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Immigration
Program Description
Since 1991, the Foundation’s program of research on immigration has looked beyond the immediate costs and benefits of immigration to the United States to examine the long-term prospects for the country’s new arrivals and their descendants. Immigrants at the start of the last century struggled mightily in low-wage jobs and segregated neighborhoods, but within several generations, immigrant families caught up to native-born Americans educationally and economically. Can we expect today’s immigrants to follow a path similar to their predecessors of the early twentieth century? Some analysts worry that the progress of immigrants will be slower and more uneven than in the past. Manufacturing employment that once gave foreign-born workers an opportunity for advancement has declined, and today’s non-European immigrants face discrimination based on their skin color that cannot be mitigated by assimilation.
In order to adequately study the long-range progress of today’s immigrants, the Foundation has funded two large surveys of second generation immigrants. The first, which began in 1992-93 and included follow-ups three and nine years later, tracked second generation high school students in Miami and San Diego as they made their way through school and entered young adulthood. The results, co-published by the Foundation and the University of California Press in 2001 as Legacies: The Story of the New Second Generations and Ethnicities: Children of Immigrants in America, provide an authoritative picture of English language proficiency, school achievement, social identity, and family background of high school students from more than seventy immigrant groups. The second survey, which ran from 1998 to 2000, examined young second generation adults and a comparison group of native born young adults in New York City with respect to schooling, job history, earnings, marriage patterns, and career goals. Results from the survey will be published in a forthcoming book to be co-published by the Foundation and Harvard University Press, Inheriting the City: The Children of Immigrants Come of Age (2008). In addition to the large household survey, the Foundation commissioned a set of in-depth interviews and ethnographic field studies, which were compiled and published as Becoming New Yorkers (2004) a Russell Sage volume edited by Philip Kasinitz, John H. Mollenkopf, and Mary C. Waters. A similar large-scale survey of second generation immigrants in Los Angeles was funded in 2004 and is now under way. The L.A. project will test the generality of the findings from the New York study, and will add data on Mexican immigrants – the nation’s largest immigrant group.
In 2000, the Foundation broadened the Immigration research program to include studies of the impact of immigration on ethnic diversity in the United States, and the role of diverse ethnic identities in reshaping American institutions. Research under this initiative addressed theoretical and methodological aspects of the impact of immigration on diversity, including studies of ethnic and racial intermarriage; the effect of allowing multi-ethnic identification on the census; the relationship between identity and educational or occupational success; the impact of residential segregation on identity, intermarriage, and socio-economic status; and the impact of global and transnational identities on racial and ethnic identities in the United States.
Current Activities
Presently, the program is focused on two areas of research: one on immigrant civic and political life and another initiative exploring immigrant outcomes in new destinations. The Foundation has issued a request for proposals relating to the political incorporation of immigrants in U.S. society. To date, immigration research has centered on socioeconomic incorporation but has done little to chart the behavior of immigrants in the political sphere. To what degree do they take part in elections, campaigns, protests, community organizing, or other political activities? Where do they align themselves on issues? How important are mobilizing agents in incorporating immigrants into politics? How do affiliations with one’s native country affect immigrants’ beliefs and activities in the political domain? By supporting research on such topics, this initiative aims to understand better the conditions under which immigrants to the United States are received, the ways in which they may experience exclusion from civic and political life, and the policies that impact their political identities and participation.
In addition, the Foundation is supporting research on immigrants living in non-gateway cities. Not long ago, immigrants predominantly entered the United States through one of several gateway cities and continued residence there in neighborhoods with fellow expatriates, but today’s immigrants are increasingly settling in areas that have historically had little immigrant presence. The introduction of immigrants to previously homogenous suburban and even rural areas raises the question of how newcomers will influence and be received by communities that have rarely dealt with people of different cultural backgrounds. In February 2005, the Foundation hosted a conference where twenty papers were presented on topics such as new immigrants in the heartland, inter-group relations in the new south, and immigrant settlement in new metropolises. Results of the conference will be reported in the forthcoming RSF volume, New Faces in New Places: The Changing Geography of American Immigration (2008), edited by Douglas S. Massey of Princeton University.
For information on applying for a research award in the Immigration program, please see our How to Apply section.
Recent Visiting Scholars
2007 - 2008
Vivian Louie, Harvard University
Robert Smith, Baruch College and Graduate Center, CUNY
Gillian Stevens, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Joseph Tobin, Arizona State University
2006 - 2007
Katherine Pratt Ewing, Duke University
Jose Itzigsohn, Brown University
Pyong Gap Min, Queens College and Graduate Center, CUNY
S. Karthick Ramakrishnan, University of California, Riverside
2004 - 2005
Douglas Heckathorn, Cornell University
Adam McKeown, Columbia University
Dina Okamoto, University of California, Davis
Edward E. Telles, University of California, Los Angeles
2003 - 2004
Brian Gratton, Arizona State University
Francisco L. Rivera-Batiz, Columbia University
2002 - 2003
Frank D. Bean, University of California, Irvine
Lingxin Hao, Johns Hopkins University
Christian Joppke, International University Bremen
2001 - 2002
Kay Deaux, City University of New York
2000 - 2001
Seyla Benhabib, Harvard University
Philip Kasinitz, City University of New York
John Mollenkopf, City University of New York
1999 - 2000
Jorge Durand, University of Guadalajara, Mexico
Ann Chih Lin, University of Michigan
Aristide Zolberg, New School for Social Research
1998 - 1999
Richard Alba, SUNY Albany
Charles Hirschman, University of Washington, Seattle
Michael Jones-Correa, Cornell University