Testing Heterolocalism: An Assessment of Latino Settlement Patterns in the Southeastern United States

Previous theories of immigrant integration indicate that spatial propinquity is a necessary ingredient for a cohesive ethnic community. Wilbur Zelinsky’s heterolocalism theory suggests this is no longer the case in today’s world where technology has drastically reduced the friction of distance in human interaction. This thesis uses a mixture of quantitative and qualitative techniques to test heterolocalism’s applicability to emergent Latino communities in the Southeastern United States. The results of this research generally support Zelinsky’s theory that a growing number of ethnic communities are socially but not spatially cohesive.