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Inheriting the City: The Children of Immigrants Come of Age

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At the dawn of the 21st century, immigrants and their children accounted for one in four of the total U.S. population. Specifically, the immigrant second generation - the children of at least one immigrant parent born in the United States or someone who arrived before the age of 12 - made up one out of every four Americans under 18 and one out of every six of those between the ages of 18 to 32. By all projections, the United States in 2050 will be much more racially, ethnically, culturally and religiously diverse. Therefore, the story told by "Inheriting the City" in many ways foreshadows important transformations unfolding across the country, providing insights into what American society will be like in the century ahead.

In this ground-breaking book, Kasinitz and his colleagues provide not only the first comprehensive look at the post-1965 immigrant second generation as its members enter young adulthood, but also the first comprehensive comparison of the experiences of today's immigrant second generation with that of its native-born peers. Drawing upon ten years of original research, "Inheriting the City" is truly impressive in its scope and contribution. It is based on a study of the children of Chinese, Dominican, South American, Russian Jewish, and West Indian immigrants and their native-born white, black, and Puerto Rican counterparts in New York City. Specifically, the study relied on a random survey of 3,415 young adults between the ages of 18 and 32 at the time the study began in 1998 and two rounds of in-depth face-to-face interviews with hundreds of those same respondents. To fully grasp the fluidity of the second-generation experience within specific institutional contexts, Kasinitz and his colleagues also relied on insights drawn from participant observations conducted in a range of organizational setting from educational institutions and workplaces to community and religious organizations. Combing through what must have been a mountain of data, the story they tell is both fascinating and significant.

The research project behind this book was specifically designed to address concerns raised by academic researchers and policy makers over the assimilation prospects of the new immigrant second generation. Specifically, the ethnic/racial distinctiveness of post-1965 immigrants has led to speculations about the considerable barriers that they may face to full integration into American life, including concerns that they will experience downward mobility into the ranks of an urban "underclass". What Kasinitz and his colleagues uncover is both surprising and encouraging, as their main findings point to the unmistakable socioeconomic success of the immigrant second generation in one of the country's largest immigrant-receiving cities. From educational and occupational achievement to earnings and labor force participation, each immigrant second-generation group studied is upwardly mobile both in comparison to its first-generation parents and to its native-born reference group of the same race.

Specifically, second-generation West Indians fare better than native blacks; South Americans and Dominicans outperform Puerto Ricans; and Russian Jews and Chinese have better outcomes than native whites. More importantly, members of these second-generation groups have decisively joined the mainstream, finding themselves in integrated school and work settings. In addition to speaking English fluently, they have left behind the ethnic economies and menial jobs in which many of their parents toiled day and night so that their offspring would have a shot at the American dream. Instead of feeling torn "between two worlds," as classic accounts of acculturation would suggest, the new second-generation not only combines the best of both worlds with great ease, but also is remaking the U.S. mainstream with remarkable creativity. The authors further argue that the ability to select the best traits from both their immigrant parents and their American peers yield a distinctive second-generation advantage by providing the second generation with a wider range of options and strategies to pursue in life.

Overall, the nine substantive chapters in this volume are superb and build tightly on each other, covering a striking range of topics including ethnic/racial identity formation and acculturation, school and work, marriage and family, civic and political participation, and prejudice and discrimination. Drawing on the interview data, the chapter on ethnic and racial identity lays out the book's overall argument by exploring how identity choices among the respondents are highly fluid, situational, and contextual. Furthermore, how young adults sort themselves into ethnic and racial groups carries important implications beyond mere subjective identification. To the extent that our society remains fundamentally unequal along ethnic and racial lines across a range of outcomes, ethnic group membership implies access to differential resources, settlement in different neighborhoods, entry to public schools with differential quality, and reliance on co-ethnic communities with different levels of institutional support. These structural factors, in turn, create a set of opportunities for and constraints on socioeconomic mobility.

Whereas traditional sociological accounts of racial and ethnic inequality tend to emphasize structural factors such as residential segregation, neighborhood isolation, low-quality schools and discrimination in the labor market, the authors break new ground by concluding that culture also matters in explaining divergent outcomes across groups. More specifically, differences both in structural positions and in cultural expectations together explain why measurable outcomes significantly vary across groups: for example, the dismal school performance of Dominicans and Puerto Ricans in contrast to that of South Americans, and the continuing disadvantages in the labor market among native blacks in contrast to West Indians. This complex interaction between structural and cultural factors as it influences the trajectories of both second-generation and native-born young adults will no doubt generate renewed debate in the fields of immigration, race, and inequality.

While underscoring the success of the second-generation in late 20th-century New York City, the authors also somberly note the continuing disadvantages among our nation's native minorities - Puerto Ricans and African Americans. They likewise note continuing concerns regarding the experiences of second-generation young adults who are coming of age in contexts quite different from New York's relatively cosmopolitan and immigrant-friendly one. They also acknowledge that their project cannot speak to the prospects of Mexicans as an ethnic group, because the size of the Mexican population in New York was small when their study began and the increasing presence of Mexicans in the city is a relatively recent phenomenon.

Still, the authors' guarded optimism about the future of America's race relations and diversity is an important voice in debates centering around pessimistic predictions about the new second generation. While acknowledging that important ethnic/racial differences exist and these differences do matter, Kasinitz and his colleagues also point out that their respondents are reaching out across these ethnic divisions to forge new identities and alliances. In fact, one cannot help but admire the authors' sensitivity as they recount their respondents' multifaceted experiences, at-times contradictory perspectives, but fundamentally heroic struggles to make it in a tough city like New York.

"Inheriting the City" is as much about the contemporary second-generation's coming-of-age experience as it is about how their sheer presence is once again reshaping the American mainstream. The book is extremely well-written and very engaging throughout, free of academic jargon and filled with stories that vividly illustrate the enduring significance of immigration in the making and remaking of the American society. With four co-authors, the book reads extremely well and is coherent both in its main arguments and its unified authorial voice. A monumental volume that significantly contributes to our understanding of the new second-generation, this book is destined to be a classic reference for academic researchers in the decades to come and a must-read for the general audience and policy makers who seek to understand the complexity surrounding assimilation in American life today.

This study looks at five groups: Russians, Dominicans, South Americans, Chinese and West Indian; and ignores the largest single group of immigrants (documented or undocumented): those from Mexico. Are there really so few immigrants from Mexico in NYC that they deserve no attention from the authors?

Because of this glaring omission, the study is largely irrelevant to any attempt to understand the issue of immigration and assimilation in the nation as a whole, though it is perhaps of some use for the city of New York.

A similar study is underway for Los Angeles, and will include Mexicans. Once that is published, we should have a better understanding of immigration and assimilation. Until then, this book provides a narrow glimpse of a much larger picture.