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Prior to the 1980s, Israel’s national ideology discouraged emigration and entrepreneurship among its citizens. Yet, by the late 1990s, Israeli emigrants were one of the leading immigrant nationalities in Silicon Valley. Drawing on interviews, fieldwork, a literature review, and perusal of social media, I explore the origins of Israeli involvement in high-tech activities and the extensive linkages between Israeli emigrants and the Israeli high-tech industry. I also summarize the patterns of communal cooperation that permit emigrant families to maintain an Israel-oriented way of life in suburban communities south of San Francisco, and I compare these patterns with those of Indians, a nationality engaged in the same pursuit. I conclude by considering the impact of infotech involvement on Israeli immigrants and on the U.S. economy.

The chapter examines the dynamics of contemporary forced migration initially through the lens of various well-established theoretical approaches. It considers the utility of theories in the context of the lived realities of forced migrants within what is defined here as a ‘circumscribed liminality’. Here migrants are described as experiencing an enigma of arrival in locations such as Malta where they are held and ‘processed’ as asylum seekers while seeking a passage to destinations in mainland Europe. A crucial determinant of migrant journeys are shifting laws and policies and practices based on states of exception that offer, or foreclose, various avenues of access for migrants seeking to reach a chosen destination. They may thus find themselves in protracted situations in liminal spaces such as ‘The Jungle’ in Calais and asylum seeker centers in Malta. To address the complexities of contemporary forced migration, an integrated theoretical approach is developed encompassing considerations of the deservingness of migrant groups.

This essay examines the experience of international students in American universities, providing basic data on their numbers and economic impact. Accompanying photographs document international students’ participation in Globalfest, an annual event that celebrates their enrollment at Michigan State University.ᅟ

In recent years, a growing literature has suggested that self-employment is a viable means of solving economic problems for a wide range of groups who are subject to poverty, discrimination and other disadvantages. Yet African Americans have not developed an ethnic economy large enough to solve many of their economic problems. To explore the question, this paper reviews three of the most common explanations for black Americans’ low rates of entrepreneurship: the cultural/psychological perspective, the ethnic enterprise perspective and the critical race approach. While the first two are widely accepted, neither approach identifies black Americans as a racial group, instead defining them as a cultural or ethnic group. Accordingly, neither apprehends the full impact of racial inequality in limiting black Americans’ entrepreneurial opportunities. Following a discussion of race-based obstacles to entrepreneurship, the paper concludes that the critical race view provides the most convincing explanation ...

The many undocumented immigrants present in the US, together with the growing popularity of entrepreneurship as a job-creation strategy, have enhanced both the number and acceptance of self-employed undocumented immigrants in US society.

This article uses photo-elicitation interviews to explore Arab Americans’ reactions to a collection of photographs documenting ethnic community events in Detroit. Its goal is to gain insight into processes of identity construction that have occurred since 11 September 2001. Drawing on fieldwork and a review of journalistic and scholarly literature, the article examines connections to panethnic identity in respondents’ views of local geography, communal diversity, simultaneous involvement in United States and Arab culture, and understandings of racism.

While a growing body of literature addresses the experience of migrant women’s involvement in self-employment, this work has focused on relatively few groups and has emphasized gender to the neglect of other contextual factors, such as family, class and ethnic resources, structures of opportunity and the nature of migrants’ relations with networks in countries of origin and settlement. In this article, I draw on multi-sited ethnography to explore Vietnamese, Russian-speaking Jewish, and Israeli women immigrants’ patterns of self-employment. Results suggest that contrary to being an end in itself, in most cases self-employment is simply a strategy that immigrant women engage in to obtain income while coping with an array of opportunities, impediments, and obligations framed by the structure of opportunities and disadvantages as well as transnational concerns.

As recently as the late 1970s and 1980s, a broad consensus in both Israel and US Jewish communities asserted that Israel should be the primary destination for Jewish migrants. Hebrew terms like yordim (those who go down) and noshrim (dropouts) stigmatized “Jewish communal deviants” who chose to settle outside of Israel. Moreover, whether they established themselves in Tel Aviv or Los Angeles, Jewish migrants were expected to cooperate with the religious, economic, political, cultural, and national agendas created for them by their host communities. While migrants had their own preferences about resettlement, they had limited ability to act on them. However, by the mid-1990s, a series of political, economic, ideological and demographic developments had transformed the status and treatment of Jewish migrants. The United States had received hundreds of thousands of Jewish migrants, either in competition with, or from, Israel. The American Jewish community, in consort with migrant activists and Israel itself, extended an array of social, economic, and religious services to Jewish migrants. And in both Israel and the United States, migrant populations increasingly selected their own patterns of national, political, linguistic, cultural, and religious identity—conforming to the agendas of host communities only in ways that they themselves chose. The net effect of these recent transformations has been to greatly enhance the autonomy of Jewish migrants. In this, we see a movement away from nationally-bounded forms of Jewish identity within Israel, the United States and other settings, and their replacement with flexible and less geographically fixed forms of Jewish identification. This article draws on in-depth interviews with Jewish migrants and resettlement staff to discuss recent transformations among Jewish migrants in the United States. It reviews some of the causes of these changes and considers their impacts. It concludes that skilled Jewish migrants with access to multiple places and ways of settlement have a great deal to offer the American Jewish community, but also considerable freedom to decide how and where they will live. Such factors transform established understandings of American Jewish life and need to be considered by scholars and policy makers involved in Jewish population research.

The debate over immigration continues to be one of the most politically charged policy issues in the United States (US). Given the charged nature of this topic, it is vitally important to have reliable data on not only the number of US foreign nationals but also the characteristics of this extremely heterogeneous group – a population comprised not only of immigrants but also of refugees. There exist a small number of data sources for informing policy and practice at the national level. However, such data are often lacking for smaller geographical areas. This paper describes a recent effort to generate serviceable data on the immigrant and refugee population for a medium-sized metropolitan area in the US. The objectives of this research were twofold. Our first goal was to provide local stakeholders with information to assist them with resettling and obtaining funding for immigrants and refugees. The second aim was to develop better techniques for tabulating diverse refugees and immigrants in a medium-sized community. By comparing and contrasting three data sources – that is, refugee services, public schools and a local health plan – we are able to generate estimates of the local refugee and immigrant population. During the period from 2005 to 2007, we estimate the total number of immigrants and refugees in the community to be somewhere between 10,938 and 13,282. Although perhaps a bit on the high end due to methodological assumptions, these estimates seem plausible, based on previously cited figures for the region. While such estimates are valuable, a number of shortcomings related to the data prevent us from painting a more complete picture of these populations. We conclude this paper with a number of recommendations that will assist others in planning research designed to inform migration policy and practice in medium-sized metropolitan areas.

This paper links the work of Sebastiao Salgado, recipient of the 2010 American Sociological Association (ASA) Award for Excellence in the Reporting of Social Issues, with the discipline of sociology. I reflect on Salgado's biography, method, and concerns in order to demonstrate how his work contributes to the awareness and understanding of social issues. Toward this end, I summarize sociology's record of involvement with visual documentation. Prior to 1915, the American Journal of Sociology regularly included photographs that provided visual documentation of environments under study. However, as sociology moved away from social reform activities and toward scientific investigation, the regular publication of photographs ceased. During the 1930s and 1940s, photographic projects in disciplines and social movements beyond sociology developed a variety of methods that would prove useful to sociology. During the 1970s, sociologists once again began to use visual methods in their teaching, research, and publication, putting sociology in the position to both contribute to and benefit from insights and social commitments that have distinguished Sebastiao Salgado as a globally significant photographer and social activist during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

David Stoll suggests that because contemporary immigrants are non-European, uneducated, poor, and uninterested in joining the moral community of American society, their presence threatens national unity, obscures citizens’ obligations to one another and will shortly change the US into a minority–majority society. Drawing from historical accounts and statistical evidence, this article asserts that immigrants provide American society with social, economic and demographic benefits. Moreover, while pundits have long predicted that immigrants with national origins distinct from those of natives will transform American life to its detriment, the record reveals the US has been able to incorporate diverse nationalities to the benefit of immigrants and the native-born alike.

The current era of international migration is marked by unprecedented numbers as well an especially wide range of origins and characteristics. Jews, a group noted for their high levels of education, geographic dispersion, and multiple engagements in social, political, cultural, economic, and religious life, reflect many of these trends as they continue to enter the US.

Purpose Since the widespread adoption of the concept, transnational theorizing has attended to inequalities with regard to legal status, education, travel, and access to capital to understand the experience of migrant populations. This issue has become especially pertinent in recent years, as a growing body of journalistic and scholarly attention has been devoted to a new group of transnationals who work as entrepreneurs, professionals, and financiers involved in high tech and other cutting-edge economic activities. Regarded as among the world’s most powerful engines of economic growth and innovation, these entrepreneurs enjoy unprecedented levels of income, state-granted privileges (including permission to work), and access to elite institutions. Because of their level of resources, some observers contend that this group represents a fundamentally new category of immigrants distinct not only from labor migrants but also from merchants, professionals, and technicians. Methodology/approach To better understand their experience, this chapter draws on in-depth interviews and ethnographic research to compare two groups of Israeli immigrants living in Western societies: high-tech entrepreneurs and enclave entrepreneurs. Focusing on their economic and collective lives, it identifies similarities and differences among the two. Findings Conclusions suggest that the mostly male high-tech migrants do enjoy incomes, contacts, and access to travel that far exceed those available to labor and skilled migrants. Moreover, infotech immigrants are not dependent upon contacts with local co-ethnics that are vital for the survival of most other migrant populations. However, the communal, identity-related and familial concerns of infotech migrants are not completely amenable to their considerable resources. Accordingly, as they address these matters, their experience reveals significant similarities to those of migrants bearing a less privileged status. Research implications Collective, familial and identificational issues play central roles in shaping patterns of work and travel among high-tech transnational entrepreneurs. As such, these issues deserve continued attention in studies of global migration and work. Originality/value Research is based on a multi-sited ethnographic study of Israeli enclave and infotech entrepreneurs.

The agricultural economy in the United States has relied heavily on migrant farmworkers and, in particular, on Latinos. However, migrant families remain one of the most disadvantaged groups in the United States. This research focuses on a subsample of migrant families of Mexican origin (n= 13), who participated in the Rural Families Speak multistate study. Qualitative findings described numerous challenges that Mexican-origin migrant families continue to experience. Results were also illustrative of the resilience of migrant families, which is influenced by specific Latino cultural values and is reflected in the successful adaptation of these families to the challenges associated with a migrant lifestyle.

In recent years, scholars have worked to understand the persistence of racial inequality in societies characterized by the condemnation of explicit racism, growing diversity, and anti-discrimination policies. Many theorists generally agree about the multiple dimensions of racism and challenge assertions about the incipient colourblindness of the current context. However, they also disagree about the nature of the racial hierarchy in the USA. One approach continues to emphasize a bipolar model, with blacks at the bottom and whites on top, as sufficient to explain diverse patterns of inequality. An alternative formulation sees racialization as contextual, yielding a less stable and more complex ranking system. This article summarizes both positions and concludes that while the bipolar model continues to present useful insights, a more nuanced understanding of racial inequality is achieved when the bipolar approach is replaced by one that comprehends the multiple and even contradictory nature of racial disad...

Drawing on the author’s research with three migrant populations—Jews from the former Soviet Union, Vietnamese, and Israelis—this article offers several suggestions for integrating photography into fieldwork studies. Visual methods are shown to be useful for learning about the research context, generating rapport with respondents, analyzing findings, and sharing research with students and colleagues. Examples show how photography contributed to the understanding of migrant communities, entrepreneurs’ use of coethnic and outgroup labor, and gender patterns.

It is a curious contradiction that sociology, a discipline that includes in its subject matter socialization, norms, occupations, formal organization, the institution of education and the concept of the career does not necessarily prepare its products in a systematic and coherent manner to become trained professionals. Newly minted Ph.D.s must often learn by trial and error because we have left them adrift concerning how to conduct themselves as professional sociologists. Moreover, while these new Ph.D.s are usually trained well as scholarly researchers, many are not prepared for the non-research careers they will take as sociologists. When this happens, we sociologists, supposedly enlightened about such matters, have failed our students.

The great body of recent work on international migration has generally considered immigration as a permanent movement and explored the phenomenon from either a micro or macro perspective. Transnationalism offers a new model that integrates these dichotomized views. This paper uses the perspective of transnationalism to explore the motives of Israeli immigrants in the U.S. Integrating insights from both micro and world systems perspectives, findings emphasize the importance of personal and macro-level networks as well as Israelis' international culture and experience as both facilitating and giving meaning to their presence in the United States.

According to the 1990 census, approximately 90,000 Israelis reside in the United States. While this constitutes a relatively small community in comparison to many other foreign-born populations, the percentage of the entire Israeli population who now live in the United States (close to 1%) is similar to that of other major sources of migration, including Taiwan, the Philippines, Korea, and Vietnam (Y. Cohen 267).

This article examines economic activities developed among Israeli immigrants in Los Angeles. Previous studies have asserted that little cooperation exists among Israelis in the United States. However, our findings, based on participant observation and in-depth interviews, suggest that Israelis are involved in a host of collective social and economic endeavors. While Israeli immigrants sometimes collaborate with American Jews and reveal solidarity on a community-wide basis, those sharing commonalities based on premigration ties have developed especially active networks. Forms of cooperation among two such groups, Kibbutzniks and Persian-origin Israelis, are discussed here. Israeli immigrants’ use of ethnic labor markets are explored, as well as the nature of co-ethnic cooperation in various industries. Conclusions suggest that Israeli immigrant cooperation is a complex matter, shaped by national loyalties, subgroup ties and the larger social and economic contexts in which they function. As a result, we see their experience as reflecting a series of interrelated ethnic networks, extending both within and beyond the Israeli immigrant population.

This conference was established as a forum for the exchange of ideas among researchers working on migrant entrepreneurship and gender. In addition, it considered the adequacy of existing policies promoting self-employment in the European community. At the heart of the meeting was the TSER project, a multinational inves? tigation of migrant entrepreneurs utilizing research teams based in Sweden, Germany, Scotland, England, Greece, Denmark, Italy, and Crete. The project applies a biographical approach, but as described by project co-director Ursu? la Apitzsch, the goal of this approach is not to emphasize individual unique? ness or agency, but rather to investigate women entrepreneurs' embeddedness into various institutions, their common experiences, and the ways in which they deploy resources to solve the problems they confront. Several of the papers presented at the conference were presented by teams comprised of both senior scholars and graduate students involved in the var? ious TSER projects. (For more information, on this project, see its website: In addition, however, the conference also included a number of excellent papers which applied various methods, and addressed a wide range of topics and settings. Major themes included 1) the economic and legal context of migrant entrepreneurship in the European Community; 2) the unique nature of migrant women's entrepreneurship; 3) the meanings associated with social categories such as refugee, immigrant, race and ethnicity, assimilation and multiculturalism in European societies that have not seen themselves as coun? tries of immigration, but nevertheless are now home to sizable foreign-born populations. Finally, a wide range of case studies involving specific groups and settings were presented.

From the late 1940s until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Cold War provided the central frame for U.S. refugee policy. During this time, the United States was embroiled in political and ideological conflicts with the Communist Bloc. Accordingly, it sought to demonstrate its superiority by extending refuge to those who fled Communist repression. Cold War refugees represented specific elements of their countries of origin. They included prerevolutionary elites who were opposed to the new regime and could use their resources to resist it. Similarly, entrepreneurial minorities were often ejected because of their association with capitalism, their “dubious loyalty,” and their extra-national affiliations. Such groups were subject to retribution because—deservedly or not—they were blamed for prerevolutionary abuses and used as scapegoats for the failings of the new regime. Faced with such treatment, many had no choice but to take flight.

Research concerning immigrant and ethnic business formation has focused almost exclusively upon the enterprises of economically motivated immigrants and long established refugees. Ignored are the businesses opened by recent refugees who, since 1975, account for 20% of the legal entrants to the United States. Because refugees have different social and demographic characteristics than economic immigrants and come to the U.S. for different reasons, they reveal distinct entrepreneurial behaviors. Relying on a sample of 67 Soviet Jewish and Vietnamese enterprises in California, this study explores the prospects for refugee self-employment. It considers the characteristics of self-employed refugees, their resources and motives for openingbusinesses, and their use of community-based sources of capital, labor, customers and information.

The basis of ethnic groups' economic status remains among the enduring controversies in both popular and social scientific discussions of inequality. While this debate commonly opposes cultural attributes to structures of opportunity and disadvantage, we point out that various policies—including banking, public employment, business development programs, and refugee resettlement—have also had important impacts on ethnic economies. Because our definition of the ethnic economy includes both the ethnic-owned economy of the self-employed as well as the ethnic-controlled economy, wherein ethnic networks help locate jobs in non-co-ethnic firms or the public sector, we are able to incorporate a wide range of groups and contexts in our analysis. Our results suggest that the economic status of certain ethnic groups in American society reflects the outcome of specific policies that helped or hindered the growth of their ethnic economies. We conclude that policies, such as public employment, which incorporate various ethnic groups, are a more viable means of nurturing ethnic economic growth than selective programs that benefit some groups while excluding others.

Certain members of new immigrant families have access to the skills, education and collective traditions that allow their quick economic adjustment to American society. At the same time, however, such families also contain individuals who encounter major difficulties in adapting to the new country. These difficulties—the dependency of youth and the aged, intergenerational conflict, role reversals, and status loss—often result from the rapid adjustment experienced by other family members. Such problems affect not only the individuals themselves, but, strain the entire immigrant family unit.