IMMIGRATION and boundaries of race/ethnicity/legality

Lee & Bean 04

America's Changing Color Lines: Immigration, Race/Ethnicity, and Multiracial Identification [Immigration - Racial Boundaries, ReviewSurvey (Iranian immigrants in LA)]: "What do current trends and patterns in immigration, intermarriage, and multira- cial identification indicate about America's changing color lines? Increases in intermarriage and the growth of the multiracial population reflect a blending of races and the fading of color lines. Because interracial marriage and multiracial identification indicate a reduction in social distance and racial prejudice, these patterns appear to offer an optimistic portrait of weakening racial boundaries. ... Thus, what may at first glance appear to suggest a dissolution of color lines for all racial/ethnic groups may simply be a loosening of boundaries for new immigrant groups who are simply undergoing the transitional phases of immigrant incorpo- ration. This distinction is critical, and helps us to differentiate whether color lines are shifting for all racial/ethnic minorities, or whether they are changing mainly to accommodate new nonblack immigrant groups. Based on the reviewof the research literature, it is evident that the different rates of Asian, Latino, and black intermarriage and multiracial reporting suggest that although racial boundaries may be fading, they are not eroding at the same pace for all groups. Given the divergent patterns, the color line is apparently less rigid for newer immigrant groups such as Latinos and Asians. And while the color line may be shifting for blacks, this shift is occurring far more slowly, consequently placing Asians and Latinos closer to whites than blacks are to whites, and demonstrating the tenacity of the black/white divide. In essence, although boundary crossing may be rising, and the color line fading, a shift has yet to occur toward a pattern of unconditional boundary crossing or a declining significance of race for all groups. ... In a black/nonblack divide, Latinos and Asians fall into the nonblack category. The emergence of a black/nonblack divide is even evident in areas with high concentrations of immigrants, high levels of racial/ethnic diversity, and high levels of multiracial reporting, although not to as strong a degree. The birth of a black/nonblack divide could be a disastrous outcome for many African Americans. ... Ifmuch ofAmerica's racial history to date has revolved around who was white and who was not, it is impor- tant to strive to ensure that the next phase in this story does not revolve around the issue of who is black and who is not. Although rising rates of intermarriage and patterns of multiracial identification indicate that boundaries are breaking down, the fact that boundary dissolution is neither uniform nor unconditional indicates little basis for complacency about the degree to which opportunities are improving for all racial/ethnic groups in America." 235

Gordon 64

Assimilation in American Life: The Role of Race, Religion, and National Origins [Immigration - Assimilation, Empirical - Interviews (officials of intergroup relations and intragroup communal life orgs)]: PURPOSE: "In these interviews my principal objective was to find out how much thought and consideration had been given by these agencies to problems of social structure, theories and models of 'assimilation,' 'integration,' and 'group life,' of whatever nature, and long-range goals of social structure in the United States." 10 FOCUS: "This book is concerned, ultimately, with problems of prejudice and discrimination arising out of differences in race, religion, and national background among the various groups which make up the American people." 3 CULTURAL PLURALISM: "While the viewpoint of 'cultural pluralism,' in some form or other, is dominant among intergroup relations agencies at the present time, it should not be thought that these agencies have given careful consideration to the meaning of this conception and its implications, particularly for the various facets of social structure and institutional life in the United States. As I have pointed out above, for the most part quite the contrary is the case. There is a distinct tendency to confine consideration of cultural pluralism to the issue of cultural differences in behavior and to slight or ignore pertinent issues of social structure and their relationship to communal group life." 16

Pedraza 00

Beyond Black and White: Latinos and Social Science Research on Immigration, Race, and Ethnicity in America [Immigration - Racial Boundaries, Review]: EF: Latinos were long excluded from social sciences literature on immigration and race, but Latinos and immigration must be studied. Pedraza argues that work on Latinos combines the study of immigration/assimilation with that of ethnicity/identity to better explore both and push the field forward and beyond the black-white model. She argues that Latino scholarship has contributed to concepts including assimilation, internal colonialism, incorporation, systems of migration, transnationalism, and bridging the micro-macro gap, as well as topic areas like poverty and residential segregation. Latinos and particularly Latino immigratns add to sociological knowledge, but the heterogeneity of racial, ethnic, cultural, economic, political, etc processes and experiences must be accounted for.

Light et al 94

Beyond the Ethnic Enclave Economy [Immigration - Other, Empirical - ]: "Widely treated as interchangeable, the ethnic economy and the ethnic enclave economy are actually different concepts with different problematics. First, deriving from dual labor market literature, the concept of ethnic enclave economy overlooks the numerical prepon- derance of the self-employed. This oversight led to a strenuous debate about relative wages. However, because the self-employed are more numerous than their co-ethnic employees, what matters most is the relative earnings of the self-employed, not of their employees. Second, the literature of the ethnic enclave economy neglects the ethnic economy's contribution to group employment. In view of their frequent unemployment and even unemployability in the general labor market, that low-paid ethnic economy workers and entrepreneurs have any kind of an income is due to the ethnic economy. Even if they earn less than they would when employed at high wages in the general labor market, which is not invariably the case, ethnic economy workers and entrepreneurs earn more than they would if unemployed, their more realistic option. Third, the concept of ethnic enclave economy requires a territorially-clustered business core. This restriction touched off debate about whether enclave membership should be de- fined by place of residence or place of work. The clustering debate overlooks the numerous ethnic firms that locate outside a core. Moreover, the restriction of clustering in a core is often unnecessary because many ethnic economies lack such a core. The huge and obtrusive Iranian ethnic economy of Los Angeles exemplifies this unclustered condition. The Iranian example demonstrates that the ethnic economy is the more universal of the two concepts, and that the ethnic enclave economy is a special case within it. It is not possible for an ethnic enclave economy to exist without an ethnic economy. But ethnic enclave economies are not so rare that they can safely be ignored. On the contrary, as Portes has insisted, they occur and have occurred frequently and in important cases.9 Argua- bly, the progress of research on the relationship between ethnicity and the economy in the future will depend on elaborating special cases that illuminate issues that the universal con- cept of the ethnic economy leaves in darkness." 77

Waters 99

Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities [Immigration - Racial Boundaries, Empirical - Interviews (West Indian immigrants, black Americans, white Americans)]: "the crux of the story about the experiences of the West Indian immigrants and their children revolves around the interaction between the specific culture and identities of the immigrants and their children and how that culture and those identities are shaped and changed by conditions in America—especially the American racial structure. The main argument of this book is that black immigrants from the Caribbean come to the United States with a particular identity/culture/worldview that reflects their unique history and experiences. This culture and identity are different from the immigrant identity and culture of previous waves of European immigrants because of the unique history of the origin countries and because of the changed contexts of reception the immigrants face in the United States. This culture and identity are also different from the culture and identity of African Americans." 6

FitzGerald & Cook-Martín 14

Culling the Masses: The Democratic Origins of Racist Immigration Policy in the Americas [Immigration - Policy, Empirical - Historical (Western immigration laws)]: INTRO: "Why have governments throughout the Americas turned against selecting immigrants by race and national origins? Why did that process take longer to unfold in the most liberal-democratic countries? Against the prevailing wisdom, we argue that the anti- racist turn was not a product of liberal ideology or democracy. Liberalism and the institutions of democracy actually promoted racist immigration policies in nineteenth-century North America, as did populist politics in Latin America in the early 1930s. The demise of racist immigration law began in Latin America in the late 1930s, spread to North America in the 1960s, and had become the norm throughout most major liberal-democratic countries of immigration by the 1980s. By analyzing the interaction between domestic and international politics in countries of immigration throughout the Western Hemisphere, we unexpectedly find that geopolitical factors were the main drivers of the demise of racial selection, as externally oriented elites overcame the public's racist preferences." 2 MODEL: "We build on the work of comparativist scholars who are wrestling with how to explain major shifts in law and policy by offering a three-dimensional analytical model attending to the interactions between the national and the international levels over long periods of time. ... A three-dimensional analytical model analyzes the vertical dimension of policymaking, composed of political struggles within a country, as it interacts with the horizontal dimension, composed of struggles between and across countries, over an extended temporal dimension." 8

Fox & Guglielmo 12

Defining America's Racial Boundaries: Blacks, Mexicans, and European Immigrants, 1890-1945 [Immigration - Racial Boundaries, Empirical - Survey (census, IPUMS) & Historical (institutional categorizations)]: "We make three sets of arguments about the boundaries containing (and defining) blacks, SEEs [southern and eastern Europeans], and Mexicans. First, a bright boundary—that is, one that was widely recognized and institutionalized and monumentally significant for both life chances and social distance—separated blacks from whites (and, at times, blacks from nonblacks). ... Second, no boundary separated SEEs from whites; SEEs were not widely recognized as nonwhite, nor was such a boundary institutionalized. In fact, where white was a meaningful category, SEEs were virtually always included within it. To be sure, a fairly bright boundary separated SEEs from northern and western Europeans (NWEs) for a time. This boundary was based on religion, national origin, citizenship status, and even intra-European racial categories. It was not, however, based on whiteness or nonwhiteness. ... Instead of a white racial boundary shifting to include SEEs, then, we argue instead that the SEE-NWE boundary blurred significantly over time. ... The crucial point we emphasize, however, is that the SEE story suggests the remarkable stability of the white-nonwhite boundary, not, as is sometimes assumed, its fluidity. Third, the virtually uncontested nature of SEE whiteness becomes clearest when compared to the infinitely more complex and fraught history of Mexicans' racial categorization. A boundary separating Mexicans from whites was usually widely recognized and significant for life chances and social distance, but it was also inconsistently institutionalized. ... The Mexican-white boundary, then, shares properties of both bright and blurry boundaries. ... The white racial boundary at times expanded to include Mexicans, then contracted to exclude them. For Mexicans, their often simultaneous categorization as white and nonwhite— perhaps best described as a form of bright-boundary straddling—was a rather stable feature of their experience. What is more, we argue that a blurred racial boundary was used, paradoxically, to facilitate boundary brightening at times." 334

Tilly 98

Durable Inequality [Immigration - Assimilation, Empirical - Case Study]: OPPORTUNITY HOARDING: "Mamaroneck Italians' concentration in landscape gardening excludes other potential workers from the business, but it hardly qualifies as exploitation; neither secure control of a productive resource, incorporation of effort by excluded parties, nor appropriation of a substantial surplus marks the position of these modest people. Rather, the term 'opportunity hoarding' describes their generally successful strategy. By sequestering technical knowledge, ties to wealthy households and institutions, reputations for good work, and access to capital within an ethnically defined network, they have fashioned a classic immigrant niche." 153 "CHAIN MIGRATION is the arrangement in which numerous people leave one well-defined origin serially for another well-defined destination by relying on people from the same origin for aid, information, and encouragement; most chain migrations involve considerable return of migrants to their place of origin. Many chain migrations begin as circular migrations: seasonal, annual, or longer-cycle movement of agricultural workers, craftspersons, or petty merchants from a base to some other well-defined place where temporary work awaits them. ... The essence of chain migration was, and is, the existence of continuing contacts between a specific community of origin and a specific com- munity of destination-—Roccasecca and Mamaroneck, a Welsh mining village and Chicago, a Polish shtetl and Johnstown. It involves frequent moves of persons between the two communities, with help and encour- agement from persons at both ends. Even including the forced migration of Africans (who arrived literally, not figuratively, in chains), this sort of continuously connected migration system accounts for the great bulk of immigration to the Americas during the past five centuries. That fact in itself should alert us to the likelihood that what happened to migrants at one point in time, and how they organized their migration, significantly affected the fate of both their descendants and later migrants." 163

Kim 11

Establishing Identity: Documents, Performance, and Biometric Information in Immigration Proceedings [Immigration - Legality, Empirical - Interviews (80 Korean Chinese migrants) & Historical (govt, news, legal) & Ethnography (ob in community ctr, immigration offices, public hearings, social gatherings)]: "This article has explored the development of and disputes over family-based immigration in South Korea over the last two decades. It has shown how bureaucrats and migrants use various types of 'identity tags' (e.g., official documents, situated performance, and biometric information) to evaluate or establish the authenticity of claimed family relations, and to promote or reject particular understandings of personhood, belonging, and entitlement. I have also described two ways in which migrants undermine the efficiency and legitimacy of the state's dominant identification practices, which rely primarily on official documents. First, they challenge the 'artificiality' of such official documents. What I call the primordialist defense of instrumentalism is a case in point. Some migrants defend their involvement in 'identity fraud' by contrasting their intuitive sense of entitlement with the 'artificial' documentation practices of the state. In so doing, they often rely on biometric information to buttress their own claim to authenticity. Sham marriage schemes pose a different kind of challenge to the state's symbolic power. Instead of claiming authenticity as opposed to the state's artificiality, some migrants mimic the state's documentation practices and create their own artificial identities, their own 'papereality.' In response to the second type of challenge, immigration bureaucrats turn to another type of 'identity tag,' trying to evaluate the congruence between reality and papereality. Examining the person's performance of the alleged identity, however, is not free from its own ambiguities and uncertainties. Frontline officers thus frequently use wide discretion in adjudicating individual cases in ways that sometimes deviate from the protocols. They also make frequent changes to the verification procedure itself, while combining the three identity tags in different ways, in order to make the procedure workable and defendable in the face of various challenges posed by migrants. In this sense, 'identity fraud' is an exemplary 'weapon of the weak,' in James Scott's term (1985). By engaging in 'identity fraud,' migrants sabotage and ultimately reshape the state's agenda without directly confronting the state. This case underscores why we should be attentive to the many forms of migrant agency in the politics of immigration. Migrants shape immigration policies not only through highly visible forms of political action, but also through more subtle forms of micropolitical struggles in the bureaucratic arena, including their engagement in various 'illegal' schemes." 780

Telles & Ortiz 08

Generations of Exclusion: Mexican Americans, Assimilation, and Race [Immigration - Assimilation, Empirical - Survey (Mexican Americans)]: EF: Telles & Ortiz, following up from a 1965 survey, investigate the intergenerational integration of the Mexican-origin population in American society to understand the varied paths of incorporation immigrants and their descendants follow and how those paths change their cultural, economic, and political characteristics. Overall, they find indications of partial assimilation, but Mexican Americans continue to lag behind Anglo peers. They argue that a large part of the MA population has been excluded from mainstream opportunities and that these disadvantages tend to get reproduced across generations. They argue that poor educational opportunities in particular have led to the stagnation of progress across generations, indicating that simple straight assimilation theories do not fit the Mexican American experience. Evidence supports the theory that racial stereotyping and discrimination have largely contributed to enduring Mexican-American disadvantage.

Motomura 08

Immigration Outside the Law [Immigration - Legality, Empirical - Historical (Supreme Court case)]: "I start with Plyler v. Doe, a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision that today occupies a curious place in the legal and public imagination. As a decision of constitutional law, Plyler held that immigration status may not be used to limit the access of any child in the United States to elementary and secondary education in public schools. But Plyler is more than a constitutional decision: It has broader, enduring meaning because it invites analysis of fundamental assumptions about immigration outside the law. Part I of this Essay revisits Plyler and briefly sketches the three key themes that explain the wide gulf between the majority and the dissent and which have become central to current debates. The first theme is the meaning of unlawful presence: Is immigration outside the law a matter of egregious lawbreaking, or does it represent an invited contribution to the U.S. economy and society that the government tolerates? The second theme is the role of states and cities: Can states and cities try to force out unlawful migrants by making it hard to find work or housing, or may they welcome immigrants who come outside the law? The third theme is the integration of immigrants: Should unlawful immigrants be given access to education, work, lawful immigration status, or even a path to formal citizenship? What measures - if any - should we take to foster their inte- gration into American society? ... Parts II, III, and IV present my core argument: Moving beyond the impasse that bedevils current debates requires understanding how the meaning of unlawful presence, the role of states and cities, and the inte- gration of immigrants combine to raise deeper questions. Specifically, Part II starts with themes that are in the public eye, showing that the meaning of unlawful presence and the role of states and cities jointly elucidate the more fundamental question of enforcement authority in immi- gration. Part III delves deeper, analyzing how the role of states and cities and immigrant integration merge to illuminate the building of communi- ties that include both citizens and noncitizens. Part IV reaches the most fundamental issues. It explores how the meaning of unlawful presence and the integration of immigrants together clarify how we think about the dimension of time with regard to immigration outside the law, and in particular discusses how we can balance lessons from the past, present, and future. Part IV further asks: Should policy mainly reflect historical considerations, the fact that certain immigrants are unlawfully in the United States today, or a need to integrate these immigrants into American society in the future? ... Part V concludes this Essay by drawing some lessons for durable, politically viable responses to immigration outside the law. Specifically, Part V sketches connections between enforcement authority, community building, and balancing past, present, and future with three larger areas of public policy. One is international economic development, which gen- erates and shapes migration. The others are economic and educational policies in this country, which determine how new immigrants affect the lives and futures of U.S. citizens. These areas of policy determine how we should enforce immigration law, build communities that include immigrants, and think about the dimension of time with regard to immigra- tion outside the law." 2039

Ngai 04

Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America [Immigration - Legality, Empirical - Historical (Legal)]: EF: Ngai charts the historical origins of the "illegal alien" in American law and society and the emergence of illegal immigration as the central problem in US immigration policy, focusing on 1924-1965. She argues that race is entrenched in the creation of the "illegal alien" and that the construction of the illegal alien in the law renders certain racial groups as unassimilable foreign others. Race and alienage are intrinsically linked in boundary making in the US. Immigration quota systems formalized a white/nonwhite divide and created a new class of persons - illegal aliens - as new legal and political subject whose inclusion within the nation was simultaneously a social reality and a legal impossibility. Racial exclusion is embedded both within immigration laws and within subtle discretionary processes of enforcement. Dispels the liberal notion of immigrant incorporation and establishes the designation of Asians and Mexicans as perpetual racial others.

Kasinitz et al 08

Inheriting the City: The Children of Immigrants Come of Age [Immigration - Assimilation, Empirical - Interviews (2nd & 1.5gen immigrants in NY)]: EF: Kasinitz et al examine second generation immigrants as young adults in NYC to examine their progress and mobility opportunities, and in so doing critique both the straight-line and segmented assimilation theories. They find optimistic evidence to show that the second generation is faring well on many measures, though they find considerable variation both between and within immigrant groups. Disputing previous theories, they argue that incorporation does not occur linearly or completely, but rather they find that these young people are incorporated into the mainstream at different levels and in different ways. They also find that, unlike Portes and Zhou's argument, the second generation must and does exit the ethnic niche and join the mainstream economy to enable upward mobility. They offer the concept of second generation advantage to explain how the in-betweeness of these young people may offer advantages as they pick and choose from multiple cultural repertoires.

Gonzales 11

Learning to be Illegal: Undocumented Youth and Shifting Legal Contexts in the Transition to Adulthood [Immigration - Legality, Empirical - Interviews (150 1.5-gen young adult Mexican-Americans)]: ABSTRACT: "This article examines the transition to adulthood among 1.5-generation undocumented Latino young adults. For them, the transition to adulthood involves exiting the legally protected status of K to 12 students and entering into adult roles that require legal status as the basis for participation. This collision among contexts makes for a turbulent transition and has profound implications for identity formation, friendship patterns, aspirations and expectations, and social and economic mobility. Undocumented children move from protected to unprotected, from inclusion to exclusion, from de facto legal to illegal. In the process, they must learn to be illegal, a transformation that involves the almost complete retooling of daily routines, survival skills, aspirations, and social patterns. These findings have important implications for studies of the 1.5- and second-generations and the specific and complex ways in which legal status intervenes in their coming of age." 602 "THREE TRANSITION PERIODS——discovery (ages 16 to 18 years), learning to be illegal (ages 18 to 24 years), and coping (ages 25 to 29 years). ... I [include] an earlier period to capture the awakening to newfound legal limitations, which elicits a range of emotional reactions and begins a process of altered life-course pathways and adult transitions. Next, as undocumented youth enter early adulthood, they engage in a parallel process of learning to be illegal. During this period, many find difficulty connecting with previous sources of support to navigate the new restrictions on their lives and to mitigate their newly stigmatized identities. At this stage, undocumented youth are forced to alter earlier plans and reshape their aspirations for the future. Finally, the coping period involves adjusting to lowered aspirations and coming to grips with the possibility that their precarious legal circumstances may never change." 608

Menjívar 06

Liminal Legality: Salvadoran and Guatemalan Immigrants' Lives in the United States [Immigration - Legality, Empirical - Ethnography (Salvadoran & Guatemalan immigrants in SF, LA, DC & Phnx)]: ABSTRACT: "This article examines the effects of an uncertain legal status on the lives of immigrants, situating their experiences within frameworks of citizenship/belonging and segmented assimilation, and using Victor Turner's concept of liminality and Susan Coutin's 'legal nonexistence.' It questions black-and-white conceptualizations of documented and undocumented immigration by exposing the gray area of 'liminal legality' and examines how this in-between status affects the individual's social networks and family, the place of the church in immigrants' lives, and the broader domain of artistic expression. ... The article lends support to arguments about the continued centrality of the nation-state in the lives of immigrants." 999 LIMINAL LEGALITY: "Thus, I would like to use the term 'liminal legality' to express the temporariness of this condition, which for many Central Americans has extended indefinitely and has come to define their legal position. This 'liminal legality' is characterized by its ambiguity, as it is neither an undocumented status nor a documented one, but may have the charac- teristics of both. Importantly, a situation of 'liminal legality' is neither unidirectional nor a linear process, or even a phase from undocumented to documented status, for those who find themselves in it can return to an undocumented status when their temporary statuses end. When Central Americans are granted temporary legality, they are conferred the right to work and reside in the United States without access to social services. In some cases they are later given the opportunity to renew their permits. However, when the renewed permits expire, these immigrants slip back into the realm of nonlegality." 1008

Jiménez 08

Mexican-Immigrant Replenishment and the Continuing Significance of Ethnicity and Race [Immigration - Racial Boundaries & Assimilation, Empirical - Interviews (later gen Mexican Americans)]: INTRO: "This study shows that immigrant replenishment is a significant factor determining ethnic identity formation among later-generation Mexican Americans. It demonstrates that ongoing immigration shapes the extent to which ethnicity is a symbolic, optional, and inconsequential aspect of identity. Interviews with later-generation Mexican Americans and participant observation in Garden City, Kansas, and Santa Maria, California, provide evidence that although Mexican Americans exhibit significant signs of structural assimilation, the influx of Mexican immigrants sharpens the boundaries that circumscribe Mexican Americans and creates boundaries that slice through the Mexican-origin population. The data reveal two types of boundaries that are reinforced by the large presence of immigrants. The first are intergroup boundaries, which animate distinctions between Mexican Americans and non-Mexicans. Mexican Americans confront intergroup boundaries in two ways. First, they experience the indirect effects of nativist sentiment aimed at immigrants. Foreign-born Mexicans are the primary targets of anti-immigrant antipathy, but expressions of this antipathy have the indirect effect of sharpening the boundaries between Mexican Americans and non-Mexicans. Second, Mexican immigrant replenishment refreshes the salience of race in the lives of Mexican Americans. In a context of heavy Mexican immigration, skin color serves as a cue of ancestry, nativity, and, in some cases, legal status. The most apparent way in which the large immigrant population shapes race is that Mexican Americans are sometimes mistaken for foreigners. But even Mexican Americans with lighter skin are marked by non-Mexicans as 'foreign' when the latter use surname as an indicator of ancestry and nativity. Mexican American respondents also confront intragroup boundaries, or social fissures that run through the Mexican-origin population. Intragroup boundaries become evident when respondents face high expectations about group authenticity from Mexican immigrants and young mem- bers of the second generation. Mexican immigrants define 'authentic' Mexican ethnicity, and Mexican Americans are treated as ethnic outsiders when they are unable to live up to the criteria for group membership that coethnics impose. Mexican Americans respond to such boundaries by attempting to avoid them altogether and by challenging those who impose them." 1530 CONCL: "I find that the ability of individuals to experience ethnicity as a symbolic, optional, and inconsequential aspect of identity is in part a function of immigrant replenishment. Although Mex- ican Americans exhibit significant signs of structural assimilation, con- tinuous waves of immigration maintain the rigidity of group boundaries in the lives of later-generation Mexican Americans. The interviews and observations I conducted reveal three significant mechanisms by which immigrant replenishment bolsters these boundaries. First, non-Mexicans' expressions of nativism sharpen intergroup boundaries. ... Second, immigrant replenishment bolsters the salience of race in the lives of respondents. ... Finally, Mexican immigrant replenishment sharpens intragroup boundaries by informing the criteria for 'authentic' expressions of ethnic identity." 1558

Marrow 11

New Destination Dreaming: Immigration, Race, and Legal Status in the Rural American South [Immigration - Racial Boundaries, Empirical - Ethnography (Hispanic newcomers & non-Hispanic natives in two counties in North Carolina)]: "THE MAJOR ARGUMENT of this book is that moving the focus of American immigrant incorporation research into the rural American South alters how we must think about three main things: assimilation, race relations, and political and institutional responsiveness to immigrants. In so doing, it reveals a more positive experience than we might have expected to find, given the rural South's reputation as the most economically depressed and racially intolerant region of the country." 13 CHAPTERS 4 AND 5: "In the mid-2000s, Hispanic newcomers in the rural South acutely felt this exclusion, and importantly they felt it more strongly from blacks than whites. In Chapters 4 and 5, I identify several key structural factors that were making black-Hispanic relations more contentious than white-Hispanic ones, in particular class structure, black population size, citizenship, and the institutional arenas in which groups were interacting. I also show how Hispanic newcomers' multiple interpretations of the meaning of discrimination (especially along the lines of citizenship) and their expectations about blacks interacted with conceptions of their work and worth. Consequently many began to distance themselves from African Americans in response to perceptions of civic and cultural ostracism as undeserving outsiders. Combined with Hispanic newcomers' predominantly 'nonblack' racial and ethnic identification, I therefore argue that in the mid-2000s the rural southern binary racial context was not fostering a 'rainbow coalition of color' sense of identity among Hispanic newcomers and African Americans, wherein common experiences of racial discrimination can serve as a basis to unite, as nonwhites, despite other internal distinctions. This may well have been happening among small groups of political elites and black-brown coalition builders, but it was not generally the case among the masses. Rather, many Hispanic newcomers came to perceive that the boundaries separating themselves from whites, although existent, are somewhat more permeable than those separating themselves from blacks, or whites from blacks. This suggests a classic pattern of racial assimilation, and it lends tentative support to predictions that a new black-nonblack color line may be developing in the rural South—the very region where the African American population is still the largest, where the uniquely American racial binary has reigned most supreme, and where the pressures to divide whites from nonwhites have always been strongest." 16

Alba & Nee 03

Remaking the American Mainstream: Assimilation and Contemporary Imagination [Immigration - Assimilation, Theory]: "WE ARGUE that, while both of the alternative models of incorporation—pluralist and segmented—possess their own spheres of validity, neither rules out the possibility that assimilation in the form of entry into the mainstream has a major role to play in the future. Despite the accuracy of some of the criticisms of the canonical formulation of assimilation, we believe that there is still a vital core to the concept, which has not lost its utility for illuminating many of the experiences of contemporary immigrants and the new second generation." 9 "A viable conceptualization [of ASSIMILATION] must recognize that (1) ethnicity is essentially a social boundary, a distinction that individuals make in their everyday lives and that shapes their actions and mental orientations toward others; (2) this distinction is typically embedded in a variety of social and cultural differences between groups that give an ethnic boundary concrete significance (so that members of one group think, 'They are not like us because... '); and (3) assimilation, as a form of ethnic change, may occur through changes taking place in groups on both sides of the boundary. Consequently, we define assimilation as the decline of an ethnic distinction and its corollary cultural and social differences. ...Thus, the mainstream culture, which is highly variegated in any event—by social class and region, among other factors—changes as elements of the cultures of the newer groups are incorporated into it. The composite culture that we identify with the mainstream is made up of multiple interpenetrating layers and allows individuals and sub- populations to forge identities out of its materials to distinguish them- selves from others in the mainstream—as do, for instance, Baptists in Alabama and Jews in New York—in ways that are still recognizably American." 11

Joppke 05

Selecting by Origin: Ethnic Migration in the Liberal State [Immigration - Policy, Theory]: EF: Joppke maps out different forms of ethnic migration in different geo-historical contexts to point to the trend from ethnically-selective to non-ethnic, universalistic immigration policies, within the context of Western States where racial, ethnic, and national origin differences come into conflict with the liberal ideal of equality. He argues that liberal democracies are committed to universalism and meritocracy, but they continue to assert policies that create preference for some immigrants over others. He posits that ethnically-selective immigration is challenging for any liberal state to maintain due to liberal ideals, but diversity in immigration will inevitably make nation-states more diverse and therefore weakens their national bases. Liberal states are thus hampered in selecting immigrants who would reproduce or strengthen the nation. He argues that although immigrant selection was often based on race, country, and ethnicity, today's immigration policies have dramatically narrowed their selection criteria to skills, family ties, and asylum.

Waldinger 96

Still the Promised City? African-Americans and New Immigrants in Postindustrial New York [Immigration - Racial Boundaries, Empirical - Interviews & Observations & Census & Historical (in New York)]: LW: Why do African-Americans fare so poorly in securing unskilled jobs, especially in comparison to new immigrants? Looking specifically at New York and the lack of progress among blacks, the author dismisses arguments that the decline of manufacturing meant of loss of low skilled jobs for new migrants or that globalization has led to a movement of these jobs overseas. Instead, he argues that white flight created openings in low skilled jobs (even as they declined overall), but these jobs were taken by immigrants. Why? First, blacks never had a stronghold in these industries to begin with. Second, blacks have job aspirations similar to whites, not new unskilled immigrants, but opportunities in places like the public sector are limited. Third, ongoing discrimination.

Gans 79

Symbolic Ethnicity: The Future of Ethnic Groups and Cultures in America [Immigration - Assimilation, Theory]: ARGUMENT: "One of the more notable recent changes in America has been the renewed interest in ethnicity, which some observers of the American scene have described as an ethnic revival. This paper argues that there has been no revival, and that acculturation and assimilation continue to take place. Among third and fourth generation 'ethnics' (the grand and great-grand children of Europeans who came to America during the 'new immigration'), a new kind of ethnic involvement may be occurring, which emphasizes concern with identity, with the feeling of being Jewish or Italian, etc. Since ethnic identity needs are neither intense nor frequent in this generation, however, ethnics do not need either ethnic cultures or organizations; instead, they resort to the use of ethnic symbols. As a result, ethnicity may be turning into symbolic ethnicity, an ethnicity of last resort, which could, nevertheless, persist for generations. Identity cannot exist apart from a group, and symbols are themselves a part of culture, but ethnic identity and symbolic ethnicity require very different ethnic cultures and organizations than existed among earlier generations. Moreover, the symbols third generation ethnics use to express their identity are more visible than the ethnic cultures and organizations of the first and second generation ethnics. What appears to be an ethnic revival may therefore only be a more visible form of long-standing phenomena, or of a new stage of acculturation and assimilation. Symbolic ethnicity may also have wider ramifications, however, for David Riesman has suggested that 'being American has some of the same episodic qualities as being ethnic.'" 1 STRAIGHT-LINE: "The dominant sociological approach to ethnicity has long taken the form of ... straight-line theory, in which acculturation and assimilation are viewed as secular trends that culminate in the eventual absorption of the ethnic group into the larger culture and general population. Straight-line theory in turn is based on melting pot theory, for it implies the disappearance of the ethnic groups into a single host society. Even so, it does not accept the values of the melting pot theorists, since its conceptualizers could have, but did not, use terms like cultural and social liberation from immigrant ways of life. In recent years, straight-line theory has been questioned on many grounds." 2

Portes & Zhou 93

The New Second Generation: Segmented Assimilation and Its Variants [Immigration - Assimilation, Empirical - Ethnography & Survey (children of immigrants)]: "A closer look at these [empirical] experiences indicates, however, that the expected consequences of assimilation have not entirely reversed signs, but that the process has become segmented. In other words, the question is into what sector of American society a particular immigrant group assimilates. Instead of a relatively uniform mainstream whose mores and prejudices dictate a common path of inte- gration, we observe today several distinct forms of adaptation. One of them replicates the time-honored portrayal of growing acculturation and parallel integration into the white middle-class; a second leads straight in the opposite direction to permanent poverty and assimilation into the underclass; still a third associates rapid economic advancement with deliberate preservation of the immigrant community's values and tight solidarity. This pattern of segmented assimilation immediately raises the question of what makes some immigrant groups become sus- ceptible to the downward route and what resources allow others to avoid this course. In the ultimate analysis, the same general process helps ex- plain both outcomes. We advance next our hypotheses as to how this process takes place and how the contrasting outcomes of assimilation can be explained. This explanation is then illustrated with recent empirical ma- terial in the final section." 82