Winner of the 2020 Robert E. Park Award for Best Book from the Community and Urban Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association

Winner of the 2020 Distinguished Contribution to Research Award from the Latino/a Section of the American Sociological Association

Honorable Mention for the 2020 Thomas and Znaniecki Award from the International Migration Section of the American Sociological Association

“María Rendón’s longitudinal study of second-generation Mexicans in two poor Los Angeles neighborhoods is a tour de force. Featuring data from repeated intensive interviews with young Latino men and their immigrant parents, Stagnant Dreamers reveals how strong kin-based support and ties to community programs or organizations can mitigate the powerful effects of inner-city violence and social isolation. Rendón’s illuminating analysis is a must-read.”
—WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON, Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor Emeritus, Harvard University

“In this powerful book María Rendón explores the transition to adulthood of young men whose parents immigrated from Mexico. Years of careful ethnographic work following them from their late teens until their early thirties demonstrates that they are fully American, and that the young men and their parents believe in the American dream, work hard, and strive for upward mobility. Combining perspectives from immigration and urban studies, Stagnant Dreamers shows how these hopes and dreams are sometimes realized and sometimes dashed, but most often show slow and limited progress. These young adults overcome violent neighborhoods and inadequate schools to build a life for themselves and their children. The reader comes away with a deep understanding of the realities of growing up in a poor immigrant community, understanding better the choices the young men make and the consequences they face. This beautifully written, deeply empathetic book should be required reading for experts and students alike.”
—MARY C. WATERS, John Loeb Professor of Sociology, Harvard University

A quarter of young adults in the U.S. today are the children of immigrants, and Latinos are the largest minority group. In Stagnant Dreamers, sociologist and social policy expert María Rendón follows 42 young men from two high-poverty Los Angeles neighborhoods as they transition into adulthood. Based on in-depth interviews and ethnographic observations with them and their immigrant parents, Stagnant Dreamers describes the challenges they face coming of age in the inner city and accessing higher education and good jobs and demonstrates how family-based social ties and community institutions can serve as buffers against neighborhood violence, chronic poverty, incarceration, and other negative outcomes.

Neighborhoods in East and South Central Los Angeles were sites of acute gang violence that peaked in the 1990s, shattering any romantic notions of American life held by the immigrant parents. Yet, Rendón finds that their children are generally optimistic about their life chances and determined to make good on their parents’ sacrifices. Most are strongly oriented towards work. But despite high rates of employment, most earn modest wages and rely on kinship networks for labor market connections. Those who made social connections outside of their family and neighborhood contexts more often found higher quality jobs. However, a middle-class lifestyle remains elusive for most, even for college graduates.

Rendón debunks fears of downward assimilation among second generation Latinos, noting that most of her subjects were employed and many had gone on to college. She questions the ability of institutions of higher education to fully integrate low-income students of color. She shares the story of one Ivy League college graduate who finds himself working in the same low-wage jobs as his parents and peers who did not attend college. Ironically, students who leave their neighborhoods to pursue higher education are often the most exposed to racism, discrimination, and classism.

Rendón demonstrates the importance of social supports in helping second-generation immigrant youth succeed. To further the integration of second-generation Latinos, she suggests investing in community organizations, combatting criminalization of Latino youth, and fully integrating them into higher education institutions. Stagnant Dreamers presents a realistic yet hopeful account of how the Latino second generation is attempting to realize its vision of the American dream.

MARÍA G. RENDÓN is assistant professor in the Department of Urban Planning and Public Policy at the University of California, Irvine.

A Volume in the American Sociological Association’s Rose Series in Sociology

“In this groundbreaking study, the authors explore the extent of interracial friendships and romantic relationships for young people from their early teens through their late twenties. Across the racial and ethnic groups of whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians, the authors find complex patterns of racial boundary maintenance and crossing. The complexity of race in twenty-first century America is evident in this clearly written and rigorously researched book. The main finding that race still keeps so many young people apart is tempered with the hopeful finding that kids who attend diverse schools are much more likely to have close friendships and romantic relationships that cross these barriers. The Company We Keep has so much to teach both experts and students about race in America.”
—MARY C. WATERS, John Loeb Professor of Sociology, Harvard University

“This landmark study revises theories of changing ethno-racial boundaries over the life course by examining romantic pairings at two pivotal life course periods and demonstrating unequivocally that intergroup contact and romantic relationships during adolescence carry over to adult relationships. Grace Kao, Kara Joyner, and Kelly Stamper Balistreri clarify the national project of integration by documenting which groups redraw which color lines and under what circumstances. The authors deftly synthesize a vast empirical literature, supplement research gaps with original analyses, and render a complex story about shifting intergroup relations eminently accessible to a broad audience. The Company We Keep will be the touchstone for understanding social integration, race relations, and partnering behavior against the backdrop of increasing population diversification.”
—MARTA TIENDA, Maurice P. During ’22 Professor of Demographic Studies and Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs, Princeton University

“A pathbreaking longitudinal study of interracial friendships and romantic relationships, The Company We Keep confirms the centrality and continuing significance of race in shaping intergroup relations among youth. By centering intersectionality at the core of the empirical analyses, the authors reveal the intricate interactions of race, gender, and class in forming interracial friendship and romantic ties from adolescence to young adulthood. Moreover, the authors document the relative fluidity and permeability of the American color line as young adults simultaneously transgress and transform the multiplicity of racial boundaries. In tracing the positive impacts of contact with other races in adolescence on the likelihood of interracial ties and romantic partners in adulthood, the book also points to one specific pathway toward the future of a more racially integrated American society. The Company We Keep is a must-read for scholars of race and ethnicity, immigration, and intergroup contact and relations.”
—VAN C. TRAN, Associate Professor of Sociology and Deputy Director, Center for Urban Research at the Graduate Center, CUNY

With hate crimes on the rise and social movements like Black Lives Matter bringing increased attention to the issue of police brutality, the American public continues to be divided by issues of race. How do adolescents and young adults form friendships and romantic relationships that bridge the racial divide? In The Company We Keep, sociologists Grace Kao, Kara Joyner, and Kelly Stamper Balistreri examine how race, gender, socioeconomic status, and other factors affect the formation of interracial friendships and romantic relationships among youth. They highlight two factors that increase the likelihood of interracial romantic relationships in young adulthood: attending a diverse school and having an interracial friendship or romance in adolescence.

While research on interracial social ties has often focused on whites and blacks, Hispanics are the largest minority group and Asian Americans are the fastest growing racial group in the United States. The Company We Keep examines friendships and romantic relationships among blacks, whites, Hispanics, and Asian Americans to better understand the full spectrum of contemporary race relations. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, the authors explore the social ties of more than 15,000 individuals from their first survey responses as middle and high school students in the mid-1990s through young adulthood nearly fifteen years later. They find that while approval for interracial marriages has increased and is nearly universal among young people, interracial friendships and romantic relationships remain relatively rare, especially for whites and blacks. Black women are particularly disadvantaged in forming interracial romantic relationships, while Asian men are disadvantaged in the formation of any romantic relationships, both as adolescents and as young adults. They also find that people in same-sex romantic relationships are more likely to have partners from a different racial group than are people in different-sex relationships. The authors pay close attention to how the formation of interracial friendships and romantic relationships depends on opportunities for interracial contact. They find that the number of students choosing different race friends and romantic partners is greater in schools that are more racially diverse, indicating that school segregation has a profound impact on young people’s social ties.

Kao, Joyner, and Balistreri analyze the ways school diversity and adolescent interracial contact intersect to lay the groundwork for interracial relationships in young adulthood. The Company We Keep provides compelling insights and hope for the future of living and loving across racial divides.

GRACE KAO is IBM Professor of Sociology at Yale University.

KARA JOYNER is professor of sociology at Bowling Green State University.

KELLY STAMPER BALISTRERI is associate professor of sociology at Bowling Green State University.