The link between residential segregation and racial inequality is
well established, so it would seem that greater equality would
prevail in integrated neighborhoods. But as Sarah Mayorga-Gallo
argues, multiethnic and mixed-income neighborhoods still harbor the
signs of continued, systemic racial inequalities. Drawing on deep
ethnographic and other innovative research from "Creekridge Park,"
a pseudonymous urban community in Durham, North Carolina,
Mayorga-Gallo demonstrates that the proximity of white, African
American, and Latino neighbors does not ensure equity; rather,
proximity and equity are in fact subject to structural-level
processes of stratification.
Behind the White Picket Fence
shows how contemporary understandings of diversity are not
necessarily rooted in equity or justice but instead can reinforce
white homeowners' race and class privilege; ultimately, good
intentions and a desire for diversity alone do not challenge
structural racial, social, and economic disparities. This book
makes a compelling case for how power and privilege are reproduced
in daily interactions and calls on readers to question commonsense
understandings of space and inequality in order to better
understand how race functions in multiethnic America.