Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo (University of Southern California): “Black and brown on common ground”. HOMInG Seminar, Department of Sociology and Social Research, May 16 2017 How do Latino and African American men create a sense of place, belonging and civic culture through their homo-social gatherings in parks and community gardens, and what is the role of these activities in processes of immigrant integration and immigrant home-making in historically Black neighborhoods? This presentation will focus on research that I conducted at two urban community gardens in Watts, and two public parks in South L.A. In the last forty years, South Los Angeles (also known as as “South Central”) has transformed from an African American neighborhood to a majority Latina/o locale. At the public parks and urban community gardens in the area, I find green spaces that are often segregated by race and gender. In this presentation, I seek to explain these developments and identify the commonalities shared by Latino and African American men in these green. The sociology of immigration has mostly ignored the materiality of the local environment in processes of settlement and immigrant integration, and this paper underscores how plant nature and landscape shape public homemaking for marginalized men in inner-city contexts.