This paper stresses that the key to concerns about the progress of second-generation Americans is the fate of the Mexican second generation. It compares several indicators of the advances of second- generation Mexicans to those of non-Hispanic, native-born blacks and non-Hispanic, native-born...

This paper has a doubting, though friendly, look at the hypotheses of "second generation decline" and "segmented assimilation" that have framed the emerging research agenda on the new second generation. We begin with a review of the basic approach, outlining the logic of argument, and specifying...

In 1898 the U.S. Bureau of Immigration initiated a classification of immigrants into some 40 categories of "race or people;" nearly all the categories covered Europeans. In 1909 an effort was made to extend this system of classification to the U.S. Census, and the relevant measure passed in the...

One part of this paper is methodological, or bibliographical in nature; I argue that a body of evidence that scholars have dismissed for a century as useless may in fact be very valuable. The evidence to which I refer is data on Jewish literacy found in the 1897 Census of the Russian Empire. A...

This working paper directs to an historical puzzle, the rapid upward mobility of the east-European Jews who came to the United States between 1880 and 1920. Theoretically important issues are inherent in the explanations for Jewish upward mobility, and in any case, this particular historical...

We have constructed some preliminary comparisons involving present-day immigrants and natives, as well as their children, based on the 1990 Census. In particular we are interested in whether the prognosis for the second generation is as grim as recent discussions of "second generation decline"...

Assimilation of today's immigrants is one topic of current debate on immigration. Some observers assert that recent immigrants are unable to assimilate into U.S. society as easily as past immigrants were able to. Others counter that the pressures against assimilation today are not strong. In...

If a child has a white mother and a black father, then the child is racially.... what? How the next Census, to be held in the year 2000, should handle the multiracial' child will be decided by October. Moreover, every government agency counts races in roughly the same way, and it is the...

Contemporary ethnic and racial intermarriage are the subject of increasing discussion in connection with America's future population; with such concerns in mind, the paper suggests a reorientation of ethnic intermarriage studies and provides related data. Yet our long record of historical...

This paper serves as an opportunity to pull together some thoughts and questions about modes of incorporation as an explanation for ethnic differences in behavior. Specifically, I ask just what is the status of cultural explanations for ethnic behavior if ethnic behavior is approaches from a...