Remaking the American Mainstream
Assimilation and Contemporary Immigration
Harvard University Press
Published on 15. July 2003
Book
Hardback
352 pages
978-0-674-01040-6 (ISBN)
Article exhausted; check for reprint
Description
In this age of multicultural democracy, the idea of assimilation - that the social distance separating immigrants and their children from the mainstream of American society closes over time - seems outdated and, in some forms, even offensive. But, as Richard Alba and Victor Nee show in their systematic treatment of assimilation, it continues to shape the immigrant experience, even though the geography of immigration has shifted from Europe to Asia, Africa and Latin America. Institutional changes, from civil rights legislation to immigration law, have provided a more favourable environment for non-white immigrants and their children than in the past. Assimilation is still driven, in claim, by the decisions of immigrants and the second generation to improve their social and material circumstances in America. But they also show that immigrants, historically and in the contemporary world, have profoundly changed American society and culture in the process of becoming Americans. Surveying a variety of domains - language, socio-economic attachments, residential patterns and inter-marriage - Alba and Nee demonstrate the continuing importance of assimilation in American life.
They predict that it will blur the boundaries among the major, racially defined populations, as non-whites and Hispanics are increasingly incorporated into the mainstream.
They predict that it will blur the boundaries among the major, racially defined populations, as non-whites and Hispanics are increasingly incorporated into the mainstream.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge, Mass
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
11 tables, 11line ullustrations
Dimensions
Height: 244 mm
Width: 167 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
686 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-674-01040-6 (9780674010406)
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Book
09/2005
Harvard University Press
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Persons
RICHARD D. ALBA is Distinguished Professor of Sociology, State University of New York at Albany VICTOR NEE is Goldwin Smith Professor of Sociology, Cornell University.