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It argues that the show of force by the LAPD—the very forceful clearing of generally peaceful protesters that reevoked a strong backlash against the LAPD by both the media and immigrant rights groups—was carried out not by Rampart police but, rather, by officers from an elite riot division in downtown LA.
Chapter 7 analyzes New Mesoamerica's social, political, financial, and cultural forms of capital and provides insights into how those forms of capital helped sustain the neighborhood in the wake of large-scale redevelopment. The chapter represents the synthesis of New Mesoamerica's emergence and evolution. The importance of the neighborhood's social capital becomes clear through the analysis of how a CBO initiated a housing forum that brought together over one hundred fifty community people, including the area's city councilor and his staff. The story of La Curacao Business Center, which houses more than ten CBOs as well as several transnational commercial organizations and the Guatemalan consulate, reflects multiple facets of the community's economy and organizations. Identifying the networked power of community organizations and how they maintain such power in the neighborhood helps to understand MacArthur Park's political capital. Considering how the city councilor's office interacts with local community members yields other political insights. The financial capital established in MacArthur Park is considered from several points of view, first in terms of the neighborhood's ethnopolitan economy (the immigrant economy, transnational connections, and ethnic niche economy) and then through the organization and experiences of a transnational credit union set up by a local CBO. Finally, the cultural capital that marks MacArthur Park as New Mesoamerica is examined through consideration of how agents in MacArthur Park, with the help of the local city councilor's office, are going about labeling the neighborhood “New Central America Town” and trying to give it an officially recognized and promoted Central-American cultural identity.
The concluding chapter revisits the theoretical framework and its main hypotheses and answers the main research question as follows: Immigrant