The Integration of Immigrants into American Society (2015) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
5 Spatial Dimensions of Immigrant Integration
5 Spatial Dimensions of Immigrant Integration
Pages 207-246
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From page 207... ...
Every place -- state, city, suburb, neighborhood or rural area -- represents a unique context of reception that affects how immigrants, refugees, and their offspring are incorporated into neighborhoods, schools, local labor markets, and, ultimately, U.S. society.
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From page 208... ...
As this chapter makes plain, the current research-based understanding of the local context of immigrant reception is regrettably incomplete and often superficial, especially for nontraditional receiving areas that are now attracting large immigrant populations of different national origins, different legal statuses (e.g., unauthorized and refugee populations) , and different levels of social and political capital.
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From page 209... ...
. That family income among immigrant populations is positively associated with neighborhood quality also gives empirical credence to this spatial assimilation model (Alba et al., 2014)
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From page 210... ...
suggests that native-born populations and basic institutions like schools in some new destinations are being exposed, perhaps for the first time, to immigrant populations that lack basic education and English-language skills. This makes integration especially difficult and sometimes instills new anti-immigrant antipathies and discrimination that compound the problem (Massey and Sanchez, 2012)
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From page 211... ...
. "Contexts of reception" clearly matter, and they matter now in ways heretofore unimagined because of the racial and ethnic diversity of America's new immigrant populations and the heterogeneity in the places they settle.
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From page 212... ...
This means that the usual generalizations based on the spatial assimilation model of big-city neighborhood segregation are incomplete and perhaps even misleading. Numerically speaking, the biggest shift in the distribution across places has been to the suburbs, where more than half of all immigrants currently live (see Figure 5-1)
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From page 213... ...
, and the patterns of settlement of undocumented immigrants generally mirrored those of the immigrant population as a whole. For example, the top six receiving states for all immigrants are the same for the undocumented; these states accounted for 62.3 percent of all unauthorized immigrants in 2012 (Center for Migration Studies, 2015)
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From page 214... ...
Long-established immigrant populations (i.e., Latin American immigrants in California, Texas, and elsewhere) also had accumulated sufficient socioeconomic and cultural resources to leave gateway enclaves for better employment opportunities and housing elsewhere (Card and Lewis, 2007; Light, 2008)
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From page 215... ...
Figure 5-2 fixed image, color celerated the departure of its foreign-born population, a circumstance that cannot be viewed as evidence of social and spatial integration. Moreover, the hardening of the border in the 1990s reduced illegal border entries in those heavily traveled areas and intentionally diverted flows to the Sonoran desert in Arizona, where authorities believed immigrants would be easier to catch (Nevins, 2010)
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From page 216... ...
. Among metropolitan areas with populations over 1 million, the five with the small FIGURE 5-3 Five largest immigrant populations in metropolitan areas as a share of all metropolitan areas, 1900-2010.
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From page 217... ...
New York, for example, has a diverse set of immigrant populations, whereas immigrants from Asia, Central America, and Mexico are predominant in Los Angeles as well as major gateways such as Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston. Miami is also a major gateway, with more than 60 percent of Miami-Dade County residents claiming a Latino ethnicity, many of whom are foreignborn.
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From page 218... ...
. Overall trends in city and suburban settlements between 2000 and 2013 reveal that in the largest metropolitan areas, 76 percent of the growth in the immigrant populations occurred in the suburbs (Wilson and Svajlenka, 2014)
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From page 219... ...
The geography of job growth helps shape overall patterns of immigrant settlement. However, many of the fastest growing metropolitan immigrant destinations are places with small core cities and large suburbs, such as Atlanta and Washington, D.C.
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From page 220... ...
Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that rates of poverty have grown most rapidly over the past decade in suburban areas that have become home for America's new immigrant populations (Kneebone and Berube, 2013)
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From page 221... ...
Iceland and Scopilliti (2008) measured residential segregation using the segregation index (on a scale from 0 for no segregation to 100 for complete segregation)
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From page 222... ...
This result provides clear evidence of spatial assimilation, at least at the metropolitan neighborhood level, and supports the idea that immigrant integration is following the historical pattern of initial settlement in ethnic enclaves, followed by subsequent dispersal to more diverse and "better" neighborhoods (Alba and Nee, 2003)
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From page 223... ...
Chinese immigrants tended to rapidly enter into homeownership in predominantly suburban locations. Koreans were more likely than other immigrants to choose city residence and live in more 9 Estimatesof the segregation index by generation or for 2010 are currently unavailable, in part because nativity status was not included in the 2010 Decennial Census and spatially disaggregated estimates based on the American Community Survey are subject to substantial sampling variability.
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From page 224... ...
Research examining how native-born white and black mobility relates to local immigrant concentrations, and how this relationship varies across metropolitan areas, indicates that as neighborhood immigrant populations grow, the likelihood of neighborhood out-migration by the native-born increases (Crowder et al., 2011; Hall and Crowder, 2014)
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From page 225... ...
. Places with large concentrations of poor immigrant populations may become part of a more permanent settlement system, one where "the potential for neighborhood improvement is modest" (Alba et al., 2014)
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From page 226... ...
. New destinations are natural laboratories for studying highly located processes of social integration of immigrant communities.
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From page 227... ...
. Indeed, emerging evidence shows that native-born whites, especially those with school-age children, are exiting communities with growing immigrant populations (Crowder et al., 2011; Hall and Crowder, 2014)
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From page 228... ...
. Where immigrant populations live often changes over time and across the generations (Goodwin-White, 2015; Kritz and Gurak, 2015)
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. More recently, attention has turned to new destinations and to questions such as whether out-migration from gateway states and cities to these new destinations is selective of more highly educated groups (a pattern consistent with the canonical model of spatial assimilation)
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From page 230... ...
. The evidence and conclusions for Hispanic immigrants contrast sharply with the high educational achievement of Asian immigrant populations (see Chapter 6)
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From page 231... ...
tended to be significantly higher in new destinations than traditional gateways -- a much different pattern from 2000, when differences were generally small and statistically insignificant. This finding speaks indirectly to the low and declining wages among Hispanic workers since 2000 in many new destination labor markets.
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From page 232... ...
Small rural labor markets, often dominated by a single industry, provide a suitable but incomplete venue for assessing the local economic incorporation of low-skill Hispanic immigrant populations. To be sure, the situation in many rural boom towns is decidedly different from the diverse economic experiences of immigrants in large metropolitan and suburban areas, where most Hispanic, Asian, and other refugee populations actually live and work.
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From page 233... ...
Evidence of integrational mobility among immigrant populations is key; social integration will be played out at the local level and in emerging patterns of geographic mobility. This will also require up-to-date and longitudinal data at the community and neighborhood level (see Chapter 10)
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From page 234... ...
Thus, since the early 2000s, immigration policy activism across state and local jurisdictions has produced policies and programs that exclude and expel immigrants in some places but welcome immigrants and support their integration in other places. For instance, many states, cities, and counties have responded to federal inaction to change immigration policy and have proposed or passed laws intended to exclude or deflect immigrants.
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From page 235... ...
While laws like LAWA and local restrictions target undocumented immigrants, most of whom are from Latin America, other immigrants experience the laws' effects, such as those living in mixed status households. Although the Supreme Court pulled much of the teeth from SB 1070 (Chamber of Commerce of the United States v.
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From page 236... ...
(DeRenzis et al., 2009) , concluded that the confluence of several factors, including swift population change and growth of the immigrant population, local activism and discourse around the problems of undocumented workers and residents, and unseasoned local government, coupled with the lack of an immigrant service and advocacy infrastructure.
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From page 237... ...
Summary and CONCLUSION The spatial integration of immigrants and racial and ethnic minority populations arguably is an increasingly important indicator of integration into American society. Where immigrants live reflects and reinforces social integration and shapes access to good schools, safe neighborhoods, and good jobs.
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From page 238... ...
As a result, the panel's review yielded incomplete and rather mixed messages about place-to-place patterns of social integration. Today's widespread spatial diffusion of immigrants implies greater spatial integration, but there is also evidence of important variations by race and national origin with respect to neighborhood segregation.
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From page 239... ...
. Did the 2007 Legal Arizona Workers Act reduce the state's unauthorized immigrant population?
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From page 240... ...
. Does spatial assimilation work for black immigrants in the U.S.?
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From page 241... ...
. Hispanic segregation in metropolitan America: Explor ing the multiple forms of spatial assimilation.
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From page 242... ...
. Spatial assimilation in U.S.
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From page 243... ...
. Multi-scale residential segregation: Black exceptionalism and America's changing color line.
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. Re-placing whiteness in spatial assimilation re search.
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From page 245... ...
New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
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