Rogelio Saenz

Structural and assimilationist explanations of Asian American intermarriage

This study represents our efforts to synthesize two intermarriage perspectives--one explaining intermarriage at the micro level using individual attributes the other explaining it at the macro level using aggregated community characteristics. The 5% Public Use Microdata Samples from the 1980 U.S. Census were used to link individual and community data. The empirical assessment of the linked model showed great promise indicating that the explanatory power of our model was significantly improved when one set of factors was supplemented by the other. Our findings supported the cultural assimilation hypothesis but contradicted the structural assimilation arguments. Contextual factors such as group size and sex ratio also exerted strong structural constraints on marital choices. (EXCERPT)

Persistence and Change in Asian Identity among Children of Intermarried Couples

In recent years, a significant amount of attention has been devoted to the survival of ethnicity among multiracial people in the United States. This concern is especially evident in the case of the offspring of Asian-Anglo couples. While scholars have speculated on the extent to which Asian ethnicity will continue to persist among multiracial children, little empirical work has addressed this concern. In this analysis, we use a multilevel model to examine the ethnic identification (as reported by parents) of children of Asian-Anglo couples. Data from the 1980 Public-Use Microdata Sample for California are used in the analysis. The results indicate that the majority of the children had Anglo ethnic identities. The multivariate findings also identify several variables that are related to childrens ethnic identification.

Determinants of employment of recently arrived Mexican immigrant wives.

The work force participation of married, Mexican-origin immigrant women who came to the US in the 1980s was investigated. Determinants of employment utilized in this study are the womens human capital stock, household resources, and labor market structural factors. Nine hypotheses were derived from the analytical model and were examined through logistic regression. Findings showed that all human capital resource and structural labor market factors were significantly related to employment. On the other hand, four of the five family household factors namely: the age and presence of children in the household, husbands income, husbands employment, and non-labor income were significantly related to employment. Furthermore, the positive factors indicating the likelihood of being employed in 1989 for Mexican immigrant wives are: 1) being 25-54 years of age; 2) higher educational levels; 3) speaking fluent English; 4) lower levels of husbands income and non-labor income; 5) employment of husband in 1989; 6) absence of children under age 6 at home; 7) lower non-Hispanic female unemployment rates; 8) higher work force proportion employed in immigrant female-dependent occupations; 9) lower proportions of the Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA) population being of Mexican origin; and 10) smaller MSA populations.

The SES selectivity of interracially married Asians

How do outmarried Asians compare to their inmarried counterparts and to their spouses in terms of socioeconomic status? We attempt to answer this question by testing hypotheses derived from assimilation, exchange, and economic theories. The study is conducted using a representative U.S. sample of married Asians. Results based on multinomial logit analyses indicate that Asian women with lower educational attainment have a higher propensity to outmarry racially, irrespective of the race of their husbands. Corresponding findings for Asian men provide weak evidence of negative selectivity. Furthermore, those who outmarry racially tend to marry persons with lower levels of education than themselves. While challenging a few conventional wisdoms ingrained in sociological and economic theories, these findings support several others.

Demography of Race and Ethnicity

One of the most permanent features of many societies, especially the United States, is racial and ethnic stratification. Many immigrant groups have been integrated into the different dimensions of American life, while others have remained relatively marginalized. The road toward inclusion is particularly difficult for groups that initially gained entrance to the United States through involuntary means (e.g., warfare and conquest) and for those with more pronounced racial and cultural distinctions compared to the dominant group (McLemore and Romo 1998). Such patterns set apart the experiences of African Americans, American Indians, Mexican Americans, and Puerto Ricans, groups that have been labeled as ‘‘colonized groups’’ due to the aggression surrounding their initial incorporation into the United States, their racial and cultural distinctions, and their long-term location on the lower rungs of the American social and economic hierarchy. The unique experience of these and other minority groups has major implications for the United States population. Race and ethnicity are important dimensions in understanding the demography of the United States, for racial and ethnic groups vary tremendously with respect to population composition, population processes, as well as their life chances and access to opportunity structures. Referring to the social world of African Americans, Weeks (2002:411) notes that ‘‘being of black-African origin in the United States is associated with higher probabilities of death, lower levels of education, lower levels of occupational status, lower incomes, and higher levels of marital disruption than for the non-Hispanic white population.’’ The inequality of groups in American society along racial and ethnic lines has important implications for the future of the United States because of the major demographic transformations already underway in this country. Of the 75.8 million inhabitants that the United States is projected to add to

In Search of Asian war brides

Because of the long presence of U.S. soldiers in Asia, war-bride marriages involving servicemen and Asian women have been formed throughout the century. The literature, however, contains little empirically sound information on Asian war brides. This analysis develops a methodology to identify war brides and applies it to estimate the number of war brides from the six major Asian groups, using the national 1980 Public Use Microdata Sample. Further analysis comparing Asian war brides with other groups of Asian wives tends to support the traditional and lower socioeconomic images commonly associated with Asian war brides.

A Call for the Racialization of Immigration Studies: On the Transition of Ethnic Immigrants to Racialized Immigrants

There is more than a century of research that has examined immigrants in the United States. Despite major changes in the origin of immigrants, the assimilation perspective, based on the experiences of European immigrants, continues to be the dominant paradigm used to assess immigrants in this country. While immigrants of color have experienced major hostility and racialization, research continues to largely neglect issues involving race relations. This study provides a historical overview of the racialization of immigrants including immigration policies and shows that the racialization of immigrants has occurred historically but particularly over the past half century as non-Europeans became the primary groups of immigrants in this country. In addition, the study calls for immigration researchers to more fully incorporate race perspectives into the study of immigrants. Furthermore, the study illustrates the need to consider methodological and data approaches to integrate racial matters into the study of immigrants. The article concludes with a discussion of the sociological implications of incorporating race more centrally in the study of immigrants.

The problem posed by immigrants married abroad on intermarriage research: the case of Asian Americans

Cross-sectional and longitudinal variations in rates of intergroup marriage have often been used as indicators of assimilation for minority groups. This article demonstrates that both types of comparisons can give misleading results when census data are used for calculating intermarriage rates without restrictions. Census data include immigrants who married abroad (IMAs) in the enumeration. The inclusion of these individuals in the study of intermarriage inevitably biases the level of minority inmarriage upward, making cross-sectional and longitudinal comparisons of intermarriage rates for groups with different levels of IMAs inappropriate. Cumulation of IMAs also inflates the inmarriage rates of older cohorts, leading to a misimpression of increasing outmarriage among younger cohorts. These problems are illustrated for several Asian groups using 1980 Public Use Microdata Sample data for California. Alternative approaches for remedying the problem are proposed and their different implications for assimilation theory and research are discussed.

The effects of employment and marital relations on depression among Mexican American women.

A path analysis model is proposed to explain the effects of employment and marital relations on the mental health of Mexican American women. Three hypotheses are examined. First, employed women receive more help from their husbands with housework. Second, women receiving more help from their husbands experience higher levels of marital satisfaction, but employed women experience lower levels of marital satisfaction. Third, employed women, those receiving more help from their husbands with housework, and those reporting higher levels of marital satisfaction experience lower levels of depression. Data from the 1979 National Chicano Survey were used to examine these hypotheses. The results show general support for the model, with marital satisfaction and husbands help with housework both decreasing womens depression levels. But womens employment status is not related to depression. When employed women are examined separately, however, occupational prestige is significantly related to depression, with women holding more prestigious jobs reporting lower levels of depression than those employed in less

The effect of maquiladora employment on the monthly flow of Mexican undocumented immigration to the U.S., 1978-1982.

Some controversy has surrounded the extent to which employment in maquiladoras (assembly plants located along the Mexican border) has stimulated undocumented immigration to the United States. This study uses monthly data of maquiladora employment and INS apprehensions in a “push-pull” migration framework to study the association between these two variables during the April 1978 to January 1982 period. The findings suggest that there is a significantly negative relationship between the one month lag of maquiladora employment and INS apprehensions. Employment growth in the maquiladora sector tends to be followed by a reduction of apprehensions one month later. The study also finds that male and female apprehensions appear to respond to relatively similar economic factors.