Portes and Rumbaut Immigrant America Reading Questions



Portes and Rumbaut Immigrant America Reading Questions

CHAPTER 4

1. What are the two common perceptions about contemporary immigration that the authors begin the chapter with?

2. In 2000, how did the “college degreed” share of the immigrant population compare with that of the general US population? How did the 1990s cohort of immigrants compare?

3. How do the largest five groups of immigrants compare with each other in terms of % high school graduates? (Table 6)

4. Why has the share of all immigrants that has completed college risen recently? Why are the African and Latin American cohorts the exception?

5. What effects did the 1965 Immigration Act have on immigration from Europe, Asia, and Africa?

6. What explanation do the authors give for the high average levels of education of Asian and African immigrants?

7. For Table 8, which shows the 24 countries sending the most highly educated immigrants-what are the three notable characteristics that these countries share with each other?

8. Does the average level of education in the particular sending country appear to have a strong effect on the average level of education of the immigrants that come to the US (Table 8)?

9. What are the two most important factors affecting individual educational attainment across groups, according to the Hirschman and Falcón studies? (p. 75) Does generational status in the US matter much (eg first, second, third generation)?

10. What are the effects of being female and having high ambition early in life, on overall educational attainment for immigrants?

11. After statistically controlling for many of the important factors that influence educational levels, do the educational performance advantages of the Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Cubans disappear? How about the disadvantages of the Mexican Americans and Nicaraguans? (p. 76)

12. Why do the authors believe that Mexicans, Haitians, Hondurans, and Dominicans have high unemployment rates?

13. Describe what is meant by the “geographic accident” (p. 78), as it pertains to the lack of connection between sending country per capita income and occupational status.

14. List the top two and bottom two, on the list on Table 9 that shows % of national group in professional specialty occupations.

15. Now, list the top three in terms total number in professional specialty occupations. (note- you will need to calculate this from the data in the table). Why the difference?

16. In general, which group makes more, employees or the self-employed?

17. List and compare self-employment rates of Koreans, Chinese, Indians, Mexicans, and Filipinos. (These are the nationalities having the largest numbers of self-employed)

18. Summarize the theories (and weaknesses of them) that have been used to explain the differences in self-employment rates between different immigrant groups, including culturalistic, sojourner theory, and disadvantage theory.

19. The Chiswick study examines the effects of individual characteristics on income. Summarize the effect of each year of education, comparing with the native born. (p. 90)

20. Describe what Chiswick learned about Mexicans, and then the Reimers study. What did Bean and Stevens find about Mexican college-educated immigrants, relative to natives?

21. What are the two ways to “make it” in America?

22. Overall, what is the effect of time in the US on earnings?

23. Why might individuals with similar skills be channeled into very different positions in the labor market? (p. 92)

24. What are the three “Contexts of Reception”? Explain in a few sentences the importance of each, including ways that each play out.

25. Utilizing the concepts of the previous question on contexts of reception, describe specifically what can be learned from them for each of the following groups: Mexicans, Nicaraguans, Haitians, Cubans, and Laotians/Cambodians.

CHAPTER 6 (note: skip chapter 5, as per syllabus)

1. The authors believe that the immigrant experience of a century ago was more uniformly harsh than that of many immigrants of our times. Why? Why do the authors believe it is important to examine what the immigrant experience of a century ago was like?

2. Summarize how Robert Parks 1928 work portrayed the “marginal man”.

3. What were the implications of being “uprooted”, as depicted by Stonequist?

4. Summarize the 1930s situation in Chicago and also the U.S. in general, utilizing the key statistic of mental health.

5. Related to the previous question, who were the residents of neighborhoods that had the highest incidences of schizophrenia and alcoholic psychoses?

6. Summarize the two ways that Jarvis (1854) explained the statistic, observed in asylums, that foreigners were more likely to be lunatics than native born people. (p. 172) Were his explanations generally taken seriously?

7. What were the “policy concerns” and xenophobic arguments expressed in the mid-1800s through the early 1900s?

8. What were the two sources of statistic bias that caused over reporting of mental health problems of immigrants? (p.p. 173-4)

9. What was the role of Dr. Harry Laughlin in furthering the cause that led to the 1924 National Origins Act? What did the act do?

10. In general, a) how did the research literature explain the incidence of mental health disorders for immigrants, and b) how the public discourse explain it? (p. 175)

11. How did sociological analyses explain the rates of immigrant mental health disorders?

12. How and why did the passage of the 1948 Refugee Act and WWII play a part in changing public perceptions and theories about immigrant mental health?

13. What did Hollingshead and Redlich, along with subsequent studies, contribute to the understanding of causation of mental illness?

14. What were the four basic patterns shown by community level studies, and what are the two general terms that summarize them? (p. 177)

15. Why were the immigrants who came just after the 1924 restrictions much less likely than the pre-1924 immigrants to exhibit mental pathology? What were the concepts employed by the Midtown Manhattan Project to explain this?

16. Explain the importance of the “context of exit” for refugees.

17. In the area of psychological well-being through time after immigration, describe the typical changes through time for “regular” immigrants vs. refugees. What is the role of social class in making the adjustment to the new country? (p.p. 184-5)

18. For the Mexican women studied in San Diego, depression scores were increased in correlation with what two factors, and were decreased according to what two other factors? What were two other factors that affected all of them?

19. Why did Mariel boatlift Cubans seek professional help to cope with psychological problems in greater percentages than did the Haitians?

20. Beginning on page 188, the relationship between acculturation and mental well-being is discussed. What is the “surprising” general finding?

21. The study of Mexicans in the Silicon Valley found what association between depression and the number of ties with Mexican-born relatives (density of Mexican heritage).

22. In the LA study, why were highly acculturated Mexicans more likely to abuse drugs than the less acculturated Mexicans?

23. In the HHANES study, increased acculturation is associated with what risk behaviors?

24. List some of the reasons that the authors state may be responsible for the declining levels of well-being with acculturation. (p. 191)

25. List the association between maternal outcomes and acculturation.

26. List the key associations between acculturation and well-being for adolescents.

27. The authors list a few reasons why criminological theories predict that immigrants (particularly poor labor migrants and refugees) would have higher incarceration rates than natives. List these reasons.

28. Are immigrants more likely to be incarcerated than the US-born?

29. What are the differences in incarceration between natives, immigrants and the second generation (US born) of the same nationality?

30. What can be learned from the section on “Acculturation and Perceptions of Discrimination.”

Chapter 7 Learning the Ropes: Language and Education

1. Write one word to summarize the theme of each of the four quotes on page 206

2. What are the ingredients of the litmus test of Americanization?

3. Why do the author’s state that there are 30 times more languages in the world than countries?

4. What is the general process of anglicization of immigrants as it has happened historically in the US (tracing it through three generations)?

5. What did many eugenics proponents believe, in the first half of the 1900s, regarding immigration, race, and intelligence?

6. What was the role of bilingualism in shaping intelligence and academic achievement, according to some scholars in the first half of the 1900s?

7. What kinds of analytical/explanatory variables had these studies left out? (p. 212)

8. What can be learned from the first full paragraph on page 215, regarding fluent bilinguals, monolingual English speakers, and white majority students? What is the later disclaimer about causation? (p. 218)

9. From table 35 and the text, what three factors are the most important predictors of the acquisition of English fluency among immigrants of non-English origin? Also see Figure 11, page 228.

10. What share of all counties in the US is 95% or more English monolingual?

11. Do the authors believe that the US is becoming a multilingual nation? Summarize their statistical argument.

12. Of all national immigrant groups, which four possess the highest levels of fluent bilingualism, and why?

13. The Lopéz survey in LA in 1973 showed what in the way of Spanish language use at home by generational status? What was the general difference between men and women – and why do you think this was observed? (p. 224)

14. What was the whole point of pages 228-232a? Summarize in a few sentences.

15. What was found with the Vancouver study that was so “startling”?

16. What is the irony described on page 234 – and what do the authors believe it tells us about the underpinnings of linguistic nativism? Do you agree with the inference? Explain.

17. Which social group in the US does linguistic nativism appeal to the most, according to the authors?

18. What has happened as a consequence of earlier nativist movements in the US, as seen in California? (pages 151-2)

19. What is the role of social class?

CHAPTER 8

1. What are the sizes of the first and second generation relative to the total population of the United States?

2. How does parental human capital interact with the three modes of incorporation to produce different economic outcomes for different immigrant nationalities?

3. Summarize what the CLS study focuses on, and its basic methods.

4. Identify and describe carefully the three challenges/barriers to the successful adaption of the second generation.

5. In case you missed it, what is the “hourglass” labor market of the US all about, and what was the meaning and timeframe of the pyramid shape?

6. Why do some immigrant parents send their children back to the home country?

7. Be prepared to discuss the different paths to mobility that are illustrated in Figure 19 and described in this chapter. Define selective acculturation and dissonant acculturation.

8. What specifically did the final CILS study sample?

9. What can be learned from the contrast of Danny González and Ariel Entenza, who live in the same city? Discuss.

10. Identify which nationalities tend to correspond to each of the three paths to mobility of Figure 19, and explain why.

CHAPTER 10 POLICY

Summarize the various points of the chapter.

To be continued! Check back.

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