Communities in Transition

This work involves the Filipino American communities of San Diego and Imperial Valley as case studies to examine salient cohesiveness. Within these two spaces, I consider how home bound linguistic, ethnic, regional loyalties, and values acted and continue to act as a barriers to long term sustained unity. With good reason, previous studies that examined the Filipino American communities limited themselves to either urban spaces or rural spaces, never both. Filipino American communities of San Diego County and the Imperial Valley region are juxtaposed in an effort to compare and contrast current urban and rural spaces. This approach is important as it treats each space as discrete yet both spaces are also seen vis-a-vis each other in the context of a larger space. The book concludes with the finding that despite the lack of unity individuals, sub-groups, and in some cases the community at-large continue to make significant contributions to the health, welfare, and education of San Diego and Imperial County.