Immigrant children and youth are the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population, and so their prospects bear heavily on the well-being of the country. However, relevant public policy is shaped less by informed discussion than by politicized contention over welfare reform and immigration limits. From Generation to Generation explores what we know about the development of white, black, Hispanic, and Asian children and youth from numerous countries of origin. Describing the status of immigrant children and youth as "severely understudied," the committee both draws on and supplements existing research to characterize the current status and outlook of immigrant children. The book discusses the many factorsâ€"family size, fluency in English, parent employment, acculturation, delivery of health and social services, and public policiesâ€"that shape the outlook for the lives of these children and youth. The committee makes recommendations for improved research and data collection designed to advance knowledge about these children and, as a result, their visibility in current policy debates.

Immigrant children and youth are the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population, and so their prospects bear heavily on the well-being of the country. Children of Immigrants represents some of the very best and most extensive research efforts to date on the circumstances, health, and development of children in immigrant families and the delivery of health and social services to these children and their families. This book presents new, detailed analyses of more than a dozen existing datasets that constitute a large share of the national system for monitoring the health and well-being of the U.S. population. Prior to these new analyses, few of these datasets had been used to assess the circumstances of children in immigrant families. The analyses enormously expand the available knowledge about the physical and mental health status and risk behaviors, educational experiences and outcomes, and socioeconomic and demographic circumstances of first- and second-generation immigrant children, compared with children with U.S.-born parents.

The story of West Indian immigrants to the United States is generally considered to be a great success. Mary Waters, however, tells a very different story. She finds that the values that gain first-generation immigrants initial success--a willingness to work hard, a lack of attention to racism, a desire for education, an incentive to save--are undermined by the realities of life and race relations in the United States. Contrary to long-held beliefs, Waters finds, those who resist Americanization are most likely to succeed economically, especially in the second generation.

The growing importance of immigration in the United States today prompted this examination of the adequacy of U.S. immigration data. This volume summarizes data needs in four areas: immigration trends, assimilation and impacts, labor force issues, and family and social networks. It includes recommendations on additional sources for the data needed for program and research purposes, and new questions and refinements of questions within existing data sources to improve the understanding of immigration and immigrant trends.

Abstract: Past research has consistently supported the view that European immigrants and their descendants have assimilated into American society. These immigrants have adopted the cultural ways of the host society, have integrated into social and economic circles, and have learned to identify as Americans. However, contemporary immigrants arrive mostly from Latin American and Asian countries, and have given rise to a number of children who are now coming of age. The overall numbers and diversity of these children have created concerns regarding their ability and willingness to integrate. This research examines one aspect of assimilation: the ethnic self-identification of children of immigrants. Traditional accounts have viewed this process as linear, with a thinning and eventual disappearance of ethnic identities. However, there is evidence that ethnic self-identification may not follow this straight-line pattern from national origin to the identity of the dominant group. Using data from the 1992 and 1995 Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study, this research seeks to explain why adolescents change their identities as well as their patterns of change. The results show that nativity, family structure, and parental characteristics are especially important for understanding changes in ethnic identity. Although native born adolescents are more likely to maintain or adopt American identities over time, there are factors that encourage a move away from American-made labels. Intact and extended family situations serve to maintain ties to the country of origin while rejecting shifts towards American or panethnic labels. In addition, parental foreign nativity draws adolescents closer to their national origins. Interestingly, the ethnic identity choices of children of immigrants do not seem to be affected by external factors such as discrimination, peer relationships, and school characteristics. This type of research is necessary because ethnic self-identity has implications for adolescents' school achievement and psychological well-being. Furthermore, children of immigrants comprise 20 percent of all youth in the United States and are a crucial part of the future of this country. Given the findings presented here, the question of whether children of immigrants are assimilating and their patterns of assimilation into American society is an important one to answer.

In this age of multicultural democracy, the idea of assimilation--that the social distance separating immigrants and their children from the mainstream of American society closes over time--seems outdated and, in some forms, even offensive. But as Richard Alba and Victor Nee show in the first systematic treatment of assimilation since the mid-1960s, it continues to shape the immigrant experience, even though the geography of immigration has shifted from Europe to Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Institutional changes, from civil rights legislation to immigration law, have provided a more favorable environment for nonwhite immigrants and their children than in the past. Assimilation is still driven, in claim, by the decisions of immigrants and the second generation to improve their social and material circumstances in America. But they also show that immigrants, historically and today, have profoundly changed our mainstream society and culture in the process of becoming Americans. Surveying a variety of domains--language, socioeconomic attachments, residential patterns, and intermarriage--they demonstrate the continuing importance of assimilation in American life. And they predict that it will blur the boundaries among the major, racially defined populations, as nonwhites and Hispanics are increasingly incorporated into the mainstream.