Suchergebnisse

In a context of widening inequality and governmental persecution of undocumented immigrants, central questions concern the social mobility of new ethnic groups formed as a result of mass migration from Latin America and Asia-especially the growing number of children of immigrants now transitioning to adulthood. This article presents findings from merged samples of two research studies in Southern California, the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS-III) and Immigration and Intergenerational Mobility in Metropolitan Los Angeles (IIMMLA). The focus is on the educational mobility of foreign-parentage (1.5- and second-generation) young adults of Mexican, Salvadoran, Guatemalan, Filipino, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian origin. The author examines factors that facilitate or derail mobility, including the role of parental human capital and legal/citizenship status, family and neighborhood contexts, early school achievement, acculturation, incarceration, and teenage and nonmarital childbearing, compared to patterns observed among native-parentage (third-generation and beyond) whites, blacks, and Mexican Americans. The article then considers the relationship between acculturation and mobility outcomes and the resulting new patterns of urban ethnic inequality. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright 2008 The American Academy of Political and Social Science.]

Draws upon the results of the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study carried out in Southern California & South Florida that examined ethnic self-identities among the teenage children of immigrants in the US. The results of a survey of youth aged 14 & 15 with a follow-up interview at ages 17 & 18 showed that almost half of the young people maintained the same identity but the self-reported ethnic identities of the rest shifted in various directions. The commonness of plural self-identifications is pointed out, along with the many factors that affect individual choices, including experiences of discrimination, family influences, & societal context. It is concluded that ethnic identities are complex products of people's ongoing efforts to interpret, understand, & respond to the social structural, cultural, & historical situations. The wide range of patterns of self-identification among teenage children of immigrants reflects the complex & often conflictive ways in which their sense of who they are is complicated by race, class, discrimination, acculturation, family relationships, & personal dreams. Tables, Figures, References. J. Lindroth

This article focuses on problems with the definition and empirical identification of immigrant "first" and "second" generations in the United States. These loosely conceived aggregates are decomposed into a typology of distinct generational cohorts defined by age and life stage at migration for the foreign born and by parental nativity for the U.S. born. Differences in educational and occupational attainment and in language and other aspects of acculturation are then examined to consider whether the practice of "lumping" these generational cohorts together, or "splitting" them into distinctive units of analysis, is empirically supported by available evidence. The paper concludes with some thoughts on data needs and methodological considerations in the study of immigrant generations. "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages …" – William Shakespeare, "As You Like It," Act II, Scene 7.

The number & national composition of members of second-generation migrant populations in the contemporary US are studied; in addition, the extent to which second-generation members preserve contacts with their parents' countries-of-origin is investigated. Demographic data from the US Census Bureau's Current Population Survey is analyzed to determine the size, composition, & concentration of first- & second-generation migrant populations. Moreover, data from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study is scrutinized to determine whether members (N = 2,420) of various Latin American, Caribbean, & Asian migrant communities living in San Diego, CA, maintained relations with their parents' countries-of-origin. Several findings are presented: transnational activism levels were routinely low for all second-generation populations; Spanish-speaking groups from Latin American nations displayed the greatest tendency to participate in transnational activities; & language & religion significantly influenced members' transnationalism. It is suggested that future research consider why few second-generation members expressed feelings of being separated from their parents' homelands. 9 Tables, 1 Figure, 32 References. J. W. Parker

The process of immigrant assimilation is typically and uncritically conceived as one of linear progress – becoming similar to the dominant group in the place of destination is presumed to be a good thing. But a compelling body of evidence on the adaptation of immigrants and their children points to a deterioration of outcomes over time and generation in the United States, as well as to nonlinear processes of change. While linguistic assimilation among children of immigrants does proceed rapidly and inexorably as a linear function, other outcomes – in such diverse areas as infant and adolescent health, diet and divorce, delinquency and risk behaviors, educational achievement and aspirations, an ethos of hard work, and the development of an ethnic identity – contradict conventional expectations, expose underlying ethnocentric pretensions, and point instead to assimilation's discontents. By examining such paradoxes of immigrant adaptation that emerge in the conceptual interstices between rhetoric and reality, fruitful reformulations of a seminal sociological concept may be stimulated and advanced.

Cuba's history subsequent to Spanish colonization can be divided into 50 years of republican capitalist government and 50 years of socialist revolutionary government, with an intervening 7 years of dictatorship. The revolutionary period was the result of and grew from the first, capitalist, period, including the Batista dictatorship, within the larger context of the cold war. Immediately after coming to power, the revolution met a determined reaction from the United States, setting the stage for 50 years of struggle for its survival, with and without the support of the former Soviet bloc. Far from representing a static tableau of abstract capitalism versus socialism, relations between the two countries followed a tortuous map of events and changes around the world in which both were protagonists, each with victories and defeats. The essential merit of the revolution is to have survived for the past half century.

Levels of fertility among Indochinese refugees in the United States are explored in the context of a highly compressed demographic transition implicit in the move from high-fertility Southeast Asian societies to a low-fertility resettlement region. A theoretical model is developed to explain the effect on refugee fertility of social background characteristics, migration history and patterns of adaptation to a different economic and cultural environment controlling for marital history and length of residence in the U.S. Multiple regression techniques are used to test the model which was found to account for nearly half of the variation in refugee fertility levels in the United States. Fertility is much higher for all Indochinese ethnic groups than it is for American women; the number of children in refugee families is in turn a major determinant of welfare dependency. Adjustments for rates of natural increase indicate a total 1985 Indochinese population of over one million, making it one of the largest Asian-origin populations in the United States. This remarkable phenomenon has occurred in less than a decade. Implications of these findings for public policy are discussed, focusing on family planning, maternal and child health needs, and the attainment of refugee economic self-sufficiency.