From Newcomers to New Americans: The Successful Integration of Immigrants into American Society.

This study focuses on three areas considered indexes of an immigrant's commitment to U.S. society: citizenship, homeownership, English language acquisition, and intermarriage. Data come from the 1990 U.S. Census Public Use Microdata Sample and the June 1994 and the 1998 Current Population Survey. Data analysis indicates that in 1990, 76.4 percent of immigrants who had resided in the United States for 40 years were naturalized citizens. Within 20 years of arrival, 60.9 percent of immigrants lived in owner-occupied housing in 1990. Within 10 years of arriving in the United States, more than three out of four immigrants spoke English well or very well in 1990. Less than 2 percent of long-established immigrants over age 39 years spoke no English at all. Intermarriage rates for second- and third-generation Asians and Latinos were extraordinarily high. Fully one-third of third-generation Hispanic American women, and 41 percent of third-generation Asian American women, were married outside of their ethnic group. The results suggest that, according to data on people's everyday lives, today's immigrants assimilate into U.S. society much the way earlier waves of newcomers did. (Adjunct ERIC clearinghouse for ESL literacy education.) (SM)