Search

American immigration has long been characterized by spatial concentration within major urban areas. Los Angeles and New York City are two of the most important immigrant meccas today. Recent studies of immigrant adaptation within these cities have emphasized material factors at the expense of cultural considerations. This paper adopts a comparative perspective to demonstrate extreme differences in the symbolic construction of identity vis-a-vis immigrants in these two urban areas. Using The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times as indicators of elite cultural orientations, a content analysis is performed. The results demonstrate the social construction of an exclusive “threat” narrative in Southern California, and an inclusive “immigrant as victim” narrative in the New York metropolitan area. I argue that this extreme variation in cultural orientations must be understood as the result of divergent material and symbolic contexts. In order to demonstrate the importance of cultural factors, this paper focuses on symbolic differences between these areas and the influence these differences have on the political process of inclusion/exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do immigrants undermine culture in a way that destroys productivity in destination countries? Some scholars have argued that because immigrants come from countries with dysfunctional social capital—norms and institutions—they will import it and pollute the social capital in destination countries. One potential channel through which this could occur is corruption. We examine stocks and flows of immigrants over a 20‐year time period to see if corruption increased in destination countries. We generally find that immigration is not associated with increases in corruption. Additionally, we find that immigration tends to decrease corruption in destination countries with low levels of corruption or high levels of economic freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the importance of culture and the impact of immigration on the national idenitity of a country. According to the author, large influx of immigrants will make it difficult for a country to sustain its national traditions and practices. He explained that immigration would transform the country's sources of cultural unity into grounds of contention and conflict as immigrants have their own histories and traditions.

Even though France has experienced increasing and inevitable feminization in its immigrant population since 1974, research has tended to ignore the role of immigrant women, especially Muslim women, in the migration process. Public attention has been diverted by concern over such relatively marginal issues as the headscarf affair, and insufficient attention has been paid to the important role Muslim women play in France, especially those coming from Algeria. These women function as cultural mediators between the traditional culture of the sending country and the modern one of the host country. They see themselves as both tradition-bearers and integration proponents. The demands of immigration have given rise to the growth and development of different leaders, among them cultural mediators seeking a bridge between Islam and modernity, economic mediators seeking to establish women in the media and as entrepreneurs, and political mediators who seek access to power at the local level for the immigrants. These new mediators will eventually shape a new generation of female actors very far from the traditional countries of origin, although for the time being they still suffer from the inequality of rights for women and chances in their overall social life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Population & Development Review is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)