September 3, 2008
Written by C.N.
Latest Immigration and Assimilation Research
As mentioned on the Contexts Crawler blog, National Public Radio (NPR) recently did a podcast that discussed the results of a comprehensive study by some of the best-known and most-respected sociologists in the field on the question of whether contemporary immigrants are immigrating into the American mainstream as easily as previous streams of immigrants:
The “second generation” project looked at five groups [in the NYC metro area] — Russians, Dominicans, South Americans, Chinese and West Indians — and compared them with U.S.-born whites, Puerto Ricans and African-Americans. Researchers found that most in the second generation were fluent in English and working in the mainstream economy.
When they looked at economic and educational achievement, they found that West Indians were doing better, in general, than African-Americans; Dominicans were doing better than Puerto Ricans; and the Chinese and the Russians were doing as well as or better than native-born whites. . . .
Legal immigration is more difficult today, and researchers note that this may well change the rate of assimilation. But for these five groups, “what we really find is a very rapid assimilation and becoming American,” says Mary Waters of Harvard University, another author of the study, titled Inheriting the City: The Children of Immigrants Come of Age. . . .
Although Inheriting the City paints an optimistic portrait of this second generation, it has some warnings about the situation facing native-born minorities. The researchers also say the children of undocumented immigrants tend to do worse and have a tougher time assimilating. Because legal immigration is tougher to come by today, researchers say they wonder whether the path for the next “second generation” will be as smooth.
Although I have not read the Inheriting the City book, given my high regard for the expertise of the book’s authors, I have no doubt that it is a very informative and interesting look at this ongoing issue of assimilation among contemporary immigrants.
I look forward to checking it out soon.
Author Citation
Copyright © 2001- by C.N. Le. Some rights reserved. 
Suggested reference: Le, C.N. . "Latest Immigration and Assimilation Research" Asian-Nation: The Landscape of Asian America. <https://www.asian-nation.org/headlines/2008/09/latest-immigration-and-assimilation-research/> ().
Short URL: https://www.asian-nation.org/headlines/?p=716
Tags:
Translate Into Another Language