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In this paper, we explore processes of identity formation in a community of transnational Mexican migrants. We analyze a Pre-Hispanic secular dance ritual unique to the people of one municipio in southern Puebla that is practiced in both the Mexican and U.S. contexts. We see the dance as a metaphor for the transnational community that exists between these distant locales, and we see it as an important cultural vehicle and strategy for consolidating identity and membership as well. We make the argument that, with its introduction to transnational migrant communities in the United States, we are witnessing a new era in the history of this living ritual. The cultural processes of identity formation embodied in the dance are open, fluid, and contested as the ritual is constantly being reinterpreted. We find evidence of this in disagreements over meaning, interpretation and performance. Our analysis is based on ethnographic research we have been conducting in this transnational community over the past three years. We have generated data through participant-observation, formal and informal interviews, and visual sociological methods. In this paper we weave together these various, and sometimes quite divergent, narratives and apply a sociological interpretive frame to them in an effort to better understand the construction of transnational identity through this public dance ritual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dominicans and Puerto Ricans, both major Latino migrant groups to the mainland United States, have conceptions of race that differ from those found in the U.S. Race is traditionally conceptualized in those nations along a continuum with many possible categories between the two polarities of White and Black that most Americans recognize. This paper explores how Dominican and Puerto Rican migrants reconcile the conflict between their home and host societies? understanding of race, and how the process of migration shapes that understanding. The paper draws on a recent cross-national qualitative study comparing Dominican and Puerto Rican migrants living in New York with non-migrants living in Santo Domingo and San Juan, respectively. The paper discusses data gathered using a photographic instrument to elicit racial classifications and discussion of how those decisions are made. Education is found to be an important factor mediating how race is conceptualized, and how racial assimilation takes place in the host society. It further shapes how identities are sent back and reformulated in the home societies through transnational practices and globalized mass communications. Ethnic and racial group interactions in each location enable those identities to be reinterpreted and assigned new meaning specific to the social context. It is argued that migration shapes racial constructs in both sending and receiving nations, but context-specific structural factors filter the way those constructs are used and understood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Everyday along the United States-Mexico border, women living in Mexico report to work as maids, nannies, and caretakers of the elderly for American families. Unlike domestic workers in other regions of the U.S., these women are not long-term migrants, but instead migrate across international bridges on a daily basis, simultaneously inhabiting the domestic spaces of their employers in America and of their families in Mexico. Based on in-depth interviews with twelve domestic workers who migrate across the Texas-Mexico border on a regular basis, this paper examines how short-term migration challenges traditional notions of citizenship and how these notions closely intersect with socioeconomic status. The concept of citizenship will be understood as a flexible concept, changing in relation to increased transnationalism, the influx of skilled and unskilled workers crossing borders, and the opening of global markets. Mexican women working in the U.S. and living in Mexico offer a unique perspective on how social class status plays a key role in daily migration and the formation of citizenship. Interviews with these women show that this type of migration is reserved for a select population of Mexican border residents whose short stay in the U.S. is both legal and illegal. This paper describes this migratory process and the relationship between citizenship and class in the lives of domestic workers who must confront and traverse cultural and physical boundaries on a daily basis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on qualitative data gathered in a longitudinal, two-country study to explore the survival strategies of poor Honduran transnational families, and to identify the structures that hinder their reunification. I argue that poor transnational families, defined as those divided between two nation-states, depend on alternative family structures and ideologies for their maintenance. Specifically, kin-networks provide the financial and caretaking support that enable families to utilize transnational strategies for survival and/or economic mobility, and to sustain themselves, often for many years, in a transnational space. Transnationalizing the family has emotional and economic repercussions for those involved. While economic remittances support the material well-being of families in the host country, transmigrants in the US suffer from low-wages, poor working conditions, and the loneliness of being away from loved ones. A challenge to assimilation theories of migration, this paper brings the literatures on transnationalism and the family into dialogue, exposing the transnational family as an inevitable expression of global Capitalism, and encouraging social scientists to rethink their basic notions of transnationalism and family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the impact of immigration on U.S. wages has centered on pay differences between (a) metropolitan areas and (b) local occupations. This paper employs 3-level hierarchical modeling to test effects on men's wages at both the metropolitan area (MA) level and the local occupation level. I focus here on Latino immigration, as the majority of recent immigrants hails from Latin America. Utilizing the 2000 5% Census PUMS for men in 57 immigrant-receiving MAs, the analyses replicate the past finding that, workers employed in local occupations with a large share of newcomer Latinos suffer a wage disadvantage. However, I demonstrate that this occupation effect is strongly influenced by the degree of occupational segregation in the MA: Wage penalties are greater when newcomers' occupational distribution more closely resembles that of other workers. Further, the paper tests the importance of MA characteristics on wages and demonstrates that the representation of newcomer Latinos in the MA has no appreciable effect on wages, once local industrial structure is taken into account. The analyses provide evidence that, with respect to immigration's potential influence on native wages, the "action" is at the local occupation level, not at the more aggregate level of metropolitan areas. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I analyze ethnographic data from four communities, two rural villages and two urban areas in the state of Guanajuato Mexico. The paper provides evidence for the emergence of strong solidarity relations among undocumented migrants in their border crossing experience from Mexico to the United States. It also shows that place of origin, whether rural or urban, affects the type of social relations that are involved. This research shows that the social networks driving undocumented migration from rural and urban places of origin are the rural-based networks. Given the conditions that take place in such social networks, group membership becomes an invaluable asset for new urban migrants, helping them to reduce their costs and risks during and after their migratory journey. The clique-like networks developed by the rural-based migrants from Mexico provide the trustful information and the social capital necessary for those new migrants to successfully migrate and settle in the United States. Group membership is also important in order to receive the help in a rural based network. Weak ties from urban-based migrants can be absorbed by those clique-like rural-based networks and transformed into strong ties because of the adoption of the collective conscience behavior. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the Immigration Act of 1965, the flow of immigrants to the United States has shifted away from European countries and is now primarily from Asian and Latin American countries. During this time, economic restructuring has made it more difficult for low-skilled and less-educated workers to find employment in stable, high-quality jobs. Some immigrants have responded to the economic context in the United States through participation in ethnic economies, which provide job opportunities that are not available to them in the mainstream economy. Beyond the advantages or disadvantages of ethnic economy participation for immigrants themselves, little research has investigated the intergenerational impact of ethnic economies. Some research suggests that ethnic economies can act as a springboard for the second generation-encouraging youth to go on to higher education by increasing social capital and reinforcing high educational aspirations. Other research has suggested that the ethnic economy can act as a safety net, giving youth possibilities of employment without obtaining a college degree.I n this paper, I assess the impact of parents' ethnic economy participation on children's educational aspirations and post-secondary school enrollment. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis paper examines the ways in which Brazilian immigrant women claim and reject the identity positionings associated with Latin/Latin American/Latina constructions. Based on thirty completed in-depth interviews with first-generation Brazilian immigrant women, collected between June 2004 and June 2005, we focus on a profound but small aspect of the women's narratives: what they have to say about whether they see themselves as Latina, as Latin American, as Latin and related, as Hispanic. Our major conclusion is that Brazilian immigrants adopt some of the same hegemonic practices of the United States that leads to demonizing and racializing Latino/s and Hispanics, but they do so for a variety of reasons. Furthermore, some women, although they reject these labels, they relate very much to the people that they define as Latin American, Latina and Latin. Finally, many of the women's responses illustrate the difficulties of categorization that come with identity formation. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immigration to the United States can generally be divided into two large groups - the old immigrants of the early nineteenth century and the new immigrants of the mid to latter twentieth century. There are many distinctions between these two groups. One difference lies in the immigrant's home of origin. While the immigrants of the early nineteenth century comprise mainly of Southeastern Europeans, a large bulk of the new immigrants of the twentieth century are from Latin America and Asia. Previous studies on the experiences of the new 1.5 and second generation largely focus on this group's social, educational, and cultural progression. Missing from this discussion is the positioning of this group's racial and ethnic identity within the umbrella term of "Asian American." Thus, this paper explores how the new Asian 1.5 and second generation are positioned within Asian America. Furthermore, the applicability of the term "Asian American" for this group of new 1.5 and second generation is also addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last several decades, an expanding literature has been developed to understand Mexican immigration to the United States. In particular, many scholars have focused not only on the forces encouraging people to migrate, but also the impact that this migration has had on migrants themselves. In this paper, I examine the relationship between immigration and fertility. Specifically, my analysis compares the foreign and the native born population in the United States to determine the effect that nativity status has for the number of children ever born to women of Mexican origin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents new research on immigrant women in the present-day United States, with a concentration on ethnographic research from the mid-Atlantic region. The researchers analyze the situations of women with regard to family reunification, domestic labor, and entrepreneurship. They argue that policy must be informed by the particular "situated" experiences of these women across ethnic and social class backgrounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes 62 memoirs written by German Jews who fled Nazi-controlled Europe between 1933 and 1941, and resettled in the United States. I analyze how these immigrants understood the Holocaust and their own escape, and represented that understanding to themselves and to others. Claiming they are immigrants and not survivors or refugees, authors of Holocaust narratives distinguish between themselves and these other groups, and thus maintain distance between themselves and the others. Although most narrators claimed only to be speaking for themselves and assert their recollections were purely individual ones, they nonetheless frequently referred to themselves in collective terms as German Jews. Memoir writers, moreover, seemed cognizant of the master narrative that asserts they were more German than Jewish. As a consequence, they frequently appear to be writing in response to that prevailing account yet at the same time articulate it to support their claims of unjust treatment. In addition, they tend to omit extensive or concrete references to accelerating Nazi control and brutality; they also dismiss their own efforts and preparations to emigrate. In so doing, these narrators distance themselves from the Holocaust, thereby inadvertently contributing to its repression and minimizing their own agency in surviving. Instead they situate their memory of their homeland in the natural landscape and often speak about their leave-taking in terms of the ?last train? or ?last ship?, indicative of both the salience of the natural rather than the social environment, and luck rather than human actions as explanatory. Ultimately these narratives suggest the importance of reading evidence as well as its omission to begin to understand the dynamics of immigrant survival in a time of genocide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key theme in the literature on migration is transnationalism, the concept of having a foot in both worlds ? the homeland that immigrants have left behind and the country that they have entered. This paper contributes to the emergent research on how transnationalism and ethnicity play out in the lives of the second generation, e.g., the American-born children of immigrants, and foreign-born children who arrived in the United States by the age of 12, with a particular focus on the Chinese and Dominicans and their views on and experience with higher education and mobility. Surveys and interviews with respondents of both groups show that they come from families embedded in strong transnational fields. The second generation Chinese, however, were only weakly transnational themselves, unlike the Dominicans, for whom the homeland figured strongly. Contrary to what we might expect, given that the Chinese have higher levels of educational attainment on average than many other immigrant groups, including Dominicans, the Chinese express more pessimism about the opportunity structure in the United States and their prospects for mobility. This is because the Chinese tended to use only ethnic/panethnic lenses to understand their educational and mobility trajectories in the United States and thus believed they should be doing better. By using both ethnic and transnational lenses, Dominicans compared themselves positively with their peers in the Dominican Republic and their co-ethnics in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research shows that in the United States many arrivals to ?new? immigrant destinations are actually ?secondary? internal migrants, coming from major gateway regions, such as Los Angeles and New York. This pattern means that to understand immigrant settlement in emerging and traditional gateway regions, we must pay more attention to the links that connect these two types of locales, instead of treating each in isolation. This analytical approach would move us away from viewing urban centers as simply spatial containers for immigrant adaptation and, instead, focus attention on the geographic embeddedness of migratory flows, networks, and social capital that link gateway regions with alternative destinations throughout the United States. Such an approach is critical to understanding the dispersion of U.S. immigrant populations now, not only because of the sheer number of immigrants now residing in gateway regions but also because new federal legislation will likely increase the geographic mobility of many immigrants in coming years, as the legal risk of pursuing new opportunities in new places declines. To investigate these issues, this paper will engage four basic questions. First, how many immigrants are leaving top gateway regions for alternative U.S. destinations? Second, what types of jobs do outmigrants tend to take when they leave these gateway centers: are the jobs similar to those that comprised the ethnic niches they left behind, or are the jobs located in different industrial sectors? Third, why would immigrants move elsewhere to take jobs similar to ones in which they already concentrated in the gateway center: do the jobs pay better, and/or is there evidence of ?niche saturation? in the gateway center? Fourth and finally, what are the consequences of these types of outflows for top destinations: are outmigrants from gateway centers contributing to the expansion of existing ethnic niches, the establishment of new ethnic niches, or neither? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores theory and evidence about immigration, race/ethnicity, intermarriage, and multiracial identification, and assesses the implications of trends and patterns for changes in America’s color lines, focusing especially on the traditional and relatively persistent black-white color line that has long divided the country. For more than three and a half decades, continued immigration from Latin America and Asia has transformed the United States from a largely biracial society consisting of a large white majority and smaller black minority into a society composed of multiple racial and ethnic groups. At the same time, the rate of intermarriage between whites and nonwhites increased dramatically, and along with its rise, the growth in the multiracial population. For the first time in U.S. history, the 2000 Census allowed Americans the option to mark "more than one race" to self-identify, reflecting the view that race is no longer conceived of as a bounded category. Increases in immigration, intermarriage, and multiracial identification might appear to indicate that race is declining in significance, and racial/ethnic divides, eroding for all groups. However, the trends and patterns of interracial marriage and multiracial reporting indicate that while racial/ethnic boundaries may be loosening for some groups, they are not loosening for all. Moreover, while the traditional black-white divide may be fading, a new divide seems to be emerging-one that separates blacks and non-blacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data from Census 2000 indicate dramatic increases in Hispanic populations in areas of the country that previously experienced little immigration. The new influxes have drawn scholarly attention because of the new geography of recent migration flows as well as the challenges facing local officials and the adjustment of local residents. Demographic phenomena underlie many challenges facing local policy makers as well as social and cultural conflicts between local residents and newcomers. Hispanic/Latino labor migrants differ in age and gender composition, family size, and household composition. Moreover, these differences in demographic structure have their basis in the very demands of the labor migration process itself. In this paper, we supplement standard explanations of international migration with evidence of it as an industrial demand-driven phenomenon. We show how the nature of international migration itself determines gender and age composition of migration flows. We document differences in age, gender, household structure, and family size of nonmetropolitan counties at the national level where the Hispanic population has exceeded growth rates in metropolitan counties and of all other racial and ethnic groups. At a local level, we describe how these social phenomena manifest in two Southeastern U.S. counties whose booming poultry industries have directly influenced the growth in international migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Transnational Migration Paradigm (TMP) offers tools to theorize remitting behavior among migrants who settled in the United States. In particular, it provides a theoretical rationale that explains why a settled migrant would continue to send money home at all. In this paper I outline what I call a TMP remittances narrative, based on the following premise: If migrants participate in transnational activities, including migrant remittances, as a way to resist a sense of alienation and identity crisis in the US, it follows that factors that provoke that sense of alienation should have a positive effect on migrants' remitting behavior. My empirical analysis, limited to male migrants from Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, suggests that two of those factors could be important: a poor command of the English language, and the entry of the migrant's wife in the labor force, for the first time, in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past two decades, immigration enforcement in the United States has expanded from the border into the interior and the annual numbers of detentions and deportations have increased dramatically. Despite a burgeoning social science literature on these trends, no study to date has systematically examined the spatial patterning of immigrant detention and deportation across the US. Drawing on administrative records of all individuals detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) between 2008 and 2009 and on data from the American Community Survey, this paper examines variation in states' detention rates and investigates how detention practices and outcomes are structured by the place of apprehension. Initial findings indicate considerable variability in both detention rates and outcomes. States' detention rates range from 38 to 826 detentions per 10,000 non-citizens and states' average length of detention range from 13 to 90 days. Moreover, rates of removal vary by as much as 30 percentage points between states. These striking disparities and the growing number of deportations annually suggest that immigrant detention and deportation practices may be transforming the spatial contours of inequality in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to return scholarly attention to a core intellectual divide between segmented and conventional (or neo-) assimilation approaches, doing so through a theoretical and empirical reconsideration of contextual effects on second-generation outcomes. We evaluate multiple approaches to measuring receiving country contextual effects, generally considered exogeneous to the integration process. We further extend the concept of migration context to include characteristics of the country of emigration considered endogeneous to secondgeneration integration. We demonstrate that our proposed receiving country measures better predict second generation educational attainment than prevailing approaches, and that sending country characteristics are also independently associated with second generation outcomes, and thus should not be omitted from studies of the US second generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to examine the association between degree of acculturation and immigrants' self-reported change of health since immigration. Using the New Immigrant Survey (NIS) 2003 cohort, the author investigates the associations between countries of origins, visa status, and residential experience in the U.S. and people's self-reported health change after immigration. The author hypothesizes that spouses of U.S. citizens and employment based principals, years since last arrival in the U.S., short (< 60 days) and long (≥ 60 days) trips in the U.S. before immigration are all negatively associated with better immigrant health controlling for sociodemographic variables, and European cultural countries are positively related to reporting improved health. Logistic regression models estimated by maximum likelihood are used to test the hypotheses. The results indicate that none of hypothesized factors variable is associated with immigrant health change, but the interaction effects between visa status and years since last arrival and experiencing short trips in the U.S. before immigration are significantly related with self-reported immigrant health change. Education is strongly related to change of health. Further research is suggested to explore the relationship between education and health outcomes, and between cultural distinctions and health status. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper employs remarks made at American naturalization ceremonies to explore nationalism and the role of immigrants and immigration in national identity. The crossing of the citizenship boundary by immigrants provides a unique research site for looking at how the nation is constructed and the tensions inherent in the process. Speakers at naturalization ceremonies are charged with legitimizing the nation to its newest members, making explicit what being an American means, what sets the United States apart, and the roles that immigrant citizens are to play in American society. Speeches are replete with explanations of what makes Americans and the United States great, with constitutive, as well as political power and economic stories well represented. Nevertheless, these explanations can be vague in clarifying the responsibilities of citizenship or explaining the greatness of the United States. This vagueness serves to create a constitutive story well-suited for a nation of immigrants. The diversity that immigration brings and the way it is embraced are seen as contributing to American exceptionalism. Immigrants fit into the national identity as essential fresh blood that renews the nation and makes it stronger. The choice that immigrants make to naturalize legitimates the greatness of the United States. Naturalization is seen as a deeply significant rite of passage, with immigrants attaining a status envied across the world in return for loyalty and gratitude. Aspects of national identity revealed in naturalization ceremony speeches exhibit numerous internal inconsistencies and obscure realities of inequality and discrimination. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I analyze the important but as yet little studied role of commercial intermediary agencies in the social organization of labor migration. Examining the case of Philippine nurse migration bound for the United States, I present data collected from 35 recruitment and placement agencies that are directly responsible for connecting Philippine-educated nurses with U.S. employers for profit. These agencies can be found in both sending and receiving countries and they represent a core of the formal migration industry—a key actor in constructing modern migration systems. Borrowing concepts found in the economic sociology and organizational studies literature, I argue that the migration industry constitutes an important organizational field in the labor market for foreign-educated workers. In this view, relevant institutions (i.e. supporting state policy and education) coupled with formal organizations (i.e. commercial agencies) direct, shape and maintain labor migration movements in an orchestrated manner. As a central figure of the migration industry, commercial agencies not only build bridges between places, but they also profoundly shape the opportunity and process of migration from immigrant selection to integration. Commercial agencies also play a key role in other important, though less talked about procedures of migration such as the selection of employers as well as workers, the disciplining of these two sets of clientele, and the creation of new migration opportunities. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines contemporary rhetoric on immigration, especially that of Samuel Huntington. Huntington argues that current trends in immigration and liberal elite discourse pose dangers to the United States. What he is most concerned about is a perceived threat to the meaning of America as a nation, and what constitutes being an American. This fear is significant to address in the midst of our current "immigration crisis"—as it is frequently described in public discourse—given that the bulk of conversation avoids the cultural implications of immigration and assimilation, despite the clear importance these issues hold for many Americans. What can be seen by putting Huntington into the context of a specific historical debate is that, in fact, his claims are very much like those made by nativists early in the twentieth-century when concerns about Southern and Eastern European immigrants were arriving in large numbers. It is imperative that this context be illuminated so that we can better understand what animates much of the anti-immigrant rhetoric we hear today, rather than assuming that economics and politics are all that is at stake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This comparative study of migrant organizations in the United States and their contributions to their countries of origin (Colombia, the Dominican Republic and Mexico) explores the variations by nationality in the type of projects these organizations support, and in the entities that serve them as counterparts for carrying out these projects in their home countries. The paper also discusses the differences between sending states' programs to involve nationals abroad, as well as their organizations, in efforts of national development. Given the mostly rural character of the Mexican migration and the tradition of state involvement in the organization of civil society, the Mexican state has been successful in involving hometown associations and federations in state programs of development. This is not the case of the mostly urban, middle-class Colombian migrants, whose organizations, independent from the state, have often followed a more traditional philanthropic model. The Colombian private sector and not the state, has been the one proposing an alternative "efficient model of social investment" to migrants abroad. It is not the case, either, of Dominican migrant organizations, which, in spite of the programs designed by the new administration to involve the Diaspora with national development, are more attuned with the political parties than with the state [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past studies suggest that family may play an important role in language assimilation among children of immigrants. However, the mechanisms of its influence remain unclear. Using data from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study, this paper explores the impact of family characteristics (household composition, family socioeconomic background and family climate) on self-reported English and non-English language proficiency among adolescent children of immigrants in Florida and California. The analysis focuses on two kinds of proficiency: basic proficiency, measured by listening comprehension and speaking abilities, and literacy, measured by reading and writing abilities. Based on the results of the analysis, the author suggests that family characteristics influence English language proficiency mainly through literacy-oriented activities. On the other hand, family characteristics affect non-English language proficiency mainly through opportunities to use a non-English language in a safe home environment. When this environment is challenged by a child-parent conflict or sibling's preference for English, then the disruption may not only influence opportunities to practice the non-English language at home but also affect motivation to advance one's literacy in that language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is massive migration from Mexico into certain areas of the United States diluting the distinctions between these two groups, or is it reproducing and magnifying cultural differences, national myths and traditions? What are the mechanisms reaffirming these exclusive national categorizations? How these categorizations get re-defined in the public discourse will have a big effect on the self-understandings of both Mexicans and Americans. Can we see a similar process among other groups e.g. between French and Algerians?This paper studies boundary formation at three levels 1) as it affects migrants and non-migrants on everyday interactions at the micro level, 2) at the level of theory and normative arguments, and, 3) at the legal and legislative levels including policy debates and discussion in the public sphere. Analyzing some of the boundary work deployed in the last years in order to keep Mexican immigrants outside of the boundary of "the American" by the deployment of the label of "illegal". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tests and expands the counter-current migration theory with the secondary migration experience of Mexicans in the US. The analyses reveal strong evidence of the existence of such counter current migration to compliment the general main flow of internal migrants. Furthermore, the findings also indicate important and significant differences between participants of the opposing flows of migration. Based on this observation, I contend that the nonrandom nature of counter-current migration for the Mexicans points to an extension to the anticipation and explanation of the classical migration literature the counter-current movement may not necessarily occur as a mere response to the main-flow of migration as suggested by the Laws of Migration. Instead, the existence of the population flows in opposing directions could be interpreted as different strategies of assimilation and adaptation by the members of immigrant groups with varied resource and capital. The flows and counter-flows demonstrate the diverse levels of assimilation progress and corresponding diverse paths to social and economic progress within the immirgant group. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on a larger study using qualitative research to explore how immigrants acquire an understanding of race and racism in the United States. New immigrants assimilate into a country's dominant culture, and in particular, into its racialized culture. I argue here that immigrants respond to racial knowledge by often expressing the same type of "modern racism" expressed by native-born white Americans. Further, I explore how racial knowledge is expressed in the words of immigrants, often unintentionally. Finally, I examine how immigrant ideas of open social mobility and U.S. achievement ideologies are intricately connected to their views on race in the United States. We live in a white racist dominant culture, and for this social system to be reproduced and maintained, new members of society must be taught the dominant ideologies, and then, in the process of becoming members of society, must express these ideologies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an attempt to understand the changing tone of integration from a one-way process of assimilation to the two-way processes of acculturation and reciprocal acculturation among post-1990 immigrants to America. It tries to foresee the texture of the changing American social fabric in light of newer influxes of immigrants who are different from their predecessors in terms of race, religion and ethnicity. These new immigrants, due to unprecedented global interconnectedness, are able to maintain their cultural continuity unlike their predecessors. As a result, it appears that Milton Gordon's perspective of integration (beginning with acculturation and ending in assimilation) may not proceed as it has in the past. Acculturation may have become not simply a stepping stone, but the final goal. Findings indicate that, though each new immigrant group has its own pace and pattern, they meet the requirements of American pluralism. The texture of the American social fabric appears to be changing with time and technology but the broader perspective of pluralism stays intact and actually becomes more obvious. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration network theory (MNT) cannot explain why Mexican immigrants in the United States have increasingly opted to settle in non-traditional destinations. A newly emerging third stage MNT accounts for municipal economic factors, thereby enabling explanation of the wide-spread appearance and growth of new migrant communities. This paper amplifies, specifies, and empirically assesses third stage MNT. Following hypothesis deduction, quantitative methods are used to investigate settlement out of and away from non-traditional destination as reflected in the 5% PUMS US Census data. Of key importance is a multi-level statistical model fit to a specially constructed dataset that merges metropolitan-level data from the 1990 Census with individual-level migration behavior data from a five year period recorded in the 2000 census. Findings provide support for the third stage MNT argument that local municipal economic conditions are a factor influencing Mexican immigrants in the United States to shift their migration behavior out of and away from traditional to new settlement destinations. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mexican immigrant women in the United States are most likely to be working as domesticas (maids) more so than in any other occupation in the United States. This occupation provides some women with weak ties in which they gain knowledge about the social world of their employers, especially in areas with relatively large Mexican-origin populations. This paper examines the extent to which Mexican immigrant husbands gain economic benefits from their wives' employment as domesticas. Data from the 2000 5% Public Use Microdata Sample are used to conduct the analysis. The results indicate that there are no statistically significant differences in hourly wages between Mexican immigrant husbands whose wives are employed as domesticas and their counterparts whose wives are employed in other occupations. However, we find a significant interaction effect between domestica employment and the relative size of the Mexican population in the area of residence. As such, Mexican men whose wives are employed as domesticas and who live in areas with a greater presence of Mexicans have higher hourly wages than do their counterparts. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immigration from Latin America to the United States has and will continue to change dramatically. Over the last few decades, Latinos in the U.S. have increasingly become an immigrant population, diverse in terms of national origin, and dispersed throughout the United States. As Latino immigrants choose not to settle in traditional states such as California, New York and Texas, new receiving areas in the southeast and Midwest are now experiencing large influxes of Latinos. The implications of this change are evident in the social and civic incorporation of Latinos, race relations between Latinos and other racial and ethnic groups as well as political representation. This paper explores recent trends in Latino immigration to new emergent states using data from the 2006 Latino National Survey. Comparing several states in new and traditional receiving areas, the analysis examines race relations, employment and political competition across racial groups and feelings of linked fate between Latinos and African Americans and whites. Initial findings suggest that Latinos in both old and new receiving areas perceive closer ties to African Americans in particular than might have been expected given recent research and media coverage. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACTThis paper examines Puerto Rican migration and poverty in the Northeast region of the United States. According to the 2000 Census the Puerto Rican mainland population experienced significant demographic changes. One major change was the increase of Puerto Rican communities in mid-sized cities of the Northeast. In terms of economic status, Puerto Ricans in the Northeast have higher levels of unemployment, female headed households, and poverty compared to their counterparts in the South and West. Despite the lack of economic progress, Puerto Ricans continue to migrate to cities in this region. Using 2000 Census data I conduct comparative analysis among Puerto Ricans in three metropolitan areas of the Northeast: Allentown PA, Springfield MA, and New Haven CT. Initial findings indicate that in terms of employment, wage level, and poverty status, Puerto Ricans residing in these cities are still worst off than their counterparts in other regions. One explanation for their decline in socioeconomic status is the migration of Puerto Ricans with low levels of human capital (educational attainment and English proficiency) to these communities. Further analysis indicates that Puerto Ricans may be motivated to move to these cities due to the possibility of finding employment in blue collar and service industries, and the availability of affordable housing. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper explores and explains the migratory flows from the Southern Cone of South America to the United States between 1960 and 2004. Using a world systems and a migration systems approach, it presents a preliminary answer to questions surrounding the impacts of broad historical relations in the migration process. The main objective of this paper is to analyze changes in the migratory flows from the Southern Cone of America and their interaction with ongoing historical changes. This project makes use on two sets of information. First, secondary sources related to the recent history of the Southern Cone and the influences of the United States in this sub-region. Second, this migration is analyzed using secondary demographic data available using the Immigrant Visa category from the statistical yearbooks of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and the United States Center for Immigration Services (USCIS). The statistical analysis is descriptive and exploratory, comparing the data provided by the visas with historical moments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through a comparison of U.S. receiving locales with similar Mexican immigrant communities but different subnational policies, I seek to advance understanding of the consequences of "attrition through enforcement," whereby public policy targets undesirable immigrants with the goal of garnering their voluntary exit rather than relying on forced removal. To this end, the research outlined in this paper tests a key question: Do attrition through enforcement policies at the state and local level affect where immigrants live? In particular, I analyze whether immigrants alter the duration of time they spend in the United States, or change their place of residence in the country due to restrictive policies. This approach elaborates the link between subnational policy structures and immigrants' decision-making behavior to stay in the host community or go. The paper first details the recent history of immigration policy-making at the state and local level and reviews the current debates in the literature. A description of case selection and methodology precedes a discussion of the study's findings, which indicate the inefficacy of attrition through enforcement policies at the subnational level. To conclude, the implications of this analysis are discussed in terms of an emerging research agenda on subnational policies of immigration and integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the continued growth of the sociological literature on immigration, this paper contends that much of the extant research remains insufficiently grounded in classical theory. The writings of Karl Marx and Max Weber, in particular, arguably retain considerable utility for enhancing the discipline's approach to the study of immigration. The central argument in this paper rests primarily upon two theoretical concepts that will be shown to have buttressed competing and contradictory logics, one economic and one sociocultural, that have motivated the historic structuring of U.S. immigration policy. The first is Marx's (1867) notion that a "reserve army of labor" is a fundamental prerequisite for a capitalist economic system that is prone to cyclical crises. Immigration, I will argue, has served as the mechanism by which U.S. industrial capitalism has met such a requirement, as foreign migrants have served as the army's enlistees via their recruitment through an officially sanctioned "back door" of immigration in the Western hemisphere (Zolberg 2006). While Marx's "reserve army of labor" yields a powerful economic additive to the immigration literature, Max Weber's (1978) writings on "closure" provide a complementary sociocultural lens into the alternate fundamental and competing dynamic of U.S. immigration policy. Group relations which were "closed," according to Weber, reflected an intentional act by a dominant group cognizant of perpetuating its economic and/or social privileges. Seen through this theoretical prism, Weber's concept of "closure" enlightens our understanding of the restrictive and racially-based immigration policies that have historically shaped the nation-building process in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the complex and understudied issue of the devolution of federal immigrant enforcement authority to state and local agencies in the United States. The empirical base of the research is a dataset complied from surveys given to adult immigrants from Tunkás, a new migrant sending community in the Mexican state of Yucatan. Data from the surveys is used to evaluate migrants' behavior in two different sets of U.S. receiving communities: those with 287(g) agreements allowing local police to enforce federal immigration law, and those without them. In this analysis, I contribute to the conversation about devolution by establishing how it affects migrants on the ground. I find that the presence of 287(g) agreements in Tunkaseño receiving communities is not significantly related to the length of migrants' last trip north. These agreements do not encourage migrants to leave receiving communities in which they are subject to local-level enforcement of federal immigration law. However, the presence of 287(g) agreements in Tunkaseño receiving communities is significantly related to immigrants' unwillingness to report crime to the police. In this way, the devolution of immigration authority is detrimental to the relationship between immigrants and local police officers. The conclusions presented in this paper speak particularly to the debate in the literature between proponents of devolution, who argue that it heightens homeland security, and devolution's opponents, who argue that it undermines trust between immigrant communities and the police forces that serve them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on self-employment, race, and ethnicity in America has been driven by immigration. Although this is true, the literature has created a model which systematically compares black Americans to immigrants in the United States. This model has lead to misleading conclusions about the roles of race, ethnicity, and nativity in creating self-employment in U.S. This paper re-species the model by concentrating on the impact of generational status on self-employment within racial categories. When third generation white-Americans, black-Americans, Asian Americans, and Hispanic Americans are compared with first and second generation immigrants of the same racial grouping, first and second generation immigrants have greater odds of being self-employed. This paper also provides historical correctives to middleman and enclave theories--the two major frameworks which have guided research in this area. This is done by evaluating early literature that documents the economic integration of post-Emancipation blacks into the mainstream economy of the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the role that work plays in how undocumented Latino immigrants understand their citizenship and belonging n the United States. Drawing on 50 interviews with undocumented Latino workers, I show how, excluded from formal membership, undocumented workers may adhere to a extreme understanding of what constitutes a "good worker" in order to justify their presence. As "citizen-earners" (Shklar 2006), some undocumented immigrants may draw on broader rhetorics that reify their ability to endure exploitative workplace conditions, and in turn compare themselves to those with papers, non-immigrant workers, and African Americans to valorize their work ethic. This ethos is not only imposed by the structural conditions of undocumented work, but also reified by well-meaning advocates that highlight the labor function of undocumented immigrants to justify legalization and other rights. Yet, ultimately, this perspective also contradicts a rights-based understanding of citizenship that encourages legal mobilization in response to workplace violations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contact person: Anna Y. Chan, Center for Survey Methods Research, Statistical Research Division, U.S. Census Bureau, STOP 9100, 4700 Silver Hill Road, Washington, DC 20233-9100; phone (301) *457-8462; fax (301) *457-4931; email: anna.y.chan@census.gov New Data Resource for Studying the Well-Being of Foreign-Born Population -U.S. Census Bureau The U.S. immigrant population grew rapidly during the 1990s. In 2000, there were 31 million immigrants in the United States, representing 11 percent- of its population. Today, one in four low-wage workers and one in five US. residence without health insurance is foreign-born. One in four low income children is the child of an immigrant. These and other recent immigration-led demographic changes have profound implications for immigrant families and workers. They raised important considerations across a broad spectrum of policy areas -- from health and welfare to employment and housing. The Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) is a nationally-representative, interviewer-administered, longitudinal survey (9 waves, three-year panel) conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. It provides data on income, wealth, and poverty in the United States, the dynamics of program participation, and the effects of government programs on families and individuals. Currently, a new series of nativity, citizenship and language questions is being tested for the core section of the 2004 SIPP instrument. Unlike other Census data that are cross sectional in nature, (such as Current Population Survey which also includes similar information), the new SIPP data along with its current migration history data, will allow researchers to examine the impact of social programs on the economic well-being of households or some of causal factors associated with changes in the poverty rates, health care coverage and program usage of the foreign born. This paper will present the preliminary findings using these new content collected in the SIPP 2002... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies of immigrant adaptation have focused on the rapid socioeconomic advancement of the "new second generation" who have tended to easily surpass the achievements of their immigrant parents and, on some measures, their third+ generation counterparts. However, most such studies have focused on "high-end" outcomes like college attendance or occupational attainment and do not disaggregate second generation groups by race. When this is done the story of universal advancement is undermined. This study takes an innovative approach to identifying immigrant second and third generation in the 1980 and 2000 U.S. Census data and uses it to demonstrate a significant race effect that grows with the passing of generations. Within the foreign-born population the incidence of poverty is not significantly greater for Blacks compared to Whites included in this study, but among the American-born children and grandchildren of these immigrants a large poverty gap opens leaving Black members of the "new second generation" significantly more susceptible to poverty than their White counterparts. The sharpest intergenerational declines in poverty are among Latin Americans. "Asian effects" are less clear but no less interesting. In all, results suggest that despite the new diversity introduced by post-1965 immigration, to be Black in the United States remains uniquely challenging. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined the earnings attainment of different groups of immigrants in the United States in this study. The immigrant groups were in categories based on race, sex, and region of birth. Our goal was to find out the major influences on income disparities among these immigrant groups using data from the 2000 Census of Population and Housing. Given that white male immigrants from Africa earned the highest among the immigrant groups, we explored whether the earnings disparities were the same at various levels of earnings, i.e., at 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th, and 90th percentiles of the earnings of white male immigrants from Africa. We accounted for the effects of human capital variables as well as other sociodemographic variables on earnings attainment. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on political scientist Samuel Huntington's theoretical approach in the essay "The Hispanic Challenge" that appeared in the March/April issue of the periodical "Foreign Policy." In this essay, Huntington argues that the persistent inflow of Hispanic immigrants into the United States threatens to divide the country into "two peoples, two cultures and two languages." Huntington opined that Latinos tend to remain in overwhelmingly Latino neighborhoods and regions and do not advocate dispersion. This opinion speaks volume of his strict allegiance to the conflict model of cultural pluralism, in that he implicitly discards the possibility of a certain degree of consensus, institutional integration or structural balance achieved between the Latinos and the Anglo Protestants.

This article presents information on Mexican immigrant entrepreneurs in Los Angeles, California. It reports that Mexican immigrants in the United States have had significantly lower levels of entrepreneurship as compared to other immigrants. This study is an attempt to find out the reason behind this fact. For the purpose of this study the researchers collected original survey data from 100 Latino, mostly Mexican, small business owners in multiple cities in and around Los Angeles in 2003. The study shows a pattern namely that an overwhelming percentage of Mexican immigrants rely on either their personal or their spouse's savings for their start-up capital.

The Modern Anti-Immigrant Movement has evolved over the last 25 years, responding to changes in US immigration policy, shifting demographics, the re-structuring of the world-economy, and to challenges to the perceived well-being of hegemonic American identity along the lines of culture, race, language, and other social formations. The peak of the Modern Anti-Immigrant Movement (so far) came in the mid-1990?s with the passage of California?s Proposition 187. Southern California emerged at that time as a hotbed for grassroots anti-immigrant activism. Today, Southern California continues to be an anti-immigrant hotbed, but the activists ally themselves more than ever with likeminded groups, pundits and politicians nationwide. President Bush?s proposal on January 7, 2004 for amnesty and a guest worker program spiked the anti-immigrant movement once again. Interviews with 28 leading anti-immigrant activists in California, attendance at several anti-immigrant conferences in Washington, DC and New York, and a review of related ephemera, reveal a strong division between conservatives on the issue of immigration. One side is pro-immigration, the other is anti-immigration; however, both are anti-immigrant. Moreover, ethnographic fieldwork on migrant-sending communities in Mexico and El Salvador, combined with this U.S.-based research reveals that both stances reinforce national borders and the racialization of Latino migrants, especially Mexicans, to the benefit of the international division of labor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theory of the cumulative causation of migration posits that once the process of international migration begins the social context of the origin community is altered in ways that lower the costs of international migration and increase the likelihood that an individual in that community will migrate. Most research on cumulative causation is based in Mexico, where migration streams are old and widespread. However, we know very little about how the cumulative causation of migration works in other sending countries. I look for evidence of the cumulative causation of migration from Mexico, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and Puerto Rico to the United States. I find that U.S. migration policies and national characteristics of the sending nations play a role in predicting individual migration, but the characteristics of communities are most critical since cumulative causation operates in some communities within these countries and not in others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This proposed research attempts to fill the gap in the intervention literature by employing qualitative and quantitative research methods to increase our knowledge of the relationship between rural adolescent migrant workers and substance abuse. Within the United States, the majority of rural adolescent migrant farm workers experience a myriad of substandard environmental conditions and psychosocial variables that places this subgroup at-risk for substance abuse. There is a need to assess the well being of the rural adolescent migrant farm worker and their psychosocial behavior relative to substance abuses. This study will attempt to expand the body of literature and assist in the development of an effective intervention model. The three aims of this proposed project are: (1) To determine if a relationship exists between substance abuse (i.e., illegal drugs, alcohol and tobacco) and the rural adolescent migrant farm workers; (2) To examine the correlates of rural adolescent migrant farm workers and substance abuse; (3) To compare rural adolescent migrant farm worker substance abuse behavior with that of their non-migrant peers. The state of Maryland has been selected to conduct this study, since it offers unique testing sites. Many families migrate to Maryland as far away as Texas, Mexico and Florida to do field work (Maryland Special Report, 2003). Therefore, the short-term goal of this study is to fill an important gap in intervention literature and to provide empirical evidence for theoretical foundations related to problems of rural young migrant farm workers. The long-term goal of this study is to help improve the quality life for one of the most exploited subgroups in our society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States has seen a surge in the Latino population; part of that surge has occurred in the urban centers, some of this growth is fueled by immigration. In an effort to reach out to Mexican community in the United States, the Mexican government has extended a secondary education program for adults to adults in the United States. This study is a qualitative assessment of the effects of that program within a Chicago community. Participants of the program have used this institutional structure to form stronger ties with their new community. These foundations of these links lie in Granovetter?s structure of weak ties. The program provides opportunities for isolated immigrants to create friendships, increasing their weak ties to the community. In a highly mobile immigrant community, the weak ties help to increase opportunities and social cohesion. The study undertakes the idea that weak ties can be increased with the intervention of formal ties; the amplification of both helps immigrants integrate more easily into their new setting creating stronger communities and residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike the prospects faced by the early European immigrants and their children in the early decades of the twentieth century, what confronts today?s immigrants and their descendants is a labor market of a shrinking stratum of middle-class jobs, and of the expansion of low-skilled service jobs, and ethnic economy, and of a decline in traditional unionized manufacturing jobs. How well do these immigrants and their offspring make ends-meet and even realize their ?American dream? in this restructured economy of the American society? I use data from Los Angeles Study of Urban Inequality (LASUI) and analysis of multinomial logistic regression to explore two related questions: How do first-generation immigrants differ from second-generation immigrants by their participation patterning in various labor market segments (including primary, secondary segment, and ethnic enclave)? What factors influence the different patterning of market segment participation for first-generation immigrants versus their second-generation counterparts? The result shows a segmented assimilation pattern of labor market experiences among immigrants and children of immigrants. Both nativity and ethnicity play important roles in determining various patterns of labor market participation. For first-generation immigrants, ethnic enclave is the place where they are more likely than their second-generation counterparts to concentrate, and English proficiency increases immigrants? odds to work in mainstream primary segment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine how self-employment among immigrants from Latin America (Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban) and Asia (Chinese, Filipinos, and Koreans) is determined not only by their human capital (education, English ability) and social capital (extended family composition) but also by the social context (time and place) they encountered and the circumstances of their migration. We compare the likelihood of their being self-employed to that of native-born Whites, separately for men and women, in 30 different metropolitan areas in the U. S.. Using data from the 1990 U. S. Census, we improve upon Sanders and Nee?s (1996) contribution on the role social capital -- family composition ? plays in self-employment by including additional social context indicators ? time and place -- and stressing the role the circumstances of migration play. The results give credence to the interactionist perspective, which suggests that self-employment is a result of both the social resources of particular groups and the social context they encountered in particular cities. Our results also find substantial differences for men and women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]