Justin Koga

In April 2020, the Rights Writers were asked what perspectives have been left out of the major debates on their topic, and how would including them increase understanding or contribute to progress on this issue.

In my previous blogs, I described how ethnic enclaves could serve as protective mechanisms for immigrants around the world. These enclaves provide some of the most vulnerable populations with social and economic support with the insulation of ethnically homogeneous neighbors, local businesses, and other cultural features that ease immigrants’ transition into their host countries. They are seen as safe spaces that could simultaneously ensure the protection of an ethnic group’s human rights while also providing value to its local governing body. While ethnic enclaves aren’t perfect, where in some cases they’re seen as places that stunt immigrants’ ability to assimilate into their local societies, they provide crucial economic stability to the populations in question.

Although I’ve covered a breadth of focuses in my research, I found that the major debates surrounding my topic haven’t been able to successfully quantify the ethnic enclaves’ impact on undocumented immigrants. This is largely due to the fact that most statistics about the undocumented immigrants who reside in ethnic enclaves are (very understandably) “off the book”. As a result, there is no way to truly encapsulate the unique experiences of ethnic enclaves’ undocumented inhabitants. This inhibits our current ability to fully analyze their aggregate long term outcomes in relation to economic trends of documented immigrants living in the enclaves, and other quantifiable data. Although I don’t have a solution for this gap in information, I can see the temporal relevance in analyzing undocumented immigrants within ethnic enclaves especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. In a time where most citizens are extremely vulnerable to the combined health, social, and economic effects of COVID-19, one can only imagine the toll that the pandemic would have on undocumented immigrants, even if they have the social protection of living within an ethnic enclave.

I think that the most difficult part about reconciling with the harsh reality of COVID-19, is knowing that the effects of the virus itself and the ensuing turmoil will devastate many families for years to come. Just in the month of March, the U.S. unemployment rate rose by almost 1 percentage point to 4.4 percent. To put things into perspective, this is the largest over-the-month increase in the unemployment rate since January of 1975; over 5.7 million jobs were lost over the course of last month. While this has left many people at risk, the population that I’m very concerned about are the undocumented immigrants who don’t have an economic safety net that many unemployed Americans rely on (unemployment rate numbers don’t factor in undocumented workers). A large majority of this population does not have access to government welfare benefits such as food stamps and social security. Instead, many families’ well-being depends on their ability to earn a constant revenue stream through work. And in many cases, their work has been taken away from them.

For example, while an ethnic enclave may provide an ethnic immigrant population with a certain amount of insulation from society, these benefits may be miniscule compared to the economic and social hurdles that documented and undocumented immigrants have to overcome in order to survive. In the case of Long Beach, CA, which is home to the Cambodian ethnic enclave Cambodia Town, immigrants tended to concentrate in industries such as: maids and cleaners, cooks, and production workers. With the advent of COVID-19, many of these jobs that were occupied by immigrants who lived in these ethnic enclaves were deemed “non-essential,” and therefore either furloughed or laid off. Undocumented immigrants who had work in these sectors would not only lose their jobs, but also be unable to file for any unemployment insurance or government safety net such as welfare or the newly passed stimulus plan, the CARES Act. At the same time, many workers in jobs such as janitorial services, food service, and agriculture are deemed “essential,” yet those jobs typically do not provide benefits that would help them overcome the sheer disruption caused by COVID-19.

Ultimately, this time will shed a new light on the discussion surrounding human rights and the country’s undocumented populations. I believe that the U.S. has an ethical obligation to support its “residents,” but simultaneously, it has an obligation to serve its citizens first and enforce its laws. In the case of COVID-19, here’s the dilemma. Yes, we must exercise social distancing, the closure of “non-essential” businesses, and any preventative measure to put an end to COVID-19. But at the same time, the longer we wait, more people will be out of jobs and may suffer from devastating economic consequences. In order to protect the human rights of undocumented immigrants across the nation, regardless of whether they reside in ethnic enclaves or not, there needs to be a mutual effort between policy makers and local economic drivers to protect the unprotected; something that can be achieved with more empathetic decision-making that doesn’t rely solely on partisan or economic agendas.

Looking at a more long-term approach, I believe that our current crisis will transform our way of thinking about this debate. Discussions surrounding human rights as they relate to our moral and ethical obligation to ensure the wellbeing of people will transcend all economic and judicial motives. Ultimately, instead of rationalizing decisions that place things before the wellbeing of people, we should ask ourselves, “what ought we do” to make the world a better place for mankind.

In February, 2020 the Rights Writers were asked to discuss how a topic has evolved throughout the past decade (2010-now) and look at the issues that have changed significantly during this time period and how these recent changes have affected current approaches to this topic from governmental and non-governmental actors.

One of the foremost topics that dominates the human rights discussion today surrounds refugee migration and how countries are developing new policies to successfully integrate their refugees into local society. According to the UNHCR Global Trends Report released in June 2019, over 25.9 million people were forcibly displaced from their homes and categorized as refugees; 57% of them came from the developing nations Syria, Afghanistan, South Sudan, and Somalia. In a study conducted by Francesco Fasani of Queen Mary University, in 2015 alone, Europe received a total of over 1.5 million asylum applications; a figure which has doubled since 1992.

It’s widely known that refugees face the challenge of integrating into their local host societies because of numerous sociocultural and economic incongruities; many of which can severely impact the refugees’ access to basic human rights. Unsuccessful integration could lead to suboptimal outcomes for refugees and may drive them into a state of further poverty or even compel them to return back to the homes they initially sought refuge from. In light of this, just within the past decade, many European countries have been reconsidering their refugee policies and some have instituted placement systems to help their refugee populations to integrate into their local societies. These placement systems would assign residential locations (according to skills and trades) to refugees as they arrive in order to help restore their economic and social dignity from displacement as quickly as possible. Contemporary studies have found that the refugees who settled in areas with higher numbers of co-nationals had much more robust socioeconomic integration than in areas with a more heterogeneous mix of ethnicities. In fact, for those who settled into neighborhoods with an expansive network of co-nationals, ethnic enclaves, researchers found that this provided refugees with the economic security and stability that they so desperately needed. In my blog, while I lay out case studies that advocate the merit of ethnic enclaves in the refugee integration discussion, I understand that the current literature regarding this issue is divided.

Until recently, ethnic enclaves have not been seen favorably as a viable way for displaced people to integrate into their host nations. In fact, many countries sought to prevent ethnic enclaves from forming in the first place. For example, in 1975, the United States, having experienced the negative effects of the agglomeration pre-Mariel Cuban refugees in Miami ten years prior, used a revised policy scheme to integrate over 130,000 refugees from South Vietnam into their society (the main impetus for this measure were studies that claimed that immigrants in enclaves didn’t socio-linguistically assimilate). Instead of concentrating the Vietnamese into a single location, like the Cuban ethnic enclave in Miami in the 1960s, the United States government as well as different economist voluntary agencies dispersed the Vietnamese across the country. New Orleans, Oklahoma City, Galveston, and Kansas City were all places that received some of their first Asian immigrants from this placement program. Germany had a similar dispersal program for its refugees that was founded on studies that showed that the long-term success rate of economic integration through ethnic enclaves was not successful in the long-run, suggesting that enclaves actually negatively affected wages. Although dispersion policies have been the overwhelming precedent for refugee integration since the 1950s, new studies from this decade have suggested the merits of the exogenous placement of refugees into ethnic enclaves as an effective means of long-term integration.

Recent studies that cover the effects of the exogenous placement of refugees by the government, most notably in Switzerland, Denmark, and Sweden, have discovered new positive correlations that are informing today’s refugee integration debate. A 2019 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences analyzed the effects of ethnic enclaves on the employment outcome of refugees by using Switzerlands’ placement program for recently arrived refugees. This program allowed the researchers involved in the policy to study the socioeconomic outcomes of government-placed refugees and non-refugee immigrants who chose to settle in ethnic enclaves. The study found that carefully matching refugees with ethnic enclaves across the country actually increased the refugees’ probability of employment in Switzerland. Sweden and Denmark have used a similar placement strategy for refugees. According to current economic literature, in Sweden, a one standard deviation increase in an area’s ethnic enclave population caused a 13 percent increase in the earnings for low-skilled refugees of the same ethnicity placed in the area by the government. Similarly, in Denmark, a study found that the results of its exogenous refugee-placement program stated that “7 years after immigration, refugees who lived in an ethnic enclave earned substantially more than non-enclave members;” a figure that indicated a positive trend towards increased income security for refugees within ethnic enclaves. Additionally, this same study found that as the ethnic enclaves increase in size due to the influx of ethnically similar refugees, overall annual earnings increased by over 18 percent and members of that community become more knowledgeable of the job information available to them. Because of the economic gains from refugees who eventually settled into ethnic enclaves within their host country’s society, this provided the refugees with an increased flexibility to either stay and thrive in their host country or choose to restart their lives back at home.

Although the literature is mixed regarding ethnic enclaves and their viability towards successful refugee integration, new studies provide robust evidence that discusses the economic benefits of integration; something that ultimately increases their livelihood. As conflict, political turmoil, and environmental factors continue to displace thousands of people global actors will increasingly need to find ways to effectively incorporate their refugee populations into their local societies. Ethnic enclaves have reemerged within the past decade as one of these “viable” solutions as countries continue to seek sustainable and speedy methods to integrate their exponentially-increasing numbers refugees.

In December 2019, the Rights Writers introduced themselves and their general topic – who are the key actors, what are their goals/incentives, and what are the main debates? (How does the topic relate to human rights specifically?)

“Either they don’t know, don’t show, or don’t care about what’s going on in the hood.”

– Doughboy in Boyz-N-The-Hood

I remember feeling very unsettled after watching Spike Lee’s, Boyz-N-The-Hood. In his social commentary film, Lee masterfully depicts how African Americans who live in the ethnic enclave of Crenshaw South Los Angeles are adversely affected by multiple dimensions of structural inequalities. Despite overcoming extraordinary obstacles to ascend the socioeconomic ladder of American society, these structural inequalities prevent members of this community from leaving the rough conditions of their neighborhood and ultimately inhibit their right to seek a safe place to live. Currently, this harsh reality of Crenshaw persists today, and is the aftermath of years of racially restrictive housing covenants and invasive gentrification that transformed the district into an ethnically homogeneous enclave with deeply rooted racialized problems. The African American population living in this area didn’t voluntarily converge onto this location, rather they were relegated to these conditions through historically oppressive municipal policies.

As a Public Policy major, I’ve seen many instances of state policy, created by the majority population in power, that have contributed to an inequality of outcomes for ethnic minorities. My topic in particular revolves around the ethnic enclave and how it provides a setting for minority populations to either successfully integrate and assimilate into society or have their rights infringed upon, or both. The question is, how do specific ethnic enclaves like the African American-majority Crenshaw come to exist? Under what circumstances do we see people forming into ethnically homogeneous groups in the first place? And what do affiliations with these groups mean for the preservation of or infringement on human rights of a given community?

Ethnic enclaves by definition are neighborhoods in cities that have a high concentration of people from a similar ethnic background. The term “ethnic enclave” was coined in the 1980s in response to literature surrounding the rise of Cuban immigrant labor markets in Miami following the Mariel boatlift. Given the current literature, there seem to be two common trajectories that lead to the formation of ethnic enclaves: minority groups may be geographically marginalized by the ruling majorities or they can choose to congregate for purposes of solidarity, economic incentive, and even self-defense. In each of these instances, minority groups may experience socio-cultural success or disadvantage as a result of their membership in ethnic enclaves.

In many cases, ethnic enclaves can be seen as success models where they offer ways for new immigrants to assimilate and integrate into society. For example, in the United States, immigrants would arrive in the country and voluntarily settle in an area that was inhabited by their kinship network (friends and family). Places like the Lower East Side of Manhattan grew into communities composed of an ethnic (Jewish) majority and provided its residents with social capital and the benefits of insulation from membership in a culturally and ethnically homogeneous group. The immediate advantages of being in a large community would include robust economic networks and greater bargaining power when negotiating individual or collective rights outside of the ethnic enclave.

Additionally, ethnic enclaves could simultaneously ensure the protection of an ethnic group’s human rights while also providing value to its local governing body. In the historical case of the Jewish Venetian Ghetto during the 15th century, this marked a relatively placid time for the Jewish people, in which the Ghetto (government partitioned ethnic enclave) served as a place where they could fit into society and steadily adopt Italian culture. Separation from the rest of the population wasn’t necessarily a means to punish them, rather it helped fortify Venetian rule by providing a way for the government to control non-Italian subjects. The Venetian Government viewed the Jewish population as a net-positive because they specialized in skills that offered benefits to the social and economic interests of the city; the Jews provided financial services for Venetian merchants and business owners.

However, conversely, this begs the question: what happens to ethnic minorities in enclaves when they are not viewed favorably by the government? In many cases, ethnic enclaves may not offer a safe-haven to ethnic minorities who don’t conform to the value-normative expectations determined by the majority population. As a result, countless ethnic groups with minority statuses have historically been both excluded from integrated political life and geographically marginalized by the ruling majorities. Racially biased public policies may create multiple economic, political, and social disparities between the civil rights granted to citizens of the state and the human rights outcomes that they experience in everyday life. Questions that we may ask are: How might governments justify their monopoly of power to subject a certain group of people to subpar conditions? Also, how can we in the future provide a framework to prevent such circumstances from happening?

In my ensuing blogs, I hope to answer some of these questions by analyzing contemporary public policy frameworks for ethnic enclaves, as well looking at historical precedents for possible connections. With the Global Human Rights Scholars program, I look forward to uniting my knowledge of public policy and love for history by exploring the topic of ethnic enclaves.