Ethnic Succession from
Japanese American to Mexican Immigrant
Labor in Southern California’s Suburban
Maintenance Gardening Sector
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
Findings: My analysis of SCGF’s
Background: For generations, the • 
archives, including board meeting
ownership of small suburban
minutes and 500+ issues of its inmaintenance gardening
house monthly newsletter, suggests
businesses has facilitated the
that upward socioeconomic mobility
economic integration of
among self-employed Japanese
immigrants in Southern California.
American
gardeners
and
their
In the early to mid-twentieth
children,
particularly
during
the
century, this occupational niche
1960s
and
1970s,
led
to
their
was filled primarily by first
abandonment
of
this
line
of
work.
generation Japanese immigrant
• 
Crucially, this development
men (Issei) and their U.S.-born
coincided with an increase in the
sons (Nisei).
number
of
Mexican
immigrants,
Presently, suburban maintenance
many
of
whom
were
attracted
to
gardening is dominated by wellgardening
work
because
of
their
established Mexican immigrant
rural
backgrounds.
worker-entrepreneurs, who employ
a workforce of more recently
arrived Latino immigrant laborers
(Ramírez and Hondagneu-Sotelo
2009).
Research Question: How, and
why, did ethnic succession occur
in Southern California’s suburban
maintenance gardening niche?
A group of Japanese American Gardeners, Los Angeles, 1960
Methods: During the summer of
2012, I conducted archival
• 
Next step: I currently have a book
proposal under review (UC Press),
research in Los Angeles, at the
which includes a chapter devoted to
Little Tokyo headquarters of the
Southern California Gardeners
these historical events.
Federation (SCGF).
Hernán Ramírez, PhD
Assistant Professor, FSU Sociology Department
[email protected]