In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Achieving Anew: How New Immigrants Do in American Schools, Jobs, and Neighborhoods
  • Jody Agius Vallejo
Achieving Anew: How New Immigrants Do in American Schools, Jobs, and Neighborhoods By Michael J. White and Jennifer E. Glick Russell Sage Foundation Press. 2009. 256 pages. $37.50 cloth.

Americans are nostalgic about their own immigrant roots and the positive contributions immigrants have made to society. Yet, Americans are also concerned about whether we are presently experiencing an "immigrant invasion" and whether the United States can absorb today's new immigrants, some of whom migrate with low levels of human capital and the majority of whom are viewed as racial/ethnic minorities upon arrival. Will today's new immigrants assimilate as rapidly and to the same extent as their white ethnic predecessors who migrated at the turn of the century? Or, are today's new Asian, Latino and black immigrants headed for the underclass?

In Achieving Anew, Michael White and Jennifer Glick examine these questions by investigating how immigrants and their descendants do in three spheres of structural assimilation: schools, the labor market and neighborhoods. By elucidating the trajectories of immigrants in these realms, White and Glick hope to bridge the social science and public policy divide because as they rightly assert, perceptions of immigrant failure or success drives immigration policy, which regulates who gets their foot through the "golden door," and immigrant policy, which regulates the treatment of newcomers, thereby setting the stage for assimilation trajectories. The authors argue that if immigrants are perceived as impossible to assimilate or economic burdens, the result is a society that is restrictive and hostile in its immigrant policy towards newcomers. Indeed, this vista exemplifies the current social and political climate, where Mexicans (by far the largest immigrant group) in particular are stigmatized as unauthorized criminals and viewed by some as not worthy of investing in, as the recent defeat of the DREAM Act in Congress and the current debate over birthright citizenship indicate. Conversely, if immigrants are perceived as doing well and achieving the American middle-class dream, there is a cry for tolerance and acceptance of policies that help integrate, rather than economically cripple, newcomers.

The main contribution of Achieving Anew is the authors' assertion that in order to truly measure how immigrants do, scholars must distinguish immigrants' starting point from their trajectory. A true portrait of immigrant progress or failure cannot be garnered by simply examining the position of individuals at one point in time using cross-sectional data. It is also necessary to measure how much intra-generational and intergenerational progress immigrants and their descendants make relative to their starting point. In other words, by distinguishing starting point from trajectory, we can examine whether and to what extent immigrants make progress within and across generations. White and Glick's analysis of schooling and the labor market are particularly noteworthy because they combine a cohort analysis of Current Population Survey data [End Page 1075] with panel microdata from the High School and Beyond and National Educational Longitudinal Study. The panel data follows nationally representative cohorts of individuals from schooling into young adulthood allowing for the consideration of starting points (immigrant background, language ability, parental education) of immigrants and the second generation and the ability to compare their trajectories to third and higher generations.

So, are today's immigrants advancing in education, jobs and neighborhoods, or losing ground? The authors' longitudinal analysis demonstrates that after socio-economic factors are taken into account, immigrants and the second generation (their children) fare the same in school achievement as other students. And, not surprisingly, youth with higher levels of family and human capital achieve more education than those who do not, regardless of whether their parents are immigrants or U.S. born. Youths from disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to obtain higher education, suggesting that family resources and structural position are instrumental in overcoming educational barriers. In terms of the labor market, occupational differentiation from natives diminishes over the generations, poverty gaps narrow with length of residence among the immigrant generation and between generations, and earnings improve over time. White and Glick also examine patterns of residential segregation. They find that new arrivals are the most...

pdf

Share