Mobility and Isolation: Latino Immigrant Adjustment in Atlanta, Georgia

223 Pages·2016·2.1 MB·English

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Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School
5-2013
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Sarah Ellen Hendricks
[email protected]
Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss
Part of the Demography, Population, and Ecology Commons, Place and Environment Commons, and
the Race and Ethnicity Commons
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Hendricks, Sarah Ellen, "Mobility and Isolation: Latino Immigrant Adjustment in Atlanta, Georgia. " PhD
diss., University of Tennessee, 2013.
https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/1732
This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee
Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized
administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact
[email protected].
To the Graduate Council:
I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Sarah Ellen Hendricks entitled "Mobility and
Isolation: Latino Immigrant Adjustment in Atlanta, Georgia." I have examined the final electronic
copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial
fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Sociology.
Stephanie A. Bohon, Major Professor
We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance:
Jon Shefner, Paul Gellert, Shih-Lung Shaw, Nicholas Nagle
Accepted for the Council:
Carolyn R. Hodges
Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School
(Original signatures are on file with official student records.)
MOBILITY AND ISOLATION:
LATINO IMMIGRANT ADJUSTMENT IN ATLANTA, GEORGIA

A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Sarah Ellen Hendricks
May 2013
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost, I would like to thank my dissertation committee chair, Stephanie
Bohon, for her high expectations, guidance, feedback, and confidence that the intellectual leap
would occur in this process. She encouraged me to continue on the doctoral path in spite of
several interstate moves and working on the dissertation from halfway across the country, and
her confidence in my abilities never wavered.
I would also like to extend my gratitude to the other members on my dissertation
committee for their support, encouragement and valuable feedback. I thank Jon Shefner, Paul
Gellert, Nicholas Nagle and Shih-Lung Shaw for their insightful critiques and recommendations
on improving the clarify of the arguments, and I also thank Nicholas Nagle for helping me
through methodological issues and questions through the entire process.
I owe my gratitude to the others in the scholarly community for encouraging me along
the process. Comparing notes with other graduate students and learning from those who
survived the process in the recent past helped reassure me to continue writing and re-writing.
The staff and community of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, and most especially
Michele Smith Koontz, have also provided consistent support and encouragement through my
years in the doctoral program.
The professional path is also a part of my personal journey, and my family has provided
constant support through the entire doctoral program. My husband, partner, and father of my
daughter, has borne many sacrifices that enabled me to complete this research and the writing,
and he lifted me up in the most difficult moments. My sparkling fairy-princess-dancer-kitty
daughter provided the mandatory play breaks, bringing me into the challenges, joys and
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incredible love in her young world. My parents not only provided encouraging words but also
read and helped me improve the flow of my writing.
Thank you all for walking with me and helping me complete this part of my journey.

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ABSTRACT

In the automobile society of the United States, virtually every adult needs a car to work, shop,
and participate in social institutions. However, not everyone has a car. One of the populations
with low access to vehicles is the Latin American immigrant population. This study asks to what
extent Latino immigrants experience spatial constraints due to lack of mobility, what mobility
strategies do they use in order to function in a context of automobility, and to what extent
transportation limitations are associated with another socially isolating factor – English
proficiency. I investigate these questions for employed Latino immigrants in the Atlanta, Georgia
metropolitan area, which is a new Latino destination that has a particularly poor transportation
system. Data sources include US Census summary files for 1980-2010, data from the Census
Transportation Planning Package from 2000, and American Community Survey 2006-2010
pooled microdata.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1: Mobilities and Containment .......................................................................................... 1
The Atlanta Context .................................................................................................................. 13
Research Questions ................................................................................................................... 19
Chapter 2: Automobility .............................................................................................................. 23
Unequal Mobility ...................................................................................................................... 26
Alternative Transportation Strategies........................................................................................ 35
Consequences of Limited Mobility ........................................................................................... 43
Chapter 3: Methods ....................................................................................................................... 53
Goal 1: Residential Segregation and Commute Length ............................................................ 54
The Residential Concentration Quotient: A Measurement of Segregation ........................... 54
Approach 1: Mapping Latino Neighborhoods and Employment Growth ............................. 57
Approach 2: Investigating Commute Time with Aggregate Data ......................................... 59
Approach 3: Investigating Commute Time with Individual-level Data ................................ 67
Goal 2: Financial Resources and Ethnic Embeddedness Affecting Commute Mode ............... 81
Goal 3: Transportation Limitations and Limited English Proficiency ...................................... 96
Chapter 4: Commute Time Results ............................................................................................. 106
Maps of Latino Neighborhoods & Employment Growth........................................................ 106
Descriptive Statistics of Census Tracts ................................................................................... 113
Results of Investigating Commute Time with Aggregate Data .............................................. 115
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Descriptive Statistics for Individual Data ............................................................................... 119
Results from Investigating Commute Time with Individual-level Data ................................. 121
Summary ................................................................................................................................. 124
Chapter 5: Commute Mode Results ............................................................................................ 128
Descriptive Statistics ............................................................................................................... 128
Regression Results .................................................................................................................. 132
Summary ................................................................................................................................. 146
Chapter 6: Transportation and Language Ability Results........................................................... 148
Descriptive Statistics ............................................................................................................... 148
Regression Results .................................................................................................................. 152
Summary ................................................................................................................................. 160
Chapter 7: Conclusion................................................................................................................. 162
Summary of Findings .............................................................................................................. 164
Implications ............................................................................................................................. 169
Future Research ....................................................................................................................... 173
Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 176
Appendices .................................................................................................................................. 195
Appendix A ............................................................................................................................. 196
Appendix B ............................................................................................................................. 197
Appendix C ............................................................................................................................. 203
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Appendix D ............................................................................................................................. 209
Vita .............................................................................................................................................. 211

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List of Tables
Table 1: Characteristics of census tracts with >30 Latino workers in Atlanta, GA ................... 114
Table 2: Ordinary least squares results predicting average percent of Latinos who experience a
short commute (< 30 min)........................................................................................................... 116
Table 3: Descriptive statistics for individual-level sample ......................................................... 120
Table 4: Ordinary least squares regression results predicting the commute time of Latino
immigrants (minutes) .................................................................................................................. 122
Table 5: Descriptive Characteristics Relevant to Commute Mode ............................................. 129
Table 6: Multinomial logistic regression results predicting commute mode of Latino immigrants
..................................................................................................................................................... 133
Table 7: Multinomial logistic regression results for testing effects of RCQ on the mode of
commute of Latino immigrants ................................................................................................... 140
Table 8: Multinomial logistic regression results testing effects of employment sector on the mode
of commute of Latino immigrants .............................................................................................. 143
Table 9: Descriptive statistics for English proficiency model .................................................... 149
Table 10: Logistic regression coefficients and odds ratios, predicting English proficiency ...... 153
Table 11: Ordinary least squares regression coefficients for factors predicting the commute time
in minutes of Mexican immigrants in Atlanta, GA ..................................................................... 196
Table 12: Multinomial logistic regression results predicting commute mode of Mexican
immigrants .................................................................................................................................. 197
Table 13: Multinomial logistic regression results testing for RCQ effects on commute mode of
Mexican immigrants ................................................................................................................... 199
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