Paul D. Starr

Community structure and Vietnamese refugee adaptation: the significance of context.

This article examines the significance of understanding the refugee experience as a product of the relationship between individual refugees and the larger social context or environment. It suggests that studies focusing upon such relationships, linking both micro and macrolevel data, could provide useful insights about refugee adaptation in varied contexts. To illustrate the usefulness of such an approach, an analysis of the effects of community structure upon the adjustment of a sample of Vietnamese refugees in America is presented.

Troubled Waters: Vietnamese Fisherfolk on America's Gulf Coast.

This article reports on a continuing effort, initiated in late 1977, to understand the experience of Vietnamese fisherfolk who settled in communities on the Gulf Coast, primarily in West Florida, in particular with regard to their relationship to established local fishing interests. 2 2 The information presented here was primarily acquired through observation, participant observation and structured and unstructured interviews with refugees, American fishermen, fish house owners, voluntary agency staff, Sea Grant Advisors, Florida Marine Patrolmen, and other members of the communities involved.

Status Inconsistency and Marginality in Malaysia

Drawing upon the theory of status inconsistency and the theory of the marginal man, several hypotheses regarding the consequences of occupying an unusual combination of statuses were formulated and tested with data from a large sample survey of Malaysian secondary school students. Hierarchical modeling of incomplete contingency tables revealed that between-group differences on nine dependent variables for 26 status-combinations of race, religion, and origin language were adequately explained by the independent effects of one or more of the statuses. No support was evident for nonadditive representations of inconsistency or marginality as consequences of stressful interaction.

Book Review: Family Tightrope: The Changing Lives of Vietnamese AmericansFamily Tightrope: The Changing Lives of Vietnamese Americans. By KibriaNazli. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 1993. Pp. 184.

reach those being persecuted. This is, however, a minor failing considering the major contribution that Rogers and Copeland make in treating with sobriety and clarity a topic that is politically charged and often subject to ideological manipulation. All those wishing to understand better the extent to which forced migration should be a concern of the international community and the possible avenues for ensuring the protection offorced migrants will surely find this book useful.