Hostile Social Environment Research Articles

Social Exclusion and Violence in Latin America and the Caribbean

This paper examines how social exclusion contributes to violence in communities throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Residents in socially excluded communities cannot depend on those institutions designed to protect them, and violence becomes an instrument to achieve certain outcomes, such as justice, security, and economic gain. When conventional methods of obtaining and working for increased social status, higher income, and wider influence are limited, as they often are in marginalized areas, some feel compelled to resort to violent acts. This paper discusses how social exclusion and violence interact in a vicious circle that leaves the socially excluded in a very hostile social environment where the borders between legal and illegal, legitimate and illegitimate are often fuzzy and uncertain. In this environment violence is used by a minority to acquire justice, security, authority and economic gain. The use of violence by this minority, however, affect the lives of the majority of excluded people that do not resort to violence. As youths are particularly vulnerable to this issue, this paper also examines the relationship between violence and the plight of Latin American youth gangs and street children.

Political dynamics in North Africa

North Africa is notable for the remarkable stability of its political systems despite the increasingly hostile social and economic environment in which they operate. In part this results from their current security engagement with Europe but more important, perhaps, is the shared political culture that informs them despite the great differences between them and their failure to fulfill the principles upon which they were, for the most part, founded. This is, in part, typified by the very similar mechanisms they have each developed to ensure political continuity, based either on monarchical succession or dynastic republicanism. It is less clear, however, that they will be able to resist the most recent challenges arising from Islamist social movements, although the new political dispensations that might emerge may not be so very different from their predecessors.

How Good Are Networks for Migrant Job Seekers? Ethnographic Evidence from North Carolina Farm Labor* Camps

Migrant farmworker networks are vital components in their job seeking and underemployment minimization strategies. Yet, farmworker cultural, physical, and institutional isolation along with the itinerant and clandestine features of farmwork have become major obstacles in the development of robust lateral communitywide network ties that would otherwise favor reciprocity and resource sharing. Thus, contrary to the positive social capital assumption, we argue that the paucity and fragmented features of farmworkers’ lateral ties have increased their vulnerability and locked them in exploitative relationships in a hostile social environment that makes impractical or impossible the formation of alternative ties. Our study is based on participant observation through a 6‐week stay in three North Carolina farm labor camps. On‐site evidence shows that the two larger groups of solitary male farmworkers and farmworking families break up into smaller groups, each group in pursuit of its own short‐term goals. We conclude that, even though farmworker networks help them to find and ensure temporary jobs, their inability to use the networks to share resources is ultimately detrimental for participants’ long‐term socioeconomic prospects.

The Fin de Siècle Thesis

This paper examines the relations between John Heilbron's argument that fin de siècle physicists adjusted the image and substance of their discipline to cultural concerns, and Paul Forman's approach to acau-sality in the Weimar period. In addition to their focus on representation rather than truth, adherents of the "descriptionist" epistemologies that Heilbron identified also promoted an emphasis on method, statistical rather than causal explanations, historical understandings of epistemology, and stressed the relations between physics and other disciplines. Their views provide an intellectual context--within the physics discipline--for at least some part of what Forman had described as a capitulation to the hostile social environment expressed in Oswald Spengler's Der Untergang des Abendlandes.

Thoughts on „defensive” medicine

"Defensive" medicine is called medical behaviour characterized by deformation of diagnostic and therapeutic activities due to fears endangering existence and work, thus some interventions are omitted or, on the contrary, superfluous examinations are proposed on account of internal uncertainty, the patient's distrust or hostile social environment. Trust relation between patient and physician is the most gravely damaged because of aggravation and distortion of some conscienceless physicians' abuses by the media; patient-physician relations may not be degraded to contractual legal relations. Young physicians must get acquainted with the joy of success in diagnostics that enriches the personality. They shall have healthy self-esteem and be ready to take diagnostic and therapeutic challenges on themselves. All of us have to fight against social atmosphere hostile to physicians, against causes inducing and augmenting practice of defensive medicine.

The Social/Sexual Environment of Gay Men Residing in a Rural Frontier State: Implications for the Development of HIV Prevention Programs

The incidence and prevalence of HIV/AIDS is increasing among rural men who have sex with men (MSM). Yet little is known about the social/ sexual environment of rural frontier areas. The purpose of this study was to assess the social/sexual environment of gay men living in rural areas and how this environment contributes to the development of HIV/AIDS prevention programs. A qualitative study was conducted in Wyoming. In-depth guided interviews were conducted with 39 self-identified gay men. Data were analyzed for emergent themes using constant comparative analysis. Four broadly related themes emerged. Participants perceive that they live in a hostile social environment in which the potential for becoming a target of violence is present. In order to cope with this social reality, men adopt strategies to assimilate into the predominant heterosexual culture and to look for sex partners. These, in turn, are related to their attitudes about HIV/AIDS and prevention activities. Notably, the Internet was discussed by participants as a means for men to connect to a larger gay society and look for sex partners and as a potential venue to HIV/AIDS prevention programs. Data provided a number of implications for developing HIV/AIDS prevention programs targeting rural MSM. Especially apparent was the need for programs to be mindful of the desire to keep one's sexual preferences shielded from public knowledge and the effect this may have on recruiting rural MSM to participate in prevention activities. The Internet, because men can access it privately, might provide a venue for prevention projects.

アメリカ大平原ガーデンシティにおける東南アジア系社会とローカルホスト社会

Southeast Asian refugees were attracted to Garden City, Kansas beginning in the early 1980s when the low-wage labor demand increased after establishment of corporate meatpacking plants. Local feed grain production expanded substantially due to the application of center-pivot irrigation systems, commercial cattle feeding industry flourished, and large-scale beef packing plants began to process cattle into boxed-beef. This paper attempts to analyze Southeast Asian refugees and their community in the context of expanding local economy and changing local host society. Special attention is paid to the process of resettlement, low-cost housing in mobile home parks, occupational structure, and ethnic landscape. Unlike most Asian immigrants in the United States who, in the face of hostile social environment, applied adaptive strategies to finding housing and employment and protecting the interests of ethnic communities, Southeast Asians in Garden City successfully found economic niche as well as spatial niche with minimal conflict. It was partly due to the powerful economic pull provided by IBP. It was also due to the assistance given by the federal and state government to refugee resettlement. Additionally, local host society also provided Southeast Asian refugees with varied assistance as they were considered inevitable for sustaining the growth of local economy.

Editor's Choice

Britain has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the European Union. While the social burden of this is considerable, it may be that pregnancy itself poses little health risk to teenagers or their babies. Now, from Sweden, comes evidence that teenage mothers face a higher risk of premature death in later life (Olausson et al., pages 793–799). These women's lifestyles and their continued exposure to a hostile social environment contribute to their early demise. In an accompanying commentary, Drife (pages 763–764) suggests a dual approach of preventing unwanted teenage pregnancies whilst supporting those who wish to have their babies. Ultrasound has been the cornerstone for fetal imaging for a number of years but in-utero Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) may be better at visualising some aspects of fetal anatomy. On pages 784–792, Whitby et al. compare ultrasound and MRI imaging in pregnancies with suspected fetal brain abnormalities and suggest that where ultrasound is equivocal, MRI provides information which can potentially change clinical management. The authors do not report a direct comparison of MRI versus ultrasound so while MRI may have a role in clarifying ultrasound suspected abnormalities it should not become the screening method of choice in all pregnancies. As women live longer, the limitations of traditional methods of prolapse surgery become more apparent. Dwyer and O' Reilly, from Australia (pages 831–836) describe a promising new approach to the use of synthetic mesh in vaginal surgery. Meanwhile, the debate about the place of tension free vaginal tape (TVT) in the treatment of urinary incontinence continues. Trial evidence supports TVT as an effective and less morbid alternative to Burch colposuspension but a group from St George's Hospital (Karantanis et al., pages 837–841) report that in women over sixty five it is associated with lower satisfaction rates. Developing new surgical techniques should not distract us from subjecting routine aspects of postoperative care to rigorous evaluation. Results of a randomised comparison of short and long term post-operative bladder catheterisation following vaginal surgery for prolapse are reported on pages 828–830. Women in the long-term catheterisation group were less likely to undergo repeat catheterisation, but experienced a higher incidence of urinary tract infection and a longer hospital stay. The authors conclude that the disadvantages of short-term catheterisation outweigh the advantages, but crucially omit to present any data on women's perceptions of the quality of their care. The last few years have seen the publication of many clinical guidelines. On pages 874–876, Zaki and colleagues deplore the wide variation in standards of intra-partum and post-partum bladder care across England and Wales and blame a lack of guidelines. However Foy and colleagues, (pages 765–770) suggest that guidelines may not always be the answer. They examined the impact of a Scottish national guideline on the management of mild non-proteinuric hypertension. Despite steps to ensure guideline implementation by a national clinical effectiveness programme, pregnant women continued to receive inconsistent clinical care. Guidelines aim to improve standards of practice but even clear consistent guidelines, supported by a national implementation programme, do not guarantee success. The global impact of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic last year cannot be overstated. Despite the plethora of publications on this topic, few papers have directly addressed the issue of SARS in pregnancy. A paper from Hong Kong (Lam et al., pages 771–774) shows that pregnant women face a higher rate of complications and require more aggressive management than non-pregnant controls. The authors provide a much needed insight into the obstetric aspects of this life threatening infection and highlight the uncertainty surrounding its treatment in pregnant women.

Coming Out in a Hostile Social Environment

Young people below the age of 24 years account for almost half of all new HIV infections in the United States; young men who have sex with men are disproportionately represented among this population (Centers for Disease Control, 2000). The major assertions of this article are: (1) the social context of coming out may be vital to the overall psychological health and well-being of gay youth and, in turn, to their HIV risk behavior; and (2) coming out is a multifaceted developmental process: different pathways of coming out may be related to different types and determinants of HIV risk behavior. Evidence of a milieu of stigmatization, anti-gay hatred, harassment and violence among gay youth suggests that merely addressing HIV risk with even high quality individual-level interventions that myopically focus on sexual behavior may be insufficient. Interventions targeting anti-gay attitudes and behaviors in families, schools and communities, as well as combating discriminatory social policies and institutions, may be a vital aspect of HIV prevention for gay youth.

From social butterfly to modern‐day Medea: Elizabeth Broderick's portrayal in the press

This essay examines the press’ portrayal of Elizabeth Broderick and her trial for the November 5, 1989, murder of her ex‐husband and his wife. The central contention of this essay is that the press’ construction of Elizabeth Broderick's image can best be understood as a cautionary tale directed at men and women who might deviate from normative heterosexual gender roles. Specifically, it is suggested here that the press demonized her as a unique individual rather than casting her as acting in response to institutionalized patterns of power manifested in a hostile social environment. Additionally, by suggesting that she endangered her children, she was cast as committing a fundamental transgression against her gender, and hence of gender itself, thereby entering the domain of the inhuman. Going beyond the question of her guilt, I would content that the press de‐personalized Broderick. In this context, the analysis generates questions about the counter‐hegemonic narratives about justice as well as the completeness of legitimation and delegitimation processes. To the extent that Elizabeth Broderick's voice is heard, we are encouraged to interrogate a wider range of sites in the investigation of female monstrosity.

Choosing Not To Be Old? Masks, Bodies and Identity Management in Later Life

This paper critically assesses an increasing use of mask motifs to examine questions of identity in later life. Two approaches are subjected to detailed analysis, both of which propose distinctive answers to the challenge to identity management emerging from high or post modernity. First, consideration is given to a postmodern ‘mask of ageing’ (Featherstone and Hepworth 1989), key elements of which include consumer culture and the ageing body. Secondly, psychodynamic conceptions of masquerade and the use of personae are examined, whereby discussion centres on expanded personal potential in the second half of life and protection against a hostile social environment. A developmental model of social masking is proposed. Whilst there are superficial similarities in the use of masking, these traditions are shown to have radically different ideas concerning the core contradictions of an ageing identity. Implications for identity management and the status of body, midlifestyle and authenticity in later life, plus the need for subtlety in research methodology, are drawn out.

Perspectives in Mexican American Studies: Mexican American Women Changing Images (review)

204 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies Perspectives in Mexican American Studies: Mexican American Women Changing Images, Volume 5 (1995) Edited by Juan R. Garcia The strength of any collection of essays does not depend solely on the individual merits of each contributing author's work, but on the vision that shapes the entire volume. In this respect editor Juan R. Garcia succeeds, for he has brought together in a women-centered Perspectives in Mexican American Studies a solid group of essays which work together to provide greatly needed historically -grounded insight into Chicana labor and activism. Yet that these essays "work together" does not imply conformity. On the contrary, the range of historical periods and subjecr matters means that even the terminology changes between articles from "Chicanas" to "women of Mexican descent" to "Mexican American women" to "Latinas." Although this slippage never receives the critical gloss that it surely should, it does signal how rapidly the field of Chicana/o studies is evolving, a fact which GarcÃ-as compilation has certainly captured. While the volume overwhelmingly reflects the effort to recognize Chicanas and their contributions to various histories—whether they be of voluntary groups, the National Association for Chicano Studies, an economic cooperative in New Mexico, or the Midwest—other threads link the articles together even more thoroughly . Thematically, all of the essays suggest, to some degree, the centrality of Chicanas's labor activity. Methodologically, each author finds that in order to enable a focus on the Chicana experience, she or he must challenge disciplinary assumptions and prejudices in order to provide "a corrective to the traditional works and models" that subsume or belittle women's presence (x). While this is apparent in all of the essays, Cynthia E. Orozco's "Beyond Machismo, La Familia , and Ladies Auxiliaries: A Historiography of Mexican-Origin Women's Participation in Voluntary Associations and Politics in the United States, 18701990 " spells out this intent concisely: "Scholars have rarely asked how gender mattered in the associations, and have hardly considered women's participation in them" (1). Orozco's careful attention to prior researchers on this matter and her dedicated and thorough notes supporr her assertion that new theoretical frames are needed if we are to address the specific experiences and importance of Chicanas' involvement in voluntary organizations. "Beyond the Adelita Image: Women Scholars in the National Association for Chicano Studies, 1972-1992," by Gilberto GarcÃ-a, offers anorher detailed survey of the literature. Positioning NACS as the center and origins of Chicano Studies scholarship, Garcia uses a database he created from the programs of all NACS annual conferences from 1974-1992 to examine the low representation of female participation in the 1970s and the slow but steady increase in the years after. GarcÃ-as notes document many Chicana scholars' contributions to an emergent field.The strength of Gardas work resides in his pointedly diachronic analysis of Chicana scholarly production. Book Reviews 205 Richard Santillán's essay offers a perspective similar to GarcÃ-as in its broad historical base." Midwestern Mexican American Women and the Struggle for Gender Equality: a Historical Overview, 1920s-1960s" examines the efforts of this population to achieve equality in a "hostile social environment" (79). Because of the scant amount of information on both Mexican American women and the Midwest, the author uses the anecdotes of 150 interviewees to construct a compelling history. Yolanda Chávez Leyva, on the other hand, narrows the focus to El Paso in "'Faithful, Hard-Working Mexican Hands': Mexicana Workers During the Great Depression." This essay examines closely Mexican women's efforts to organize labor unions and improve rheir working conditions. Chávez Leyva's work highlights the contradictory nature of this era and the limited successes realized by these women, without losing sight of the importance of their ability to participate in the struggle. "Cooperative Re/Weavings: Artistic Expression and Economic Development in a Northern New Mexican Village" discusses the successful Tierra Wools venture in Los Ojos, New Mexico. Interviews with the cooperative's members inform Maria Ochoa's complex analysis of the connections between economic survival, cultural knowledge production, community building, and environmental preservation. Maria Cotera analyzes another type of production, the literary...

Psychotherapy among children and teenagers in the republic of Georgia

Psychotherapy was conducted with 103 children and teenagers. Medical checkups and physiological evaluations were performed along with analyses of family relations and social environments. Problems discovered were multifarious and can be classified as those owing to age, those resulting from the Georgian lifestyle (the traditional Georgian family consists of several generations living together and provides the basic structure for the development and maturation of youth), and those that had emerged in the previous 3 years as a result of a hostile social environment. Perinatal pathology (pathological pregnancy, complicated delivery, asphyxia, and prematurity) was revealed in 30% of the cases. Psychotherapy resulted in stable psychological balance in 42% of the cases.

Chapter 2: The Ecological Context of HIV/AIDS Counseling:

The HIV/AIDS epidemic has brought on social changes bearing considerable impact upon the lives of gay and lesbian communities. An ecological perspective on the counseling process in human services for those impacted by the epidemic is recommended. Issues in counseling which are shaped by the epidemic include fostering support systems within the context of an often hostile social environment; addressing the essential need for shifting assessment paradigms to those which emphasize strengths; recognizing the impact of multiple traumatic occurences and multiple losses on everyday life transactions; and using interventions which promote empowerment, self-acceptance, and healthy lifestyles.

Race and Economic Marginality in Explaining Prison Adjustment

A common theme found in the prison literature suggests that blacks, because of their experience in the modern urban ghetto, are more resilient to the pains of incarceration. Ghetto life supposedly socializes the individual to engage in self-protection against the hostile social environment of the slum and the cold and unpredictable prison setting. Two images of the male black inmate are found in the literature: Carroll describes the black prisoner as tough, domineering, and aggressive, while Johnson suggests that he is strong, stoic, and unmoved by pressure. A review of the empirical research about race and adjustment reveals that support for either of these images is mixed. Using multiple indicators of distress and aggressive behavior, this study finds that, with the exception of self-inflicted injury, blacks and whites experience incarceration similarly. Outcome results were corroborated by findings that blacks and whites have similar environmental needs and rate their prison settings similarly. Some support for the claim that a more economically marginal life-style before incarceration is related to successful adjustment was found, yet this was true independent of race. These findings lead to the conclusion that racial distinctions are not universal, and the practice of suggesting that blacks adapt one way and whites another leads to inappropriate conclusions about patterns of prison adjustment.

Paternalism and Assimilation in Books About Hispanics: Part Two of a Two-Part Essay

Paternalism and Assimilation in Books About Hispanics:Part Two of a Two-Part Essay Opal Moore and Donnarae MacCann In the first part of this essay, published in the Summer 1987 Quarterly, we showed how four different writers of children's novels published prior to the Seventies made the maturing process of Chicano youths dependant upon an Anglo rescuer, who is able to teach these youngsters the supposedly superior values of the dominant culture and thus rescue them from hopelessness. We concluded that, according to these novels, the growing-up process for Hispanic youths would be a hopeless nightmare of emotional insecurity and lack of guidance if not for outside help. This perspective continues into the 1970's with Frank Bonhams' novel Viva Chicano (1970). Not once in the eight books discussed in both parts of this series is an Hispanic youth significantly influenced by a positive adult Hispanic character. In Viva Chicano, Joaquin Duran, a youth looking for guidance and the stability he lacks at home, temporarily places his confidence in a cardboard facsimile of a long dead Mexican revolutionary hero, Emiliano Zapata. The cardboard figure, stolen from in front of a movie theatre, "talks" to Joaquin, offering him advice on how to straighten out his life. The youngster's own mother is promiscuous, hysterical, and vindicative. Bonham weaves a story of Hispanic emotionalism, superstition, fractured family life, and criminality. The storyline is fairly implausible from the start as Joaquin, called Keeny, is negligent in his babysitting duties and his little brother falls from the second story window. The neighbors converge and insist to the police that Keeny pushed the baby out. Keeny flees the scene without even knowing the condition or fate of his injured brother. In a move from the implausible to the absurd, Keeny steals the Zapata dummy; the dead revolutionary promptly advises him to call upon his parole officer to save his skin. Despite Keeny's extensive run-ins with the police, he is portrayed as a paragon surrounded by the stupid, the weak, the ignorant, the malicious, the mindless. His mother is described as a woman of uncontrollable emotions with a taste for worthless men and an irrational hatred for her eldest son. His friends, the Royal Aztecs (an unofficial gang) are idiots and drug abusers. The only other Hispanic female in the book is the young run-away girlfriend of one of the Aztecs. Her name is YoYo and she is described with a care to detail: She wore a green blouse and skirt separated by six inches of skin. Green plastic boots were zipped to her knees. . . . The amazing thing about her was her hair, lemon-yellow and standing out at least a foot around her head in an enormous bubble hairdo. . . . Indeed she stood out, with her bizarre coloring and makeup, like a vivid parrot that had flown into a henyard from the jungle. (79) YoYo is a silly delinquent who has been on her own since her mother was murdered by a male companion. Her yellow hair suggests her desire to be Anglo at the same time that the "bubble hairdo" might imply an equally misguided affinity for the Black militant movement. (This would account for the "jungle" reference.) The single elements of her appearance combine to connote promiscuity, bad taste (according to these books a quality that is rampant among Hispanic women), confusion and hopelessness. Zapata's ghost has just one message for YoYo—a conventional middle class chiding about her appearance. She promptly dyes her hair black, appropriates the chaste-looking dress and braids of a nineteenth century peasant girl, and becomes conspicuously religious. There is no attempt to offer insight into her real inner conflicts. The hostile social environment, the gangs, drugs, and criminality are not presented in a social or economic context. Instead, they appear to exist as a probable consequence of violent, unprincipled parents and a police force that presumes guilt without evidence. After all, Keeny, a good intelligent boy, could not avoid his predicament. How could an average youth be expected to do so? It is implied that all the good, admirable men are dead and gone; the women are incompetent, hysterical or self...

Asian Indian Immigration Patterns: The Origins of the Sikh Community in California

This article outlines the immigration and settlement patterns of Asian Indians in the United States from the turn of the century to the present decade. The focus is on the efforts of the Sikh pioneers to succeed in what can only be viewed as a hostile social environment, marked primarily by racial discrimination and legal restrictions on their entry into this country. With modifications in the U.S. immigration laws of 1965 an educated professional class of Asian Indians have monopolized the flow of immigrants from India, with the result that the Sikhs presently constitute a small proportion of the total number of Asian Indians in the U.S. However, the recent political crisis in India has served to galvanize the American Sikh community into political action. This has resulted in a political split between the Sikhs and other Asian Indians in this country. This article concludes with an analysis of the demographic composition of the “third wave” Asian Indian immigrants in the United States and their potential impact on political conditions in India.

Northern California Japanese Floriculture in Transition

Japanese floriculture in northern California started in the last years of the nineteenth century, greatly expanding in later years, especially in San Francisco Bay Area. The California Flower Market, Inc. of San Francisco played a centripetal role among Japanese flower growers, providing them with a market place as well as socially and culturally uniting those who had difficulties with language and a sometimes hostile social environment. This ethnicly-oriented industry, however, has experienced great changes since World War II.The present paper is intended to describe and analyze this transition. Four factors are principally responsible: (1) The San Francisco Bay Area has been one of the most rapidly urbanizing areas of the country in recent decades and flower nurseries often stand as a last remnant of agriculture engulfed in the surge of new urban housing developments. High taxes and zoning restrictions make the survivale of nurseries more and more difficult. (2) Technological development has had a great impact on the production as well as the marketing of flowers. Innovations in transportation have been important, especially in marketing. Air and truck shipment, together with the advancement in refrigeration techniques, has made possible a major expansion of markets. Trucking especially has given the industry more mobility and it has become more efficient and profitable to grow flowers in the climatically suitable and lowest cost producing areas. Greenhouse facilities also have seen great advancement and the control of the micro-environment has become more and more efficient, making it possible to respond better to peak demands. (3) The hostile social environment of the pre-war period has changed to greater tolerance and acceptance of the Japanese. The weakening role of formal and informal mechanisms of discrimination has allowed them to participate in economic activities on an equal basis, thus diversifying their occupational opportunities. This has changed the traditional form and function of ethnic organization. (4) Cultural changes have also occured in the Japanese community itself. The later generations, i.e. American-born Japanese well assimilated into the American way-of-life and value systems, has largely eliminated the peculiar ethnic relationship in both economic and cultural activities under which Issei growers so florished.Although the Japanese were evacuated and held in relocation centers during World War II, flower growers quickly and successfully reestablished themselves in their former business at its close. In this period of reestablishment and development, second-generation Nisei became the dominant force in the industry. Several members of the same family often collaborated in expanding the scale of their operations. Improvement and modernization of greenhouse facilities and floricultural techniques, as well as transport and infrastructure, were continuous. New ways of marketing flowers were introduced, altering the traditional function of the California Flower Market in San Francisco. Operations increased in scale, and growers increasingly took on the function of wholesalers and shippers. But the floriculture industry has been caught up in the rapid urbanization and economic transformation of the Bay Area in recent years. New nursery developments have spread to the South Bay as Oakland and the northern San Francisco Peninsula have lost their dominant position in the industry. But increasing reluctance of Sansei to continue with the family business makes the future of the industry problematic in this traditional center of Japanese floriculture.In response to increasing taxes and the pressures of urbanization, a part of the industry leap-frogged in the mid-1960's to the Monterey Bay area. Here Post-war immigrants and Nisei from the Bay Area joined together to establish a new floricultural region.