Charles Hirschman

The Role of Religion in the Origins and Adaptation of Immigrant Groups in the United States1

The classical model of the role of religion in the lives of immigrants to the United States, formulated in the writings of Will Herberg and Oscar Handlin, emphasized cultural continuity and the psychological benefits of religious faith following the trauma of immigration. Although this perspective captures an important reason for the centrality of religion in most immigrant communities (but not for all immigrants), the classical model does not address the equally important socioeconomic role of churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques in American society. The creation of an immigrant church or temple often provided ethnic communities with refuge from the hostility and discrimination from the broader society as well as opportunities for economic mobility and social recognition. In turn, the successive waves of immigrants have probably shaped the character as well as the content of American religious institutions.

The Educational Enrollment of Immigrant Youth: A Test of the Segmented-Assimilation Hypothesis *

An analysis of 1990 census data on the educational enrollment of 15- to 17-year-old immigrants to the United States provides partial support for predictions from both the segmented-assimilation hypothesis and the immigrant optimism hypothesis. Most immigrant adolescents, especially from Asia, are as likely as their native-born peers to be enrolled in high school, or more so. The “at-risk” immigrant youths with above-average levels of nonenrollment that are not reduced with longer exposure to American society are primarily of Hispanic Caribbean origins (from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba). Recent Mexican immigrants who arrived as teenagers have nonenrollment rates over 40%, but Mexican youths who arrived at younger ages are only somewhat less likely to be enrolled in school than are native-born Americans.

The meaning and measurement of race in the U.S. census: Glimpses into the future

The 1996 Racial and Ethnic Targeted Test (RAETT) was a “mail-out mail-back” household survey with an experimental design of eight alternative questionnaire formats containing systematic variations in race, instructions, question order, and other aspects of the measurement. The eight different questionnaires were administered to random subsamples of six “targeted” populations: geographic areas with ethnic concentrations of whites, blacks, American Indians, Alaskan natives, Asian and Pacific Islanders, and Hispanics. The major conclusion is that allowing multiple responses to the “race” question in the 2000 census (and other variations in measurement that were considered in RAETT) had only a slight impact on the measured racial composition of the population. Another finding was a dramatic reduction in nonresponse to the combined race/Hispanic-origin question relative to all other questionnaire formats. We conclude that the concept of “origins” may be closer to the popular understanding of American diversity than is the antiquated concept of race.

The making of race in colonial Malaya: Political economy and racial ideology

The conventional interpretation of the “race problem” in Peninsular Malaysia (Malaya) is founded upon the supposedly inevitable frictions between ethnic communities with sharply divergent cultural traditions. In this view, assimilation between the indigenous Malay population and the descendants of immigrants from China and India was always a remote possibility. In this paper I argue that modern “race relations” in Peninsular Malaysia, in the sense of impenetrable group boundaries, were a byproduct of British colonialism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Prior to 1850, inter-ethnic relations among Asian populations were marked by cultural stereotypes and occasional hostility, but there were also possibilities for inter-ethnic alliances and acculturation. Direct colonial rule brought European racial theory and constructed a social and economic order structured by “race.” A review of the writing of observers of colonial society provides a crude test of this hypothesis.

Multilevel Models of Fertility Determination in Four Southeast Asian Countries: 1970 and 1980

Using microdata from the 1970 and 1980 censuses, we specify and test multilevel models of fertility determination for four Southeast Asian societies—Indonesia, Peninsular Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand. Social context is indexed by provincial characteristics representing women’s status, the roles of children, and infant mortality. These contextual variables are hypothesized to have direct and indirect (through individual socioeconomic characteristics) effects on current fertility. The contextual variables account for a modest but significant share of individual variation in fertility and about one-half of the total between area variation in fertility. The women’s status contextual variables, particularly modern sector employment, have the largest and most consistent effect on lowered fertility. The results based on the other contextual variables provide mixed support for the initial hypotheses.

The End of Affirmative Action in Washington State and Its Impact on the Transition from High School to College

Changes in affirmative action policies in some states create possibilities for “natural experiments” to observe the effect of public policy on racial and ethnic inequality in American society. This study measured the impact of Initiative 200, a ballot measure that eliminated affirmative action in Washington State, on the transition from high school to college. As of 1999, the year after I-200 passed, the proportion of minority high school seniors who went to college in Washington State decreased temporarily. The impact of I-200 was registered almost entirely at the University of Washington, the flagship public institution in the state. This decrease, however, stemmed less from changes in minority admission rates than from declines in application rates. Affirmative action programs may provide a signal of an institutional “welcoming environment” that serves as a counterweight to the normal reluctance of prospective students to apply to institutions that may be perceived as intimidating. Although the impact of I-200 was short-lived, significant racial and ethnic differences remain in the transition from high school to college.

Premarital socioeconomic roles and the timing of family formation: A comparative study of five Asian societies

The impact of female socioeconomic activities on cumulative fertility is a product of a series of life cycle stages, including the initiation of marriage and the timing of subsequent births. In the present paper, the effects of premarital socioeconomic roles on the first stages of family formation—the timing of marriage and the interval between marriage and first birth—are analyzed. Modern socioeconomic roles, especially educational attainment, lead to a postponement of marriage, and thereby age at first birth. However, the same variables tend to have a counterbalancing effect by reducing the interval from marriage to the first birth.

Immigration and the American Century

The full impact of immigration on American society is obscured in policy and academic analyses that focus on the short-term problems of immigrant adjustment. With a longer-term perspective, which includes the socioeconomic roles of the children of immigrants, immigration appears as one of the defining characteristics of twentieth-century America. Major waves of immigration create population diversity with new languages and cultures, but over time, while immigrants and their descendants become more “American,” the character of American society and culture is transformed. In the early decades of the twentieth century, immigrants and their children were the majority of the workforce in many of the largest industrial cities; in recent decades, the arrival of immigrants and their families has slowed the demographic and economic decline of some American cities. The presence of immigrants probably creates as many jobs for native-born workers as are lost through displacement. Immigrants and their children played an important role in twentieth-century American politics and were influential in the development of American popular culture during the middle decades of the twentieth century. Intermarriage between the descendants of immigrants and old-stock Americans fosters a national identity based on civic participation rather than ancestry.

Trends and differentials in breast feeding: An update

Analysis of the 1973 National Survey of Family Growth shows a continued downward trend in breast feeding by successive cohorts of American mothers. The downward trend is evident in both measures of incidence (ever-breast feeding) and duration of breast feeding for first and higher-order births. For all cohorts higher-order births are less likely to be breast fed than first births. However, breast feeding of higher-order births is typically of a longer duration. Differentials in breast feeding reveal strong associations with indicators of social class; women who are college graduates, who work as professionals, and who are married to professional husbands are most likely to breast-feed their infants. Differentials in average duration of breast feeding are often reversed from differentials in ever-breast feeding.

Family and household structure in Vietnam: some glimpses from a recent survey.

This analysis of Vietnamese families and households was based on the 1991 Vietnam Life History Survey which was not reliably a nationally representative sample. The sample was small (403 households) and was obtained from a rural village (Tien Tien) and a medium sized city (Hai Duong) in the North and a rural village (Long Hoa) near a city in the center of the Mekong River Delta (Can Tho) in the South. Households were generally modest in size with many nuclear families. Few lived with paternal relatives when growing up. Extended family ties were still reinforced by weekly or daily visits. The East Asian model is based on a patrilineal patrilocal and patriarchal Confucian-type heritage. The Vietnamese family system has been maintained in the Chinese-style among the ruling classes. The status of women and daughters was higher and involved the right to inherit property. The kinship system was described as bilateral. Recent fieldwork has reinforced traditional views about both the importance of patrilineal ties and ideals and the importance of maternal relatives and nuclear family relations. Responses to the 931 interviews revealed that 80% of the rural villages were headed by men and about 50% of heads in the cities were women. 30 out of 50 female heads in Can Tho were older widows. In the northern city 47 of 51 female headed households were married with husbands present. The issue of female headship in Vietnam requires additional study because in this society female headship does not mean absent husbands and disadvantaged status. The range in household size was 4.4 in the northern city to 6.0 in the southern city. Households were larger in the South. 10% of households in villages and 20% of households in cities were extended family units. 50% of the female headed households in the southern village and almost 66% of households in the southern city were extended families. Proximity of resident to the maternal or paternal side was not the common pattern. Regardless of proximity visitation with relatives was high; longer distances increased visits to longer than weekly. Men visited more frequently than women.