Suchergebnisse

When it comes to the question of assimilation, the American academy and the American people no longer agree. The people and the professors earlier thought alike, both expecting that newcomers and their descendants would abandon old-country ties and habits for the ways and affiliations of the new national community that they had joined. But whereas the people continue to believe in the old-time religion, the professors have changed their minds. Conceptually, they find that assimilation lacks appeal, mainly because it has almost always overlapped with the ideology and practices it should have analyzed—namely assimilationism. Empirically, the scholars conclude that theory and reality diverge and find that the very best that can be said for assimilation is that it did a good job of predicting the past. The professors generally do concede that the descendants of the Italian, Polish, and other mass migrations of the turn of the twentieth century have now climbed to the higher reaches of American society, leaving behind their ethnic attachments. But that was then, this is now: conditions at the turn of the twenty-first century, at least as the professors see them, make it unlikely that the immigrant past will be prologue to the immigrant future about to unfold.

The establishment of ethnic networks by immigrant communities enhances immigrant workers' access to jobs in certain employment sectors, but this has the effect of excluding native-born ethnic minority groups, particularly African Americans. In-depth interviews with owners & managers (N = 230) of businesses in Los Angeles were conducted to determine the effects of ethnic networks on immigrants' & native-born ethnic minority workers' access to jobs. Findings demonstrate that ethnic networks, especially those created by the Mexican & Central American communities, significantly influenced hiring practices for entry-level positions, but not for skilled positions, for which more formal procedures (eg, interviews & tests) were used, thus decreasing the efficacy of ethnic networks. Even though African American workers are more inclined to seek government jobs due to formal hiring procedures, they are often excluded for other reasons, including prejudice. It is concluded that both ethnic networks & bureaucracy systematically exclude African Americans. 21 References. J. W. Parker

This article seeks to bring the "urban" back into immigration research. Each immigrant receiving area has its own particular group of newcomers, and the economic and political structures of the immigrant receiving areas are also distinctive. Those structures are not all determining, as immigrant trajectories are shaped by the interaction between distinctive urban institutions and the specific characteristics of the relevant ethnic groups. But in the last analysis, the urban context makes a difference, as this study shows by examining the leading immigrant destinations – New York and Los Angeles.

The Ethnic Enclave Debate : A Critical Review
Roger WALDINGER
With the renewal of mass immigration to the United States, large numbers of immigrants have gone into business for themselves. Research on the Cuban immigrant economy of Miami, Florida found that employment in the « ethnic enclave » increases immigrant earnings and improves immigrant's chances of moving into self-employment. This article reviews the American debate that ensued over the « ethnic enclave » and its causes.