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 Abel Valenzuela, Jr.
Director
Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Professor Valenzuela's research focuses on the urban misfortures of minority groups in labor markets and impoverished communities. He studies the social position and impact of recent immigrants, Latino Americans, African Americans, and Asian Americans.
Dr. Valenzuela is currently undertaking two major research projects, one at the writing stage, the other at the data collection stage. The first project is his work on day laborers- immigrant men who gather in public settings to solicit temporary employment. In Los Angeles, day laborers number over 18, 000 spread across 100 hiring sites. To study this population, Dr. Valenzuela has undertaken a random sample survey of day laborers (n=481) at 87 representative sites in Southern California. He has also completed, transcribed, and is currently analyzing 45 in-depth, open-ended, interviews of day laborers, 24 in-depth interviews of employers of day laborers, and 10 case studies of hiring sites throughout Southern California. Together, these data will form the basis of a manuscript that examinies the social activities and day-to-day processes of the workers and employers that shape this occupation in Los Angeles and elsewhere. This study breaks new methodological ground in survey development, labor studies, and immigration research.
Dr. Valenzuela's second major research project is transitioning into its third year of data collection and revolves around the Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act (welfare reform) signed by Bill Clinton in 1996. Dr. Valenzuela is trying to understand how women, in the face of declining federal resources, strategize and survive in their forced transition to employment. To do this, he is undertaking (with graduate students) ethnography in four different neighborhoods each representing an ethnic racial group (Mexican-Americans, Mexican Immigrants, African-Americans, and Southeast Asian immigrants). The study includes an analysis of neighborhoods where he is trying to understand to what extent woment utilize community institutions (schools, churches, day-care centers), resources (stores, check-cashing establishments, restaurants) and informal settings (home-based work, kin-based day-care services, alternative income-gernerating activiities, and small loans) to survive.
Professor Valenzuela teaches courses on immigration and US society, urban poverty and public policy, planning issues in minority communities, and urban labor markets.
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