John Mollenkopf

Segmented assimilation revisited: types of acculturation and socioeconomic mobility in young adulthood

Abstract This article examines the debate between key theories of immigrant assimilation by exploring the effect of acculturation types – dissonant, consonant and selective – on socioeconomic outcomes in young adulthood. Drawing on survey data from the Immigrant Second Generation in Metropolitan New York, we show that, while all three types occur, dissonant acculturation is the exception, not the norm, among second-generation young adults. Our results also suggest that neither the type of acculturation nor the level of ethnic embeddedness can account for the variation in mobility patterns both across and within second-generation groups. These findings lead us to question assumptions about the protective effect of selective acculturation and the negative effect of dissonant acculturation.

Immigrant political incorporation: comparing success in the United States and Western Europe

Abstract Despite reasons to expect otherwise, immigrant political incorporation occurs more rapidly in the United States than in many Western European states. We provide evidence to support that contentious statement and reasons to explain it. Four features distinguish the United States in this context. First, both in terms of state formation and population growth, it was predicated on immigration, voluntary and otherwise, whereas European states came into being and grew mainly through consolidation of and natural increase among resident populations. That history shapes public attitudes toward immigration policy and immigrants. Second, unlike European states, the United States has a long history of domestic racial subordination and a recent history of efforts to overcome it, and this provides a template for incorporating new immigrant groups. Third, social welfare and school systems differ in ways that slightly facilitate incorporation for immigrants to the United States. Finally, the American electoral system is more open to insurgent candidacies, less dominated by party control, and more rewarding of geographically concentrated electoral groups, thus making election of newcomers easier. In combination, these features make immigrant political incorporation relatively successful in the United States.

The School to Work Transition of Second Generation Immigrants in Metropolitan New York: Some Preliminary Findings

We believe the time has come to undertake a detailed study of the school experience, labor market outcomes, and social incorporation of the leading edge of the second generation as it enters adulthood. Specifically, we are now in the early stages of study which will include a) a large scale telephone survey, b) in-depth, open-ended, in-person follow-up interview with a subsample of survey respondents, and c) strategically positioned ethnographies.

Late-generation European ethnicity is still with us

The authors family history suggests a variety of ways in which European ethnicity, although less visible as cultural distinctiveness, still has a strong relationship with different forms of group behaviour and group self-understanding.

Review Symposium: Generational Succession in the Big Apple

Abstract Inheriting the City presents the results of a major research project on the children of immigrants in New York City, focusing on eight groups, five of which are immigrant groups: Dominicans; South Americans from Colombia, Ecuador and Peru; English-speaking West Indians; the Chinese; and Russian Jews. The three comparison groups are native whites, native blacks, and Puerto Ricans. The symposium allowed three critics who have followed this project from its earliest phases to assess the results and the authors to respond to the issues raised by their commentaries.