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Village of Immigrants by
Greenport, New York, a village on the North Fork of Long Island, has become an exemplar of a little-noted national trend--immigrants spreading beyond the big coastal cities, driving much of rural population growth nationally. In Village of Immigrants, Diana R. Gordon illustrates how small-town America has been revitalized by the arrival of these immigrants in Greenport, where she lives. Greenport today boasts a population that is one-third Hispanic. Gordon contends that these immigrants have effectively saved the town's economy by taking low-skill jobs, increasing the tax base, filling local schools, and patronizing local businesses. Greenport's seaside beauty still attracts summer tourists, but it is only with the support of the local Latino workforce that elegant restaurants and bed-and-breakfasts are able to serve these visitors. For Gordon the picture is complex, because the wave of immigrants also presents the town with challenges to its services and institutions. Gordon's portraits of local immigrants capture the positive and the negative, with a cast of characters ranging from a Guatemalan mother of three, including one child who is profoundly disabled, to a Colombian house painter with a successful business who cannot become licensed because he remains undocumented. Village of Immigrants weaves together these people's stories, fears, and dreams to reveal an environment plagued by threats of deportation, debts owed to coyotes, low wages, and the other bleak realities that shape the immigrant experience--even in the charming seaport town of Greenport. A timely contribution to the national dialogue on immigration, Gordon's book shows the pivotal role the American small town plays in the ongoing American immigrant story--as well as how this booming population is shaping and reviving rural communities.
Children of Immigration by
Now in the midst of the largest wave of immigration in history, America, mythical land of immigrants, is once again contemplating a future in which new arrivals will play a crucial role in reworking the fabric of the nation. At the center of this prospect are the children of immigrants, who make up one fifth of America's youth. This book, written by the codirectors of the largest ongoing longitudinal study of immigrant children and their families, offers a clear, broad, interdisciplinary view of who these children are and what their future might hold. For immigrant children, the authors write, it is the best of times and the worst. These children are more likely than any previous generation of immigrants to end up in Ivy League universities--or unschooled, on parole, or in prison. Most arrive as motivated students, respectful of authority and quick to learn English. Yet, at the same time, many face huge obstacles to success, such as poverty, prejudice, the trauma of immigration itself, and exposure to the materialistic, hedonistic world of their native-born peers. The authors vividly describe how forces within and outside the family shape these children's developing sense of identity and their ambivalent relationship with their adopted country. Their book demonstrates how "Americanization," long an immigrant ideal, has, in a nation so diverse and full of contradictions, become ever harder to define, let alone achieve.
Race, Self-Employment and Upward Mobility by
"The argument is important and very well buttressed by statistical analysis. The sociologists who have worked on Asian and minority entrepreneurship will certainly respond, and the debate will be lively." -- Nathan Glazer, Professor of Education and Social Structure, Harvard University Race, Self-Employment, and Upward Mobility refutes conventional notions about entrepreneurship with a wealth of unimpeachable data. Timothy Bates finds that self-employment and upward mobility are open to those who are highly educated and skilled, often possessing significant personal financial resources. This is true among Asian Americans, African Americans, and everybody else, too. Asian immigrants are prominent in low-profit, high-risk small-scale inner-city retailing, Bates explains, because they are often pushed into it by poor English language skills and problems of credentialing -- when they can secure other employment, they do so. African Americans, in contrast, who have the education, capital, and inclination to become entrepreneurs find better-paying opportunities and avoid ghetto shopkeeping. Bates compares black and Asian self-employment. He reviews who becomes self-employed, what factors encourage continuing self-employment, and how people escape unsuccessful self-employment. He addresses the place of entrepreneurship in upward mobility among disadvantaged persons and the role of government in assisting them. Bates's analysis is based largely on the massive Characteristics of Business Owners survey compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau, which provides nationwide information on small business success and survival patterns. This book is an important contribution to the economic and sociological literature on ethnic groups and labor. It belongs in all libraries with extensive holdings in economics and sociology. In paperback, it can be used in upper division and graduate level courses.
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