“Cities of Immigrants: Intraurban Mobility Patterns of Mexican 

Immigrants in Gateway Cities”*

Pamela Rogers, Ph.D. Candidate

 

University of Texas at Austin 

Department of Sociology 

Burdine Hall 336 

Austin, Texas 78712 

progers@mail.utexas.edu

progers12@austin.rr.com

 The 2000 U.S. Census identified the impact of immigration upon a number of

emerging gateway cities. Little is known, however, about the spatial mobility and workseeking experiences of recent migrants and immigrants in these metropolitan centers. 

Specifically, where they live at the outset, what governs their search behavior for 

employment, how far they mobilize social capital in the first few months, and about their 

medium- to long-term employment trajectories. Similarly little is known about their parallel 

residential trajectories, as they move from being sharers or renters upon arrival to later 

tenure housing arrangements as they become settled in the medium- to long-term. 

Whereas considerable information is available about immigrants arriving to the United 

States and then traveling to and from Illinois or California, or between metropolitan cities 

such as Chicago and Los Angeles, little is known about the intraurban migratory patterns 

of immigrants in Texas. This study addresses these remaining questions about how 
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immigrants settle and adjust within metropolitan areas in terms of spatial mobility at 

different stages in their lives. 

Introduction 

During the 1990s more than 1.3 million immigrants settled in the United States 

each year. By 2000 the U.S. Census estimated that over 31 million immigrants lived in the 

United States, an estimated 11.1 percent of the total population. The dramatic increase in 

immigration during the 1990s surpassed earlier immigration waves and continues to grow. 

Between January 2000 and March 2002, 3.3 million additional immigrants arrived. In 

2004, the March CPS showed 10.6 million people born in Mexico. Data from the Pew 

Hispanic Center estimate that this figure represents more than a 13-fold increase over the 

1970 census. These newly arrived immigrants are primarily Hispanic in origin and to a 

lesser extent Asian. The majority of the increase has been attributed to Mexican foreignborn immigrants, who make up more than one-third of the total foreign-born population.1

 

All together Latin American immigrants, including Central American, Caribbean and South 

American immigrants, account for 52.2 percent of the total foreign-born population, 

estimated at 32.4 million in March 2002 and 31 million in 2000. Among other groups, 

Asian immigrants were the second largest majority and made up 25.5 percent of the 

foreign-born population; European immigrants, 14 percent; and the remaining 8.3 were 

from Africa and other regions.2

 

Despite the sheer number of immigrants, the increase in immigration during the 

1990s is most remarkable because it has dramatically changed the demographic make-up of 

the U.S. population and its metropolitan areas. With the growth in Latin American 

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immigration, the 2000 census showed that Hispanics are now the largest minority group in 

the United States. In twenty years, the Latino population doubled in size between 1980 

and 2000. In 1980 about 14.6 million people were identified as “Hispanic” 3 (6.4 percent 

of the total population); by 1990 this number had grown by 53 percent to 22.4 million 

people (9.0 percent of the total population); and by 2000 the Hispanic population totaled 

35.3 million people, or 12.5 percent of the total U.S. population.4 By March 2002 the 

Current Population Survey (CPS) estimated that one in eight people in the United States 

were of Hispanic origin, totaling 37.4 million Latinos in the civilian noninstitutionalized 

population.5

 This dramatic increase in the Hispanic population has been attributed to both 

high levels of immigration from Latin America and relatively high fertility levels of foreignborn immigrants. As the proportion of the Hispanic population increased by nearly twice 

its size in twenty years, these significant demographic trends have changed the racial and 

ethnic composition of the United States. By the end of the 1990s not only did the 

Hispanic population become the largest minority group in the United States, it surpassed 

all other minority groups, such as African Americans, which made up 12.3 percent of the 

total population. At the same time, the Hispanic population overcame the White nonHispanic population, which grew by only 12.3 percent between 1980 and 2000.6

 

The demographic shift in the numbers of Hispanics and foreign-born immigrants 

is most visible in U.S. metropolitan areas. Whereas the vast majority of newly arrived 

immigrants still continue to settle in urban areas in the West and South such as the more 

traditional gateway cities of Los Angeles or San Francisco, an unprecedented number has 

begun settling in what has been called “emerging” gateway cities such as Las Vegas, 

Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, and Raleigh. Some of these places were previously unaccustomed 

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to high levels of immigration. For example, in Atlanta the foreign-born population 

increased by over 200 percent. In Austin, the foreign-born population increased by over 

175 percent and continues to grow. In both Raleigh and Austin immigrants were attracted 

to a strong growth economy during the 1990s based on established information 

technology firms, services and construction industries, and major state universities. In 

larger cities such as Dallas, the foreign-born population increased by over 130 percent 

during the 1990s, attracted to a strong regional economy based on a wide range of 

industries, such as distribution, financial services, and construction sectors. 

Generally speaking, gateway cities are those places where immigrants work and 

reside in the host country. Immigrants are attracted to them because of their resources 

and location, social networks, ethnic enclaves, industry mix, labor markets, and 

opportunities. Historically, the traditional gateway cities of the United States--New York, 

Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Washington, and Miami--are large metropolitan 

areas of 1 million or more in population. These large metropolitan areas attracted the 

majority of foreign-born immigrants to the United States, and still do. Since the 1950s, 

half of all Hispanic immigrants continue to be located in sixteen established Latino metros, 

including Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York. During the period 1980-2000, the 

population of these established metros continued to account for over 50 percent of 

foreign-born Hispanics although the rate of population increase grew at a slower rate--

from 20 percent in 1980 to 32 percent by 2000—compared to other areas.7

 New York, 

Chicago, Philadelphia and Los Angeles increased their foreign-born population between 13 

percent and 38 percent only. In fact, cities such as Los Angeles (13 percent) and Miami 

(0.80 percent) registered slower growth in the 1990s than in the 1980s. Moreover, 

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researcher William Frey estimates that whereas the nation’s largest metropolitan areas 

gained the greatest number of immigrants, they also lost the largest number of domestic 

migrants. One-fifth of the leading U.S. metropolitan areas, such as Dallas, Texas, recorded 

an overall population decline in the Anglo population. In this area and others, the influx of 

Latino immigrants has served to revitalize areas that were experiencing slow growth or 

population flight, boosting the population of these areas.8

 The immigration history of the United States reflects the changing nature of 

immigration waves and their settlement patterns. During the early twentieth century Jews 

and Germans, and then Italians and Jews, tended to settle in the northeastern United 

States because of established communities and transportation networks. With the changes 

in the immigration quotas and immigration law, promoting family reunification, the 1970s 

saw an influx of Latin American and Asian immigrants. Because of the proximity to Latin 

America, a select number of states, California, New York and Florida, have attracted the 

majority of foreign-born immigrants to the United States since the 1970s. Since its earliest 

beginnings in the nineteenth century, the regional distribution of the Hispanic population 

and foreign-born Mexican immigrants has remained relatively stable. Since the 1950s, half 

of all Hispanic immigrants continue to be located in sixteen established Latino metros, 

including Los Angeles, Miami, and New York. The vast majority of Hispanics and foreignborn Mexicans continued to reside primarily in the western and southern regions, with the 

exception of Puerto Ricans in New York and Cubans in Florida. In 2000 immigration 

trends started to change as states with the highest number of foreign-born Mexicans in 

2000 were California (3,928,701), Texas (1,879,369), Illinois (617,828), Arizona (617,828), 

and Georgia (190,621). During the 1990s the increase in the Mexican foreign-born 

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population in California (59 %), Texas (107 %), and Illinois (119 %) was not the highest 

that occurred in the United States. The most remarkable increases occurred in other areas, 

such as North Carolina (1865%), Georgia (839%), and Colorado (430%). In contrast, 

other regions, such as the Northeast and the Midwest continued to register the lowest 

share of Hispanics. The decade also saw the increase in a more diverse immigration to the 

United States of other Hispanic population groups from the Dominican Republic and 

Central and South America.9 Individuals from El Salvador arrived in the United States 

during the 1980sas political refugees. By the 1990s El Salvadorians were the second largest 

Hispanic immigrant group in the United States. 

The growth of the Mexican foreign-born population in these “emerging” gateway 

cities and states presents ample opportunities for new areas of urban research on 

immigrants. In the last thirty years considerable attention on traditional gateway cities has 

concentrated on assimilation, social networks, socioeconomic characteristics, labor markets 

and wage trends, ethnic entrepreneurship, residential segregation, health care, and 

education. However, a considerable gap in the immigration literature still exists regarding 

the residential and mobility patterns of immigrants. What are the patterns of settlement 

within urban areas (renters vs. homeowners, central city vs. suburb, ethnic enclave vs. non 

spatial communities) of Mexican immigrants in emerging gateway cities? And are these 

similar to those in traditional gateway cities? What socioeconomic characteristics or 

experiences allow immigrants to enjoy a certain level of upper mobility in terms of 

homeownership? Do those immigrants who arrived during the 1990s have more or less 

opportunities than previous generations? With the continued growth of immigration in 

“emerging” gateway cities, these new metropolitan areas of research may provide a more 

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aggressive opportunity to study these questions than ever before. Yet they also raise 

additional questions. With this in mind, the key issues addressed here are: 1) What have 

been the patterns and experiences of immigrants in traditional gateway cities; 2) What are 

the patterns of “emerging” gateway cities?; and 3) What similarities or differences are 

revealed? Within this framework key research questions will also examine the relationships 

between the search for work behavior and the translation into spatial patterns of mobility 

and residence. 

Settlement and Intrurban Mobility 

The structure of settlement is important to our understanding of the assimilation patterns 

of immigrants in metropolitan areas over time as well as the racial and ethnic relations such 

patterns foster. Geographic boundaries organize relations among the native born and 

immigrants, shape their respective communities, 10 and influence the balance between race 

and ethnic relations, the attainment of social status, and the hierarchical subordination 

communities. As assimilation theorists note, residential mobility sorts and separates 

individuals into distinguishable subareas where neighborhoods can thus be ranked in terms 

of a congruent urban hierarchical system often characterized by a vertical structure of 

social stratification.11 Whereas this study researches the intrauban mobility patterns of 

immigrants within metropolitan areas, it applies basic fundamental sociological approaches 

to the study of immigrant settlement. and will involve concepts such as social stratification 

and residential segregation. Current research overwhelmingly studies the settlement 

patterns of immigrants as connected to forms of residential segregation by examining the 

characteristics and statistics of immigrants through careful and painstaking analysis. 

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Another promising avenue to study settlement patterns is to apply basic methods to study 

communities as organizations, using traditional contextual and ethnographic techniques. 

This study will attempt to provide ample data on the characteristics of immigrants and 

statistics on current intraurban mobility patterns, however, the final analysis will extend the 

research into the complex physical and social components of communities through 

interviews to draw its final conclusions. 

The settlement of immigrants in emerging gateway cities also presents ample 

opportunities for new research on the urban mobility patterns of immigrants and their 

impact upon space. Since the earliest immigrant waves, the foreign-born regardless of 

socioeconomic status have tended to settle in central city neighborhoods in largely urban 

areas because of the obvious availability of jobs, available housing, social networks, 

proximity to transportation facilities, and so on. Scholars have shown that the geographic 

propensity of immigrants has largely been determined by earlier immigrant settlers and 

factors such as social networks and the absolute size and establishment of communities 

(Lieberson and Waters 1988). Thus the demographic landscape of these “cities of 

immigrants” has been permanently changed by not only the absolute number of 

newcomers but by the social impact and residential restructuring that has taken place. Yet 

while some observers view the positive side of immigration and the assimilation of 

immigrants as a giant melting pot of societal contributions and economic gains, others 

observe a “balkanization” of cities taking place as established residents continue to move 

out of aging central cities to more prosperous areas. Thus research into the intraurban 

mobility patterns of immigrants in emerging gateway cities presents an avenue to further 

our understanding of the immigrant experience and to contribute to this ongoing debate. 

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The majority of immigration studies to date have drawn our attention toward select 

metropolitan areas, such as Los Angeles or Chicago, leaving the experiences of other 

metropolitan areas open for speculation. Much research has already been devoted to 

several of the largest metropolitan areas with the greatest number of foreign-born 

immigrants, namely, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, and Miami. Yet the 

other large metropolitan areas with competing numbers of immigrants such as Houston, 

San Jose, San Diego, Phoenix, and Dallas have been left understudied. Houston, Texas, 

for example, has the third largest Hispanic community in the United States yet few 

scholars have documented the immigrant experience there.12 The Dallas-Fort Worth 

metropolitan area with its adjoining cities of Irving, Arlington, Grand Prairie, Farmer’s 

Branch, Carrollton, and Richardson among others is fast approaching the size of Los 

Angeles yet research is only now beginning to emerge.13 

 Despite the wealth of immigration studies that do exist across the discipline, few 

address the movement of immigrants within metropolitan areas in the United States. 

Generally speaking, assimilation perspectives--whether classical assimilation theory, 

cultural pluralism, segmented assimilation, or ethnic stratification—tend to focus on the 

significant characteristics of the adjustment and adaptation of immigrants to U.S. culture 

and society. In general it is assumed that immigrants settle in central city areas and in time 

either move outward toward more prosperous areas or remain subjected to prejudice and 

discrimination. And despite the primary differences between these approaches, as noted 

by Redstone and Massey, all of these approaches study the nature and pace of that 

adjustment assuming that over time all immigrants will assimilate in some fashion or 

another. 

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 Considerable literature exists on the mobility patterns of migrants to Latin 

American cities and their settlement patterns (Ward 1998). However the recent change in 

population distribution patterns of immigrants in the United States, however, has started 

to draw more attention to this area of study. Previous research has focused on the 

residential segregation of immigrants and to a lesser extent homeownership and 

suburbanization patterns, although recently this trend has started to change with the 

research by Dowell Myers, Bruce Newbold, Xao Ling, Peter Ward, and other housing 

specialists. Nevertheless the concept of residential segregation has made important 

contributions not only to traditional assimilation and neighborhood studies in sociology 

but to other disciplines such as geography and planning. 

The mobility patterns of urban populations are based on economic and 

demographic processes (Farley 1996). Young people tend to move more than older 

individuals since the costs of relocating, selling your home, and starting a new life are 

costly. Studies have shown that the push to move for most U.S. citizens since after World 

War II has been to acquire larger and newer homes (Farley 1996). Most migration experts 

note that there are both “push” and “pull” factors that motivate people to move. Jobs 

may be scarce in the point of departure, the home may be expensive, a child may have 

been recently born, or the neighborhood may be on the downside. At the same time a job 

offer, a newer and less expensive home, family and friends, or better school districts may 

pull an individual to a new location. Single individuals without children will opt to live 

closer to central city areas where there are more conveniences for single adults. In contrast, 

married households with children are more likely to live in more established 

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neighborhoods or in the suburbs with less traffic, better schools, less crime, and larger 

homes. 

The intraurban mobility patterns of the foreign-born differ from those of the 

native born as immigrants face unique cultural, economic, and social challenges influenced 

by the ability or inability to speak English, varying educational skill levels and 

socioeconomic resources, and embedded, often limited mobility in ethnic enclave or 

entrepreneurial employment. Considering that the “foreign born” are a highly diverse and 

heterogeneous group, overwhelming evidence shows that for recent Mexican-born arrivals 

with low educational levels established social networks affect the mobility patterns of these 

immigrants. Immigrants with few language skills tend to settle in ethnic neighborhoods 

which are found in central cities. Other individuals with greater language skills, education, 

and earning capacity are more likely to settle in peripheral areas or in the suburbs. 

Nevertheless, the context of the metropolitan area, the quality of the school systems, the 

transportation networks and services also influence the spatial mobility of the both the 

foreign-born and native-born populations. 

Data and Methods 

The study is based on metropolitan data from the U.S. Census 5% Public-Use 

Microdata Sample (PUMS) of the 2000 decennial census to analyze the residential mobility 

patterns of Mexican foreign-born immigrants in four major gateways in Texas: Dallas-Fort 

Worth CMSA, Houston-Galveston-Brazoria CMSA, Austin MSA and San Antonio MSA. 

The goal is to expand the research agenda of established segregation and immigrant studies 

into the intraurban mobility patterns of Mexican foreign-born immigrants in Texas 

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metropolitan areas. Evidence from the study will show that Texas metropolitan areas 

show the same tendencies as other gateway cities toward residential segregation, the overall 

concentration and clustering of ethnic minorities, and the geographic dispersal of other 

groups. In addition it will show that demographic trends have transitioned cities such as 

Dallas from being secondary ports of entry to primary gateway cities. This study 

contributes both empirically and theoretically to our understanding of immigrant 

populations and will serve as a resource for academicians and policymakers. The research 

presented here is part of a larger study that measures the concentration and centralization of 

immigrants in ethnic enclaves located in PUMAS. The second part of the study researches the 

homeownership patterns of immigrants in central cities an suburbs at the census tract level; and the 

third and final sections draws conclusions based on the results of quantitative as well as qualitative 

in-person interviews. 

The four metropolitan areas were chosen because together they comprise 60 percent of 

Texas’s population as well as 60 percent of its immigrant population. With an overall state 

population of 20,848,171 reported in the 2000 census, the areas of Dallas-Fort Worth CMSA 

(24%), Houston CMSA (22.4%), San Antonio MSA (7.4%), and Austin-San Marcos MSA (5.6%) 

are also known for their large immigrant populations. All Texas metropolitan statistical areas 

comprise several counties; for example, the Houston-Galveston-Brazoria CMSA contains 34 

PUMAS, 8 counties; and 649 census tracts in the core county, Harris County. Harris County is the 

third most populated county and the third largest Hispanic population in the United States. The 

total population (4,663,267) is 47.9 percent non-Hispanic white, 28.9 percent Hispanic origin, 

16.64 percent African American origin, and the largest Asian population, 4.75 percent. The 

median household income is $44,418 and the median household income for Hispanics is $35,543. 

In a comparison of the Austin and San Antonio MSAs, the Austin-San Marcos MSA ranks the 

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highest in the state in median household income, both for the native born and Hispanics. In the 

San Antonio MSA there are 12 PUMAS, 278 census tracts. The total population includes 

(1,551,396) is 51.24 percent white origin, 39.32 percent Hispanic origin, 6.24 percent African 

American origin, and 1.46 percent Asian origin. The median household income is $39,140 and the 

median household income for Hispanics is $31,357.

 The study population is based on residence in the United States in 1995 and 2000 and age 

for all native born and immigrants residing in the metropolitan areas of Dallas-Fort Worth, 

Houston, Austin, and San Antonio. The weighted sample includes 8,645,660 individuals, including 

5,665,288 native born, and 2,980,372 immigrants. The analysis primarily focuses on the residential 

patterns of Mexican foreign-born immigrants (1,509,198) and their socioeconomic characteristics 

compared to the native-born. However, for comparison purposes, members of six other major 

immigrant origin groups, Central American (250,198), Vietnamese (157,320), Asian Indian 

(115,948), Chinese (53,566), Filipino (54,530), Korean (37,770), and other foreign born (801,842) 

are included. All individuals chosen are between the ages of 20 and 64, considered potentially part 

of the active labor-force. The elimination of younger and older groups avoids the effects of any 

chain migration of children or related family members. Children under the age of 18 and the 

elderly make up 39 percent of the original sample yet have been excluded here. In addition 

individuals residing in group quarters or occupying units without payment have also been 

excluded.14

 The population has been further selected based on residence in the United States and years 

of experience in the United States derived from the “come to stay” question in the decennial 

census. Six cohorts were identified for the study: 1) immigrants who arrived in the United States 

between 1995 and 2000 and who resided outside of the United States in 1995 (19.1%), 2) 

immigrants who arrived in the United States between 1990 and 1994 and who resided in the 

United States in both 1995 and 2000 (19.7%), 3) immigrants who arrived in the United States in 

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between 1980 and 1989 and who resided in the United States in both 1995 and 2000 (32.2%), 4) 

immigrants who arrived in the United States between 1970 and 1979 and who resided in the 

United States in both 1995 and 2000 (19.8%), 5) immigrants who arrived in the United States 

between 1960 and 1969 and who resided in the United States in both 1995 and 2000 (6.5%), and 6) 

all other immigrants who arrived in the United States prior to the 1960s and who resided in the 

United States in both 1995 and 2000 (2.7%). The native-born cohort includes all individuals who 

were born in the United States or who may have been born in a foreign country, but who had at 

least one parent who was an American citizen. This cohort also only includes those individuals 

who resided in the United States in both 1995 and 2000. 

Distinguishing the majority of cohorts by those who resided only in the United States and 

those who arrived five years previously who resided outside of the United States attempts to 

address the “come to stay/live” conundrum noted by several researchers (Redstone and Massey 

2004; Allen and Turner 1996; Ellis and Wright 1998; Newbold and Spindler 2001). Previous 

studies have used this approach in analyzing immigrant settlement patterns in metropolitan Los 

Angeles and Chicago, using the 1990 PUMS (Ellis and Wright 1998; Newbold and Spindler 2001; 

Allen and Turner 1996;).15 These authors followed a convention established by Ellis and Wright 

(1998) to address the “come to stay” question in the 1990 census and eliminates individuals who 

reported as having lived outside of the United States; in the 2000 census the question was 

reworded to “come to live.” Eliminating individuals who reported a residence outside of the 

United States, except for new arrivals, ensures that immigrants who reported that they had come to 

stay in the United States before 1995 did and reduces potential error in the sample. At the same 

time by eliminating new arrivals who reported a residence in the United States in 1995 attempts to 

single out recent arrivals. Because the census does not record multiple moves of the population, 

except for 1995 or the number of times an individual have traveled to the United States to work or 

visit, it is difficult to tell if an individual living in a particular area originally settled there or moved 

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to the area recently. Redstone and Massey’s recent research on the “come to stay” conundrum 

notes that the census either underestimates or overestimates the number of immigrants because of 

the inherent ambiguities in a highly subjective question that may not record a specific event.16 

Census data on the mobility patterns of the population provide information on the 

location of immigrants and the general population at three points of time: place of birth, 

residence five years previously (in 1995), and present residence during the census (2000). 

Included on the long form, the census collected the information on all residents five years 

and over. Data was collected on the residence of all individuals five years previous to the 

census on April 1, 1995, for those people who reported that on that date they lived in a 

different house than their current residence. The data collected information on the 

resident’s previous state (in the U.S. or foreign county), county, city or town, and zip code 

of residence on April 1, 1995, Residence 5 years earlier is used in conjunction with location 

of current residence to determine the extent of residential mobility of the population and 

the resulting redistribution of the population across the various states, metropolitan areas, 

and regions of the country. 

 The larger study addresses a set of questions largely contextual, based on 

demographic data from the 2000 census summary files of the top 100 metropolitan cities 

that have become emerging gateway cities. By examining place-level data and employing 

geographic information mapping techniques in addition to tabular data, the research 

identifies the concentration of the Mexican foreign-born, period of residency in the United 

States of the foreign-born, neighborhood transitional patterns, demographic information 

(age, gender, household composition, etc.), as well as socioeconomic characteristics 

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(median household income, households on public assistance, language acquisition, 

education, owner-occupied households), and other relevant demographic data. 

Results 

The last twenty years have brought tremendous population growth to metropolitan 

areas in Texas and elsewhere. In 2000, the total population of Texas increased by 22.76 

percent to 20, 851, 820 million, 19.38 percent in 1990, and by 27.08 percent in 1980. 

Between 1980 and 2000, the U.S. population grew by 11.43 percent in 1980, 9.78 in 1990, 

and 13.15 in 2000. In Texas between 1980 and 2000, the Hispanic population increased by 

45.3 percent in 1980, 53.68 percent in 1990, and 123.38 percent between 1980 thru 2000. 

By 2000, the Hispanic or Latino population was estimated at 6, 669, 666 million. The 

Mexican-origin population is the largest Hispanic population in Texas, increasing by 30 

percent from 3,899,518 million in 1990 to 5,071,963 million in 2000. 

With the almost doubling of the population during the 1990s, compared to other 

periods dating as far back as 1965, the majority of metropolitan population growth in 

Texas has been fueled by immigration, primarily Mexican, and births to recently arrived 

immigrants. The increase in Latino immigrants has had a significant effect on other 

minority populations and the non-Hispanic white population. In 1990 non-Hispanic 

whites represented 60.6 percent of the population yet by 2000 they represented only 53.1 

percent. Concentrated primarily in urban areas such as Dallas and Houston, the African 

American proportion of the population remained steady throughout the period between 

1980 and 2000 at roughly 11.6 percent of the population. In contrast, the absolute share 

of Hispanics in the total population has increased by 11 percent since the 1980s and 

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represented 32 percent of the total population in 2000 versus 21 percent of the total 

population in 1980. However, although the actual numbers are still small in comparison to 

Hispanic populations, the most dramatic increase among all racial and ethnic categories has 

been the Asian population. In the 1980s the Asian population increased by 88.78 percent 

in the 1980s; 81.15 percent , 1990s; and by almost 242 percent between 1980 and 2000.17 

 

Geographic Distribution 

Only second to California and New York, more than a million Mexican foreign-born 

immigrants live in Texas with over 56 percent located in the state’s largest metropolitan areas, 

Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) and Houston. The population of Mexican foreign-born immigrants in 

both metropolitan areas approximates 1,680,586, including all ages and household members. As 

indicated in Table 1 the largest concentration of foreign-born immigrants statewide are in the 

TABLE 1. Distribution of Immigrant Population in Major Texas Immigrant Gateways 

AustinSan 

Marcos 

MSA % 

Dallas-Ft 

Worth 

CMSA % 

HoustonGalvestonBrazoria 

CMSA % 

San 

Antonio 

MSA % 

Total Pop. 1,249,763 5,221,801 4,669,571 1,592,383 

Foreign-born 152,834 12% 784,642 15% 895,944 19% 161,924 10% 

Asia: 35,724 23% 164,969 21% 188,703 21% 20,318 13% 

Vietnam 6,790 19% 36,767 22% 51,803 27% 2,770 14% 

India 6,408 18% 30,561 19% 31,696 17% 2,402 12% 

China 7,380 21% 22,565 14% 30,785 16% 2,487 12% 

Philippines 2,185 6% 10,268 6% 17,532 9% 4,023 20% 

Korea 3,865 11% 14,242 9% 8,317 4% 2,163 11% 

Japan 1,383 4% 3,954 2% 3,108 2% 1,424 7% 

Iran 1,138 3% 6,376 4% 6,287 3% 713 4% 

Pakistan 1,394 4% 9,048 5% 14,309 8% 536 3% 

Americas: 100,637 66% 543,808 69% 630,607 70% 127,288 79% 

Mexico 84,213 84% 456,962 84% 455,854 72% 113,089 89% 

Other Central 

America 7,202 7% 47,574 9% 109,077 17% 5,454 4% 

Source: U.S. Census 2000, SF3. 

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major metropolitan areas of Houston (19%), Dallas-Fort Worth (15%), and Austin (12%), El Paso, 

and San Antonio (13%). As indicated by the ranking among the top 100 metropolitan cities in the 

United States, four of the fastest-growing foreign-born populations are located in Austin or in the 

Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. Cities with the highest number of immigrant populations as a 

percentage of total populations are in order: Irving (27 percent), Houston (26 percent), Dallas (24 

percent), Garland, Austin, Ft. Worth, and Arlington (see table 8). At the same time four of the top 

five cities for Mexican foreign-born have consistently been located in Texas--El Paso, Houston, 

Dallas, and San Antonio. 

 As a background to study the intraurban mobility patterns of immigrants in Texas, one 

must metropolitan areas has only evolved since the 1970s, similar to other areas such as Los 

Angeles, with considerable political, economic, and social impact. Although Texas has historically 

been an important gateway for Mexican immigrants since its earliest beginnings in the 1800s 

because of its long history of cross-border relationships, history, and proximity, the urban presence 

of immigrants both Mexican foreign-born and others is a recent development tied to the 

globalization of the economy as well as the development of communities and networks.18 

Historically the long established Mexican communities San Antonio, El Paso, and other border 

cities and rural areas go as far back as the Mexican Revolution in the 1920s and even before the 

state’s independence in the 1830s. At the turn of the twentieth century when Texas was primarily 

an agricultural state, farm and ranch agents recruited Mexican immigrants along the border and 

inside Mexico to work primarily in crop and ranch production. With the establishment of a literacy 

requirement for immigrants in 1917 and the U.S. Border Patrol in 1924, the discrimination against 

Mexicans grew rampant, and Mexican immigration declined until after World War II in Texas and 

elsewhere. During the 1950s and 1960s Mexican immigrants entered the state under work visas, or 

the bracero program, which continued protected under the “Texas proviso” as the primary 

workforce for agricultural production and manual labor in rural areas until the mid-1980s. Today 

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Mexican foreign-born workers are more likely to work in service and construction in metropolitan 

areas than in agricultural production.

 Prior to the 1960s, 76 percent of all Mexican foreign-born immigrants resided along the 

Texas-Mexico border or in San Antonio. In contrast the larger metropolitan areas of Houston and 

Dallas had a more checkered history of Mexican immigration. Similar to Los Angeles, these large 

metropolitan areas were more accustomed to biracial relationships between African Americans and 

Whites prior to the 1970s; those pockets of Mexican ethnic communities that existed were made 

up of a “hidden minority.” In contrast communities of German, English and Scottish immigrants 

dominated the racial and ethnic geography of urban Texas as well as its political and cultural 

institutions. Nevertheless, the size of the Mexican foreign-born population in Dallas (15.1% of 

total Mexican immigrant householders) was similar to that of San Antonio (11.6%) yet spread out. 

Although Houston has often been referred to as a post-World War II gateway city, only 7.4 

TABLE 2 Population Distribution of Mexican Immigrants in Texas, Aged 20-64 

Period of 

Arrival 

Houston 

CMSA 

DFW 

CMSA 

San 

Antonio 

MSA 

Austin 

MSA Other Texas Total 

Pre-1960 2,743 5,566 4,275 710 23,628 36,922 

% period 7.4 15.1 11.6 1.9 64.0 100 

1960-69 10,548 14,436 9,690 2,386 53,567 90,627 

% period 11.6 15.9 10.7 2.6 59.1 100 

1970-79 51,984 68,956 20,242 7,766 137,899 286,847 

% period 18.1 24.0 7.1 2.7 48.1 100 

1980-89 99,619 104,003 25,437 16,436 176,105 421,600 

% period 23.6 24.7 6.0 3.9 41.8 100 

1990-94 70,684 67,978 11,324 12,204 81,728 243,918 

% period 29.0 27.9 4.6 5.0 33.5 100 

1995-2000 72,432 52,402 8,528 14,250 47,985 195,597 

% period 37.0 26.8 4.4 7.3 24.5 100 

N 308,010 313,341 79,496 53,752 520,912 1,275,511 

% period 24.1 24.6 6.2 4.2 40.8 100 

Source: US PUMS. All values significant <.05 unless noted. 

Note: Sample includes all individuals, male and female, except for those in group quarters or 

institutionalized. 

19
Rogers_Draft_Paper 

percent of the total number of Mexican foreign-born immigrant householders arrived prior to 

1960. Changes in immigration law and the economic growth during the 1960s which affected 

metropolitan areas in Texas and elsewhere began a trend to pull many Mexican immigrants toward 

large metropolitan areas. Large-scale immigration of Mexican foreign-born to large Texas 

metropolitan areas began in the 1970s as in Los Angeles and other established immigrant gateways. 

During the 1990s 41.1 percent of all Mexican foreign-born immigrants between the ages of 20 and 

64 arrived between 1990 and March 2000. At the same time, the size of the Central American 

population has grown as waves of immigrants settled during the 1980s and in the later portion of 

the 1990s. To a lesser extent, the 1970s also saw considerable immigration of groups from 

 

Table 3. Year of Arrival of 2000 Immigrant Cohorts, Aged 20-64 

Year of Arrival

Origin Pre-1960 1960-69 1970-79 1980-89 1990-94 

1995-

3/2000 1990s Total 

Mexico 26,588 74,120 297,896 490,990 324,380 295,224 619,604 1,509,198 

% 1.8 4.9 19.7 32.5 21.5 19.6 41.1 100 

Ctrl Am. 2,342 5,980 22,420 119,320 57,174 42,962 100,136 250,198 

% 0.9 2.4 9.0 47.7 22.9 17.2 40.0 100 

Vietnam 144 1,054 44,382 54,860 42,532 14,348 56,880 157,320 

% 0.1 0.7 28.2 34.9 27.0 9.1 36.2 100 

India 164 3,898 22,112 34,078 20,714 34,982 55,696 115,948 

% 0.1 3.4 19.1 29.4 17.9 30.2 48.0 100 

Philippines 1,042 3,582 15,940 18,662 10,860 4,444 15,304 54,530 

% 1.9 6.6 29.2 34.2 19.9 8.1 28.1 100 

China 492 1,864 5,056 13,830 15,316 17,008 32,324 53,566 

% 0.9 3.5 9.4 25.8 28.6 31.8 60.3 100 

Korea 186 1,778 11,666 11,702 5,998 6,440 12,438 37,770 

% 0.5 4.7 30.9 31.0 15.9 17.1 32.9 100 

Other 49,438 100,468 171,354 217,530 109,722 153,330 263,052 801,842 

% 6.2 12.5 21.4 27.1 13.7 19.1 32.8 100 

Total 80,396 192,744 590,826 960,972 586,696 568,738 2,980,372 

2.7 6.5 19.8 32.2 19.7 19.1 38.8 100 

Source: U.S. PUMS, 2000. Sample includes all individuals, male and female, in the rental or homeownership 

markets, except for those in group quarters or institutionalized; cohorts prior to 1995 do not include 

individuals living outside of the United States, and the1995-2000 cohort does not include those living in the 

United States. Other includes foreign born from US islands, Canada, Europe and the rest of the world. 

20
Rogers_Draft_Paper 

Vietnam, the Philippines, and Korea. Asian Indian immigrants also immigrated during the 1980s 

and during the second half of the 1990s. 

 Since the 1970s large metropolitan areas of both Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston have 

experienced higher rates of immigrant arrivals than other areas in the state, making these two 

primary gateway cities in the United States today. Settlement patterns of immigrants to these areas 

are indicative of the globalization of the economies and housing markets. In contrast to the 

continued growth in the immigrant populations in Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston metropolitan 

areas, the number of immigrants destined for the Austin-San Marcos metropolitan area was 

relatively small prior to 2000, in which 14 percent of all Mexican foreign-born householders settled 

there. 

 

Socioeconomic characteristics 

Sharp contrasts and considerable diversity are apparent in the demography of the groups 

studied. Whereas the majority of Latin American and Asian immigrant householders arrived in the 

United States during the 1980s and 1990s, Mexican immigrants show the lowest levels of 

educational attainment, English ability, citizenship, and homeownership, followed by the Central 

Americans. The Mexican-origin population is younger (mean age is 35) than the native-born or 

Asian groups, only 25 percent have obtained citizenship, 54 percent reported poor English skills, 

and 71 percent have less than a high school education. Results from both the Mexican- and 

Central-American foreign-born (not shown here) indicate these groups have the lowest levels of 

English ability attainment. The Vietnamese (65.8%), Filipino (66.3%), and Korean (52%) showed 

the highest citizenship levels, not a surprising finding since many Vietnamese and Filipino residents 

are political exiles and many Korean residents were formerly students or visitors. 

Nevertheless, Mexican immigrants who arrived during the 1990s are a more diverse and 

polarized group than earlier ones. Bean, Leach, and Lowell have emphasized that contemporary 

21
Rogers_Draft_Paper 

immigration is characterized by the bimodal educational characteristics of immigrants, part the 

result of economic downturn in Mexico and part the result of the restructuring of the U.S. 

economy. In the Texas PUMS Mexican foreign-born immigrants have represented both ends of 

the educational spectrum since the 1960s. Between 1995 and 2000, 71.5 percent of all Mexican 

foreign-born immigrants had less than twelve years of school, compared to 14.2 percent of the 

native born. At the same time only 13.7 percent of immigrants had some college compared to 58.8 

percent of the native-born. However, the number of immigrants holding a high school or college 

degree has steadily declined with a slight exception in recent arrivals. 

A few parallels existed among the native born and Asian immigrants in terms of education 

and ages, with immigrants surpassing the native born in educational achievement. Asian Indian 

(84.5%), Filipino (83.9%), and Chinese (83.8%) immigrants had higher levels of educational 

preparation than the native born (64%). The educational levels of Koreans (66.4%) were the most 

similar yet slightly higher than those of the native born. The high levels of educational attainment 

of these four groups and the dispersed patterns of settlement in middle-class neighborhoods 

provide support for the theories of spatial assimilation in that these groups not only have the 

socioeconomic capital but are able to translate these attributes into residential mobility. The 

importance of education for Asian families is clear from the data as Asian Indians (8.8%), Filipinos 

(4.4%), Chinese (7.9%) and Koreans (10.4%) also had the lowest level of high-school dropouts 

alongside the native born (12%). However, the Vietnamese displayed the third lowest level of 

educational achievement, similar to those of the Mexican and Central American immigrant groups, 

with 31.9 percent of the population not completing high school. The low educational levels of the 

Mexican, Central American, and Vietnamese will foreshadow the educational achievement of 

second generations. The mean ages of Filipino, Chinese, and Korean immigrants were identical to 

those of the native born (40 years) showing an older population. The Asian population also 

showed the highest ability to speak English. Over 98% of Filipinos and 94% of Asian Indians 

22
Rogers_Draft_Paper 

reported speaking English very well or well. In contrast over 53% of Mexican-origin and 47% of 

Central Americans reported not being able to speak English at all or very little. 

The Korean (61.5%) Filipino (61.1%), and Chinese (51%) groups were also predominately 

female similar to the native-born population (51.7%). At the same time Filipino immigrants 

(37.9%) had a slightly higher number of female-headed households than the native born (32.7%) or 

the Korean (32.7%). The Central American-origin population (27.1%) also surprisingly showed a 

higher portion of female-headed households than the Mexico-origin group (17.9%). In general, the 

data reflected the importance of family life for Central Americans and Asians in that the percentage 

of married individuals in the sample was higher for all immigrant populations compared to the 

native born, and by the fact that the number of divorced or never married was considerably lower. 

For example, the percentage of married native born residents was 59.9 percent however 

immigrants’ marital status ranged from 62.7% (Central American), 68% (Vietnamese), 70.3% 

(Mexican), 73.7% (Korean), 74.1% (Filipino), 79.2% (Asian Indian), and 83.3% (Chinese). 

 A comparison of marital status supports previous research that the majority of male 

Mexican foreign-born householders are married. However, the marital status of female Mexican 

foreign-born householders is almost equally distributed between the number of women who are 

married and who have never been married. In fact between 1995 and March 2000, female 

Mexican-born householders were less likely to have never been married than earlier decades. They 

were also more likely to be college educated than in earlier decades. The steady decline of 

educational attainment, however, may have more to do with the lack of economic mobility in 

Mexico. 

 Aggregate results in tables 5 and 6 show that the general trends in socioeconomic 

characteristics and the residential mobility of immigrants vary greatly depending upon 

cohort and length in the United States. Several researchers have noted that immigrants 

23
Rogers_Draft_Paper 

over time reach similar levels of income and socioeconomic characteristics as the native 

born in terms of homeownership, education, and other factors (Portes and Rumbaut 

2000). Here, in the Dallas-Fort Worth CMSA, despite the sharp gap in the median 

income of recent arrivals compared to 1980s and 1990s arrivals, only those immigrants 

who have been in the United States for decades achieve the same medium income and 

homeownership levels.

 

 

TABLE 1 Household Income Statistics for Mexican Foreign-Born in DFW CMSA, Aged 20-64

 Percentiles 

 Time in US Mean Median 

 Std. 

Dev. Min. Max. 25 50 75 N 

 <5 years 19,673 16,600 18,961 0 152,800 330 16,600 30,000 13,203 

5-10 years 28,097 22,900 32,402 -3,800 479,800 12,000 22,900 37,000 24,631 

10-20 years 33,415 27,000 39,445 -10,000 670,700 15,000 27,000 42,000 50,507 

20-30 years 42,510 34,000 49,171 -4,000 717,600 18,500 34,000 53,200 37,136 

30-40 years 44,890 37,620 39,612 0 321,000 21,100 37,620 61,500 7,919 

40 years+ 50,406 48,500 40,312 0 184,940 17,800 48,500 77,160 2,626 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

U.S.-born 54,524 39,500 69,321 -20,000 759,000 0 39,500 78,130 1,043,379 

 Source: US PUMS 2000; weighted by household weight. <5 years (1995-2000 cohort); 5-10 years 

(1990-94); 10-20 (1980-89); 20-30 (1970-79: 30-40 (1960-69); 40 years+ (<1960). 

 TABLE 2 Socioeconomic Characteristics of Mexican Foreign-Born Immigrants in DFW CMSA, Aged 20-64 

(in percentages) 

 Group 

Same 

House 

Diff. 

House Married 

No 

high 

school 

degree 

High 

school 

degree 

Some 

college 

College 

graduate Owner Renter N 

Pre-1960 80.29 19.71 77.15 47.5 24.6 18.9 8.9 80.6 19.4 5,566 

1960-69 66.82 33.18 74.21 62.7 16.5 15.4 5.4 75.6 24.4 14,436 

1970-79 60.84 39.16 76.56 70.2 15.3 11.9 2.6 69.2 30.8 68,956 

1980-89 44.36 55.64 75.01 72.1 15.7 8.6 3.5 53.7 46.3 104,003 

1990-94 32.59 67.41 69.06 73.5 15.5 6.8 4.2 37.6 62.4 67,978 

1995-2000 0.00 0.00 62.16 69.7 16.9 7.6 5.9 19.9 80.1 52,402 

U.S. born 49.1 50.9 60.6 13.2 25.3 33.7 27.8 68.5 31.4 1,989,587 

 Source: US PUMS 2000; weighted by person weight. 

All values significant at p<0.01. 

24
Rogers_Draft_Paper 

Intraurban Mobility in Dallas-Fort Worth CMSA 

The results reported here are for the Dallas-Fort Worth CMSA, which contains 35 PUMAS, 10 

counties, and 488 census tracts in its core county, Dallas. The 2000 total population (5,043,876) 

includes a large majority of non-Hispanic whites (59.31 percent), a large Hispanic population 

(21.44 percent), a sizeable African-American population (13.51 percent), and the second largest 

Asian population (3.67 percent) in the state. A great disparity in wealth exists between Anglos and 

minority. For example, the median household income is $47,418 and the median household 

income for Hispanics is $35,543. Since the 1970s the Dallas has experienced a downturn in its core 

central city areas due to its aging housing stock, deteriorating downtown, and general economic 

trends. In the last twenty years several central city districts have been revived such as Dallas’s West 

End Warehouse District and Deep Ellum but the long-term pattern of moving away from the 

urban core continues in the twenty-first century.19 With the development of the region’s 

international Dallas-Fort Worth airport towards what is commonly called the mid-cities area, the 

subsequent growth in large industrial complexes (warehouses, offices, etc), and financial and 

services section has closed the geographic space between the two cities and altered patterns of 

settlement and development. A major distribution center for many industries, locations 

surrounding the airport have become a major source of employment as well as the location of rich 

suburbs. The numerous modern shopping centers throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex 

also highlight the importance of retail trade. Richardson, one of Dallas’s suburbs, has been called 

Texas’s “Silicon Valley” because 44 percent of the state’s technology jobs in computers, 

biotechnology, and other computer-related industries are located there.20 

 Observers have noted the sharp increase in the number of Mexico foreign-born and other 

international immigrants and the impact upon the area’s demographic landscape.21 Indeed, critical 

observers have noted the “white flight” or balkanization of not only the Dallas-Fort Worth area 

25
Rogers_Draft_Paper 

but of cities such as Washington, D.C. and others. Such observers speculate that while the influx 

of immigrants has stopped the population decline in these cities, it has also caused considerable 

movement of the native-born population outwards towards more prosperous areas. Indeed, the 

increase in immigration to the Dallas-Fort Worth area has strained racial and ethnic boundaries and 

heightened those already in place. The process of migration over the last thirty years has 

permanently altered Dallas, and three separate and visible Mexican communities can be observed. 

The once Anglo-dominated Knox-Henderson area with homes dating back to the 1930s is but a 

short distance from downtown. The “Little Mexico” section of near northwest Dallas commonly 

known as the Bachman Lake-Walnut Hill neighborhood is close to the old city airport along 

Northwest Highway, 183, and the inner-city waterway, the Bachman Lake area. Homes in the area 

were built during the 1940s and 1950s, and Mexican restaurants, pawn shops, convenience stores, 

MAP 1. Percent of Foreign-Born in Dallas PMSA: 2000

Source: US PUMS 2000; TM-P031. 

26
Rogers_Draft_Paper 

MAP 2. Percent of Foreign Born, Fort Worth-Arlington PMSA 

Source: US PUMS 2000; TM-P031. 

grocers, money changes, arts and crafts shops cater primarily to adjacent working-class 

neighborhoods. Third, the even largest concentration of Hispanics in Oak Cliff in the Cockrell 

Hill area continues to attract recent arrivals. In addition to the predominately Mexican foreignborn population, Dallas’s immigrant community includes a large Asian Indian population 

employed in medical and information technology industries, a large Korean population and the 

second largest Korean church in the United States, and a large Chinese population primarily 

located in the old downtown area of Richardson called “China Town” because of its numerous 

ethnic restaurants and stores. 

The study measures the concentration of immigrants based on the proportion of 

the foreign-born to the total population, in essence an isolation index. Similar to Allen and 

27
Rogers_Draft_Paper 

Turner’s results, a range of concentration between 4.9 and 9.1 percent of the immigrant 

population to the total population in each of the thirty-five PUMAs identified the most 

important immigrant concentrations for both the Mexican foreign-born and other groups 

within the ten-county metropolitan area studied. A second threshold between 1.9 and 4.2 

identified more dispersed yet growing communities within and outside of the central city. 

Overall, 58 percent of the Mexican foreign-born population was concentrated in Cockrell 

Hill (9.1%), the Bachmann Lake/Northwest Highway/Walnut Hill area (8.4%), the 

Lakewood and Knox-Henderson areas (7.8%), White Settlement (west of Fort Worth; 

6.2%), South Buckner Boulevard (6.1%), Carrollton (6.1%), Irving (5.0%), and Fort Worth 

(4.9%). Among these areas over 35.7 percent of immigrants was concentrated in Dallas’s 

central city, and only 12 percent in the Fort Worth area (White Settlement and Fort 

Worth). A second threshold identified more dispersed communities of Mexican foreignborn immigrants (16.3%) located in Arlington (4.2), Mockingbird St. (4.0), West Dallas 

(Duncanville and Cedar Hill) (3.0), Grand Prairie (2.6), East (2.4) and West Garland (2.1), 

and Richardson (1.9). The cut-off points of the two tiers consider the proportion of 

Mexican foreign-born to the total population of foreign-born (59%) in the CMSA, the 

proportion of the origin group (61.5%) living in both areas described, and generally 

recognized communities. The analysis of residence and origin group with year of arrival as 

an interval variable was statistically significant at <.05 level with such a large sample size, 

however, surprisingly the strength of the association between residence and year of arrival 

was not very strong. Controlling for the native born and other immigrant groups, the Phi 

value (.308), the contingency coefficient (.295), and Cramer’s V (.138) showed only a 

moderate association at best among place of residence, origin group, and year of arrival. 

28
Rogers_Draft_Paper 

 Today, as indicated by the data Mexican foreign-born concentrations in the Dallas-Fort 

Worth area are located near or close to major growth areas and key transportation arteries. In the 

last twenty years the growth in the construction of industrial clusters (warehouses, offices, 

industrial parks) near the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport has attracted industrial growth 

and immigration of both the native born and immigrants towards the northwest Dallas County and 

northeast Tarrant county. As noted by Berry and Kasarda almost all metropolitan growth in the 

United States during the 1960s and 1970s occurred in the suburban rings of the metropolitan areas, 

and many central cities have grown little and experienced an absolute population loss.22 This has 

certainly been the pattern experienced in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The adaptation of the 

highway system to the growth patterns has both influenced the intraurban mobility patterns of 

established residents as well as immigrants as well as the location of jobs and services. One of the 

largest ethnic enclaves in Bachmann Lake is close to Northwest Highway , one of Dallas’s main 

arteries to the mid-cities area and Fort Worth. Data analysis of the concentration of immigrants 

across microdata areas shows that older ethnic communities located in East Dallas toward Balch 

Springs or Mesquite have been replaced by areas closer to jobs, interconnected to highways, and 

that offer more affordable housing such as Arlington, Grand Prairie, Irving, Farmer’s Branch, 

Richardson, Garland, and Cockrell Hill. Once suburbs back in the 1960s, these areas are now cities 

with sizeable immigrant as well as native-born populations. 

An analysis of migration PUMS data also shows that DFW has become a 

secondary gateway city for many immigrants already in the United States. The origin of 

immigrants who migrated to the area in 2000 and reported a different residence in 1995 

was primarily from within Texas (36.8%) and secondly from Mexico (12.5%). Other 

regions within the United States also contributed to the growth such as California (2.4%), 

India (1.4%), El Salvador (0.7%), and Canada (0.6%), Florida (0.6%), and Illinois (0.5%) 

29
Rogers_Draft_Paper 

(these results are not reported here in a table but are available). Viewing the data by origin 

group shows that approximately 62.6 percent of all Mexican foreign-born persons 

migrated to the area from within Texas (39.2%) or directly from Mexico (23.4%). County 

data files show that the Dallas-Fort Worth area experienced some migration (6.5%) from 

other gateway states and regions, namely California (2.2%), Florida (0.4%), Illinois (0.3%), 

Arizona (0.2%), New Mexico (0.1), Georgia (0.1%) and Colorado (0.1%). Over 47.9 

percent of all individuals who migrated to the Dallas-Fort Worth CMSA from California 

were Mexican foreign-born. The data also show that over 41 percent of the Central 

American immigrant population that migrated to the area, moved from somewhere in 

Texas and secondly from El Salvador or Honduras. The Other foreign-born category 

shows the tremendous mix of international migration from Canada, Nigeria, Pakistan, and 

unspecified countries in Africa. 

 The influx of immigrants into DFW underscores the dynamic settlement patterns 

of Mexican foreign-born immigrants in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, indicating a continued 

and growing importance of the central city for initial residential location, the growth 

westward toward the economic corridor, the large Latino foreign population in the 

periphery, and the displacement of older communities in the east for more central 

locations. During the 1960s and 1970s ethnic communities in the periphery of the central 

cities of Dallas and Fort Worth—Cedar Hill, Balch Springs, and Mesquite--attracted the 

majority of immigrants. By the 1980s the situation had been reversed as inner city 

communities grew in the Knox-Henderson and Walnut Hill areas, attracting over 11 

percent of immigrants and Plano attracted 10.5 percent. The trend continued during the 

1990s as over 20 percent of Mexican foreign-born immigrants who arrived between 1995 

30
Rogers_Draft_Paper 

and 2000 resided in the Lakewood, Northwest Highway, and Cockrell Hill areas. Older 

communities continue to attract immigrants yet over time, newer areas have both attracted 

recent arrivals and residents from communities in South and East Dallas as the economy 

and jobs move westward towards the mid-cities corridor. 

 Because the census data do not record the different moves of an individual (native 

born or immigrant), except for 1995, much must be inferred from the data regarding 

original settlement patterns. The data do show that newly arrived immigrants between 

1995 and 2000 were more likely to be located in central city areas such as Northwest 

Highway and Bachman Lake or the Knox-Henderson neighborhoods, or in areas closer to 

TABLE 4 Year of Arrival of Mexican Foreign-born Immigrants in Major Ethnic Enclaves in Dallas PMSA 

 

 

Cockrell Hill 

Oak Cliff 

Bachmann 

Lake 

Walnut Hill 

Lakewood KnoxHenderson 

<1940 45 33 54 

 % 0.1 0.1 0.2 

1940-49 129 31 0 

 % 0.3 0.1 0 

1950-59 345 84 271 

 % 0.8 0.2 0.8 

1960-69 1,212 793 939 

 % 2.9 2 2.6 

1970-79 6,759 2,756 3,807 

 % 16.2 7.1 10.7 

1980-89 10,080 7,281 7,229 

 % 24.1 18.8 20.3 

1990-99 21,594 25,239 22,012 

 % 51.7 65.1 61.7 

2000 1,607 2,568 1,385 

% 3.8 6.6 3.9 

Total 41,771 38,785 35,697 

Source: US PUMS 2000. Weighted sample including all ages and individuals. 

31
Rogers_Draft_Paper 

major growth areas such as Irving, Arlington, and Garland. Although Cockrell Hill has the 

largest number of Mexico foreign-born immigrants, 45 percent of its immigrant population 

arrived during prior to the 1990s. In contrast more central neighborhoods of Bachmann 

Lake and Walnut Hill show that over 65 percent of immigrants arrived during the 1990s 

and has rapidly become a popular destination for immigrants. 

Conclusion

The proximity of Texas to Mexico underscores the importance of this research. 

Texas has the longest border with Mexico than any of the other three U.S. states bordering 

Mexico, California, Arizona, or New Mexico. As one of the most dynamic regions in the 

world, the U.S.-Mexico border region extends 2,000 miles from the Gulf of Mexico to the 

Pacific Ocean, 1,254 miles of which are along the Texas border. Decades before the 

passage of the North American Free-Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, Mexican 

immigrants journeyed to Texas to work as temporary migrant agricultural laborers.23 

However, since the late 1970s the international trade flows between the United States and 

Mexico have increased not only the truck traffic at all ports of entry but the entry of 

Mexican immigrants following the trail of commerce along Texas’s primary interstate 

highway, IH-35. The large metropolitan areas of Texas and other urban centers in the 

United States have become the new agricultural fields of immigrants. 

This research extends naturally from existing work on remittances and migration 

behavior among Central and North Texas Mexican residents, and upon colonia-type 

housing developments both in the Texas-Mexico border and, more recently recognized, in 

the hinterland of emerging gateway cities (Ward 2000). Peter Ward’s work on the 

32
Rogers_Draft_Paper 

development of colonias in Texas has been centered in the Central Texas area. That 

research has proven expertise in the methods proposed here and will also build upon 

existing survey materials that are being gathered by several universities. To date this work 

has been carried out at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, the University of 

Texas at Austin, and embraces a consortium of universities within the University of 

Texas System and Texas A&M System as well as several other government and nongovernmental organizations. During 2001-04 Southern Methodist University (SMU) and 

the University of Texas at Arlington received a National Science Foundation grant to 

conduct a study of four foreign-born ethnic communities in the emerging gateway area of 

Dallas-Fort Worth. 

The settlement of immigrants in emerging gateway cities presents ample 

opportunities for new research on the urban mobility patterns of immigrants and their 

impact upon space. Since the earliest immigrant waves, the foreign-born regardless of 

socioeconomic status have tended to settle in urban areas because of the obvious 

availability of jobs, available housing, social networks, proximity to transportation facilities, 

and so on. Scholars have shown that the geographic propensity of immigrants has largely 

been determined by earlier immigrant settlers and factors such as social networks and the 

absolute size and establishment of communities (Lieberson and Waters 1988). Thus the 

demographic landscape of these “cities of immigrants” has been permanently changed by 

not only the absolute number of newcomers but by the social impact and residential 

restructuring that has taken place. In Texas the growth of immigrant communities since 

the 1970s has affected the demographic changes taking place in its metropolitan areas. 

The case study of Dallas-Fort Worth provides support for the assimilation model in that 

33
Rogers_Draft_Paper 

the majority of Mexican foreign-born immigrants reside in central city areas while other 

immigrants are more dispersed. It has also shown here that ethnic neighborhoods are not 

static but change over time as immigrants seek out new opportunities and new residential 

areas. While some observers view the positive side of immigration and the assimilation of 

immigrants as a giant melting pot of societal contributions and economic gains, others 

observe a “balkanization” of cities taking place as established residents continue to move 

out of aging central cities to more prosperous areas. With the immigration of many 

uneducated and poor immigrants and the decline in wages of many native born, such 

pessimistic observers note that our society does not have the capacity to absorb more 

immigrants. Thus research into the intraurban mobility patterns of immigrants in emerging 

gateway cities presents an avenue to further our understanding of immigrant assimilation , 

the mobility of the immigrant population, and to contribute to this ongoing debate. 

 

*This research is part of a dissertation project funded by the Office of Sponsored Projects, U.S. 

Housing and Urban Development, Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant (DDRG) (H21475SG), "Intraurban Mobility Patterns of Mexican Immigrants in Emerging Gateway Cities." 

All of the views and opinions here reflected only those of the author. The author wishes to 

thank Drs. Peter Ward, Thomas Pullum, Art Sakamoto, Bryan Roberts, and Robert Wilson for 

their encouragement and support. Additional thanks go to Dr. Peter Morrison and Yann-Yann 

Shieh, American Institute of Research, Washington, D.C. 

1

 Diane Schmidley, “The Foreign-Born Population in the United States: March 2002,” Population 

Characteristics, Current Population Reports, U.S. Census Bureau, February 2003. 

2

 For an interesting article on Asian and Filipino immigration, see “Dual Chain Migration: Post-1965 

Filipino Immigration to the United States, ” by HJohn MH. Liu et al, International Migration Review, 

1991, 25, 3(95), Fall, 487-513. 

3 Hispanic is an ethnic category, which includes Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, South or Central 

American, or other Hispanic/Latin, regardless of race. The 2000 census counts have been estimated as 

seriously undercounting the minority, elderly, and homeless populations of the United States. Using data 

from the Current Population Survey, John Logan determined that certain states and metropolitan areas 

where New Latinos are concentrated were dramatically affected by a severe underestimation of the 

numbers of Hispanic groups in 2000 because of the poor estimates of Origin on the questionnaire. The 

Mumford Center estimates that the Mexican group was by far the largest and increased by 70 percent 

34
Rogers_Draft_Paper 

 

between 1980 and 2000, not the 54 percent indicated by the U.S. Census. At the same time, the New 

Latino groups grew by 104 percent as opposed to 32 percent. For more information about the 

undercounting of the 2000 Census, see Barry Edmonston, “The Case For Modernizing The U.S. Census,” 

Society 39, no. 1 (November 2001), pp. 42-53. 4 Demographic Trends in the 20th Century, U.S. Census Bureau, 78. 5

 Roberto R. Ramirez and Patricia de la Cruz, “The Hispanic Population in the United States: March 

2002,” Current Population Reports, U.S. Census Bureau, June 2003, 1. 

6

 Ibid, 80. 

7

 Roberto Suro and Audrey Singer, “Latino Growth in Metropolitan America: Changing Patterns, New 

Locations.” Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution and the Pew Hispanic Center, 2002. 

8

 William H. Frey, “Metropolitan Magnets for International and Domestic Migrants,” Center on Urban 

and Metropolitan Policy, The Brookings Institution, October 2003, 4. 

9

 John R. Logan, “Hispanic Populations and Their Residential Patterns in the Metropolis,” Lewis 

Mumford Center for Comparative Urban and Regional Research, University at Albany, May 2002. 

10 Robert Bach, Changing Relations: Newcomers and Established Residents in U.S. Communities, Ford 

Foundation, National Board of the Changing Relations Project, New York 1993, p. 19. 

11 Brian J. L. Berry and John D. Kasarda, Contemporary Urban Ecology, New York: Macmillan 

Publishing Co., Inc., 1977, 21. 

12 See research by Nestor Rodriguez, University of Houston, on social networks and immigrant 

communities. 

13 See the work by anthropologist Caroline Brettel, Southern Methodist University. 

14 The percent of individuals residing in group quarters (2.7%) or occupying units without responsibility 

of payment (2.3%) is 5%; these individuals were deselected from the housing tenure variable. 

15 James P. Allen and Eugene Turner, “Spatial Patterns of Immigrant Assimilation,” Professional 

Geographer 48 (2) 1996: 150-55; Bruce Newbold and John Spindler, “Immigrant Settlement Patterns in 

Metropolitan Chicago,” Urban Studies 38 (11) 2001: 1907. 

16 Illana Redstone and Douglas S. Massey, “Coming to Stay: An Analysis of the U.S. Census Question 

on Immigrants' Year of Arrival,” Demography 41.4 (2004) 721-38. 

17 State Data Center, Texas A&M University, Table 1: Population and Percent Change by Race/Ethnicity 

in the State of Texas, 1980-2000. 

18 Ruben G. Rumbaut, “Origins and Destinies: Immigration to the United States since World War II,” 

Sociological Forum 9, no. 4, 1994. 

19 Kemper 2002; Governor and Brakefield 1998. 

20 “State Functions at the Texas-Mexico Border and Cross-border Transportation,” Texas Comptrollers’ 

Office, January 2001. 

21 See the work of historian Roger V. Kemper, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas. 22 Brian J. L. Berry and John D. Kasarda, Chapter 10 “Metropolitan Expansion and Central-city 

Organization: A Test of the Theory of Ecological Expansion,” in Contemporary Urban Ecology, New 

York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1977, 195. 

23 See David M. Reimers, Still the Golden Door: The Third World Comes to America (New York: 

Columbia University Press, 1985); Rodolfo Acuña, Occupied America: A History of Chicanos (New 

York: Harper & Row, 1981). 

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