection do they form a complete picture. But perhaps because they are so eclectic maybe they form a challenge to urban sociology to exam not just macro level change in urban form and metropolitan space, but to apply other methodologies to better understand the increasingly complex, unfocused mosaic of social worlds in the American city.

Since the early 1990s, I have conducted fieldwork in the Bolivian city of El Alto, investigating the effects of urbanization on Aymara migrants who move from the countryside (campo) to the capital in search of employment, education, and a better life. El Alto is perched above La Paz, spreading out across the high plain (Altiplano) and increasing in size by nearly 10% each year. Although neighborhoods (barrios) in El Alto are often defined by geographic boundaries and population density, I argue that the concept of community is based upon trust (confianza). In El Alto, one's lineage eclipses heritage, as residents are more apt to define their “community” as those they trust rather than those who live near them or friends from the campo. For two years, I lived with Alvaro and his extended family at the periphery of El Alto, in the barrio of Huayna Potosí. Over time, he introduced me to other migrants, such as Teófilo, Pablo, and Marcelo, and their families, each of whom originated from different provinces near Lake Titicaca. In essence, migrants have similar bucolic backgrounds and skills which they implement in the city in order to survive, heightening competition for employment and suspicion between neighbors.

This paper contributes to the analysis of the relationship between sociological discourse on ethnic relations and social changes produced by immigration in Italy. It is organized in three parts. The first part investigates the reasons that until recently prevented European and Italian academic debate from using the concept of ethnic minority to analyze international migration.

Ever since Robert Ezra Park and Ernest Burgess published their classic research on Chicago which described “how” residential neighborhoods follow a distinct ecological pattern, generations of urban practitioners and theoreticians have been arguing about “why” they are spatially distributed. This essay is designed to demonstrate the utility of Visual Sociology and the study of Vernacular Landscapes to document and analyze how the built environment reflects the changing cultural identities of neighborhood residents. It is strongly suggested that a visual approach can also help build a bridge between various theoretical and applied disciplines that focus on the form and function of the metropolis. While discussing some of these often-competing models, the text is illustrated by a selection of photographs taken in Brooklyn, New York whose neighborhoods over the past century have been a virtual Roman fountain of ethnic transitions. Although many of the oldest and newest residents of Brooklyn such as Chinese, Italians, Jews, and Poles would be familiar to Park and Burgess, others such as Bangladeshis, Egyptians, and Koreans would not. Ideas about Old and New cities from the “classical” to the “post-modern”; from Park and Burgess to Harvey and Lefebvre are also synthesized via the insights of J. B. Jackson.

Some theories about urban ethnics are synthesized here by looking at “ethnic vernacular landscapes.” Since 1965, the diversity of American cities has drastically changed. It might appear at first glance that the new elements are blending together, but a closer look reveals a complex multicultural mosaic. In the wake of the 21st century, new and old ethnic landscapes co-exist, overlap, and compete with one another, and in the process they define the essence of the new American city. A visual approach can be an important tool in studying this complex and rapidly changing social reality.

The racial diversity of the Caribbean stemmed directly from the historical processes of colonialism, imperialism, slavery, and indentureship. Since the early 17th century, slaves have been imported from Africa to work in the Caribbean. In the British West Indies, slavery was abolished in 1834 but these African slaves worked on the sugar estates until the apprenticeship was abolished on August 1, 1838. Even before 1838, planters frequently complained of labor shortages and appealed to Britain for the approval of imported labor. Thus, there were attempts by the planters in colonies, such as Trinidad, to introduce Chinese labor to the plantations. As early as 1806, there was the importation of 192 Chinese from Macao and Penang into Trinidad. However, this experiment soon failed. In 1834 and 1839, laborers from Portugal were imported into Trinidad. This soon ended as Portuguese workers could not withstand the rigorous conditions of the contract labor system.