Introduction.

The four papers in this special thematic section of the Journal of Cultural Geography emanated from the 2006 Race, Ethnicity and Place Conference at Texas State University-San Marcos. The focal places for the issue are three American cities: San Diego, Los Angeles and New Orleans. The themes are straightforward: employment opportunities, economic development and reconstruction, and community building and revitalization. These geographic matrices enlace complex relationships that include diverse ethnic groups: Mexican, African American, Anglo, Korean, Chosun-jok, Bangladeshi, Latin Americano, Guatemalan, Vietnamese, Honduran, Salvadoran and Nicaraguan, some native-born, others transnationals or immigrants. Socio-economic classes and religions are vital.

In the first paper, Sean Crotty and Fernando Bosco paint an 'invisible' place. They take us into the world and minds of day laborers and the ephemeral connections they have with mainstream America. Conflict fills the spaces. Locational conflict contests the use of public space. Community and class conflict battle about siting formal day labor centers. Day laborer conflicts punctuate their struggle to survive with as much dignity as they can muster. Mexicans, legal and illegal, African Americans from government housing, and drug-addicted 'white guys' come together at or near the 'center' and then strategize and skirmish to try to 'win' another day. Racism prevails: on the landscape, at the 'center,' in the relationships of day laborers and in the minds of their employers. Nevertheless, although the City of San Diego keeps its distance, it has also been successful in working through a NGO intermediary and along a path to provide a place in the community for men, despite their life dilemmas, who simply want a job for the day.

Los Angeles Koreatown is imaginary. Koreatown exists but it does not. K-town is a 'hybrid' place. Youngmin Lee and Kyonghwan Park, in a second piece with a California setting, explore this geographic conundrum via theory and reality. They conceptualize a 'pyramid structure of socio-economic class' for Koreatown where 'hegemonic actors' ride the peak and undocumented Latinos are the base. Interviews with key informants corroborate the conceptual model that demonstrates K-town is a multicultural, heterogeneous place. Many of the 'hegemonic actors' bring transnationalism into the daily lives of Koreatown's residents, most of whom do not know about this long-distance manipulation. Racism prevails: Chosun-jok and Mac-Jaak float derisively from Korean tongues and the affluent undertake 'Korean Flight' to Los Angeles suburbs. K-Town is not an illusion; instead, it is a commercial landscape replete with dominating Korean ...