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This paper examines trends in residential segregation for blacks, Hispanics, and Asians in 60 SMSAs between 1970 and 1980 using data taken from the 1970 Fourth Count Summary tapes and the 1980 Summary Tape File 4. Segregation was measured using dissimilarity and exposure indices. Black segregation from Angles declined in some smaller SMSAs in the south and west, but in large urban areas in the northeastern and north central states there was little change; in these areas blacks remained spatially isolated and highly segregated. The level of black-Anglo segregation was not strongly related to socioeconomic status or level of suburbanization. Hispanic segregation was markedly below that of blacks, but increased substantially in some urban areas that experienced Hispanic immigration and population growth over the decade. The level of Hispanic segregation was highly related to indicators of socioeconomic status, acculturation, and suburbanization. Asian segregation was everywhere quite low. During the 1970s the spatial isolation of Asians increased slightly, while dissimilarity from Anglos decreased. Results were interpreted to suggest that Asian enclaves were beginning to form in many U.S. metropolitan areas around 1980. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper interrogates the theoretical and empirical bases for conclusions about the placement and strength of color lines in the United States given the new immigration. It presents recent data on intermarriage and multiracial identification and examines differences among whites, blacks, Latinos, and Asians. The higher rates of intermarriage and multiracial identification for Latinos and Asians compared to blacks suggest that the color line may not be as strong (or may be shifting more rapidly) for these newer immigrant groups compared to blacks. The authors find evidence of a new color line that is no longer divided by black and white (and by implication white and nonwhite) but rather by black and nonblack. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes and interprets some of the events associated with the demographic and economic restructuring that has occurred in Flushing, in the Borough of Queens in New York City. Since the liberalization of the U.S. immigration laws in 1965, many of New York's neighborhoods have been transformed by the rapid influx of immigrants. In the case of Flushing, the majority of newcomers have been Asians, particularly from China, Korea, and the Indian subcontinent. The introduction of Asian capital and enterprise into the neighborhood has revitalized what was considered to be an ailing economy and a sluggish housing market. From the perspective of some of the long-term residents, however, the costs of progress have outweighed the benefits. The paper examines the public discourse accompanying the Asianization of Flushing, centering on the conflicts that have emerged between capital and community, immigrants and long-term residents, Asians and non-Asians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today’s typical minority student attends school with fewer whites than his counterpart in 1970. This apparent resegregation of U.S. schools has sparked outrage and debate. Some blame a rollback of desegregation policies designed to distribute students more evenly among schools; others blame the changing racial composition of the student population. This study clarifies the link between distributive processes of segregation, population change, and school racial composition by framing school segregation as a mode of social closure. I use a novel decomposition approach to determine the relative contributions of distributive processes and compositional change in the apparent resegregation of schools from 1993 to 2010. For the most part, compositional changes are to blame for the declining presence of whites in minorities’ schools. During this period, whites and minorities actually became more evenly distributed across schools, helping increase minority students’ exposure to whites. Further decompositions reveal the continued success of district-level desegregation efforts, but the greatest barrier to progress appears to be the uneven distribution of students between school districts in the same area. These findings call for new research and new policies to address contemporary school segregation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Research on immigration, educational achievement, and ethnoraciality has followed the lead of racialization and assimilation theories by focusing empirical attention on the immigrant-origin population (immigrants and their children), while overlooking the effect of an immigrant presence on the third-plus generation (U.S.-born individuals of U.S.-born parents), especially its white members. We depart from this approach by placing third-plus-generation individuals at center stage to examine how they adjust to norms defined by the immigrant-origin population. We draw on fieldwork in Cupertino, California, a high-skilled immigrant gateway, where an Asian immigrant-origin population has established and enforces an amplified version of high-achievement norms. The resulting ethnoracial encoding of academic achievement constructs whiteness as having lesser-than status. Asianness stands for high-achievement, hard work, and success; whiteness, in contrast, represents low-achievement, laziness, and academic mediocrity. We argue that immigrants can serve as a foil against which the meaning and status of an ethnoracial category is recast, upending how the category is deployed in daily life. Our findings call into question the position that treats the third-plus generation, especially whites, as the benchmark population that sets achievement norms and to which all other populations adjust. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Previous ethnographic studies have noted that Asian-American churches tend to be non-denominational or loosely linked to their denominations. Yet, the question why Asian American congregations lack denominational ties remains unanswered. This research attempts to address the question through the experience of Asian immigrants in the Episcopal Church. I collected data from (1) participant observation at the annual conference of the Asian American Ministry in the Episcopal Church (known as the Episcopal Asiamerica Ministry) in 2002, 2003 and 2004, (2) in-depth interviews with individuals active in Asian-American ministry at congregational, diocesan, and national levels, and (3) documents, news articles, and reports from church archives. I examine some of the dilemmas that clergy and lay leaders in Asian ministry face as they struggle to balance between the demands of the denominations and the needs of their constituencies. Moreover, the hierarchical structure of the denomination may delay the establishment of new immigrant congregations and impose restrictions on the selection of location and clergy. This adds various costs to the development of Asian ministry and diminishes benefits (such as a sense of belonging) that members of immigrant congregations receive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Racial and ethnic minorities are often residentially segregated from whites in urban settings, a fact which has important health consequences. Research on the relationship between residential segregation and health outcomes lacks national-level investigation of racial and ethnic minority groups other than African Americans. I use multilevel analyses to examine the associations of residential isolation and clustering with birth weight among Asian, black, and Latino Americans using data from the National Center for Health Statistics' Natality Files and the U.S. Census. Findings indicate that segregation has a negative effect on the likelihood of having a low birth weight baby among Asian Americans, suggesting a possible concentration of social and structural resources in highly-segregated communities. On the contrary, segregation marginally increases the odds of low birth weight among African Americans, but only in the presence of higher poverty rates. Segregation does not affect birth weight among Latino Americans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two experiments found that affirmative action attitudes varied with the respondent's racioethnic group, strength of affirmative action plan (AAP), anticipated consequences of the AAP, and interactions of racioethnic group with the other variables. AAP strength had a monotonic negative effect on attitudes for some groups, but an inverse-U effect for others. Attitudes were most strongly associated with the anticipated impact of the AAP on company performance; they were also related to the expected effects on collective self-interest, target group representation, and target group stigmatization. The positive relation between the anticipated impact on company performance and support for the AAP was stronger among Whites than U.S.-born Hispanics; the negative relation between anticipated stigmatization and AAP support was stronger among Whites than African-Americans. The effect of AAP strength on attitudes was partially mediated by the anticipated consequences among Whites and African-Americans, but not among Hispanics and Asians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asian Americans are one of the fastest-growing minorities in the United States and show the highest outmarriage rate; yet little research has investigated the racial identity of multi racial Asians. This study explores the racial identity of multi racial Asians in the United States, using survey data on 110 Asian-white adults, and examines the factors that shape this identity. The literature suggests a number of factors; drawing on the theoretical framework of reflected appraisals, I hypothesize that certain factors will be more important than others in this process. When respondents were asked with which race they identified more strongly, Asian or white, two factors were shown to exert the strongest influence on racial identity, namely phenotype and cultural exposure. Logistic regression and qualitative responses reveal that the racial identities of this sample of Asian-white adults are shaped largely by the reflected appraisals of others regarding their appearance and cultural knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a cross-cultural examination of social identity theory for intergroup comparison versus intragroup relationships in North American and East Asian cultural contexts. The article states that social identity theory does not account well for collectivistic behaviors among East Asians. It is hypothesize that the central theme of East Asian group behavior is cooperation within a group. This is represented cognitively as an interpersonal network among the members, with the emphasis on the relational self Results of a survey of 122 Japanese and 126 American respondents largely supported this hypothesis. For the people of the United States, in-group loyalty and identity with their small and large in-groups were correlated positively with perceived in-group homogeneity and in-group status. No such correlation was found for Japanese respondents, however Instead, Japanese in-group loyalty and identity were predicted by respondents' knowledge of the relational structure within the group and knowledge of the individual differences between members of the group.

This article examines the economic contributions of skilled Asian immigrants in Silicon Valley—both directly, as entrepreneurs, and indirectly, as facilitators of trade with and investment in their countries of origin. Skilled immigrants account for one third of the region 's engineering workforce and are increasingly visible as entrepreneurs and investors. Two thirds of the region 's foreign-born engineers were from Asia. Chinese and Indian immigrants in turn accounted for 74%of the total Asian-born engineering workforce. In 1998,Chinese and Indian engineers were senior executives at one quarter of Silicon Valley 's technology businesses. These immigrant-run companies collectively accounted for more than $26.8 billion in sales and 58,282 jobs. The region 's most successful immigrant entrepreneurs rely heavily on ethnic resources while integrating into the mainstream technology economy. The challenge for policy makers will be to recognize these mutually beneficial connections between immigration, investment, trade, and economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the job transitions of Asian immigrants in the metropolitan economy of Los Angeles. In such ethnically heterogeneous cities, ethnic boundaries are porous and are mediated by an intermediate mixed economy. Ethnographic interviews reveal that many immigrants prefer jobs outside the ethnic economy to obtain higher wages and fairer work rules. Multivariate analyses find that, across a succession of jobs and over time, immigrants tend to drift away from the more informal ethnic economy of the metropolis, a move that leads to higher earnings. The use of ethnic ties to locate jobs also declines. The main attraction of participation in the ethnic economy is the opportunity for self-employment. Our model of the immigrant labor market moves beyond the dualist representation of the ethnic enclave economy. We conceive of the metropolitan labor market as shaped by firm size, degree of bureaucratization, and governance structure in which interethnic economic transactions are mediated through a growing mixed economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]