IMMIGRATION REFORM AND THE BROWNING OF AMERICA - TENSIONS, CONFLICTS AND COMMUNITY INSTABILITY IN METROPOLITAN LOS-ANGELES

Tensions, conflicts, and community instability associated with heighte ned immigration - especially of nonwhite immigrant: groups - threaten to balkanize America. This article highlights the root causes of the g rowing opposition to both immigrants and U.S. immigration policy - the nativist backlash, presents a typology of the community-level conflic ts that have arisen as a consequence of heightened immigration - legal and illegal - to the United States over the last 30 years, and outlin es the conditions under which diversity can be brought to the forefron t as one of society's strengths.