Remaking the American Mainstream

Assimilation and Contemporary Immigration
Erscheinungsjahr 2005
ISBN: 978-0-674-01813-6
Verlag: Harvard University Press

Buch, Englisch, 384 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 237 mm, Gewicht: 549 g

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distance separating immigrants and their children from the mainstream of American society closes over time--seems outdated and, in some forms, even offensive.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 the first systematic treatment of assimilation since the mid-1960s, 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 favorable environment for nonwhite 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 today, have profoundly changed our mainstream society and culture in the process of becoming Americans. Surveying a variety of domains--language, socioeconomic attachments, residential patterns, and intermarriage--they demonstrate the continuing importance of assimilation in American life. And they predict that it will blur the boundaries among the major, racially defined populations, as nonwhites and Hispanics are increasingly incorporated into the mainstream.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Alba, Richard

Nee, Victor

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Minderheiten, Interkulturelle & Multikulturelle Fragen
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Soziologie von Migranten und Minderheiten

Über Autor(innen)

Alba, Richard
Richard Alba is Distinguished Professor of Sociology, the Graduate Center, City University of New York.

Nee, Victor
Victor Nee is the Frank and Rosa Rhodes Professor at Cornell University, and Director of the Center for the Study of Economy and Society.