The power of social networks
not so obvious

It’s easy to take social networks for granted. The tacit support of friends and family that provides childcare, a little extra money or a Sunday dinner can make all the difference to many Angelenos. However, across America such familial and community ties are weakening, and can be strained to the breaking point in communities that need them the most - people trying to make ends meet.

When the going gets tough, friends and family often pitch in to help. But what if that tough life is shared by the entire family - an entire community? How much can ties of kinship stretch, without snapping? How reliable are social networks in the long term for making it in L.A.?

Experts, including anthropologists and social workers, agree that the success of social networks — the community ties that bind and support — depends on where people come from: their cultural histories, their legacy of tradition and values and, surprisingly, on how well off they have become.

Middle-class immigrant communities seem to do the best when it comes to tapping the ties of kinship. Middle-class Americans come next. And people with low incomes who belong to certain immigrant groups, such as many Mexican-American communities, do better than Anglo-Americans and African-Americans of similar class.

Ironically, social networking tends to become more effective as an immigrant community becomes wealthier and its members need less help. When so many more of its members are in a position to help, there are fewer individuals in need. Conversely, for communities on the cusp, social networks seem to progressively weaken.

Family and community ties help supplement incomes in little ways that make a big difference. They not only provide such non-monetary support as housing and child care, but also help raise standards of living, as people pool their resources to do more.

When everyone lives in the same household and helps, it is more economical, says G. Alexander Moore, chairman of the anthropology department at the University of Southern California.

Adds Jennifer Wolch, a geography professor at USC and former director of the Los Angeles Homelessness Project: “People’s incomes are very, very low but they are kind of using it collectively. And they are providing each other support in terms of child care services and rides to work and so on.”

Extended families can share housing when the rents are too high for a single family to afford. Families can pool their incomes and invest in a house, a practice often seen among Mexican-American communities, according to Curtis Roseman, a geography professor at USC.

When the parents go to work, grandparents can save them precious dollars that might be spent on child care by taking care of the children. The average monthly child-care center in Los Angeles County in 2001 cost $670 for infants, $479 for pre-school-age children and $344 for school-age children, according to the Institute for the Study of Homelessness and Poverty, a Los Angeles-based non-profit organization.

Family-owned businesses often become community and family hubs where entire families can work and socialize. Such businesses shape an ethnic economy that can provide stable employment and a steady income to people who might otherwise be unemployed.

Such economies, where entire families share in the responsibilities and rewards of running family-owned businesses, can be seen across the United States — from the Korean-American residents of Los Angeles’ Koreatown, to the many Indian-American-run motels scattered across America’s highways.

The significance of social networks becomes clearer when one looks at the pattern of homelessness.

Social networks help keep a lid on the number of homeless in Los Angeles as people often double up with friends and family.

“If you did not have social networks in communities, you would have way, way more people homeless,” Wolch says. “Their social networks are holding them up, are keeping them off the streets.”

About 80,000 people are estimated to be homeless in Los Angeles every night. Wolch estimates that in the absence of these networks, their number would be about three times greater.

The ethnic distribution of homeless people supports Wolch’s assertion. The stronger their sense of family and community ties, the less likely their chances of ending up in the streets.

Blacks, for example, are disproportionately represented among the homeless population in Los Angeles, while Latinos and Asians are underrepresented, shows a recent study by Economic Roundtable, a non-profit organization.

These findings correspond to the differences in the strength of social networks existing within these communities. Black communities tend to have weaker social networks than the immigrant communities.

“Latinos are especially underrepresented [in homelessness] when compared to the share of Latinos below the poverty line in the overall population,” the study says.

The degree of homelessness among whites, however, is roughly proportionate to their presence in the county’s population.

There is a disparity of homelessness among different ethnic communities. Immigrant communities tend to have a stronger sense of family and community ties than Anglo-Americans.

This classic pattern of immigration begins when the first person, usually a young man, immigrates to a new country, getting a job but keeping strong connections with his homeland and establishing a migration route for others from his homeland and community.

The first immigrant becomes a central point of contact and provides essential information on routes and processes. Early immigrants provide a reference point for those who come later and begin to make their homes in a new country and city.

This pattern of immigration is evident in the high concentration of immigrant populations in many of America’s cities. For example, about three out of four immigrants from the Caribbean live either in New York or Miami, U.S. Census Bureau reports show.

“It’s crucial,” says Andrea Elliott, a reporter for The New York Times who has reported on immigrant communities. “They have a landing spot.”

The support is not just financial but also softens the cultural blow, she says.

Adds Roseman, “When [an immigrant’s] friends and relatives arrive, he helps them get a job. He helps them with housing, maybe. Maybe he has an apartment and three or four others come and live with him for a while.”

This doubling up is particularly common among seasonal migrants, such as Mexican farm workers who come in temporarily. Among more permanent immigrants, the process then moves to the second phase.

As people begin to find jobs and settle in the adopted country, they start calling others from home: wives, children, siblings, parents.

The new immigrant community quickly begins to pool its resources. An individual could not afford to buy a home alone, but if a few families pitch in, the dream of home ownership and subsequent equity becomes more likely.

Curtis says immigrant social networks are one of the reasons for the steady increase in home ownership rates among Mexican immigrants in the United States. Between 1994 and 2002, home ownership among Hispanics in the United States increased from about 41 percent to 48 percent. The homeownership rate among naturalized citizens of Hispanic origin is even higher, increasing from about 56 percent to about 62 percent over the same period.

Moore adds: “Everyone will live in the same household and help. When people grow up, they work and contribute to the household. When they get married, they bring that partner to the household to help.”

This “income packaging“ pattern is reflected in the size of immigrant families. According to the 2000 U.S. Census report, the average size of a Mexican immigrant’s household was 4.38 compared with 2.56 people for Anglo-American households.

These figures, at the same time, also indicate the next stage in an immigrant family’s life cycle: As the families get Americanized, their bonds begin to weaken.

The second generation begins to adopt the American ideal.

The American ideal gives primacy to the individual. A person is expected to go out into the world and make it on his or her own.

Families are related, but are economically and emotionally independent, self-contained units. The link between generations has more to do with growth than continuity. Children want to do better than their parents, and they have to do it on their own.

The origins of this Anglo-American style social network dates back to the nation’s agrarian roots and the spirit of manifest destiny, where the ideal for each subsequent generation was to extend the family by moving further into the frontier, starting new farms, ranching new lands and building new towns and cities. Necessarily, the individual had to move away from his family to find success and to pursue this uniquely American frontier dream.

Moore says that a young man on his 18th birthday would quietly get up in the morning before the rest of the family, and leave without saying goodbye. He would go out into the world to seek his fortune. “You did not come back until you were ready to show that you had made it.”

The concept works as a sense of pride in achievement that was all one’s own. Thus friends were of more help than family.

“That’s why the unions were important, churches were important. That’s why bars are important - not for drinking but for meeting, particularly in working class areas,” Moore says.

This ideal came at a cost, though.

Vivian Rothstein, of the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, says, “American values are so much about getting ahead and doing it yourself and taking care of yourself. I think people lose that commitment to their families.”

In a bad economy, reality contradicts the concept. The ideal lives on, but the forces that made it work are now against its fulfillment.

The jobs that young men could do are no longer there. The few jobs that are there do not pay enough to extend the frontier. Parents can help, but the ideal keeps a person from asking them for help.

Young people are on their own, constrained by circumstances and tied down by their values, losing what could have been a precious source of support.

Families do help, but there is limited support in the Anglo-American tradition of independence.

Moore says that contrary to what appears on the surface, “Anglo-Americans are also very, very kin loyal.” Children come back for the holidays, and in times of distress, the family moves in.

But the support can help tide over one crisis, not a series of them. They can keep one afloat, but only for so long.

“If you are down and out, you can expect a cousin — first cousin, second or even a third cousin — to put you up at least a night,” Moore says. But the welcome usually has a three-night limit.

And there are practical limitations. Families are spread out. People move around in search for work. And the cost of living is high for everyone.

Adds Rothstein, “Sometimes you can’t really afford to help your family. You can’t give them health insurance. A lot of people can’t really afford to help the older parents with housing costs.”

The American ideal is infectious.

“Even though wealthy Americans buy bigger and bigger homes, I think there are fewer and fewer people living in these homes.” Rothstein says. For immigrant groups, it means the family ties begin to loosen as children grow up.

The connections with the country of origin weaken among second-generation immigrants, which further erodes social networks. So while the parents may go back home when they retire, children move on.

The patience their parents had when they shared an apartment with others from the same hometown is lost.

“Even though wealthy Americans buy bigger and bigger homes, I think there are fewer and fewer people living in these homes,” Rothstein says.

Have you thought about what social networks you rely on?