Immigrant incorporation in the garment industry of Los Angeles

Stressing the network's facilitation of immigrants' searches for jobs and h ousing, migration network theory has conceptually overlooked the social net works also expand the supply of jobs and housing in target destinations by means of the ethnic economy. An expanded migration network theory takes int o account the ethnic economy's role in creating new resources in the destin ation economy. However, the power of this objection wanes in the context of working-class immigrations that generate few entrepreneurs. Introduced her e, the concept of immigrant economy responds to this contingency. Unlike et hnic economies, in which co-ethnics hire co-ethnics, immigrant economies ar ise when immigrants hire non-co-ethnic fellow immigrants. This situation us ually arises when very entrepreneurial immigrant groups coexist in a labor market with working-class immigrant groups that generate few entrepreneurs of their own. Using evidence from the garment industry of Los Angeles, this paper estimates that only a third of immigrant employees found their jobs in a conventional ethnic economy. Half owed their employment to the immigra nt economy in which, for the most part, Asian entrepreneurs employed Latino workers.