Interethnic Minority Conflict in Urban America: The Effects of Economic and Social Dislocations

This paper draws attention to a newly emerging type of intergroup conflict occurring among members of nonwhite ethnic minority groups (i.e., blacks, Hispanics, and Asians) in U.S. cities. Case-study materials from Los Angeles and other large cities are used to establish interconnections among the underlying economic and sociopolitical forces and to show how these forces have precipitated specific instances of interethnic conflict over housing jobs, and other valued resources in formerly all-black urban communities. The results indicate that the occurrence of interethnic minority conflict in most US. cities has been limited to isolated incidents involving hostile verbal exchanges and group-based protest and boycotts by blacks against newly arriving immigrant entrepreneurs. Most recently, however, interethnic minority conflict in Miami became violent following the deaths of two black youths at the hands of a Hispanic police officer. It is concluded that the potential is great for interethnic minority conflict to intensify and to expand in the near future, largely because little attention is being given to the underlying precipitants.