"The Hard Count is rich in implications for both the practical business of the census and the understanding of the influence of communications on public attitudes and behavior. It should command the discipline's attention, and much more frequently than every ten years."
-POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY

"Using survey statistics, social theory, and informed and thoughtful explanations of Americans' response to the 2000 census, this book provides new insights on those who respond to surveys and those who do not. All who are interested in the quality of census data on which government policy is built should read The Hard Count."
-JANET L. NORWOOD, former U.S. Commissioner of Labor Statistics

"Aptly named, The Hard Count examines the challenges in conducting the 2000 decennial census and examines empirically the roots of participation. The authors provide some important recommendations for future censuses, as well as challenging some conventional wisdom on the determinants of civic participation. I recommend it to anyone interested in the future of the census and the federal statistical system."
-NORMAN M. BRADBURN, Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago

"A highly accessible portrayal of the seemingly arcane but fundamentally important relationship between census data collectors and respondents. All who make decisions about our next decennial enumeration can profit from a few hours spent with The Hard Count."
-KATHERINE K. WALLMAN, chief statistician, U.S. Office of Management and Budget

American democracy relies on an accurate census to fairly allocate political representation and billions of dollars in federal funds. Declining participation in previous censuses and a general waning of civic engagement in society raised the possibility that the 2000 count would miss many Americans—disproportionately ethnic and racial minorities—depriving them of their share of influence in American society and yielding an unfair distribution of federal resources. Faced with this possibility, the Census Bureau launched a massive mobilization campaign to encourage Americans to complete and return their census forms. In The Hard Count, former Census Bureau director Kenneth Prewitt, D. Sunshine Hillygus, Norman H. Nie, and Heili Pals present a rigorous evaluation of this campaign. Can a busy, mobile, disengaged public be motivatived to participate in this civic activity? Using a rich set of data and drawing on theories of civic mobilization, political persuasion, and media effects, the authors assess the factors that influenced participation in the 2000 census.

The Hard Count profiles a watershed moment in the history of the American census. As the mobilization campaign was underway, political opposition to the census sprang up, citing privacy issues and seeking to limit the kind of data the census could collect. Hillygus, Nie, Prewitt, and Pals analyze the competing effects of the mobilization campaign and the privacy controversy on public attitudes and cooperation with the census. Using an internet based survey, the authors tracked a representative sample of Americans over time to gauge changes in census attitudes, privacy concerns, and their eventual decision whether or not to return their census form. The study uniquely captures the public’s exposure to census advertising, community mobilization, and news stories, and was designed so people could view video clips and photos of actual campaign advertisements on their sets in their homes. The authors find that the Census Bureau campaign did in fact raise awareness of the census and census participation. The mobilization campaign was especially effective at increasing participation among groups historically undercounted by the census. They also find that census participation would have been higher if not for the privacy controversy, which discouraged many people from cooperating with the census and led others to omit information from their census form. The findings of The Hard Count have important policy implications for future census counts and offer theoretical insights regarding the influence of mobilization campaigns on civic participation.

The goal of full and equal cooperation with the decennial census and other government surveys is an important national priority. The Hard Count shows that a mobilization campaign can dramatically increase voluntary participation in the decennial headcount and identifies emerging social and political challenges that may threaten future census counts and contribute to the growing fragility of our national statistical system.

D. SUNSHINE HILLYGUS is assistant professor of government at Harvard University.

NORMAN H. NIE is director of the Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society.

KENNETH PREWITT is Carnegie Professor of Public Affairs at Columbia University.

HEILI PALS is a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology at Stanford University.

A Volume in the RSF Census Series

America’s Children offers a valuable overview of the dramatic transformations in American childhood over the past fifty years, a period of historic shifts that reduced the human and material resources available to our children. Alarmingly, one fifth of all U.S. children now grow up in poverty, many are without health insurance, and about 30 percent never graduate from high school. Despite such conditions, economic, family, and educational programs for children earn low national priority and must depend on inconsistent state and local management.

Drawing upon both historical and recent data, including census information from 1940 to 1980, Donald J. Hernandez provides a vivid portrait of children in America and puts forth a forceful case for overhauling our national child welfare policies. Hernandez shows how important revolutions in household composition and income, parental education and employment, childcare, and levels of poverty have affected children’s well-being. As working wives and single mothers increasingly replace the traditional homemaker, children spend greater portions of time in educational and daycare facilities outside the home, and those with single mothers stand the greatest chance of being welfare dependent. Wider changes in society have created even greater stress for children in certain groups as they age: out-of-wedlock births are on the rise for white teenagers, half of all Hispanic youths never graduate high school, and violence accounts for nearly 90 per cent of all black teenage deaths.

America’s Children explores the interaction of many trends in children’s lives and the fundamental social, demographic, and economic processes that lie at their core. The book concludes with a thoughtful analysis of the ability of families and government to provide for a new age of children, with emphasis on reducing racial inequities and providing greater public support for families, comparable to the family policies of other developed countries. As the traditional “Ozzie and Harriet” family recedes into collective memory, the importance of creating strong national policies for children is amplified, particularly in the areas of financial assistance, health insurance, education, and daycare. America’s Children provides a compelling guide for reassessing the forces that shape our children and the resources available to safeguard their future.

"In this conceptually creative, methodologically rigorous, and empirically rich book, Hernandez uses census and survey data to describe several quite profound changes that have characterized the life courses of America's children and their families over the last 50 to 150 years....this erudite book is destined to be a classic." —Richard M. Lerner, Contemporary Psychology

"America's Children goes a long way toward informing the debate on the causes of increasing poverty, and it challenges some widely held misperceptions....its study of resources available to children (and their families) lays a valuable foundation for surveying trends in family structure, education, and income sources....Anyone interested in the changing lives of children should read it; anyone interested in understanding the causes and patterns of poverty, and in designing a better welfare system, must read it." —Ellen B. Magenheim, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management

DONALD J. HERNANDEZ is chief of the marriage and family branch of the U.S. Bureau of the Census.

A Volume in the RSF Census Series

A Volume in the American Sociological Association’s Rose Series in Sociology

"In Ethnic Origins Jeremy Hein offers important insights into the ways in which two groups of Southeast Asian refugees to the United States-the animist Hmong, a distinct minority community in Laos, and the Buddhist Khmer, members of the Cambodian majority-become ethnic Americans. This many faceted study of adaptation and acculturation and the varied courses these two very different cultural groups follow is at once an informative, critical, and evocative examination of the backgrounds and experiences of what Hein calls some inconspicuous people living in 'some obscure places.' It is something more as well. Ethnic Origins is a fine example of the use of multiple methods of data-gathering-historical and archival research, structured surveys, focused interviews, and peer-group conversations, and a model of concise and compelling investigative reporting."
-PETER I. ROSE, Smith College

"In this meticulously researched and well-written book, Professor Hein offers a much-needed analysis of the impact of ethnic cultures on the experience of contemporary immigrants. His comparative methodology offers a powerful lens on these issues. Ethnic Origins is essential reading for those who are interested in the complex impact of history, culture, and structural location on the adaptation of immigrants."
-NAZLI KIBRIA, Boston University

"This impressive, in-depth study of Hmong and Cambodian refugees and immigrants in the United States is com parative in several senses of that word. Jeremy Hein examines the similarities and differences between the two groups by looking at their 'ethnic origins'-a shorthand moniker for their homeland histories, politics, social struc tures, and cultures-as well as the impact of locational characteristics on their patterns of adaptation. By analyz ing two large cities and two smaller towns, Hein concludes that the differences in locational characteristics have a lesser impact than ethnic origins. The book also sheds new light on how ethnic origins help filter the Hmong and Cambodian interactions with other peoples of color (especially African Americans and Asian Americans) and with European Americans. Most notably, Hein succinctly compares his own complex theoretical framework with those used by other social scientists. I know of no other studies that analyze key issues at both the theoretical and public-policy levels so systematically. A truly laudable achievement, this book encourages us to see race, ethnicity, and contemporary immigration into the United States in fresh and multidimensional ways."
-SUCHENG CHAN, University of California, Santa Barbara

"Ethnic Origins is an ambitious and original study of Cambodian and Hmong refugees in four midwestern loca tions that highlights the impact of distinctive ethnic origins-homeland histories, cultures, and politics-as well as the nature of place of settlement on the immigrant experience. The book is full of interesting material and contributes to our understanding of a host of topics in the immigration field, including the formation of pan-ethnic identities and the kind of welcome immigrants receive in small town white America as compared to large and diverse urban centers."
-NANCY FONER, Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York

Immigration studies have increasingly focused on how immigrant adaptation to their new homelands is influenced by the social structures in the sending society, particularly its economy. Less scholarly research has focused on the ways that the cultural make-up of immigrant homelands influences their adaptation to life in a new country. In Ethnic Origins, Jeremy Hein investigates the role of religion, family, and other cultural factors on immigrant incorporation into American society by comparing the experiences of two little-known immigrant groups living in four different American cities not commonly regarded as immigrant gateways.

Ethnic Origins provides an in-depth look at Hmong and Khmer refugees—people who left Asia as a result of failed U.S. foreign policy in their countries. These groups share low socio-economic status, but are vastly different in their norms, values, and histories. Hein compares their experience in two small towns—Rochester, Minnesota and Eau Claire, Wisconsin—and in two big cities—Chicago and Milwaukee—and examines how each group adjusted to these different settings. The two groups encountered both community hospitality and narrow-minded hatred in the small towns, contrasting sharply with the cold anonymity of the urban pecking order in the larger cities. Hein finds that for each group, their ethnic background was more important in shaping adaptation patterns than the place in which they settled. Hein shows how, in both the cities and towns, the Hmong’s sharply drawn ethnic boundaries and minority status in their native land left them with less affinity for U.S. citizenship or “Asian American” panethnicity than the Khmer, whose ethnic boundary is more porous. Their differing ethnic backgrounds also influenced their reactions to prejudice and discrimination. The Hmong, with a strong group identity, perceived greater social inequality and supported collective political action to redress wrongs more than the individualistic Khmer, who tended to view personal hardship as a solitary misfortune, rather than part of a larger-scale injustice.

Examining two unique immigrant groups in communities where immigrants have not traditionally settled, Ethnic Origins vividly illustrates the factors that shape immigrants’ response to American society and suggests a need to refine prevailing theories of immigration. Hein’s book is at once a novel look at a little-known segment of America’s melting pot and a significant contribution to research on Asian immigration to the United States.

JEREMY HEIN is professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire.

The search for reliable information on the well-being of America's young is vital to designing programs to improve their lives. Yet social scientists are concerned that many measurements of children's physical and emotional health are inadequate, misleading, or outdated, leaving policymakers ill-informed. Indicators of Children's Well-Being is an ambitious inquiry into current efforts to monitor children from the prenatal period through adolescence. Working with the most up-to-date statistical sources, experts from multiple disciplines assess how data on physical development, education, economic security, family and neighborhood conditions, and social behavior are collected and analyzed, what findings they reveal, and what improvements are needed to create a more comprehensive and policy-relevant system of measurement.

Today's climate of welfare reform has opened new possibilities for program innovation and experimentation, but it has also intensified the need for a clearly defined and wide-ranging empirical framework to pinpoint where help is needed and what interventions will succeed. Indicators of Children's Well-Being emphasizes the importance of accurate studies that address real problems. Essays on children's material well-being show why income data must be supplemented with assessments of housing, medical care, household expenditure, food consumption, and education. Other contributors urge refinements to existing survey instruments such as the Census and the Current Population Survey. The usefulness of records from human service agencies, child welfare records, and juvenile court statistics is also evaluated.

ROBERT M. HAUSER is Vilas Research Professor of Sociology and affiliate at the Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin, Madison.

BRETT V. BROWN is research associate at Child Trends, Inc., Washington, D.C.

WILLIAM R. PROSSER is senior policy analyst who is retired from the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, D.C.

CONTRIBUTORS: J. Lawrence Aber, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Thomas J. Corbett, Claudia J. Coulton, Greg J. Duncan, David J. Eggebeen, Arthur B. Elster, Frank F. Furstenberg Jr., Robert M. Goerge, Dennis P. Hogan, Mary Elizabeth Hughes, Aurora Jackson, Stephanie M. Jones, Thomas J. Kane, Bruce P. Kennedy, Daniel Koretz, Paula Lantz, John M. Love, Susan E. Mayer, Timothy J. McGourthy, Marc L. Miringoff, Marque-Luisa Miringoff, Kristin A. Moore, Allyn M. Mortimer, Leslie Moscow, Jane Mosley, Melissa Partin, Deborah A. Phillips, Deborah Prothrow-Stith, Gary D. Sandefur, James Sears, Judith R. Smith, Matthew Stagner, Barbara Starfield, Ruby Takanishi, Barbara L. Wolfe.

An Institute for Research on Poverty Affiliated Book on Poverty and Public Policy

Shows why social statistics are important and how they are put to use in the interest of the public. Written by a sociologist who serves as Director of the Population Research Center at the University of Chicago, the book illustrates the many applications social statistics have for governmental agencies at the federal, state, and local levels; for the business community; for labor unions; for educators and researchers; and for the general public. The author provides a description of the major bodies of social statistical information, including population; births, deaths, and health; marriage, divorce, and the family; education; the labor force; crime; consumption and the consumer; recreation; governments; and public opinion polls.

PHILIP M. HAUSER is Lucy Flower Professor of Urban Sociology and director of the Population Research Center at the University of Chicago.

"Given the era of high immigration in which we live, it is shocking that the burgeoning literature on assets has largely ignored immigrants. Lingxin Hao's timely book sets us straight. Color Lines, Country Lines is sorely needed and should serve as a standard reference to anyone working on wealth inequality (or on immigration, for that matter)."
-DALTON C. CONLEY, University Professor of the Social Sciences and chair, Department of Sociology, New York University

"Color Lines, Country Lines is a grand addition to the growing body of work on wealth and inequality in the global age. Lingxin Hao superbly unravels the story on wealth and immigration in America. With masterful research, she provides convincing data and critical insights for central research and policy questions the wealth accumulation status of immigrants, the role of culture in acquiring assets, comparisons across immigrant groups, entrepreneurship, and the politics of identifying model immigrant groups. Color Lines, Country Lines is a long-awaited, much-needed, and most- welcome important contribution to the emerging field of wealth studies."
-THOMAS M. SHAPIRO, Pokross Professor of Law and Social Policy and director, Institute on Assets and Social Policy, The Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University

The growing number of immigrants living and working in America has become a controversial topic from classrooms to corporations and from kitchen tables to Capitol Hill. Many native-born Americans fear that competition from new arrivals will undermine the economic standing of low-skilled American workers, and that immigrants may not successfully integrate into the U.S. economy. In Color Lines, Country Lines, sociologist Lingxin Hao argues that the current influx of immigrants is changing America’s class structure, but not in the ways commonly believed.

Drawing on twenty years of national survey data, Color Lines, Country Lines investigates how immigrants are faring as they try to accumulate enough wealth to join the American middle class, and how, in the process, they are transforming historic links between race and socioeconomic status. Hao finds that disparities in wealth among immigrants are large and growing, including disparities among immigrants of the same race or ethnicity. Cuban immigrants have made substantially more progress than arrivals from the Dominican Republic, Chinese immigrants have had more success than Vietnamese or Korean immigrants, and Jamaicans have fared better than Haitians and immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa. Indeed, many of these immigrant groups have acquired more wealth than native-born Americans of the same race or ethnicity. Hao traces these diverging paths to differences in the political and educational systems of the immigrants’ home countries, as well as to preferential treatment of some groups by U.S. immigration authorities and the U.S. labor market. As a result, individuals’ country of origin increasingly matters more than their race in determining their prospects for acquiring wealth. In a novel analysis, Hao predicts that as large numbers of immigrants arrive in the United States every year, the variation in wealth within racial groups will continue to grow, reducing wealth inequalities between racial groups. If upward mobility remains restricted to only some groups, then the old divisions of wealth by race will gradually become secondary to new disparities based on country of origin. However, if the labor market and the government are receptive to all immigrant groups, then the assimilation of immigrants into the middle class will help diminish wealth inequality in society as a whole.

Immigrants’ assimilation into the American mainstream and the impact of immigration on the American economy are inextricably linked, and each issue can only be understood in light of the other. Color Lines, Country Lines shows why some immigrant groups are struggling to get by while others have managed to achieve the American dream and reveals the surprising ways in which immigration is reshaping American society.
 
LINGXIN HAO is professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University.

With recent immigration at a near record high, many observers fear that African Americans, particularly those in low skill jobs, are increasingly losing out to immigrants in the American labor market. Because today's immigrants are largely non-European and non-white, there is also speculation that their presence will intensify the competition for housing and educational opportunities among minority groups. Help or Hindrance? probes the foundation of these concerns with the first comprehensive investigation into the effects of immigration on African Americans.

With detailed economic analysis of African American job prospects, benefits, and working conditions, Help or Hindrance? demonstrates that although immigration does not appear to have affected the actual employment rate of blacks, it has contributed slightly to the widening gap between the annual earnings of black and white males. Those near the lowest skills level appear most affected, suggesting that the most likely losers are workers with abilities similar to those of immigrants. With many employers moving away from cities, access to housing and problems of segregation have also become integral to success in the job market. And within black neighborhoods themselves, the establishment of small immigrant businesses has raised concerns that these may hinder local residents from starting up similar ventures. Help or Hindrance? also examines how immigration has affected the educational attainment of African Americans. Increased competition for college affirmative action and remedial programs has noticeably reduced African Americans' access to college places and scholarships.

Help or Hindrance? offers compelling evidence that although immigration has in many ways benefited parts of American society, it has had a cumulatively negative effect on the economic prospects of African Americans. In concluding chapters, this volume provides an overview of possible policy interventions and evaluates them within the current social and political climate. Because the long-term impact of current immigration on social welfare remains unknown solutions are far from clear. Help or Hindrance? provides a valuable benchmark for discussion of immigration and racial equity in a time of rapid population change.

FRANK D. BEAN is the Ashbel Smith Professor of Sociology and professor of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.

DANIEL S. HAMERMESH is Edward Everett Hall Centennial Professor of Economics at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

CONTRIBUTORS: Frank D. Bean, Daniel S. Hamermesh, Julian R. Betts, George J. Borjas, Kristin F. Butcher, Robert W. Fairlie, Richard B. Freeman, Jeffrey T. Grogger, Caroline M. Hoxby, George E. Johnson, Linda Datcher Loury, Bruce D. Meyer, Cordelia W. Reimers, Peter H. Schuck, Marta Tienda, and Jeffrey S. Zax.

Winner of the 2004 Best Book Award from the Race, Ethnicity, and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association

"This is a bold and immensely important book that focuses attention on one of the most critical issues of our time. Namely, can facing the truth about a nation's brutal, violent, and oppressive history lead to reconciliation among that nation's former and bitter enemies? In what is perhaps the most sophisticated and subtle analysis of the South African reconciliation process to be found anywhere in the literature, James Gibson explores a number of unanticipated complexities generated by this seemingly simple question, and, in the process, provides us with encouraging, if somewhat disheartening, insights. This book is simply a must read for anyone interested in understanding the reconciliation process in South Africa and its possible implications for the resolution of intergroup conflict in other parts of the world."
-JAMES SIDANIUS, professor of psychology, University of California, Los Angeles

"Overcoming Apartheid is a singular work, a test of the proposition that acknowledgement of evil on both sides of a conflict can bring warring parties together. It is absorbing in a way few works in social science are, in parts optimistic, in others ominous, but in all a model of pursuit of truth."
-PAUL M. SNIDERMAN, Fairleigh S. Dickinson Jr. Professor in Public Policy, Stanford University

Perhaps no country in history has so directly and thoroughly confronted its past in an effort to shape its future as has South Africa. Working from the belief that understanding the past will help build a more peaceful and democratic future, South Africa has made a concerted, institutionalized effort to come to grips with its history of apartheid through its Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In Overcoming Apartheid, James L. Gibson provides the first systematic assessment of whether South Africa's truth and reconciliation process has been successful. Has the process allowed South Africa to let go of its painful past and move on? Or has it exacerbated racial tensions by revisiting painful human rights violations and granting amnesty to their perpetrators?

Overcoming Apartheid reports on the largest and most comprehensive study of post-apartheid attitudes in South Africa to date, involving a representative sample of all major racial, ethnic, and linguistic groups. Grounding his analysis of truth in theories of collective memory, Gibson discovers that the process has been most successful in creating a common understanding of the nature of apartheid. His analysis then demonstrates how this common understanding is helping to foster reconciliation, as defined by the acceptance of basic principles of human rights and political tolerance, rejection of racial prejudice, and acceptance of the institutions of a new political order. Gibson identifies key elements in the process—such as acknowledging shared responsibility for atrocities of the past—that are essential if reconciliation is to move forward. He concludes that without the truth and reconciliation process, the prospects for a reconciled, democratic South Africa would diminish considerably. Gibson also speculates about whether the South African experience provides any lessons for other countries around the globe trying to overcome their repressive pasts.

A groundbreaking work of social science research, Overcoming Apartheid is also a primer for utilizing innovative conceptual and methodological tools in analyzing truth processes throughout the world. It is sure to be a valuable resource for political scientists, social scientists, group relations theorists, and students of transitional justice and human rights.

JAMES L. GIBSON is Sidney W. Souers Professor of Government at Washington University, St. Louis.

"Analysts intersted in what the future holds for political representation of new immigrant groups and their children, as well as for the normative goal of political equality more generally, will find this anthology both informative and stimulating."
-Journal of American Ethnic History

"E Pluribus Unum? is a pathbreaking volume that brings together historians and social scientists to explore the dynamics of political incorporation in the twentieth century's two great immigration waves. From political machines and naturalization to education, transnational loyalties, and racial exclusion, the many excellent essays provide insights into the way immigration has changed-and continues to change-American civic culture and political life."
-NANCY FONER, State University of New York, Purchase

"Crafty Irish ward heelers strolling city sidewalks, while a colorful and engaging image, explains little of the complexities of how waves of newcomers have found their way to voting booths, city councils, and state legislatures in the United States. Gary Gerstle and John Mollenkopf's band of historians and social scientists bring state-of-the-art insight and methodologies to comprehending the political incorporation of immigrants as it happened and is still happening. Changes in America's civic culture, schools, and immigration patterns as well as a transnationalism that allows migrants to simultaneously participate in the politics of homeland and host country require the kind of interdisciplinary scholarly analysis that this volume offers. Just as the best anthologies have always done, this one is likely to inspire dissertations and monographs aplenty."
-ALAN KRAUT, American University, the Immigration and Ethnic History Society

"International migration is always a 'matter of state,' and no more so then when it confronts the national political community with the issue of where the boundaries of membership shall be drawn. Through politics, immigrant outsiders have repeatedly remade the American nation-just as those lucky enough to take membership for granted have circumscribed the options for the would-be Americans from abroad. For insights into this process, and historical comparisons that confound the usual distinctions between U.S. immigrations old and new, Gary Gerstle and John Mollenkopf's volume of original essays is the place to go."
-ROGER WALDINGER, professor and chair, department of sociology, UCLA

The political involvement of earlier waves of immigrants and their children was essential in shaping the American political climate in the first half of the twentieth century. Immigrant votes built industrial trade unions, fought for social protections and religious tolerance, and helped bring the Democratic Party to dominance in large cities throughout the country. In contrast, many scholars find that today's immigrants, whose numbers are fast approaching those of the last great wave, are politically apathetic and unlikely to assume a similar voice in their chosen country. E Pluribus Unum? delves into the wealth of research by historians of the Ellis Island era and by social scientists studying today's immigrants and poses a crucial question: What can the nation's past experience teach us about the political path modern immigrants and their children will take as Americans?

E Pluribus Unum? explores key issues about the incorporation of immigrants into American public life, examining the ways that institutional processes, civic ideals, and cultural identities have shaped the political aspirations of immigrants. The volume presents some surprising re-assessments of the past as it assesses what may happen in the near future. An examination of party bosses and the party machine concludes that they were less influential political mobilizers than is commonly believed. Thus their absence from today's political scene may not be decisive. Some contributors argue that the contemporary political system tends to exclude immigrants, while others remind us that past immigrants suffered similar exclusions, achieving political power only after long and difficult struggles. Will the strong home country ties of today's immigrants inhibit their political interest here? Chapters on this topic reveal that transnationalism has always been prominent in the immigrant experience, and that today's immigrants may be even freer to act as dual citizens. E Pluribus Unum? theorizes about the fate of America's civic ethos—has it devolved from an ideal of liberal individualism to a fractured multiculturalism, or have we always had a culture of racial and ethnic fragmentation? Research in this volume shows that today's immigrant schoolchildren are often less concerned with ideals of civic responsibility than with forging their own identity and finding their own niche within the American system of racial and ethnic distinction.

Incorporating the significant influx immigrants into American society is a central challenge for our civic and political institutions—one that cuts to the core of who we are as a people and as a nation. E Pluribus Unum? shows that while today's immigrants and their children are in some ways particularly vulnerable to political alienation, the process of assimilation was equally complex for earlier waves of immigrants. This past has much to teach us about the way immigration is again reshaping the nation.

GARY GERSTLE is professor of history at the University of Maryland.

JOHN MOLLENKOPF is professor of political science at the Graduate Center, City University of New York.

CONTRIBUTORS: Gary Gerstle, John Mollenkopf, T. Alexander Aleinikoff, Louis DeSipio, Philip Gleason, Luis Eduardo Guarnizo, Desmond King, Ewa Morawska, Laurie Olsen, Evelyn Savidge Sterne, David Tyack, and Reed Ueda.

Important differences persist between rural and urban America, despite profound economic changes and the notorious homogenizing influence of the media. As Glenn V. Fuguitt, David L. Brown, and Calvin L. Beale show in Rural and Small Town America, the much-heralded disappearance of small town life has not come to pass, and the nonmetropolitan population still constitutes a significant dimension of our nation's social structure.

Based on census and other recent survey data, this impressive study provides a detailed and comparative picture of rural America. The authors find that size of place is a critical demographic factor, affecting population composition (rural populations are older and more predominantly male than urban populations), the distribution of poverty (urban poverty tends to be concentrated in neighborhoods; rural poverty may extend over large blocks of counties), and employment opportunities (job quality and income are lower in rural areas, though rural occupational patterns are converging with those of urban areas). In general, rural and small town America still lags behind urban America on many indicators of social well-being. Pointing out that rural life is no longer synonymous with farming, the authors explore variations among nonmetropolitan populations. They also trace the impact of major national trends—the nonmetropolitan growth spurt of the 1970s and its current reversal, for example, or changing fertility rates—on rural life and on the relationship between metropolitan and nonmetropolitan communities.

By describing the special characteristics and needs of rural populations as well as the features they share with urban America, this book clearly demonstrates that a more accurate picture of nonmetropolitan life is essential to understanding the larger dynamics of our society.

GLENN V. FUGUITT is professor of rural sociology and sociology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

DAVID L. BROWN is associate director for research in the College of Agriculture and professor of rural sociology at Cornell University.

CALVIN L. BEALE is senior demographer, Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture.

A Volume in the RSF Census Series