The bright side of the 1980s, or the "Hispanic decade," as it was dubbed early on, may ironically turn out to be the detail and sophistication with which the economic and social reversals affecting most Latinos in this period have been tracked, with a fresh cohort of Latino scholars playing an increasingly prominent role in this endeavor. As this volume conveys, these analyses are steadily probing more deeply into the fine grain of the processes bearing on the social conditions of U. S. Latinos and particularly into the diversity of the experiences of the several Latino-origin nationalities until recently generally treated in the aggre gate as "Hispanics. " Though still fragmented and tentative in perspective, as are the disciplines on which they draw and the research apparatus on which they rest, the quest among these new voices for a unifying perspective also comes across in this collection of essays. There is manifestly more under way here than a simple demand for inclusion of neglected instances on the margin of supposedly well understood larger or "mainstream" dynamics. The 1990s open with a more confident assertion of the centrality of the Latino presence and Latino actors in the overarching transformations reshaping U. S. society, and especially in the playing out of these restructurings in the regions and cities of Latino concentra tion.

Inhalt

1. Hispanics in the Labor Force: An Introduction to Issues and Approaches.- 2. An Even Greater U-Turn: Latinos and the New Inequality.- 3. The Effects of Literacy on the Earnings of Hispanics in the United States.- 4. The Effect of Race on Puerto Rican Wages.- 5. Labor Market Structure and Wage Differences in New York City: A Comparative Analysis of Hispanics and Non-Hispanic Blacks and Whites.- 6. Latinos and Industrial Change in New York and Los Angeles.- 7. Hispanic Employment in the Public Sector: Why Is It Lower Than Blacks'?.- 8. Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Employment Segmentation in New York City Agencies.- 9. A Comparison of Labor Supply Behavior among Single and Married Puerto Rican Mothers.- 10. Work and Family Responsibilities of Women in New York City.- 11. Wage Policies, Employment, and Puerto Rican Migration.- 12. Latino Research and Policy: The Puerto Rican Case.- 13. Latinos, Class, and the U. S. Political Economy: Income Inequality and Policy Alternatives.- Epilogue.