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This paper hypothesizes about what is happening to the ethnic structures and cultures of the fourth-, fifth- and later-generation descendants of the European immigrants who came to America between about 1870 and 1924. The paper's main hypothesis is that late-generation European ethnicity is disappearing, although vestiges will probably always remain. However, immigration researchers have done little to study these late-generation populations, and the paper therefore describes some of the studies that could and should be undertaken. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper offers some reflections on the article by Herbert Gans on what he calls the coming darkness of ethnicity among the late-generation descendants of European immigrants in the USA. The paper considers a number of the hypotheses that Gans puts forward and raises questions about some of the implications set out for the descendants of contemporary Asian, Latino and black immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper advocates a greater emphasis on racialization research, and consists of observations and research questions that could add to our understanding of racialization. Such understanding will be useful and perhaps even necessary, as a variety of world events result in continuing population movements as well as economic and political crises that could increase intra and international conflicts. Any of these could lead to the further racialization of refugees, migrants, earlier immigrants and others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We argue that scholars of immigrant integration should pay more attention to immigrants' ‘civic visibility’ among local government officials, organisations and other residents. To document and analyse immigrants' civic visibility, we examine coverage of the Vietnamese and Indian communities in newspapers in San Jose, Boston, Vancouver and Toronto from 1985 to 2005. We ask (i) do local newspapers cover the lives of immigrants and their descendants and (ii) what explains variation in the amount of coverage devoted to different immigrant-origin communities in different places? We find little evidence that newspaper coverage is affected by the demographics of an area, newsroom factors or simplified models of the national political and discursive opportunity structures. Instead, we take an ‘embedded’ context of reception approach, which takes seriously the intersection between general discursive opportunity structures on immigration and particular discourses about certain types of migrants. Our findings suggest the need to complicate national opportunity structure frameworks by considering how their interaction with specific immigrant communities produces between-country and between-group variation. Our results also underscore the importance of immigrant agency; greater visibility in local media appears to link with immigrants' greater presence in domestic politics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For many Japanese people, the 49th parallel was only a line on a map, yet there were differences for the Japanese residents in the United States and Canada. The two nations had different concepts of citizenship and constitutions but, in what has been called “hemispheric orientalism,” prejudice knew no border. Both countries severely restricted immigration from Japan. In the United States, immigrants, the Issei, were aliens ineligible for citizenship. Thus, states could deny their access to commercial fishing and the right to own or lease land. Because the American constitution bestows full citizenship on the native-born, their American-born children, the Nisei, could vote and acquire land, but experienced discrimination especially in employment. On paper, the Canadian Issei had more civil rights since they could become naturalized but this provided few advantages apart from the rights to own land and to fish commercially. The Canadian Nisei had no more rights than their parents. In British Columbia, where 95 percent of the Japanese lived, they could not vote and provincial laws and customs denied their access to many occupations. During the Second World War, both nations required all the Nikkei to leave the Pacific Coast, incarcerated some, severely restricted the mobility of others, and proposed to “repatriate” many of them to Japan. Drawing mainly on the previous scholarship which has examined specific themes, time periods, or comparisons, this article offers an overview of how between the 1890s and the 1940s the effects of prejudice varied more in detail and timing than in principle even though formal consultation between the two nations was sporadic. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents selected data from the author's 2004-10 research project into the visual connections between nineteenth-century Amish and Welsh quilts, and associated relationships between nineteenth-century Amish and Welsh quilts and communities in the United States of America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The majority of studies relating to mortality conditions in nineteenth-century Africa deal with the small number of white settlers or visitors. This paper examines the level and causes of mortality in Liberia of Africans who emigrated from the United States. We describe crude and age-standardized death rates by cause of death, and examine the age pattern of mortality and its conformity to existing models of age patterns for causes of death. The results of this analysis indicate that the age pattern of mortality of the Liberian immigrant population recapitulates rather precisely existing models of age patterns for all causes of death, and from specific causes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Great Depression editorials published in English- and Spanish-language newspapers in San Antonio, Texas, waged a war of ideas about the role of Mexicans and immigrants in the United States that went beyond socially constructing news events to another kind of storytelling—the mythmaking power of idea-driven opinion writing about “the other.” Against a backdrop of mass deportations and repatriations to Mexico, the city's three major daily newspapers staked dichotomous positions. William Randolph Hearst's Light railed against “the criminal menace,” competing against the independent San Antonio Express and its concept of the Mexican as “indispensable” worker hero. Meanwhile, the Spanish-language La Prensa offered a complex representation of the immigrant, creating a mythology that was largely absent from the mainstream media. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article offers a critique of President Harry Truman's contribution to twentieth-century immigration reform. It challenges the view that he presided over an era of groundbreaking and progressive changes in immigration policy, arguing instead that the liberal positions taken on key immigration and naturalisation matters by the Truman administration were mostly inherited from his predecessor, Franklin Roosevelt. Moreover, by examining the important issues of anti-Asian and anti-Mexican discrimination, this study reveals the limitations of Truman's liberalism in the areas of immigration and naturalisation policy. Mirroring recent interpretations of his contribution to the African-American struggle for racial equality, this article concludes that Truman's immigration initiatives largely originated in either Cold War expediency or maneuvering for political advantage, rather than a heartfelt commitment to reform. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Broadway musical theatre was largely the creation of the children of immigrants. These newcomers to American culture rarely emphasized their ethnic origins and they had little interest in preserving the musical and dramatic forms of their parent's homelands. Nevertheless, while striving to produce work, they saw as distinctly "American" these artists reimagined and reinvented "American" traditions. They also drew on African American musical forms and in some cases collaborated with African American artists (albeit on highly unequal terms). In recent years a new generation of the children of immigrants has revitalized the musical theatre. Their work blends popular forms - hip hop most notably, with older Broadway musical traditions. The musical Hamilton illustrates how ethnic outsiders are creating a musical theatre that is less concerned with preserving an ethnic heritage than with remaking an "American" story in ways that speak to the experience of young people in today's superdiverse cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deportation has always been a feature of the American political, social and economic discourse. A twin effect of immigration, deportation concerns who is granted the right to stay and who is removed from the country. Amid the growing debate on reform, this essay casts light on the changing nature of deportation law during the last century. Paying attention to the reception which immigrants receive and the perceptions of threat and economic competition which natives often perceive, this work evaluates how policy has shifted in response to the changing face of newcomers. As immigration law becomes intertwined with criminal law, so do the stipulations governing entry and exit. Within a politically charged social space, American immigration is a story punctuated with racialized and criminalized images of immigrants. Bridging ethnic and racial currents, this work seeks to understand how these effects continue to shape contemporary immigration policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new dataset created from the first 18,000 savings accounts opened (from 1850 to 1858) at the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank in New York City is described. The bank was founded by Irish Americans, and most of its depositors in its first decade of operations were recent Irish immigrants. The data offer a unique window on both savings behavior by the poor and not-so-poor in antebellum New York and on how emigrants who came primarily from rural parts of Ireland adapted to urban life. They also contain much that is new on the regional origins of mid-nineteenth century Irish immigrants and on their settlement patterns in New York. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines depictions of the relationships between antebellum Irish and African-American residents in a particular space – the notorious, impoverished New York neighborhood called Five Points – from a spatial and performance perspective. In descriptions of this destitute area, journalists, reformers, and writers of sensation narratives portrayed spaces where black and white New Yorkers lived together as evidence of the depravity they associated with both poverty and ‘amalgamation’. Contestations over sharing this space took many performative forms as black and Irish residents experienced riotous mob violence in the streets, socialized in underground saloons, competed in dancing contests, and were the object of minstrelized enactments, while bourgeois voyeuristic spectators were drawn to Five Points streets and stages as ‘slum tourists’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Annals of the American Association of Geographers is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Annals of the American Association of Geographers is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

As a social category ‘immigrant’ can function rhetorically to constitute a line between self and Other. The case study of spousal murder in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Chicago illustrates that Americans attempted to make sense of these murders by scapegoating immigrants. Statistical data illustrate that immigrants were no more likely to murder a spouse than anyone else. Yet, analysis of the rhetoric about wife murder in Chicago newspapers shows that murderers were framed as immigrant Other. We identify three frames used in newspapers to constitute immigrants as Other and identify the contemporary relevance for public understandings of immigration. We argue that while explicit debates about immigration draw lines that constitute American identity, the most insidious rhetorical borders enter into the American imaginary through seemingly unrelated issues. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Exploring late-generation ethnicity automatically raises a long-ignored question: whether it will end and how: through what terminal stages and processes? In America, this question currently makes sense only for late-generation descendants of the European immigration wave that lasted roughly from the 1870s to 1924. However, answering it prepares the ground for eventually asking it also about late-generation ethnics in newer waves of immigration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Franklin Roosevelt often receives accolades for pushing the USA towards a more liberal stance on race and immigration, even if his administration remained aloof from civil rights or immigration reforms. This article questions that contention. Roosevelt, who presided over the period of the lowest immigration in the twentieth century, relied upon the break in immigration imposed by the 1924 Act (and the Depression) to consolidate a national culture based on ‘Nordic’ symbols, effectively carrying through the ‘Americanization’ initiated during World War I without coercion. While there is evidence of Roosevelt's liberal disposition towards those originating from Europe whose numbers were savagely restricted by the 1924 Immigration Act, and while Roosevelt was anxious to maintain cordial relations with Asian nations, he fully supported the Act's debarment of Asians from American citizenship. Moreover, he did so for strictly racial reasons. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article argues that historians' understanding of the establishment of the quota system in the 1920s can be improved if ‘nativist’ organisations such as the Immigration Restriction League are not interpreted as a natural psychological reaction to an increase in immigration, but in the context of a new mode of power. The article compares the League's mode of operation and their attempts to convince other citizens of the necessity of restriction with the settlement movement. This comparison, it is argued, reveals that despite their radically different underlying rationales, both sides aimed at transforming individuals into better citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article investigates how Norwegian immigrants expressed their sense of belonging during the antebellum period. By focusing on the concept of “belonging” rather than “adjustment,” the article attempts an interpretation sensitive to how antebellum immigrants themselves perceived the process of adaptation to American society. The Civil War is usually referred to as a sort of watershed in Norwegians' adjustment to American society, and consequently scholars have downplayed the extent to which antebellum Norwegian immigrants expressed belonging in the United States prior to the Civil War. Identifying three main categories of expressions of belonging available to antebellum Norwegian immigrants – namely land ownership, place attachment, and settler ideology – the article concludes that even if these immigrants did not readily identify themselves as Americans, they became firmly attached to their new home. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

How, and as what, are immigrant minorities incorporated into the political process? A set of prominent approaches focus on the political opportunity structure that immigrants encounter. Although promising in many aspects, these approaches fail to consider the internal heterogeneity of both immigrant populations and opportunity structures. This is partly a result of taking ethnic groups rather than political entrepreneurs as the unit of analysis and of not disaggregating the political context properly. I show how Russian-Jewish immigrant political entrepreneurs in New York City used very different strategies of ethnic mobilization, each emphasizing a different ethnic cleavage: one making claims in the name of Russians, the other downplaying Russianness and highlighting the Jewish identity dimension. Both strategies had good chances at success thus illustrating that political opportunity structures may encourage different claims-making strategies at the same time. Ethno-political entrepreneurs navigate complex political landscapes that are ex-ante only partially transparent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Russian-Jewish immigrant clients' attitudes toward death and dying in the context of today's health care system. Aspects of individuals' collective past—such as the traumatic history of their country of origin; cultural prohibitions against discussing pain, suffering, and death; and the lack of familiarity with palliative care that are likely to affect their decisions about end-of-life care—are discussed. Case vignettes are provided, with a discussion on how best to engage these clients in therapeutic work. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The aim of this article is to provide indispensable background information about the significance of how anti-Latino immigration policies impact unauthorized2 and mixed status students and families, particularly from Mexico and Central America. Throughout this article, I maintain that understanding issues of anti-Latino immigration are essential for the prospect of education and for the future of the profession in the United States. I argue that teacher education students and professional educators should be trained and provided professional development to be zealously knowledgeable and recognize how anti-Latino immigration discourses spill into the education profession and how these are interconnected with local and school politics. I advocate that professional educators associate themselves with local and national social justice movements that attempt to divert anti-Latino discriminatory social and educational policies that limit educational access and ultimately belittle the philosophy and practices of the profession. Last, the article concludes with a call to action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States is a classic country of immigration that has long defined itself as having been built by successive waves of immigrants. Social scientists often speak of a multicultural or cultural pluralist ‘model of integration’ in the US that recognizes, sometimes even celebrates, diversity at the same time as it assumes and expects immigrants and their children to assimilate and become American. This article complicates the picture. It brings in history to show how national models of integration in the US are not stable but have changed over time. In fact, the very incorporation of earlier waves of immigrants in the past has contributed to these changes. It also considers local-level variation—that is, differences among US cities in policies as well as in widespread understandings about the integration of immigrants. Despite these complications, there are clearly ways that national models of integration matter in the US, which is the theme of the concluding section. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The construction of ethnic identity is often influenced by the surrounding culture and in some cases anti-immigrant sentiment in a new country. Because Taiwanese identity is already troubled and unsettled before immigration to the United States, the construction of ethnic identity within this diasporic Taiwanese community becomes a very challenging process that deserves scholars' attention. The authors argue that the combination and interaction of both physical and virtual spaces created by the Internet will produce a distinctive environment where ethnic identity among diasporic Taiwanese immigrants will be formed. They use a qualitative textual analysis method to examine websites and discussion groups on the Internet to discover the process, strategies, and characteristics of constructing a Taiwanese American identity through the Internet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent publication of an expansive national dataset, the Integrated Public Use Microdata Sample, allows for new analyses of the historical geography and settlement of various immigrant and ethnic groups in the United States. The present research explores the growth, development, and geographic dispersion of the ethnic Mexican population, and outlines some of the demographic and social characteristics within significant clusters of this population in the United States across the first half of the twentieth century. The analysis does not attempt to overturn other geographies and ethnographies in Mexican American history, but through its ability to elucidate broad, national patterns it is able to create a more dynamic view of settlement, demonstrating the role of immigrants and of women immigrants in particular. Results indicate that place matters: the geographical context of arrival and settlement were key factors in differentiating communities and the lives of those who lived in them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]