Inheriting the City: The Children of Immigrants Come of Age (review)

Inheriting the City shows how immigration pervades every aspect of American life: it is about how immigrants alter American society and how they are in turn changed. The authors write that this volume stemmed from their concern over the possible downward mobility of the children of post-1965 immigrants. So began a decade-long project that analyzed five immigrant groups with three native comparison groups in New York City. Kasinitz, Mollenkopf, Waters, and Holdaway chose South American Hispanics (Peruvians, Colombians, Ecuadorians) Dominicans, Chinese, Russian Jews, and West Indians as immigrant groups to be juxtaposed against native born Puerto Ricans, blacks and whites. They matched each immigrant group with a native group based on racial and socioeconomic characteristics. Their fact finding mission involved 3,415 telephone surveys, 333 face-to-face interviews, and commissioned ethnographies of sites where many immigrant and native youths interacted. This book and its companion volume Becoming New Yorkers (2004) are the results of their investigation.

The authors' findings and analysis tell a rich story about the intersection of immigration, youth culture, and New York City. Inheriting the City is an insightful addition to the growing body of literature that questions how Americanization and economic integration are related in the lives of immigrants. It presents a dizzying array of charts that refute the notion that rapid assimilation in today's immigrant youths causes their underperformance. On the contrary, the most common route to economic well-being for the young adults is to join the mainstream. These youths speak English, attend integrated schools, and seek jobs away from ethnic enclaves. This meticulously researched project shows that immigrant youths in fact fare better than both their parents and their native counterparts. Russian Jews and Chinese are doing particularly well, outperforming native white youths. Second-generation South Americans and Dominicans are better off than native born Puerto Ricans; and West Indians have achieved more than native blacks. These young adults, born to at least one immigrant parents, have what the authors call "the second generation advantage." They benefit from being a part of two cultures by "combining American and parental cultural beliefs and practices and creating new norms and beliefs about how to live in the world (87)." They have options.

This second generation advantage reflects the systematic differences between immigrant and native groups in certain coming of age milestones such as how and when they leave home, finish their education, and find work. For example, adult children of immigrants are more likely to live at home in multigenerational households than native borns. Given New York City's high real estate cost, this can make the difference between going to school full-time or part-time and when they complete their schooling. Moreover, the presence of extended family members could allow for more working adults to pool income together, and thus make more resources available per child. Also these "extra" adults could compensate for an absent parent and provide material and psychological advantage over those with a smaller support group.

Nine substantive chapters cover a wide range of topics including family background, ethnic identity, transnational ties, labor force participation, and political engagement. The voices of the young adults can be heard clearly. They are not mere subjects, but actors of this story. It is their multi-faceted perspectives that best support the argument that for these youths, their "identity is situation, variable and often hybrid (67)." Their experiences also show major differences among immigrant groups, which the authors attribute in part to the immigrant parents. The authors credit the parents for having the drive, courage, and strength to move to a foreign country. Thus, these young adults are children of exceptional parents (352). On a more practical level, their immigration status and social networks positively affect their children's incorporation in to American society. In the case of Russian Jews, they used public assistance available to refugees and received aid...