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BECOMING ETHNIC OR BECOMING AMERICAN?

Reflecting on the Divergent Pathways to Social Mobility and Assimilation among the New Second Generation1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2008

Min Zhou  and
Jennifer Lee
Min Zhou*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles
Jennifer Lee
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, University of California, Irvine
*
Professor Min Zhou, Department of Sociology, UCLA, 264 Haines Hall, Box 951551, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1551. E-mail: mzhou@soc.ucla.edu
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Abstract

As the new second generation comes of age in the twenty-first century, it is making an indelible imprint in cities across the country, compelling immigration scholars to turn their attention to this growing population. In this essay, we first review the extant literature on immigrant incorporation, with a particular focus on the mobility patterns of the new second generation. Second, we critically evaluate the existing assumptions about the definitions of and pathways to success and assimilation. We question the validity and reliability of key measures of social mobility, and also assess the discrepancy between the “objective” measures often used in social science research and the “subjective” measures presented by members of the second generation. Third, we examine the identity choices of the new second generation, focusing on how they choose to identify themselves, and the mechanisms that underlie their choice of identities. We illuminate our review with some preliminary findings from our ongoing qualitative study of 1.5- and second-generation Mexicans, Chinese, and Vietnamese in Los Angeles. In doing so, we attempt to dispel some myths about group-based cultures, stereotypes, and processes of assimilation.

Keywords

ImmigrationNew Second GenerationAssimilationIdentityMobilityAsianLatinoMexican
Type
STATE OF THE ART
Information
Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , Spring 2007 , pp. 189 - 205
Copyright
Copyright © W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research 2007

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Footnotes

1

The authors thank the Russell Sage Foundation for generously providing the research funding on which this study (#88-06-04) is based. We also thank Jody Agius Vallejo and Rosaura Tafoya-Estrada for invaluable research assistance, and Frank D. Bean and Leo Chavez for their insightful comments and suggestions.

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