Alejandra Marchevsky and Jeanne Theoharis, Not Working: Latina Immigrants, Low-wage Jobs and the Failure of Welfare Reform.

de Marco, Allison

Alejandra Marchevsky and Jeanne Theoharis, Not Working: Latina Immigrants, Low-wage Jobs and the Failure of Welfare Reform. New York: New York University Press, 2006. $75.00 hardcover, $22.00 papercover.

While the welfare reforms of 1996 sought to move welfare-reliant parents into the workforce, thereby reducing dependence and increasing self-sufficiency, there were also correspondent messages about citizenship dictating who should receive aid. This resulted in remarkable declines in welfare program participation among legal immigrants, despite the fact that eligibility was later restored for such families. In light of the continuing debate around welfare policy, it is increasingly important to understand how the policy changes are impacting all recipients, particularly those who have traditionally been less visible.

In this interesting book, Marchevsky and Theoharis investigate how Latina immigrants are faring under the new welfare policies. The authors begin by tracing the history of racism and nativism in U.S. welfare policy. They then address the welfare reforms of the 1990s and their aftermath as caseloads declined, the sanction rate doubled, and wages were depressed. A subsequent section contextualizes these issues by tracing the history of the multiethnic area of Long Beach, California, where these women reside. In the second part of the book, the authors turn their focus to California's response to welfare reform and the emphasis on work over education and training. This section presents the Latina immigrants' experiences with the welfare system, most having worked since childhood but finding low-wage work alone insufficient to support their families. Marchevsky and Theoharis conclude with an in-depth critique of poverty research, particularly as it relates to welfare reform, drawing on the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC) Urban Change Project, with which the authors were involved, as a representative case of applied poverty research.

With this book, Marchevsky and Theoharis make a distinct contribution to the welfare reform debate by addressing a topic that has received less attention in the literature, namely how welfare reforms have impacted immigrants. Not Working is particularly timely as immigrants become more visible as they move to less traditional U.S. regions to find work and the immigration debate rages. As part of a larger MDRC study of welfare reform, Marchevsky interviewed a number of Latina immigrants who received aid for themselves and their children. A unique contribution of this ethnography is that Marchevsky and Theoharis provide a historical and structural context. Of particular interest is the detailed discussion of the development of the City of Long Beach, its failing economy, given the reliance on the military presence, and the effect on the poor. This city's history led to the response to welfare use and shaped the experiences of the profiled immigrant welfare recipients. A further strength of the book is the critical analysis in the final chapter of previous social science research used to shape the public consensus of the success of welfare reform, represented by the MDRC Urban Change Project. While the voices of the immigrant women could have been more liberally interspersed throughout the discussion, overall this book is a rewarding and important read for those interested in the experiences of immigrants in the United States and their struggles with poverty and the welfare system.

Allison de Marco, The Pennsylvania State University