Search

Latinas represent one of the fastest‐growing groups of entrepreneurs in the United States, yet they are understudied in entrepreneurship research. Through three case studies of middle‐class and wealthy Latinas, we explore how ethnorace, gender, immigration, class, and community shape their entrepreneurial endeavors as they practice what we refer to as feminist ethnoracial entrepreneurship–entrepreneurial endeavors that aim to empower, assist, and/or build community amongst women through ethnic and gender‐specific services and experiences. Feminist ethnoracial entrepreneurship, in theory, aims to mitigate ethnoracial and gender inequality. Our participants draw from their lived experiences to inform their entrepreneurial motivations to make a profit and a social difference. By incorporating research centered on feminist approaches to entrepreneurship, we show how gender and the ethnoracial context combine with class to shape Latina entrepreneurs' ethnoracial capitalism and community empowerment practices at the levels of institutions, in community spaces, and markets as they navigate broader structures of racial and gender inequality. Our participants challenge structural ethnoracial and gender exclusion via entrepreneurial endeavors in finance that aim to address gender and racial gaps in access to commercial capital, by opening Latino coffee shops rooted in community and feminist ideology, and by fashioning physical and digital makers markets grounded in Chicana/Latina Feminisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines Latino economic elites in Los Angeles who engage in 'ethnoracial philanthropy' – giving to or creating ethnic-centric organisations that focus on alleviating socioeconomic inequalities. We draw on 65 in-depth interviews to provide insights into the ethnoracial educational structures created by Latino elites to facilitate the mobility of Latino youth. We compare three ways in which philanthropy manifests: via the creation of Latino scholarship funds; ethnic-centric charter schools in low-income Latino neighbourhoods; Latino youth leadership programmes comprised of college students from the top 100 universities. These institutions may serve to widen the path to inclusion by creating a distinct ethnoracial integration path via education, contrasting with assimilation theory and the minority culture of mobility framework. However, the focus on education, and not on other issues, benefits those who reproduce the elites' image. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on 50 in-depth interviews and extensive fieldwork, this article contributes to the literature on inequality and middle-class minorities by examining socially mobile Mexican Americans—those who were raised in low-income households, but who are now middle class. Mexican Americans who achieve extreme rates of intergenerational mobility straddle class and ethnic contexts, a position that is accompanied by a set of challenges that are unique to middle-class minorities. Socially mobile Mexican Americans retain an enduring familiarity with poverty and must manage intra-class relations with poorer coethnics, who often request financial and social support. As they enter white professional milieus, they must also manage interethnic relations with whites who do not view them as bona fide members of the white middle class. These challenges reinforce class and ethnic boundaries and lead middle-class Mexican Americans who grow up disadvantaged to adopt a minority culture of mobility that manifests through group-specific mobility strategies embedded in ethnic communities, such as creating and joining ethnic professional organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]