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AbstractWhereas the literature asks whether immigrants and their descendants come to resemble the 'mainstream', this paper places the acquisition of a new national identity at the centre of attention, contending that the views of ethnic outsiders provide strategic leverage in identifying any underlying consensus regarding the bounds of the nation and the means by which those bounds should be implemented. We contend that becoming 'American' entails adopting American attitudes towards persons beyond the territorial divide, a population that includes nationals of one's country of origin or ancestry. The paper develops a conceptual framework to understand how attachment to the people of the state of emigration gets transformed into attachment to the people of the state of immigration. The paper provides a demonstration of that process, focusing on Mexican immigrants and their descendants and using a variety of data sources to highlight and unpack different dimensions of Americanisation.

There is a duality at the heart of the migration phenomenon, as the very same people who are immigrants are also emigrants, making a living and possibly setting down roots in the receiving society, but still connected to and oriented toward the home society where their significant others still often reside. While research has shown that home country political conditions and experiences affect immigrant political behaviour in the receiving society, scholarship has yet to ask how those same factors affect the ways in which emigrants relate to the body politic left behind. This paper seeks to fill that lacuna. We find that pre-migration political experiences impart a lasting post-migration interest in home country politics and that such effects are substantial compared with the impacts associated with other cross-border connections, such as remittance sending or return travel.

Les politiques d'aide à la création d'entreprises par les minorités aux États-Unis : approche critique
Roger WALDINGER
Les gouvernants ont un double intérêt au développement de petites entreprises ethniques : il favorise la mobilité d'une clientèle électorale petite-bourgeoise, il renforce l'idée du bien-fondé du risque et réduit l'inégalité. Mais d'autres politiques (inspection du travail, rigidité eu égard à l'implantation, etc.) peuvent entraver l'initiative de création. En 1954, la création du SBA (Small Business Administration) puis dans les années 1960 de la MBEA (Minority Business Enterprise Agency) garantissant les prêts bancaires aux membres des minorités, créateurs d'entreprise n'a trouvé sa cohérence que sous Nixon avec la promotion du capitalisme noir. L'échelon local s'est employé à suivre les directives fédérales dans 30 mégalopoles. Mais les résultats ne sont guère positifs, la volonté politique d'aide aux minorités est fluctuante, l'argent manque dans les caisses de l'administration et de nombreuses entreprises font faillite. En 1987, seules 971 entreprises appartenant aux minorités sur les 6500 financées par le SBA étaient en équilibre financier. De plus, 20 % de ces entreprises n'appartiennent pas, en réalité, aux minorités et le financement ne se fait pas, comme la loi l'exige, sur concours mais grâce aux réseaux de complicité avec les municipalités.

"Making Los Angeles Home examines the different integration strategies implemented by Mexican immigrants in the Los Angeles region. Relying on statistical data and ethnographic information, the authors analyze four different dimensions of the immigrant integration process (economic, social, cultural, and political) and show that there is no single path for its achievement, but instead an array of strategies that yield different results. However, their analysis also shows that immigrants' successful integration essentially depends upon their legal status and long residence in the region. The book shows that, despite this finding, immigrants nevertheless decide to settle in Los Angeles, the place where they have made their homes"--Provided by publisher

Discusses the efforts of Local 399 of the Service Employees International Union to unionize janitors in Los Angeles, CA, in the early 1990s. Janitor unions grew from their inception in the post-WWII period to their peak in the late 1970s, when union wages rose some $.50 per year. However, unions found new obstacles as the cleaning business grew exponentially & contractors turned to recent immigrants as a labor pool in the 1980s. The union began a campaign that featured a confrontational, militant effort to improve conditions of workers. The ingredients of this campaign's success are identified as centralization of control & a strategy that included research, guerrilla legal tactics, coalition-building, & mobilization of the rank & file. It is concluded that the union's recent internal difficulties are a normal result of such a massive organization campaign. D. M. Smith