Jeremy Hein

Refugee communities : a comparative field study

Perspectives on Refugee Adaptation Soviet Jews Background and Migration Experience Vietnamese Refugees Background and Characteristics The Soviet Jewish Enclave Recently Arrived Vietnamese Resettlement Agencies and Refugee Communities Self-Employment and Refugee Communities Patterns of Community Organization Conclusions Appendix Photographs

INTERPERSONAL DISCRIMINATION AGAINST HMONG AMERICANS: Parallels and Variation in Microlevel Racial inequality

Different racial and ethnic minorities are commonly compared across various measures of macrolevel inequality but have thus far not been compared with respect to microlevel inequality. Using data from interviews with forty-eight Hmong Americans, this article systematically extends Feagins (1991) analysis of interpersonal discrimination against African Americans to the experiences of everyday racism among a group of foreignborn Asian Americans. Hmong Americans report all of the forms of interpersonal discrimination that Feagin documents for African Americans, suggesting that minorities face a common inequality structure in public face-to-face encounters. Nativism and limited English proficiency, two factors that Feagin did not identify as affecting African Americans, are also important components of interpersonal discrimination against Hmong Americans. These additional dimensions of interpersonal discrimination against suggest that macrolevel patterns of racial and ethnic inequality can lead to variation in microlevel inequality.

Ethnic Organizations and the Welfare State: The Impact of Social Welfare Programs on the Formation of Indochinese Refugee Associations

The expansion of the welfare state during the 20th century has altered the conditions shaping the formation of ethnic organizations. Drawing upon research in the divergent fields of social policy, immigrant communities, and social movements, this article argues that social welfare programs promote or suppress ethnic organizations depending on how they affect an ethnic communitys institutional completeness. This welfare state channeling theory is contrasted with ethnic competition and resource mobilization explanations for the formation of ethnic organizations. An analysis of 800 Indochinese refugee associations finds that public assistance has no effect on the prevalence of these organizations, but that privatization of federal social service expenditures does, thus partially supporting the welfare state channeling theory.

Ethnic pluralism and the disunited states of North America and Western Europe

In Western Europe, labor migration, family reunification, and refugee arrivals add new dimensions of pluralism to societies previously divided by regionalism but otherwise culturally homogeneous. North Africans or Turks are the largest foreign population in Germany, France, and the Netherlands, and the second largest in Australia and Belgium, while South Asians outnumber all other foreign populations in the United Kingdom, expect the Irish (OECD, 1992). In Australia, Canada, and the United States, international migration augments the ethnic pluralism of societies already comprised of different racial and ethnic groups. Between 1970 and 1990, ethnic minorities in the United States increased, from 16 to 25% of the total population, and diversified, as blacks dropped from 65 to 48% of the minority population (Passel and Edmonston, 1992).

Rights, Resources, and Membership: Civil Rights Models in France and the United States

Civil rights are usually conceptualized as a minority-majority issue. Comparison of public policy to promote racial and ethnic equality in the United States and France indicates that civil rights also influence interminority relations. American policy is based on rights to resources. It emphasizes racial and ethnic differences, interest groups, and distribution of jobs and other social goods. French policy is based on rights to membership. It emphasizes commonalities between ethnic minorities, majority group responsibility, and a social contract of interdependence. Limiting the expression of racism is the centerpiece of French civil rights law. The American approach to civil rights contributes to interminority conflict because it is primarily a method for influencing institutions rather than, as in France, a model of ideal race and ethnic relations.

The Urban Ethnic Community and Collective Action: Politics, Protest, and Civic Engagement by Hmong Americans in Minneapolis-St. Paul

This paper replicates and extends Sampson et al.s (2005) collective efficacy explanation of civic action events to ethnic communities formed through international migration. It examines political, social movement, and civic collective action of Hmong Americans in Minneapolis–St. Paul through a content analysis of events reported in one of the communitys ethnic newspapers from 2002 to 2011 (N = 541). Initially a dispersed group of refugees from Laos, by the early 2000s, 25 percent of all Hmong Americans lived in the Minneapolis–St. Paul metropolitan area. Most (68 percent) of their collective action is for civic engagement, not politics or protest. This civic engagement is mostly for socioeconomic improvement (53 percent) but also social solidarity (47 percent). As Sampson et al. found in Chicago, the spatial distribution of Hmong collective action is shaped more by the location of ethnic and public institutions than by ethnic residential concentration. The paper concludes that the analysis of collective action events in ethnic communities should combine social ecology, institutional, and interactional models. La Comunidad Étnica Urbana y Acción Colectiva: Política, Protesta y Compromiso Civil en Norteamericanos Hmong en Minneapolis–St. Paul Resumen Este artículo replica y extiende la explicación de eventos de acción cívica desde la eficacia colectiva de Sampson et al. (2005) en comunidades étnicas formadas a través de migración internacional. Se examinan los movimientos políticos y sociales y de acción cívica colectiva de los norteamericanos Hmong de Minneapolis–St. Paul a través de un análisis de contenido de eventos reportados en uno de los periódicos de la comunidad étnica desde el 2002 al 2011 (N = 541). Al inicio los refugiados de Laos eran un grupo disperso, pero para los inicios del 2000 un 25 por ciento de todos los Norteamericanos Hmong vivían en el área metropolitana de Minneapolis–St. Paul. La mayor parte (68 por ciento) de su acción colectiva corresponde al compromiso cívico, no políticas ni propuestas. El compromiso cívico es básicamente para mejoras socio–económicas (53 por ciento), pero también para solidaridad social (47 por ciento). Como Sampson et al. encontraron en Chicago, la distribución espacial de la acción colectiva Hmong es formada más por la ubicación de instituciones étnicas y públicas que por la concentración residencial étnica. El artículo concluye que el análisis de eventos de acción colectiva debería combinar ecología social e institucional, así modelos interactivos de la comunidad étnica.

The primordial refugees: Religious traditions, global forced migration, and state–society relations

Global responses to Syrian refugees reveal a contradiction in state–society relations. Many groups in civil society want to assist the refugees, while many state officials want to limit or entirely prevent refugee admissions. To explain the anomaly of civil society pressuring a reluctant state to open its borders to refugees, this essay reviews forced migration traditions in five world religions, three of them monotheistic and one each pantheistic and nontheistic: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. The essay documents that each religion has a flight narrative about a divine escape. Moses, the infant Christ, Mohammed, the infant Krishna, and the future Buddha all fled from imprisonment or death threats. These faith-based flight narratives are thousands of years older than the state’s political asylum policy and they continue to be commemorated in ritual and practiced through actual assistance to refugees. The primordial refugees in world religions partly explain why civil society can be more responsive to forced migration than the state.

Politicians and Social Movements: The Impact of Electoral Victory on Local, National, and Transnational Activism by Hmong Americans in Minneapolis–St. Paul

Political opportunity theory predicts that increased access to the political system benefits social movements by disadvantaged groups. To test this prediction, this paper evaluates the impact of two elected Hmong American officials on social movement campaigns in their community during their time in office. Content analysis of newspaper reports is used to (i) create a sample of nine local, national, and transnational social movement campaigns in the community; and (ii) determine in which of four possible ways the elected officials supported the campaigns: favorable media interviews, speeches at events, event organization, and legislation initiation. Only the two transnational campaigns which mobilized the entire community received all four types of support. The paper concludes that elected officials, even former activists from an ethnic minority community, carefully select the causes they will fully support. After electoral victory, social movements must still actively engage sympathetic politicians in order to turn an opening in the political system into actual access to power.

The Changing Face of World Cities: Young Adult Children of Immigrants in Europe and the United States

Among its many accomplishments, this book is a model of scholarly cooperation and research design innovation. In 1999, Philip Kasinitz et al. conducted research on the second generation in New York City, and two other research teams built and borrowed from their approach in the early 2000s: Frank Bean et al. in Los Angeles and Maurice Crul et al. in fifteen cities in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. Surveys and face-to-face interviews collected data on about 18,000 children and young adults born to immigrant parents. This massive database is among the definitive sources of information on early twenty-first century immigration and has already produced numerous publications. The Changing Face of World Cities adds to this scholarly output by comparing secondgeneration Turks in six European capitals (Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels, Paris, Stockholm, and Vienna) with second-generation Dominicans in New York City and Mexicans in Los Angeles. The comparative research design selected these populations for their demographic significance and because they are at the bottom of the socio-economic hierarchy within their respective societies. The book’s goal is to evaluate how social structure shapes upward mobility and social integration. Honest readers will admit that they want to know which places are the best and the worst and whether the United States or Europe treats its second generation better. To their credit, the authors are not shy of invidious comparisons. Berlin is the worst place and Stockholm is the best place to be born to immigrant parents. The U.S. cities are in between. On college attendance, the United States is higher than Germany and Austria but lower than Sweden and France. The United States loses due to poor-quality early schooling and high college costs. Germany and Austria lose due to early vocational tracking. On occupational achievement, the Latino youth fare better than the Turkish youth, but that positive outcome is partly due to U.S. employers who prefer them over native-born blacks. A comparison of neighborhood crime shows New York City and Los Angeles to be the worst. In terms of citizenship, the United States is naturally at 100 percent for U.S.-born youth but by age 18 nearly 90 percent of Turkish youth are citizens of their respective countries. However, many U.S.-born youth have immigrant parents who are undocumented, which causes an enormous disadvantage. That problem is almost nonexistent for Turkish youth. While the invidious comparisons are fascinating, the greatest strength of the book is direct answers to two big-picture questions: (1) Is the immigrant second generation forming an ‘‘ethnic underclass’’ separated socially and economically from the rest of the society? No. Compared with their parents, the youth are experiencing a slow but significant societal integration as a cohort: 50 to 65 percent have achieved upward mobility. Among Latino youth about 25 percent have at least started college or university education with even higher rates for Turkish youth in Amsterdam, Brussels, Stockholm, and especially Paris. The Turkish youth in Germany and Austria come closest to demonstrating the failure of host societies to absorb the children of the immigrant workers recruited during the post-World War II economic expansion. Only 7 percent of second-generation Turks in Berlin have started or completed a university degree while 32 percent have not obtained a lower secondary diploma (the equivalent of ‘‘not completed high school’’ in the United States). Unequal early schooling outcomes is the main reason. (2) Does national social structure shape the process of integration? Definitely. Statistical measures of residential segregation are far higher for Latino youth in the United States than Turkish youth in Europe. But European societies are more sensitive to symbols of ‘‘foreignness.’’ Islam is a particularly difficult stigma to overcome even though the Turkish 46 Reviews

Shifting Ethnic Boundaries and Inequality in Israel: Or, How the Polish Peddler Became a German IntellectualShifting Ethnic Boundaries and Inequality in Israel: Or, How the Polish Peddler Became a German Intellectual, by KhazzoomAziza. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008. 344 pp.

effects of cultural capital on educational outcomes. Though useful for their rich discussion of theory, unfortunately both chapters add little insight to the influence of cultural capital on social outcomes across sectors. A chapter on Jewish schools for 7th through 12th graders finds that religious schools are unique contributors to cultural capital production, but the contributions of schools are close to negligible when compared to families. In a second study of kindergarteners in public and Catholic schools the authors argue that Catholic school children participate in more cultural activities, but neither public or Catholic students receive benefits based on their levels of cultural capital. These findings suggest an insignificant effect of cultural capital across sectors. However, as the authors note, it is difficult to interpret effects from cross-sectional data as the effects of cultural capital on schooling are likely to develop over time. Furthermore, different sectors are likely to reward unique forms of capital. For example, religious schools are likely to place great value on religious knowledge, a form of cultural capital that public schools may not emphasize. Without rich longitudinal data, the effects of cultural capital across sectors remain unclear. To be sure, selection accounts for a majority of the variance in school performance across sectors. Yet, the organizational practices and mental health benefits of the nonpublic sectors appear to improve performance. However, the advantages of the nonpublic sector are slight, and without an ability to completely control for selection it is unclear if School Sector and Student Outcomes answers the question: what is it about nonpublic schools that makes them better? ETHNICITY