Toward a Minority Culture of Mobility: Immigrant Integration into the African‐American Middle Class

Two important social transformations have occurred since the 1960s: the rise of the Black middle class and the influx of immigrants from Latin, America, Asia and Africa. The cultural and economic outcomes for first‐ and second‐generation Black immigrants are often linked to the Black poor/underclass. However, we understand little about the ways in which the Black middle class is a potential pathway of integration for immigrants. This paper reviews the sociological debates on the socioeconomic incorporation of immigrants and the racial and ethnic relations of new and old African‐Americans. It discusses the important contributions of minority culture of mobility hypothesis for class‐based theories of immigrant integration. We draw from the literature on social stratification, race relations and immigrant incorporation in order to chime in on the conversation about how becoming socially mobile in America may mean having similar social experience as the African‐American or minority middle class. The paper also suggests ways to better analyze the relationship between identity, integration, space and generation in minority incorporation.     

Measures of Assimilation in the Marriage Market: Mexican Americans 1970–1990

In 1965 the United States rewrote its immigration laws, and immigration increased sharply as a result. The immigrants and the children of immigrants from the post‐1965 period are slowly becoming more influential in U.S. life; the largest of these groups are the Mexican immigrants and the Mexican Americans. The rapid growth of Hispanic and Asian populations in the United States has led to a renewed interest in the question of assimilation; that is, will the new groups assimilate, and if so how long will it take? Will they become part of White America? Will some groups assimilate into the Black‐dominated urban underclass (a process Portes called segmented assimilation)? Will some groups remain permanently separate and socially isolated? In this article, I examine the behavior of Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants in the U.S. marriage market, using census data from 1970, 1980, and 1990. The findings are that Mexican Americans are assimilating with non‐Hispanic Whites over time, and the evidence tends to reject the segmented assimilation hypothesis. The interplay between intermarriage and endogamy is studied with log linear models; some variations by geography and U.S. nativity are noted.     

"It's not cricket": colonial legacies and contemporary inequalities

Cricket has been historically significant in defining notions of English national identity and continues to feature in debates over the inclusion/exclusion of immigrants in British society. British-African-Caribbean players are well represented in the English game but participation appears mediated by ethnic group membership. This contemporary pattern can only be understood when contextualized within the historical development of cricket in the Caribbean and, in particular, the struggles between whites and blacks and between the white elites. Over-representation in certain cricketing roles has been an ever-present feature of this negotiation; contemporary inequality is, therefore, largely a consequence of the legacy of British Imperialism.     

Socioeconomic dualism: the case of Israeli-born immigrants in the United States

Relying on the 1980 US Census of Foreign-Born Population and the 1979 Immigration and Naturalization Service Public Use File, this article compares Israeli-born Americans (including Arabs) to both the US and Israeli populations with respect to age, marital status, unemployment, education, industry, occupation, and income as of 1979-1980. Some of the results, mainly those pertaining to the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of Israeli immigrants as compared to their society of origin, corroborate previous research. Thus, Israeli-born immigrants in the US held top white-collar jobs and were less likely to be unemployed than the rest of the Israeli labor force. Once in America, however, it seems that not all Israeli-born Americans are as successful as portrayed by past research. In fact, the Census data reveal occupational and economic dualism among the population of Israeli-born Americans. The reasons for this dualism are discussed.     

Economic Outcomes among Latino Migrants to Spain and the United States: Differences by Source Region and Legal Status

Using representative national surveys, this paper compares economic outcomes among Latin American migrants to Spain and the United States in the first cross-national comparison using quantitative data. Considering the geographic location and social proximity of each country with respect to Latin America, we detect a critical selection effect whereby the majority of Latin American migrants to Spain originate in South America from middle class backgrounds, whereas most migrants to the United States are Central Americans of lower class origins. This selection effect accounts for cross-national differences in the probability of employment, occupational attainment, and wages earned. Despite differences in the origins and characteristics of Latino immigrants to each country, demographic and human and social capital factors appear to operate similarly in both places; and when models are estimated separately by legal status, we find that effects are more accentuated for undocumented compared with documented migrants, especially in the United States.     

Supplemental Security Income Among Older Immigrants From Central and South America: The Impact of Welfare Reform

This article explores the impact of federal welfare policy changes on older immigrants born in Central and South America. Using data from the 1990 and 2000 U.S. Census 5% Public-Use Microdata Samples, the study examines (1) the change in Supplemental Security Income (SSI) uptake rate after welfare reform for noncitizens from Latin America, naturalized Latin Americans, and U.S.-born Hispanics and (2) how much of the change can be attributed to a change in behavior rather than to a change in eligibility rates. Findings show that the decline in SSI receipt after welfare reform was greater for Latin American noncitizens compared to naturalized citizens and Hispanic U.S.-born citizens. Decomposition analyses show that among eligible elderly noncitizens, the decline in recipiency rate was due mostly to a change in behavior rather than a change in eligibility. This pattern is not found for U.S.-born and naturalized citizens, where changes were mostly due to a decline in the proportion of persons eligible for SSI. This suggests that as a result of legislative changes, older immigrants may not be applying for benefits for which they may be legally entitled. Policy implications are discussed.     

Patterns of economic attainment of foreign-born male workers in the United States

In 1980, only 3% of the US population was at least partly indigenous. Most of the present population of the US, except for the American Indians, Eskimos, Aleutian Islanders, and Hawaiians, has its ancestral roots outside of the US. The US is therefore a nation of immigrants. Although a nation of immigrants, the ancestral origins of most Americans are in the countries of Europe. In recent decades, however, the composition of the immigration stream to the US has changed dramatically with respect to origin. Most immigrants now hail from Asia and Latin America; Europe is no longer the main embarkation point. Given these recent changes in the points of origin of immigrants, the author investigated the economic attainment patterns and their determinants of the foreign-born male immigrant population in the US. The economic attainment patterns of males born in 92 countries are examined and compared among themselves, as well as among the principal US-born groups of Anglos, Afro-American, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cuban Americans, Asian Americans, and American Indians. For all foreign-born groups, the article examines the degree to which such individual-level factors as educational attainment, labor market experience, and other factors account for their variation in economic attainment. It is concluded that although microlevel characteristics are not the complete answer, they help explain the variations in earnings among most foreign-born populations.     

Multiplying Diversity: Family Unification and the Regional Origins of Late‐Age US Immigrants

We use administrative data about new legal permanent residents to show how family unification chain migration changed both the age and regional origin of US immigrants. Between 1981 and 1995, every 100 initiating immigrants from Asia sponsored between 220 and 255 relatives, but from 1996 through 2000, each 100 initiating immigrants from Asia sponsored nearly 400 relatives, with one‐in‐four ages 50 and above. The family migration multiplier for Latin Americans was boosted by the legalization program: from 1996 to 2000, each of the 100 initiating migrants from Latin America sponsored between 420 and 531 family members, of which 18–21 percent were ages 50 and over.     

Asian American Interracial and Interethnic Marriages: Differences by Education and Nativity1

Using the 1990 U.S. census data, we apply log‐linear models to examine Asian Americans' interracial marriage with whites and interethnic marriages between Asian ethnic groups. Japanese and Filipino Americans are most likely to marry whites, followed by Chinese and Korean Americans. Southeast Asian and Asian Indian Americans are least likely to marry whites. We further explore how interracial marriage differs by couples' educational and nativity combinations. The impact of educational attainment, generally, is very strong but is modest for Japanese Americans, the most assimilated group, and for Southeast Asian Americans, the least assimilated group. Interracial marriage is more likely for native than for immigrant couples, but immigrants marrying natives are more likely to marry whites than persons of their own ethnic group. Interethnic marriage between Asian ethnic groups is limited to several ethnic groups, but is much more frequent among natives than among immigrants. Japanese and Chinese Americans, who have lived in the United States for several generations, have the highest rate of interethnic marriage. We have shown two forms of integration for Asian Americans – integration into mainstream society through interracial marriage for both immigrants and natives and integration into Asian American pan‐ethnicity through interethnic marriage for later‐generation natives.     

Race,Socioeconomic Status,and Self-Esteem: The Impact of Religiosity

This research examines two factors that have an impact on the self-esteem of African Americans and whites: religion and socioeconomic status (SES). Using data from the National Survey of Families and Households, we find that for whites, belief in the Bible (i.e., that it is the literal word of God) and self-identifying as fundamentalist were significant predictors of self-esteem. For African Americans, belief in the Bible and being Catholic were significant predictors of self-esteem. However, the association between belief in the Bible and self-esteem was stronger for African Americans than whites. SES was positively associated with self-esteem for both groups. The interactions between SES and the measures of religiosity reveal a greater impact on self-esteem for lower SES respondents. This was especially true for African Americans. These findings are discussed in light of the resource compensation hypothesis.     

Mainstream and Ethnic Volunteering by Korean Immigrants in the United States

Asian immigrants accounted for one-eighth of the total U.S. population in 2009. With Asian immigrants having higher levels of education and income than average Americans, their potential contribution to American philanthropy will be even more significant. This study examines the volunteering patterns of Korean immigrants, one of the fastest growing segments of the Asian immigrant population in the United States. This study explains Korean immigrants’ volunteering within ethnic and mainstream (American) organizations using the concepts of bonding and bridging social capital. The bivariate probit regression results suggest that ethnic volunteering and mainstream volunteering are generally the substitutes for each other. The findings nevertheless suggest that providing Asian immigrants’ with English education and continuing education opportunities may boost their volunteering to mainstream nonprofit organizations without discouraging their volunteering for ethnic organizations.     

Exploring the Socioeconomic and Immigration Health Contexts of Asian Americans

Despite an overall picture of good health for Asian Americans in the aggregate, growing evidence shows that specific subgroups—particularly those with high proportions of immigrants—have diverse patterns relative to socioeconomic position and health. Using data from the largest U.S. state health survey, this study explores the contributions of socioeconomic and immigration factors to health status among Asian American subgroups. Results indicate that level of education, income, and English language ability were significant predictors of health status for the Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese subgroups. Varying patterns in the results by subgroup are discussed in the context of immigration policy.     

Social Capital Investment and Immigrant Economic Trajectories: A Case Study of Punjabi American Taxi Drivers in New York City

Although the scholarship on social capital and immigrant economic incorporation has sufficiently documented how immigrants mobilize social capital in their search for employment which often leads to the formation of immigrant niches, how social capital is processed after immigrants acquire employment and its significance for the preservation of immigrant employment niches is less well explored. This paper addresses this gap in the literature with a case study of immigrant Punjabi taxi drivers in the New York metropolitan area. In particular, this study shows how a group of immigrant Punjabi taxi drivers mobilized social capital via embeddedness in co‐ethnic social networks and improved their working conditions – a process that must be considered in explanations of the Punjabi niche in the taxi industry for more than two decades. The study has implications for the relationship between social capital and the structure of the workplace or industry where immigrants are incorporated and its subsequent impact on immigrant economic trajectories. Further, this study contributes to the debate on the usefulness of ethnic communities for the adaptation of immigrant groups. Additionally, this research is relevant to the scholarship on the economic adaptation of South Asian (a subset of Asian Americans) immigrants, an understudied immigrant group in the United States.     

“Bringing the migrant back in”: mobility,conflict, and social change in contemporary society

Dominant social theories have rarely placed migration at the center of our understanding of society and social change. Classical theories in the Western tradition have been more preoccupied with the impact of economic and political revolutions on social change, stratification and class conflict, and have paid far less attention to other important aspects of society. Contemporary theories have expanded the theoretical gaze to include a much wider set of issues, from racial and gender divisions to warfare and the environment. In an era of globalization, we argue that such a marginalization of the migrant, and the failure to better integrate both internal and external migration into a more nuanced interpretation of social change, is a significant shortcoming. By examining some of the key elements linked to such human movement in Europe, North America and China -- in the light of five recent studies in this field -- we argue that migration is a vital factor in changing the world as we know it and consequently a central concern for social theory. This is a review essay on:Richard Alba and Nancy Foner. Strangers No More: Immigration and the Challenges of Integration in North America and Western Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015.Louis DeSipio and Rodolfo de la Garza. US Immigration in the Twenty-First Century: Making Americans, Remaking America. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2015.Adrian Favell. Immigration, Integration and Mobility: New Agendas in Migration Studies. Colchester: ECPR Press, 2015.Zhongshan Yue. Social Integration of Rural-Urban Migrants in China: Current Status, Determinants and Consequences. Singapore: World Scientific Publishers, 2015.Robyn R Iredale and Fei Guo. Handbook of Chinese Migration: Identity and Wellbeing. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2015.     

Patterns of Intermarriages and Cross‐Generational In‐Marriages among Native‐Born Asian Americans

This article examines patterns of post‐1965 native‐born Asian Americans’ intermarriages and cross‐generational in‐marriages using a combined sample of the 2001–2006 American Community Surveys from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series. The analysis focuses on ethnic and gender differences in intermarriage and cross‐generational in‐marriage rates and patterns. About 55 percent of native‐born Asian Americans are found to be intermarried while another 23 percent are married to 1.5‐generation or first‐generation co‐ethnic immigrants. Thus only 22 percent of native‐born Asian Americans are married to co‐ethnic native‐born Asian Americans. As expected, there are significant ethnic and gender differences in intermarriage and cross‐generational in‐marriage rates and patterns. This study is significant because it is the first study that has examined intermarriage patterns among post‐1965 native‐born Asian Americans, the majority of whom are likely to be children of post‐1965 Asian immigrants, using the most recent Census data available. It is also significant for studies of the new second generation in general in that it is the first study to show patterns of cross‐generational in‐marriage among members of the new second generation.     

Transnationalism and American Exports in an English‐Speaking World1

Investigating the relationship between immigration, middleman minority status, transnationalism, and U.S. foreign trade, the authors assembled a census‐based data file that contains aggregate‐level variables for 88 foreign‐born groups by national origin between 1980 and 1990. They regressed immigrant characteristics and immigration volume upon time‐lagged import/export statistics from the same 88 nations between 1985 and 1995. Results show the independent influence on exports of immigrant entrepreneurship, transnationalism, and middleman minority status. But these variables, exhaustively derived from the existing literature, had no effect on U.S. imports; they only affected exports. The authors propose that the discrepancy between imports and exports arises because of the dominance of English as a world business language. In this situation, foreigners need no help from immigrants when they export to the United States; but native‐born, monolingual Americans need the help of bicultural immigrants when they export. The empirical results suggest that immigrant entrepreneurs enhance the United States' exports and thus reduce the United States' balance of payments deficit.     

Palestinian and Jewish Israeli-born immigrants in the United States

"This article considers both Arab and Jewish emigration from Israel to the United States, relying on the 5 percent Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) of the 1980 U.S. census. Using the ancestry and language questions to identify Jews and Arabs, we found that over 30 percent of Israeli-born Americans are Palestinian-Arab natives of Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip. While the Jews are of higher educational levels, hold better jobs and enjoy higher incomes than their Arab counterparts, both groups have relatively high socioeconomic characteristics. Both have high rates of self-employment, particularly the Palestinian-Arabs, who appear to serve as middlemen minority in the grocery store business in the cities where they reside. The fact that nearly a third of Israeli-born immigrants are Arabs accounts for the occupational diversity previously observed of Israelis in America but does not account for their income diversity as much as does differences between early and recent immigrants."     

Earnings mobility of first and "1.5" generation Mexican-origin women and men: a comparison with U.S.-born Mexican-Americans and non-Hispanic whites

"This study addresses the following questions: Are Mexican immigrants closing the earnings gap with greater time in the United States, compared to U.S.-born Mexican Americans and non-Hispanic whites? What factors are most important in determining their earnings? How are earnings determinants different for women versus men, and those who came to the United States as children, versus those who came as adults and those born in the United States?... With greater time in the United States, male immigrants achieve average earnings comparable to U.S.-born Mexican Americans, but not to non-Hispanic whites, controlling for human capital variables. With greater time in the United States, female immigrants approach the number of hours of paid work of U.S.-born women, but not the earnings received per hour. Gains in earnings associated with age, time in the United States, and English proficiency differ by gender, reflecting structural differences in the labor market."     

Does Anti‐Hispanic Bias Motivate Opposition to Non‐English Languages?*

Contemporary political debates about language policy in the United States focus on three primary policy issues: bilingual education in public schools, English‐only legislation, and the access of non‐English speaking citizens to political rights. Using the “Multi‐Ethnic United States” module from the 2000 General Social Survey (GSS), this article tests multiple attitudinal, behavioral, demographic, and contextual hypotheses for how Anglos and African Americans view bilingual policy issues. We examine the role of linguistic contact, self‐interest, group threat, and discriminatory views of Latinos, finding that the latter—as measured by the “Three Ds” (Derogation, Disrespect, and Distance)—are the strongest predictors of attitudes toward bilingualism. Distance (social distance from Latinos) is consistently significant, disrespect (doubts about Latino contributions to the United States.) is mostly significant, and derogation (Latino stereotypes) is occasionally significant. Also, political ideology and knowledge of a non‐English language play important roles in the formation of favorable bilingualism opinions. However, the self‐interest and group threat variables were largely insignificant. Taken together, these findings indicate the importance of understanding how policy views may be structured by opinions about out‐group individuals and cultures. Language can serve as a proxy for immigrants themselves, as negative attitudes toward Latinos are associated with negative attitudes toward bilingualism.