The New Americans Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration (1997) / Chapter Skim
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8 The Social Dimensions of Immigration
8 The Social Dimensions of Immigration
Pages 363-406
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From page 363... ...
The first set of issues concerns the integration of immigrants and their children into American society: social and spatial mobility across generations, competence in the English language, naturalization, and intermarriage and ethnic identity. The next set of issues concerns the effects of immigration on American institutions, focusing on two extremes with side-effects for the rest of the population excellence in science and the arts and participation in crime.
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From page 364... ...
2At the beginning of the twentieth century, many scholars believed that Southern and Central European "races" were genetically inferior to the Northern and Western European groups who had emigrated to the United States in earlier times and had defined American culture (Ross, 1914; Grant, 1916; for a masterly review of American nativism, see Higham, 1955)
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From page 365... ...
Between the two world wars, the children of immigrants from Southern, Eastern, and Central Europe made significant socioeconomic gains, particularly in educational and occupational attainment (Lieberson, 1980; Perlmann, 1988;
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From page 366... ...
Residential integration is considered the linchpin of interethnic relations, since it opens the door to informal association in schools, playgrounds, and other places where close personal bonds and friendships are formed. In the initial years after arrival, the massive waves of immigrants in the early twentieth century clustered tightly together, but rising income levels and the passage of generations blurred residential segregation within a few decades (Lieberson, 1980: Chapter 9~.
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From page 367... ...
The average black respondent lived in a neighborhood that was 63 percent black, and the average Mexican respondent lived in a neighborhood that was 50 percent Mexican. The typical respondent lived in a neighborhood with a much lower index: only 30 percent of the respondents had a similar ethnicity.
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From page 368... ...
But members of the second generation lived in neighborhoods that were 28 percent first- or second-generation, and those in the third and later generations lived in neighborhoods that were only half as segregated, with 14 percent first- and second-generation.6 This generational desegregation did not proceed at the same pace for Hispanics, however.7 The typical third-generation Hispanic lives in a neighborhood that is 29 percent Hispanic (Borj es, 1995:367~. With the notable exception of Mexican immigrants, the geographic concentration of most immigrant groups is not great, especially compared with geographic segregation among black Americans.
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From page 369... ...
In the mid-nineteenth century, Negroes were referred to as "smoked Irish" (Ignatiev,1995~. If those debating immigration restriction in the early part of the twentieth century had done population projections to predict the "race suicide" they believed new immigrants were causing, they would have projected the numbers of Southern and Central Europeans and Irish and shown how these growing groups would have made white Protestants a minority by some date in the far-off future.
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From page 370... ...
An American of Italian, Irish, and Scottish ancestry, for example, can "choose" to identify with one or more of his or her ethnic ancestries and discard or "forget" others (Waters, 1990; Alba, 1990~. For example, over 40 million Americans reported Irish ancestry in the 1980 census, a figure far in excess of any reasonable rate of natural increase from the 4.5 million Irish who were immigrants to the United States.
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From page 371... ...
, recent fertility data demonstrate increased intermarriage rates for younger persons. Those who believe that current immigrants from Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean are less assimilable than those from European countries may be making two important errors.
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From page 372... ...
As time passes and the descendants of earlier immigrant waves mingle through intermarriage, ethnic cultures have become defined as part of general American culture. The Americanization of St.
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From page 373... ...
The earlier wave of immigration was primarily from Europe, and the model of assimilation was that of acculturation and socioeconomic mobility into the majority white Anglo-Saxon American society. Although the children of European immigrants often lost their ethnic roots and mother tongue, that was the price to be paid for the acquisition of American culture (defined as that of middle-class whites)
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From page 374... ...
Like Gans, they conclude that members of the second generation who identify with America' s minority groups are likely to experience downward social mobility (also see Ogbu, 1990~. Becoming an American includes learning about American race classification systems and about American racial attitudes and prejudices.
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From page 375... ...
of the types of identities developed by second-generation West Indian youth in New York City. Students from middle-class backgrounds were more likely to maintain ties to their parents' ethnic identities and to resist categorization as black Americans.
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From page 376... ...
Indeed, almost all of those from countries where English is dominant reported that they speak English TABLE 8.3 English Language Ability of Recent Immigrants, 1990 (percentage) Speaks English Continent of Origin Well or Better Not Well Not at All Europe 73.8 17.7 8.6 Asia 63.1 27.2 9.7 Canada 97.4 1.7 0.3 Mexico, Central America 26.2 31.0 41.8 Caribbean 61.1 18.2 20.6 South America 85.8 10.7 3.2 Weighted Total 57.5 26.3 16.2 Source: U.S.
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From page 377... ...
As Figure 8.2 suggests, the longer an immigrant from a non-English-speaking country has been in this country, the more likely he or she is to be proficient in English. Among recent immigrants from non-English-speaking countries, 47 percent report that they speak English well or very well within about two years after arrival.
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From page 378... ...
And although some children of immigrants face special challenges in school because of the bilingual nature of their environment, English language proficiency is almost universal (fortes and Schauffler, 1996~. The data we have assembled suggest that, even though the United States does not explicitly require immigrants to speak English, in the nature of the selection process for immigration many already do when they arrive, and the majority learn it eventually.
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From page 379... ...
citizens. 1lAs of April 1996, according to Immigration and Naturalization Service estimates, 10.5 foreignborn persons with permanent resident visas resided in the United States.
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From page 380... ...
manent residents that citizenship would broaden their rights to "unlimited" sponsorship of immediate family relatives; and the possible perception by some immigrants that they could safeguard their eligibility for public assistance programs by becoming citizens. To put naturalization into historical perspective, in 1890 and 1900 over 50 percent of the country's foreign-born residents were citizens.
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From page 381... ...
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From page 382... ...
As residence of the foreign-born in general lengthens and, as seems likely, more Mexican immigrants seek naturalization, the number of applications will rise and the proportion of the foreign-born who are naturalized citizens will expand. Several factors may account for the propensity to naturalize.
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From page 383... ...
Of course, since almost all Americans are the descendants of immigrants, the assessment of the contributions due to immigration requires some definition. Our method is to measure the representation of immigrants and the children of immigrants in the top ranks of Americans in diverse fields: American winners of Nobel prizes, recipients of Kennedy Center honors, Olympic medalists, and esteemed scientists and other professionals requiring great talent and dedication.
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From page 384... ...
Despite these problems of data, it is fairly clear that Americans with recent foreign roots are overrepresented in any classification of Americans who have brought honor and recognition to the United States. Nobel prizes are awarded to the most distinguished contributions in the arts and sciences, including the Nobel prize for peace.
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From page 385... ...
Kennedy Center honors are given annually to persons who throughout their lifetimes have made significant contributions to American culture through the performing arts. Recipients need not be U.S.
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From page 386... ...
The major limitation from existing crime statistics is that immigrant status is often not known. We often do not know who commits a crime; we especially do not know from victim reports whether the person is an immigrant or a native.
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From page 387... ...
The third column shows the ratio of the noncitizen crime rate to the citizen rate; values greater than 1.0 indicate that noncitizens have higher crime rates than citizens and values less than 1.0 indicate lower rates.l9 One finding that is clear from this table is that noncitizens are more likely to be in prison for drug offenses, especially possession of drugs. Almost one-fifth of prisoners serving sentences for drug offenses are noncitizens, even though 18A related measurement issue concerns information on immigrant status.
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From page 388... ...
For property crimes, noncitizens have rates of about one-third those of citizens. And for public order offenses, noncitizens have rates at about the same rate or slightly lower than those of citizens.
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From page 389... ...
concluded that an influx of recent immigrants into a community has no association with local crime rates. ATTITUDES TOWARD IMMIGRATION AND INTERETHNIC RELATIONS Although U.S.
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From page 390... ...
Some evidence also suggests a relationship between economic concerns and attitudes toward immigration from cross-sectional comparisons: in our analysis of polling data, Americans living in states with relatively low rates of economic growth in recent years are more likely to want immigration to decrease.2i Economic changes are not the only developments whose timing parallels this change in attitudes. The change may be a response to the rise in illegal immigration or to 2iHowever, in the same polls no such relationship emerged between unemployment rates and attitudes toward immigration.
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From page 391... ...
Given the large numbers of recent immigrants with less than a high school education, Americans with low levels of education appear to face the most job market competition from immigrants, and so might be expected to be most opposed to further immigration. Education does, in fact, have an important relationship with attitudes, but not the expected one.
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From page 392... ...
Americans generally indicate a preference for European immigrants, and immigrants from Asia in turn are generally rated more favorably than are those from Latin America (Espenshade and Belanger, 1996~. At the same time, Americans also attributed positive characteristics to both Asian and Latin American immigrants: both groups were seen by a majority of Americans as hard-working and having strong family values (Espenshade and Belanger, 1996~.
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From page 393... ...
wrote an influential piece in the Atlantic Monthly describing the Los Angeles riots of 1992 as reflecting tensions between Latino immigrants and black Americans entitled "Blacks vs. Browns." There have also been noted conflicts between black Americans and Korean immigrants, including a widely publicized boycott of a Korean grocery store in New York City in 1991 and a shooting of a black American teenager by a Korean immigrant shopowner in Los Angeles in the early 1990s.
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From page 394... ...
found that Hispanics in that city are generally more antagonistic toward blacks than blacks are toward Hispanics. They concluded that the black antagonism arises almost exclusively from economic concerns.
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From page 395... ...
One of the more important indicators of social adaptation is residential integration. On initial arrival and in the early period of residence, past and recent immigrants have tended to settle in certain states and cities, and within particular neighborhoods, creating clusters of people of similar ethnicity.
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From page 396... ...
There is no apparent association in these temporal trends with immigration. From available studies, it appears that overall crime rates have been associated more with other factors, including the changing demographics of the country (with shifts in the number of young men)
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From page 397... ...
American Sociological Review 61(6)
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From page 398... ...
1994 Comparing Federal and State Prison Inmates, 1991. Report NCJ-145864.
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From page 399... ...
Kraly 1990 Racial and ethnic inequality in the United States, 1940 and 1950: The impact of geographic location and human capital. International Migration Review 24:4-43.
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International Migration Review 24(3)
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From page 401... ...
Stevens, G 1994 Immigration, emigration, language acquisition, and the English language proficiency of immigrants in the United States.
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From page 402... ...
The omitted categories in specifying the various dummy variables were non-Hispanic, white, female, high school dropout, living in the West, with household income less than $10,000. The figures reported give the estimated change in probability with a change in the continuous explanatory variables, evaluated at the sample mean of the explanatory variables.
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From page 403... ...
SOCIAL DIMENSIONS OF IMMIGRATION TABLE 8.A1 Probit Estimates of the Likelihood that Respondents Want Immigration Decreased from Its Current Level, 1995 Gallup Poll 403 High Immigration Explanatory Variables National Statesa California Age 30-39 40-49 50-59 -.059 (.o33)
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From page 404... ...
Numbers reported give the change in probability with a change in the continuous explanatory variables, evaluated at the mean. For dummy variables, they give the difference in probability from the omitted category, evaluated at the mean.
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From page 405... ...
larger differences were associated with race and ethnicity in the high-immigration states and California than for the nation as a whole. Among the state-level variables, only the change in state per capita income had a significant relationship to attitudes toward immigration at the national level: residents of states with higher growth rates were less likely to want to see reduced levels of immigration.
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