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Chapter 3 The New Immigration and Ethnicity in the United States Douglas S. Massey 75 As anyone who walks the streets of America’s largest cities knows, there has been a profound transformation of immigration to the United States. Not only are there more immigrants, but increasingly they also speak languages and bear cultures that are quite different than those brought by European immigrants in the past. The rapidity of the change and the scale of the movement have led to much consternation about what the “new immigration” means for American society. Some worry about the economic effects of immigration, although quantitative analyses generally show that immigrants do not compete directly with native workers and do not have strong effects on U.S. wages rates and employment levels (Borjas and Tienda, 1987; Borjas, 1990; Borjas and Freeman, 1992). Others worry about the social welfare burden caused by immigrants, but studies again suggest that, with the exception of some refugee groups, immigrants do not drain public resources (see Blau, 1984; Simon, 1984; Tienda and Jensen, 1986; Borjas, 1994; but Rothman and Espenshade [1992] show that local fiscal effects may be significant). Observers also express fears of linguistic fragmentation, but research indicates that immigrants generally shift into English as time passes and that their children move decisively into English if they grow up in the United States (Grenier, 1984; Stevens, 1985; Veltman, 1988). Despite this reassuring evidence, however, considerable disquiet remains about the new immigration and its consequences (see Espenshade and Calhoun, 1993). Indeed, an immigrant backlash appears to be gathering force. English-only amendments have passed in several locales; federal immigration law has grown steadily more restrictive and punitive; and politicians have discovered the political advantages that may be gained by blaming immigrants for current social and economic problems. Given the apparent animus toward immigrants and the imperviousness of public perceptions to the influence of research findings, one suspects that deeper forces are at work in the American psyche. This consternation may have less to do with actual facts about immigration than with unarticulated fears that immigrants will somehow create a very different society and culture in the United States. Whatever objective research says about the prospects for individual assimilation, the ethnic and racial composition of the United States is clearly changing, and with it the sociocultural world created by prior European immigrants and their descendants . According to some demographic projections, European Americans will become a minority in the United States sometime during the next century (Edmonston and Passel, 1991), and this projected shift has already occurred in some urban areas, notably Los Angeles and Miami. In other metropolitan areas, such as New York, Chicago, Houston, and San Diego, the transformation is well under way. This demographic reality suggests the real nature of the anti-immigrant reaction among non-Hispanic Whites: a fear of cultural change and a deepseated worry that European Americans will be displaced from their dominant position in American life. Most social scientists have been reluctant to address this issue, or even to acknowledge it (nonacademics, however, are not so reticent —see Lamm and Imhoff, 1985; Brimelow, 1995). As a result, analyses by academic researchers have focused rather narrowly on facts and empirical issues: how many undocumented migrants are there, do they displace native workers, do they drive down wage rates, do they use more in services than they pay in taxes? Answers to these questions do not get at the heart of the matter, however . What the public really wants to know (at least, I suspect, the native White public) is whether or not the new immigrants will assimilate into the EuroAmerican society of the United States, and how that society and its culture might change as a result of this incorporation. While social scientists have analyzed the state of the trees, the public has worried about the future of the forest, and no amount of empirical research has quieted these anxieties. In this chapter, I assess the prospects for the assimilation of the new immigrant groups and judge their likely effects on the society, culture, and language of the United States. I begin by placing the new immigration in historical perspective and pointing out the distinctive features that set it apart from earlier immigrations. I then appraise the structural context for the incorporation of today’s immigrants and argue that because of fundamental differences, their assimilation will not be as rapid or complete as that achieved by European immigrants in the past. I conclude by discussing...

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