From Ellis Island to LAX: immigrant prospects in the American city

"This article seeks to bring the ?urban' back into immigration research. Each immigrant receiving area has its own particular group of newcomers, and the economic and political structures of the immigrant receiving areas are also distinctive. Those structures are not all determining, as immigrant trajectories are shaped by the interaction between distinctive urban institutions and the specific characteristics of the relevant ethnic groups. But in the last analysis, the urban context makes a difference, as this study shows by examining the leading [U.S.] immigrant destinations--New York and Los Angeles."     

Second generation decline? Children of immigrants,past and present--a reconsideration

"Is the contemporary second generation on the road to the upward mobility and assimilation that in retrospect characterized the second generation of earlier immigrations? Or are the American economic context and the racial origins of today's immigration likely to result in a much less favorable future for the contemporary second generation? While several recent papers have argued for the latter position, we suspect they are too pessimistic. We briefly review the second generation upward mobility in the past and then turn to the crucial comparisons between past and present."     

Quality of life among lifetime victimized men

Quality of life was compared for lifetime victimized (n = 353) and nonvictimized men (n = 167) for demographic and quality of life variables by a cross-sectional design. The univariate analyses showed that victims compared to nonvictims had a lower quality of life, were younger, more often had upper secondary school education, and were more often blue-collar/low white-collar workers, on student allowances, on unemployment, financially strained, and smokers. The regressions revealed that unemployment, financial strain, smoking, depression, and home/public abuse were associated with reduced quality of life among victimized men. Being a blue-collar/low/intermediate white-collar worker and social support were related to increased quality of life. This study may have provided new insights into the experiences of quality of life of victimized men.     

Links between childhood physical abuse and intimate partner aggression: the mediating role of anger expression

Research linking childhood physical abuse (CPA) and adult intimate partner aggression (IPA) has focused on individuals without sufficient attention to couple processes. In this study, 109 couples reported on histories of CPA, IPA, and anger expression. Actor-partner interdependence model (APIM) was used to examine links between CPA and revictimization and perpetration of IPA, with anger suppression as a potential mediator. Women's CPA histories were associated with more physical aggression towards and more revictimization by partners. Men's CPA histories were only associated at the trend level with their revictimization. Anger suppression fully mediated the link between women's CPA and both revictimization and perpetration of IPA. Findings suggest that women with CPA histories are more prone to suppress anger, which leaves them at greater risk for revictimization and perpetration of IPA.     

A cross-border perspective on migration: beyond the assimilation/transnationalism debate

The transnational perspective emerged in the early 1990s as an alternative to assimilation theory, gaining instant and wide influence. But curiously, the intellectual confrontation between these two perspectives was averted, as scholars concluded that persistent homeland engagement was fully compatible with hostland integration. This paper seeks to pick up that challenge. I demonstrate how a cross-border perspective, encompassing places of origin and destination and the flows of people, ideas, and resources between them, highlights the ways in which population movements across state borders create tensions on both receiving and sending sides. In the process, I will show how looking across borders paradoxically highlights the centrality of the territorial boundary, as it simultaneously underscores the importance of dissimilation – the social and political separation of immigrants from the people they have left behind – yet also the ways in which non-citizen status and foreign origins simultaneously hamper immigrants’ ability to gain acceptance in receiving states while furnishing sending states with opportunities to reconnect with nationals abroad.