This award supports the research of a cultural anthropologist in Los Angeles, California. The project studies the history and present state of community activism about housing in a multi- ethnic, blue-collar Black, Latino, and White neighborhood. Using the methods of ethnography and oral history the project will study how women have been key forces in maintaining their community's informal infrastructure, shaping its cohesive values and transforming daily networks and values into local activism and grassroots political culture. This research is important because grassroots political movements are one of the bedrocks of democracy. Understanding how they are formed around issues of varying importance to different ethnic groups, and analyzing the role of women in maintaining local political culture will provide information useful to municipality governments and urban housing planners.
