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Throughout the nineteenth century, federal Indian policy oscillated between two extreme positions: assimilation versus isolation. While scholars have often been interested in the impact of past federal policy on current levels of economic development among American Indian tribes, none have explicitly examined the influence of federal assimilation policy on long-run economic development. In this paper, I take advantage of tribal-level variation in the application of federal policies to estimate the effect of assimilation on long-run economic performance. To quantify the impact of such policies, I introduce a novel measure of cultural assimilation: the prevalence of traditional indigenous names relative to common American first names. To calculate the distribution of name types, I have gathered the names and locations for all American Indians enumerated in the 1900 United States census. After classifying each name, I calculated the reservation-specific share of non-indigenous names. I estimate the relationship between cultural assimilation in 1900 and per capita income from 1970 through 2020. I find that historical levels of assimilation are consistently associated with higher levels of per capita income in all census years. The results are robust to the inclusion of a variety of cultural and institutional controls and regional fixed effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing frameworks of assimilation and group boundaries are limited in making sense of experiences of racial ambiguity. What happens when racial groups are mistaken for other groups, and how does this phenomenon relate to the racial hierarchy? This paper investigates the on-the-ground mechanisms of racial ambiguity that formal institutions, like the Census, do not capture, yet are the lived realities for many immigrant groups. Through analysis of 120 interviews and supplemental observations, I find that the racialization of second-generation South Asians shifts between racial ambiguity and racial legibility in daily life. I present a theoretical concept – localized racialization – to reveal the transient, yet defining, racial experiences of groups residing in the racial middle. Localized racialization centres multiple factors of skin colour, intersectional status markers, and situational contexts that tether racial experiences to the local. This study's South Asian participants reveal persistent racial dynamism at the micro-interactional level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our paper introduces this special issue of JEMS on the role of the local context in immigrant and second-generation integration in the United States. Recent literature has argued that national contexts are important for understanding the integration of immigrants and their descendents. The articles in this issue make the case that local contexts, broadly defined at any sub-national scale, are also important for understanding integration within the US; they suggest that it is incorrect to think of a singular and spatially undifferentiated integration process for US immigrants. In addition to previewing the contents of the articles in this issue, our paper includes a review of the meaning of generations and integration and a general discussion of the roles of local contexts in mediating processes of integration. This discussion raises questions about the appropriate spatial scale for the analysis of integration and for comparisons of the integration experience across contexts. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research on local contexts of integration within the US. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Historical Society of Pennsylvania (HSP), one of the United States' largest independent research libraries, contains extensive manuscript collections documenting the history of eastern European immigrants and their descendants. Collections on the history of Slovak, Polish, Jewish, Lithuanian, and Russian ethnic groups are especially strong. These holdings were acquired from the Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies, which merged with HSP in 2002, as well as from post-merger collecting that has continued the Balch Institute's work in documenting, interpreting, and celebrating the United States' diverse ethnic and immigrant heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immigration is transforming the United States and cultural diversity is becoming increasingly visible within an emerging poly-ethnic society. Such a challenge to the singularity of cultural assimilation is having policy implications at multiple levels. For municipal parks and recreation departments, this cultural shift presents an extra dimension to the local government role of providing facilities that meet the needs of residents. This paper presents the case study of Church Street Park in Morrisville, North Carolina, which is the site of the first purpose-built cricket facility in the Research Triangle area. Furthermore, this paper argues that a Marshallian framework, albeit in re-conceptualized terms, can elicit the objective and subjective domains of citizenship as constructed through sport participation. Specifically, the development of the cricket field fosters a mono-ethnic and diasporic identity as well as a rich sense of belonging among the growing resident South Asian immigrant population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the dynamics and persistence of interpersonal trust among immigrants in the USA. More specifically, the authors investigate the association between the levels of trust of US immigrants and the levels of trust in their home countries across different cohorts and generations of immigrants. Design/methodology/approach: In order to quantify the extent of this relationship, the authors use two large sets of survey data, the General Social Survey and the World Value Survey, to construct the trust of immigrants in the USA and their levels of trust in their country of origin. The final sample size for the immigrants' trust is 27,531 observations. Findings: The examination of the two trust variables at different levels and for different cohorts show that there is an association between the levels of US immigrants' trust and the levels of trust in the country of origin, suggesting that immigrants bring their culture with them and transmit it to the next generation. However, this association differs across various cohorts and generations of immigrants. The transmission of trust is strong in the second generation but becomes weaker in the third generation and seems to disappear in the fourth generation. Social implications: Empirical estimates of how long the cultural traits embodied in a new immigrant are sustained in the newly adopted country are essential to the appraisal of the current apparent segregation of immigrants in the USA. Originality/value: This paper focuses on the under-researched area of the dynamic properties of immigrants' trust by using large data sets from social surveys. The authors examine this cultural assimilation across different cohorts and generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As U.S.-led imperialism spreads in the Asia Pacific region through neoliberal trades and military occupation, how do “Asia” and “America” as both geopolitical units and embodied spaces construct and assemble diasporic Asian subjects affectively? Furthermore, as national allegiance is aggressively demanded by the surge of white nationalism in the Global North, how does an immigrant subject afford to be continuously attached to an object—“Asia”—that she must reject before becoming Asian American? Drawing on narrative study with queer Asian American activists involved in anti-imperialist organizing, this paper situates narratives of racialized queer grief in the framework of racial melancholia (Cheng 2000; Eng and Han 2000) as a form of protest against the splitting of Asian and American identity as the U.S. empire actively recruits Asian Americans into nationalist discourses. With a queer and intersectional method of narrating identity, this paper highlights how racial melancholia involves strategies of subjectivity-making against the colonial splitting of blackness and whiteness, the erasure of imperial history, and the segregation of communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entering the debate over segmented assimilation, this paper seeks to refocus discussion on a core, but neglected claim: that inter-group disparities among immigrant offspring derive from differences in a contextual feature shared by immigrant and immigrant descendants: a nationality's mode of incorporation. The paper engages in both theoretical and empirical assessment. We critically examine the concept of mode of incorporation, demonstrating that its operational implications have not been correctly understood; consequently, the core hypothesis has never been appropriately tested. The second part of the paper implements those tests, making use of the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey. We do so by using nationality as a proxy for mode of incorporation, systematically contrasting more advantaged against less advantaged nationalities. We show: (a) that tests systematically varying modes classified as more or less advantageous yield inconsistent outcomes; (b) that positive or negative modes of incorporation are associated with few long-lasting effects; (c) that differences in governmental reception are particularly unlikely to be associated with interethnic disparities; and (d) that compared to theoretically relevant nationalities, neither Mexicans, a nationality assigned to a negative mode of incorporation, nor pre-Mariel Cubans, a nationality assigned to positive mode of incorporation, prove distinctive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States has long been perceived as a land of opportunity for immigrants. Yet, both in the past and today, US natives have expressed concern that immigrants fail to integrate into US society and lower wages for existing workers. This paper reviews the literatures on historical and contemporary migrant flows, yielding new insights on migrant selection, assimilation of immigrants into US economy and society, and the effect of immigration on the labor market. (JEL J11, J15, J24, J61, N31, N32) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United States of America, as in other regions of the New World, the colonists imagined that the native peoples were “dying out.” Recent critical studies of this popular and robust narrative neglect to account for its demise. This paper describes the emergence, by the 1870s, of a critique of the “Dying Indian” story that rested on a growing store of population knowledge generated by the United States government. This paper narrates the increasing demographic capacity of colonial authority, starting with Jedediah Morse in the 1820s and noting the use of population data by the Cherokee and by Lewis Cass in the debate about Indian removal in the 1830s. This paper then links the work of Henry Schoolcraft in the 1840s and 1850s to the rise of a reservation system and President Grant's “Peace Policy” in the 1860s, arguing that “statistics” enabled humanitarian policy intellectuals to argue “unsentimentally” for a “civilizing” program. The surveillance capacity of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) enabled the critique of the “Dying Indian” thesis made by Francis Walker, Selden Clark, and Garrick Mallery in the 1870s which, in turn, contributed to the political success of Senator Dawes's “allotment” policy in the 1880s. This paper concludes by placing the work of these early critics of the “Dying Indian” story in the context of two histories: of U.S. colonial sovereignty and of the discipline of historical demography. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article, I argue that second-generation migrants experience multiple tensions and exclusions as a result of the interaction of transnationalism, assimilation, diaspora and racialization in their lives. Yet, I suggest that they are reflexive actors who respond by crafting their own "positioned belongings". The paper draws on ethnographic research conducted with Palestinian-American second-generation interlocutors conducted in New Jersey and the West Bank in the wake of Donald Trump's election as President. It presents data regarding this understudied yet significant second-generation group and their relationship to their diaspora community, hostland and homeland. I argue that a feeling of exclusion and "in-betweenness" is navigated by the second-generation through discursive and material practices that centre the second-generation "self". In doing so, I give new insight into how assimilation and transnationalism interact in dynamic and plural fields and what is lost and gained amongst the children of migrants in the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses recent data from the American Community Survey between 2010 and 2015 to investigate the effect of language skills on women's economic assimilation who immigrated to the United States as children. The problem of endogenous language acquisition and measurement error in the language variable is addressed utilizing the phenomenon that younger children learn languages more easily than older children to construct an identifying instrument. Two‐stage‐least‐squares estimates suggest that greater English proficiency has a positive effect on a number of indicators of economic assimilation of adult women including several measures of labor supply and earnings. A range of sensitivity tests are undertaken to check the validity of these results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines acculturation strategies among second-generation Israeli migrants in the United States as part of their ethnic identity formation process. Utilizing data obtained through semi-structured personal interviews and building on Berry's model (J Soc Issues 57(3):615-631, 2001, Int J Intercult Relat 29(6):697-712, 2005), as well as Cohen's (Int Migr 49(4):1-22, 2011a) expanded typology, it traces four dominant strategies among this group; Those who employed Group Integration (A) and Group Nostalgic Insulation (B) expressed explicitly positive attitudes towards their parents' country of origin as well as co-migrants while those using Individual Integration (C) were equally attached to their homeland and host country cultures. A fourth group subscribed to Assimilation (G), a strategy that entails negative attitudes towards the country of origin and the in-group of migrants but highly positive identification with the host society and culture. Thus, interactions and networks in the host—versus home—society dynamically construct acculturation strategies of second-generation migrants and contribute to the formation of their ethnic identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tendency for Latinos in the USA to support Mexican (or other national) soccer teams is taken as a problematic signal that Latinos are not assimilating into mainstream US society. The question of cultural assimilation and identity is critical to the ongoing debate regarding immigration and the influx of Latinos in the USA. Many argue that the Latino population differs from past immigrant populations because the new group is not assimilating into mainstream US society and sports structures. This paper challenges the thesis that the support of a person’s favoured national team can measure cultural assimilation and loyalty to the USA as overly simplistic and as an example of nativism. Support of national soccer teams cannot be used as a reliable indicator for cultural assimilation. An important query left out of the discussion is the level of US incorporation of Latinos into US civil society; after all, assimilation is not a one-way street. It is less the case that Latinos in the USA have divided loyalties and more likely that they are underrepresented and ignored by US institutions. Soccer is a possible pathway towards assimilation and incorporation if taken seriously by the dominant structural organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the first decade of this century, public monuments to the memory of "comfort women" - women and girls forced into sexual service from the 1930s through 1945, by the Japanese Imperial Army - have been established in the United States by the Korean diaspora. This paper analyses recent memorials in the suburbs of New York that have experienced rapid immigration from Korea since the 1990s. The memorials met local resistance due to perceptions of unrelatedness to the American land. Such immigrant initiatives, however, have been supported by municipal governance. The project of inscribing a passage from East Asian history in the American context may be considered symptomatic of wider cognitive and social shifts in immigrant adaptation. Assimilation through the inclusion of immigrant heritage, along with an increasing sense of entitlement in being both "ethnic" and "American", have been integral to this contest regarding collective memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With an ethnographic focus on descendants of Lebanese migrants in the U.S.A., this paper examines what ethnic foods means for people who consider themselves to be “assimilated” into the American white, middle-class mainstream, and who are eager to remain accepted as unhyphenated Americans, as neither Lebanese-American nor Arab-American. The paper traces their food practices and analyzes how they use food within kinship networks to honour ancestors, communicate, and generate bonds between people of Lebanese ancestry. It illustrates how preparation and consumption of “Lebanese” cuisine has become embedded in social practices of these residents of small towns across rural New England. The findings presented in the paper provide an analysis of an identity practice with both a white, assimilated American aspect and a Lebanese diasporic one. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Looking at the most recent episode in the history of time standardization, this paper focuses on the immigrant American Muslim community's historically intricate transition from the phenomena-based Islamic lunar calendar formally instituted in 1976 toward a standardized calculation-based approach taken in 2006. Using the roles assumed by the Muslim community's two premier organizations during this period, the Muslim Students' Association and the Islamic Society of North America, I attempt to analyze the multiplicity of issues dealing with technology and modernity, cultural unity and diversity, and assimilation. While this paper tracks the community building efforts of America's most diverse religious cohort through an integrated exposition of technology, politics, religion and society, it fundamentally reveals a distinct shift to a modernist epistemology of railroad time based on uniformity and science. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Segmented assimilation theorists posit that second-generation immigrants today are at risk of downward acculturation and socio-economic mobility, and that dense co-ethnic communities provide the greatest resistance. Drawing upon data from ethnographic interviews and non-participant observation at a Pentecostal church, this paper will suggest that American-origin religious institutions may provide shelter against downward mobility through 'religious optimism'. Using a race-gender framework to explain exit from gang lifestyle and acculturation into a group promoting mainstream American values, this paper will suggest that religious optimism may sometimes be infused with traditions from the black Protestant church, as well as inner-city stylistic expressions. Therefore, the first suggestion in this paper is that the segmented assimilation paradigm should not dichotomize the values of immigrant groups against those of native-born blacks and Latinos. The second suggestion in this paper is that segmented assimilation theorists should take into consideration that trajectories may shift in adulthood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I use narratives from the Indian diaspora to provide a counterargument to models of acculturation that claim that all immigrants undergo a universal psychological process of acculturation and adaptation. More specifically, I show how members from the Indian diaspora re-examined their ethnic and racial identity after the events of 9/11. Given the conceptual nature of this paper, my goal is to present an argument, supported by select autobiographical accounts and cases, to explain why the universal model of acculturation should be re-examined within the context of postcolonial, diaspora cultures. First, I undertake a brief review of the concept of acculturation in cross-cultural psychology. Next, I examine three autobiographical narratives of first-generation Indians living in south-eastern Connecticut in the USA to demonstrate how their discourses about 9/11 contests universal models of assimilation. Finally, I conclude with implications for understanding the construction of racialised identities within diaspora communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides the perspective of a bisexual woman discussing her personal experiences and views of how bisexuality does and does not fit in with the fight for equal marriage rights. The discussion includes how oppressed groups often attempt to assimilate with the group in power and how this can both help and hurt. The views of many who oppose equality in marriage rights are explored and the possibility that the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) community will not be accepted by the opposition regardless of attempted assimilation is presented. This paper calls for LGBT people to come together, rather than increase divisions within the community. The passion, discrimination, and resolve many bisexuals experience are evidenced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early assimilation theorists predicted the eventual loss of ethnic distinctiveness for immigrants in the United States. In this paper, the author not only questions the possibilities that Latino and Latina Americans have for losing their ethnic distinctiveness, but also proposes that these possibilities vary widely within the Hispanic population. The central question posed in this paper is: In addition to traditional predictors of assimilation, do experiences of discrimination also affect ethnic identification patterns for Hispanics? Based on the analysis of two data sets, the 1989 Latino National Political Survey and the 2002 National Survey of Latinos, the author provides evidence that Latino/a Americans who have experienced discrimination are less likely to self-identify as “Americans,” and more likely to self-identify with pan-ethnic or hyphenated American labels. The author contends that this is because experiences of discrimination teach some Latinos and Latinas that other citizens of the United States do not view them as ¿unhyphenated Americans.¿ The author further proposes that, through a process of racialized assimilation, these Latin American immigrants and their children are becoming Latino and Latina Americans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subtitle of this paper is the punch-line of a story told by a perceptive observer of American ethnicity, Richard Juliani, who was being led through one of the all Italian blocks in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It summarizes in a sentence the many contradictions found in the literature on ethnicity. Here is evidence of a melting pot, assimilation, cultural pluralism, and what Stephanie W. Greeley has labeled ethnogenesis, the emergence of new forms of ethnicity in the U.S. which have little relationship to national origins. The problem is that there is strong evidence supporting both the assimilation and cultural pluralism hypotheses. In order to make advances it is necessary to maintain the distinction between categories and groups. This paper, reporting the results of an investigation of ethnic groups in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is organized around two general issues. First, it focuses on the historical and structural problem of identifying the boundaries of groups and examining the relationship between the formation of ethnic groups and the city's economic and ecological structure. Second, is an analysis of the micro-level issues of the antecedents and consequences of group membership.

This paper presents a description and explanation of the current character of whites' beliefs about blacks' opportunity: perceptions of equality of opportunity, discrimination, "reverse discrimination," and the over-time trend in black opportunity. Data from a recent national survey show that whites tend to perceive widespread reverse discrimination, to see blacks' opportunity as having greatly improved in recent years, and in general to deny structural limits to blacks' opportunity. We propose that these perceptions are, in part, the product of the prevailing beliefs about stratification held by the American public. Empirical analysis shows that whites' beliefs about blacks' opportunity are significantly influenced by persons' perceptions of their own opportunity, by stratification ideology explaining opportunity in general, and by feelings of relative deprivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A major theme in social theory concerns the transformation of social relationships in small communities as a result of modernization. This paper examines changing social relations in some small towns in southeastern Pennsylvania. For several hundred years, the residents of these towns have continuously developed institutions to preserve their local identity and maintain personal relations at the same time that they are incorporated into larger, regional social systems. The same local institutions and relations, however, are replicated in each small town, suggesting that local and particular interests are expressed through regional institutions. Although focused on a few small towns in one region of the United States, this paper examines the local expression of processes which are global. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A demographic transition to greater ethno-racial diversity, the product in part of large-scale immigration over decades, will create challenges and opportunities for Western societies in coming decades. In this paper, based on our study of the USA and four Western European countries, we sift evidence from the first decade of the twenty-first century to look for clues about the possible consequences of the transition for the integration of the second generation, specifically, the children of low-status immigrants. We find unmet challenges when it comes to educational attainment and early labour-market position. That is, although on average the second generation advances beyond its parents, in each society it lags well behind its agemates from the native majority. Yet we also find, using data from the USA, that segments of the second generation are experiencing social mobility into the upper tiers of the occupational hierarchy and socially integrating with members of the majority group, arguably expanding the societal mainstream. This paradoxical picture, we argue, captures crucial dynamics that will affect the near future in the wealthy West. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper formulates a new model of racial integration for African Americans in the United States, based upon a careful consideration of the weaknesses in previous models. Instead of spatial mixing, this model of integration calls for transformed habits of interaction between citizens in public spaces, as well as a redistribution of power, understood as access to resources and opportunities. Integration along these lines would produce mutual transformation rather than compulsory assimilation. However, this model does not necessarily answer the concerns of integration critics who question the capacity of the United States to achieve true racial equality. Hence, the conclusion considers three significant obstacles to the achievement of integration, and acknowledges that unprecedented, radical transformations would be necessary to lay the groundwork for integration. In the end, both integration pessimism and a renewed commitment to integration are reasonable and defensible responses to our still-segregated present. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Purpose – This paper aims to examine country-of-origin (COO) effects from the theoretical angle of extended self and “otherness”. Traditional COO perspectives view COO as an important quality-related, informational cue used to form product evaluations, develop preferences and make purchase decisions. Design/methodology/approach – An experiment was conducted with the COO of a fresh milk product manipulated to examine these predictions. Data were collected from four samples, Americans living in the USA, Americans living in China, Chinese living in China and Chinese living in the USA. Findings – Results found that COO effects were stronger when consumers felt greater animosity toward the foreign country, were more ethnocentric and were less acculturated (i.e. conceptualized as a less expanded self). Additionally, negative product events were interpreted in light of self, in that reactions to an adverse act were stronger when “others” committed the act. American consumers living abroad were more heavily influenced by COO effects, and evidence suggests that this effect occurred because these Americans had a less expanded self than their Chinese counterparts. Originality/value – This study provides a unique angle which leads to a deeper understanding of COO effects which augments the traditional match hypothesis. Specifically, COO effects are stronger, the smaller one’s extended self (greater animosity and ethnocentrism, less acculturation), and that wrongdoings are interpreted in light of self (i.e. reaction to an adverse act is stronger when “others” commit the act). Few studies to date have focused on these factors as layers of armor that consumers use to protect their self and extended self-image in a cross-cultural context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing accounts of American sociology’s founding years during the early twentieth century assume that the discipline was ‘metrocentric.’ They assume that it was only interested in processes occurring within the United States; that American sociologists fell prey to state-centrist thought; and that, therefore, contextualizing America sociology’s emergence necessitates understanding relations, events, and processes within the confines of US territorial boundaries. By contrast, this paper shows the imperial and hence global aspects of early American sociological thought. Early American sociologists were interested in imperialism and, therefore, in cross-societal, transnational, and global processes and relations. Implicitly or explicitly they approached imperialism as a process by which social groups, not least ‘races,’ interacted and conflicted. They also saw it as a route towards new global forms. Early American sociology thus articulated a sociological imagination that looked beyond American society and to the wider world. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The author discusses the transformation of the mid-20th century “gay liberation movement,” which was influenced by antiwar protests, the African-American civil rights movement, second-wave feminism, and the sexual revolution into the modern gay civil rights movement seeking greater assimilation with heteronormative ideals. The bottle-throwing protestors at Stonewall, the Gay Activist Alliance members who disrupted meetings of the American Psychiatric Association, or the sexual outlaws of Christopher and Castro Streets could hardly have imagined today's world, in which the most pressing gay civil rights issues are to serve openly in the military, to get married, and to obtain legal parental responsibilities for raising children. “Gay lib” primarily evolved into a pragmatic, slightly left of center politics and values. Inevitably, however, support for gay rights emerged on the right wing of the political spectrum as well. Today, even religious gays seek to integrate a modern gay identity with traditional and even fundamentalist religious values. This paper offers some thoughts about this social transformation. It then goes on to briefly review research findings on gay parenting and how this culture war issue plays out in the media. The author, who has no children, concludes with some personal reflections on the growing phenomenon of gay parenting. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Can race and assimilation be taught? Interdisciplinary pedagogy provides a methodology, context, and use of nontraditional texts culled from American cultural history such as from, theater and historical texts. This approach and these texts prove useful for an examination of race and assimilation in America. The paper describes a course that while organized chronologically, used the juxtaposition of varied texts to highlight the complexity of these social issues. By design, this methodology raises questions rather than providing specific answers. The purpose of this course was to encourage students to think critically about their own role in constructing concepts of race. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Framed within the segmented assimilation perspective, this paper examines community construction by middle-class, professional Tamil immigrant women in Atlanta, Georgia. It argues that community building is a fundamentally gendered settlement activity predominantly performed by Tamil women. Using gendered labor, they construct a dynamic community across the settlement process, encompassing formal and informal, ethnic and non-ethnic components and sites, to take the form of wives' support and women's networks, cross-cultural friendships, ethnic spaces and fictive kinship. With the emergent bonding and bridging social capital, they chart their segmented incorporation as model minorities who are ethnic. In the process however, gender, race/ethnic and class hierarchies are often reinforced. In this article, I discuss community construction by middle-class, professional Tamil immigrant women in Atlanta, Georgia. Framed by the segmented assimilation perspective on immigrant incorporation, this article asks three questions: (1) what are the forms of community constructed by Tamil women, (2) how is community building gendered, and (3) how does the constructed community facilitate their incorporation into America? By focusing on middle-class Tamil immigrants, this article advances the scholarship in several ways: (1) by theorizing community formation among South Asians it nuances our understanding of the ethnic landscape of Asians in the United States that has predominantly focused on East Asians; (2) by conferring visibility on a little-studied Indian regional group, it challenges the dominant imaginary of a homogenized Indian diaspora in the United States as being predominantly North Indian (Gujarati/Punjabi); and in so doing (3) is attentive to the interactions and reconstitutions of stratifications of class, caste, and gender in shaping the Tamil experience in the United States. 3 1 argue that community building among professional Tamils is predominantly performed by Tamil women. They construct a dynamic community that takes the form of wives' support and women's networks, cross-cultural friendships, ethnic spaces, and fictive kinship. Although the emergent bonding and bridging social capital facilitates their segmented incorporation as model minorities who are ethnic, the process also reinscribes gender, race/ethnic, class and caste hierarchies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Before the beginning of the twentieth century, the American Negro had undergone an all-encompassing process of Otherization and inferiorization which represented blacks as inhuman, heathen and demonic. Under the tenacious hold of Calvinism, Capitalism and most notably Social Darwinism, blacks were forced to internalize the dominant negative stereotypes and thus over time came to view Uncle Tomism and assimilationism as the only possible survival strategies in the white-dominated United States. However, there emerged a paradigm shift in African Americans' conception of themselves and their status in the country when a number of factors went hand in hand in the early twentieth century to undermine the long-held assumption of white supremacy and black inferiority. One of these factors was African American participation in World War I. The up-to-then subalternized, obsequious American Negro experienced relative freedom in Europe during war time and came to appreciate and later implement concepts like collective political entity, cultural identity and social activism. This paper tries to analyze African Americans' contribution to the cause of World War I and the way it managed to usher blacks into an age of redefinition through politicizing them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding how immigrants assimilate to the U.S. labor market over time is important, but measuring the true effect of time is difficult. We know little about the assimilation of African immigrants, a group that has recently begun to enter the US in large numbers. The African foreign-born are unique among US immigrants in their racial diversity, with substantial numbers of both Black and White migrants. This paper examines the effect of duration on African immigrant men's earnings between 1990 and 2000. Using Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) 5% and 1% sample data from the 1990 and 2000 censuses, it applies a double-cohort method of analysis (Myers and Lee, 1996) that avoids problems presented by trying to measure age-period-cohort effects. The paper examines the differential tempo of assimilation for Black and White African immigrant men. While White African-born men's earnings surpass those of White US-born men over time, Black African-born men continue to experience a disadvantage in earnings that cannot be explained by human capital characteristics. Additionally, while some age-and-migration cohorts of Black African-born men experience steeper increases in earnings over time compared to White African-born men, racial inequities in earnings remain, suggesting that racism continues to depress the earnings of Black African immigrant men despite their advances over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Classic assimilation theory was based on the assumption of individualistic adaptation, with immigrants and their children expected to shed their ethnic identities to become Americans. In the sphere of religion, however, they could maintain their communitarian traditions through American denominations. In contemporary society, multiculturalism, spiritual seeking, and postdenominationalism have reversed this paradigm. First- and second-generation immigrants integrate by remaining ethnic and group-identified, but religion is viewed as a personal quest. This paper examines how this paradigm shift affects the ethnic and religious behavior of second-generation Americans. It is based on research among Malankara Syrian Christians belonging to an ancient South Indian community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The degree to which Jews are or are not integrated into non-Jewish societies, and the consequences of this integration or the lack thereof, has been debated at least since the emancipation of Jews in the 18 century. As a contribution to this discussion, the present paper examines the social integration of young adult Jews into American society. Findings are based on social network analysis of data collected in the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University 2010 Jewish Futures Study as well as comparative data from other sources. First, ego network data are compared to a more conventional survey question about Jewish friends, revealing substantive differences in interpretation and distribution. Second, homophily index scores for young adults Jews are compared to those for young adults of other religions and are found to be similar. Third, the settings in which young adult Jews meet Jewish and non-Jewish friends and spouses are examined. The study finds that non-Jewish settings predominate in the lives of young adults, particularly as they grow older and separate from their Jewish family of origin. Non-Jewish spouses are more commonly met in college, graduate school, or the workplace, while Jewish spouses more commonly meet in childhood or through friends and family. The authors conclude that the creation of forums for meeting other young adult Jews should be a high priority on the Jewish communal agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines narratives about immigrants in a sampling of nineteenth-century American children's texts and grows out of my work on reform writing by major women authors. Many of the stories they published in the leading children's periodicals seem to welcome the immigrant contributor to American society even as they defined that immigrant's place in economic/class structures. The goal of this paper is to trace certain strains of the systematic discipline by which American culture tried to manage the immigrant in terms of class. I therefore consider the role of economics in immigrant stories written for children by a number of American women writers, with analyses of the ways in which these stories situate the dependent and independent immigrant in the marketplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a review of various literatures on immigration, immigration policy formation, and immigrant reception with a particular focus on the state of Georgia. Existing scholarship has largely failed to explain why immigration policy outcomes have varied from state to state or how underlying factors might influence immigrant assimilation or exclusion. In the case of Georgia, the legislative response to newcomers has become increasingly inhospitable. What factors may account for this culture of exclusion? What variables have influenced Georgia officials to take up the anti-immigrant cause? What has been the impact on the Hispanic community, and, finally, how may policy consequences influence future immigrant legislation in Georgia? Este artículo provee una revisión de varias fuentes sobre inmigración, formación de políticas de inmigración, y la recepción de inmigrantes con un enfoque particular en el estado de Georgia. Las investigaciones académicas existentes en gran parte han omitido explicar por qué los resultados de las políticas de inmigración han variado de estado a estado o cómo los factores subyacentes podrían influir la asimilación o exclusión del inmigrante. En el caso de Georgia, la respuesta legislativa a los recién llegados ha sido cada vez menos hospitalaria. ¿Qué factores pueden considerarse para esta cultura de exclusión? ¿Qué variables han influido en los oficiales de Georgia para hacer suya la causa anti-inmigrante? ¿Qué variables han impactado a la comunidad Hispana? y finalmente ¿cómo pueden influir las consecuencias de las políticas en la futura legislación sobre inmigrantes en Georgia? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper uses decennial Census data to examine the residential integration of the foreign born in the United States between 1910 and 2000. Immigrant segregation declined in the first part of the century, but has been rising over the past few decades. Recent immigrants tend to hail from countries with greater cultural distinctions from U.S. natives, whether economic, racial, or linguistic. These factors explain much of the increase in segregation after 1970. Evidence also points to changes in urban form, particularly native-driven suburbanization and the decline of public transit as a transportation mode, as an explanation for the new immigrant segregation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are predictions that Hispanics will make up 25 per cent of the US population in 2050 reliable? The authors of this paper argue that these and other predictions are problematic insofar as they do not account for the volatile nature of Latino racial and ethnic identifications. In this light, the authors propose a theoretical framework that can be used to predict Latinos' and Latinas' racial choices. This framework is tested using two distinct datasets - the 1989 Latino National Political Survey and the 2002 National Survey of Latinos. The results from the analyses of both of these surveys lend credence to the authors' claims that Latinas' and Latinos' skin colour and experiences of discrimination affect whether people from Latin America and their descendants who live in the US will choose to identify racially as black, white or Latina/o. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the experiences of twenty-four Bosnian refugees resettled in the US and explores how achieving integration relates to the US policy contexts and programs. Juxtaposing refugee perspectives and policies, "lived experience" was compared with policies on paper. Central themes included participants' language and employment struggles, social support networks that included Americans, congregational sponsorship, and participants' faith in their belief that they could fully belong in American society. Implications included a reevaluation of American resettlement policy regarding language and employment, formal support for sponsorship, and an inclusion of refugee voices in planning and implementing resettlement programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper two gaps in North American immigrant homeownership research are addressed. The first concerns the lack of studies (especially in Canada) that identify changes in homeownership rates by skin color over time, and the second relates to the shortage of comparative research between Canada and the United States on this topic. In this paper the homeownership levels and attainment rates of Black, Chinese, Filipino, White, and South Asian immigrants are compared in Canada and the United States for 1970/1971–2000/2001. For the most part, greater similarities than differences are found between the two countries. Both Canadian and U.S. Chinese and White immigrants have the highest adjusted homeownership rates of all groups, at times even exceeding comparably positioned native-born households. Black immigrants, on the other hand, tend to have the lowest ownership rates of all groups, particularly in the United States, with Filipinos and South Asians situated between these extremes. Most of these differences stem from disparities that exist at arrival, however, and not from differential advancement into homeownership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Throughout history the United States has been constantly confronted with the responsibility of integrating diverse groups of people into its society. This paper uses current and historical ideas about the complex nature of indigenous groups, globalization, and education as vehicles for promoting the adoption of cosmopolitanism, a paradigm that values inclusion, tolerance, and respect for the other. Cosmopolitanism is discussed as a plausible alternative to historical assimilationist/nativist practices. The paper uses the Otavalos, an indigenous population in Ecuador, as an instructive example of a community that successfully applies a cosmopolitan approach to its indigenous identity and immigration behaviors to integrate itself into a modern global society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent scholarship across many ethnic groups in the United States has consistently shown strong gender differences favoring girls in educational outcomes. This paper examines four areas of research that may shed light on why immigrant girls tend to do better than boys in schools: parental expectations after migration, socialization at home, relations at school, and gendered processes of acculturation and identity formation. The paper concludes that gender is an important segmenting factor in the adaptation and future mobility of the new generation. More in-depth research studies are needed to understand why and how gender makes a difference in the adaptation of children from different immigrant communities. The intersection of gender, ethnicity, and social class and how it impacts immigrant children's education and adjustment can be a particularly fruitful area for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the vast scholarship on Japanese American "internment," with its ever more sophisticated attention to euphemism and doublespeak, the U.S. government's so-called relocation centers have often been characterized as concentration camps. This paper ask if they should also be considered as indoctrination centers. My essay first examines the vital role of camp schools in Americanizing imprisoned Japanese American children and adults. Second, I look at a particular set of popular representations that traded on a long-standing American creation myth, the pioneer narrative, which was adopted and partially transformed by Japanese Americans inclined toward assimilation. Finally, I probe the more explicitly religious components of Americanization and the leadership positions held by Japanese American women in those campaigns. WRA officials and Japanese American Christians clearly saw incarceration as an unprecedented opportunity to evangelize on a grand scale. In the gendered hierarchies of church leadership, just below the male clergy, women lay leaders in particular led the charge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A very large number of teachers of English are nonnative who speak British, Australian, Canadian, Indian, or other varieties of English. Their native speaking-English colleagues and English Language Program administrators often underestimate their strengths as EFL/ ESL teachers. Native English speakers without teaching qualifications are more likely to be employed as EFL/ESL teachers than qualified and experienced nonnative English-speaking teachers (NNESTs), especially in the Arab Gulf States. Much research has been conducted on the status of the NNESTs in the United States. but none has tackled their situation in their home countries, such as the Arab teachers of English in the Arab World, especially in the Arab Gulf States. Annually, universities in these countries graduate thousands of BA, MA and PhD holders in EFL or ESL. These graduates might be jobless in the very near future due to the discrimination in the hiring practices in favor of Native English-speaking teachers (NESTs). The aim of this paper, therefore, is to address this issue, and to suggest a solution to the problem. The paper ends with suggestions for a solution to current chronic situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attitudinal research on America's position on cultural diversity remains largely unreported and neglected. By way of logistic regression, this paper employs national level data to investigate the degree to which the approval of intimate intergroup contact, as well as a number of other explanatory variables is linked to support for either multiculturalism or assimilation. While significant quantitative differences were not found on most variables, including race, support for intermarriage and interracial dating did significantly predict the likelihood of support for assimilation. The author finds in this paper that in the midst of the confusion in America on racial inclusion and cultural diversity, intergroup unions stand out as a significant factor in the formation of support for the creation of a common culture.

New York, Los Angeles, and Miami are primate immigrant centers within the U.S. metropolitan system, attracting new immigrant arrivals as well as serving as focal points for internal migrants. Using the segmented assimilation framework as a foundation, this paper emphasizes the role of geography and migration within the assimilation process. Focusing upon selected origin groups, migrant selectivity and the determinants of migration are evaluated and compared, highlighting the differential role of primate centers. While the New York and Miami metropolitan centers clearly dominate Dominican and Cuban migration systems respectively, the role of primate centers is less clear among other national origin groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The American experience teaches us that integration is not just mere proximity, but an active process based on joint participation and mutual acceptance. It is only in the creation of a common superordinate structure shared with the majority that minority groups can aspire to be associated with the dominant culture. Ironically, America has become most successful in allowing various immigrant groups to become part of its mainstream by abandoning the idea of blind assimilation. This paper analyzes the integration of voluntary immigrants who, while maintaining their cultural distinctiveness, have come to share the ‘American dream’. It is however in their social representations of Blacks, defined negatively as the “;other,” that they have reduced their social distance to the dominant Anglo-culture and facilitated their inclusion. By reconstructing their own cultural distinctiveness, like other groups, in juxtapositin to America, some Blacks have transformed themselves into African Americans to achieve the same level of integration. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]