The Blackwell Companion to Sociology (92 page)

proportion of immigrants arriving during 1880±1900 came overwhelmingly

from Europe (97 percent), the proportion of European immigrants arriving

during 1980±98 plummeted to just over 10 percent of the total number of

legal admissions. Of today's 27 million foreign-born ± already the largest immi-

grant population in world history ± fully 60 percent had arrived after 1980, and 90 percent since 1960. Of those post-1960 immigrants, the latest Current

Population Survey data available show that the majority (52 percent) had

come from Latin America and the Caribbean; nearly a third (29 percent) had

'In

legal

Asia (%)

1.3 2.0 3.7 4.3 2.7 3.1 3.6 6.1 12.9 35.3 37.3 30.1

persons

origin,of

data: residence

census, ``foreign-born.'

(INS) last

0.6 1.0 2.1 7.0

9.7

region

(%)

14.4

14.9 22.2 38.6 40.3 47.1 50.4

1890

of

Latin America

than

by

ice

the

on

Serv region

da

Since 'rather

(%)

97.8 96.5 93.9 88.3 82.5 86.3 76.6 67.8 46.3 21.6 12.5 14.8

zation and

Europe, Cana

1997.

immigratì`native'

for as

decade

legal

Naturali

c

d

in

by

no.

528

and

5,247 3,688 8,795 5,736 4,107

1,035 2,515 3,322 4,493

Survey

7,338 7,605

and

redefined

Immigrants,

thousands

ration

been

immigration

Population have

population

Immig

k

Decade

1881±90 1891±00 1901±10 1911±20 1921±30 1931±40 1941±50 1951±60 1961±70 1971±80 1981±90 1991±98

Current citizen

the USa

stock

of US

from

foreign-stoc

%

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was

total population

and

and

foreign-

who

b

and

parent

no.

20.8 26.0 32.5 36.7 40.3 n.a. n.a. 34.1 33.6 n.a. n.a. 54.7

one

(millions)

1890±1990,

foreign-born

Foreign-stock

least

US

foreign-born

at

the

population

of US

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8.8 6.9 5.5 4.7 6.2 7.9 9.7

had

in

data:

%

14.8 13.6 14.7 13.2 11.6

total population

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a

trends

Bureau

decennial but

no.

9.2

from

10.4 13.4 14.0 14.3 11.7 10.4 9.7 9.6 14.1 19.8 25.8

Census

(millions)

country

Decennial

US

Foreign-born

nativity

on foreign

27.1

year

ainData

Table 1890±1998

Census

1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 1997

a

born

US

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as

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parents

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of

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1870 Surveys

in

adjusted

counted whose and

from

Profile

independence

was

but (or

legalized

population

Immigration

1900,

Population

was

US

born

(after

censuses

status

Bureau,

country

since

native in

1993.

8±1;

were

1950

the

Current

status

whose by

Census

Rico in

asked

foreign who

and

1986.

US

a

whose

Figure

was

of

in

(March)

orkers,

45;

USA Puerto

and

W

the

completed

1999,

born the

5±6,

in

foreign-born

generation) parents in

1982 (IRCA)

were

1,

included as

of

first

Act

asked

since

persons

and

Tables

residing

Agricultural

have

(the

P23±195),

been

USA Control

million

birthplace has

the

Special legalizations

1992,

'These 1900±40

or

in and

one .Persons

in

edn), Reports,

population

IRCA

than

resided

mostly all

nativity

nativity question

``natives.' native

Reform

on

(112th

more

as

The

had

over as

irtually

Population 1±2.

foreign-born

who

V

States

immigrants,

status

question

excludes

classified classified

the

censuses.

Immigration

Tables

of

since.

The

the

United (Current

also were

sum

and

2000)

immigrants of

the

'persons

1997

citizenship are

the

of

1991

as

(and

undocumented

USA

,1990±1998,

generation).

States:

Philippines

1990

provisions

years

privileges the

Abstracts

the

defined

undocumented

formerly

``foreign-born'

'of in

is second and

fiscal

United Yearbooks

which

amnesty

in

areas'

(the

born

1980

the

Statistical the

million

formerly

the

1,329,209 IRCA

in Statistical

25.8

'population parent

definition,

under

of

`òutlying persons

from

under

Bureau,

this

1,359,186

another

any e.g.

1994.

1990

Population Service,

in

and

Census

estimate

since.

dropped

resident

'under

times,

foreign-born

since include

include

thè`foreign-stock'

:US

born)

and

one but

1989

The

Data

Data

1997, ``natives' were different 1946) b

least 1970, annually c

years d

permanent

Sources Foreign-born Naturalization

394

RubeÂn G. Rumbaut

come from Asia and the Middle East. The Filipinos, Chinese, and Indochinese

alone accounted for 15 percent of the total, or as much as all of those born in

Europe and Canada combined. And African immigration, while smaller and less

noticed, was also rapidly increasing, having grown to eight times its volume over the past three decades.

As in the past, today's newcomers are heavily concentrated in areas of settle-

ment. Fully one-third of the immigrant-stock population of the country resides in California, and another third resides in Florida, Texas, and the New York±New

Jersey region, with the ethnic concentrations being denser still within metro-

politan areas in this handful of states. As of 1997 in Los Angeles County, for

instance, a preponderant 62 percent of the area's 9.5 million people were of

immigrant stock, as were 54 percent of New York City's and Orange County's,

43 percent of San Diego's, and 72 percent of Miami's (Rumbaut, 1998). In

general, patterns of concentration or dispersal vary for different social classes of immigrants (professionals, entrepreneurs, manual laborers) with different

types of legal status (regular immigrants, refugees, the undocumented). The

likelihood of dispersal is greatest among immigrant professionals, who tend to

rely more on their qualifications and job offers than on pre-existing ethnic

communities; and, at least initially, among recent refugees who are sponsored

and resettled through official government programs that have sought deliber-

ately to minimize their numbers in particular localities (although refugee groups too have shown a tendency to gravitate as ``secondary migrants'' to areas where

their compatriots have clustered, as have Cubans to South Florida, and South-

east Asians to California). The likelihood of concentration is greatest among the undocumented (for example, over 25 percent of the three million Immigration

Reform and Control Act (IRCA) applicants who qualified for amnesty nationally

were concentrated in the Los Angeles metropolitan area alone) and working-

class immigrants, who tend to rely more on the assistance offered by pre-existing kinship networks; and among business-oriented groups, who tend to settle in

large cities. Dense ethnic enclaves provide immigrant entrepreneurs with access

to sources of cheap labor, working capital and credit, and dependable markets.

Over time, as the immigrants become naturalized US citizens, local strength in

numbers also provides opportunities for political advancement and representa-

tion of ethnic minority group interests at the ballot box. The research literature has shown that, among legal immigrants and refugees, the motivation and

propensity to naturalize is higher among upwardly mobile younger persons

with higher levels of education, occupational status, English proficiency, income, and property, and those whose spouses or children are US citizens. Undocumented immigrants by definition remain disenfranchised and politically powerless

(Portes and Rumbaut, 1996).

But unlike the last great waves of European immigration, which were halted

by the passage of restrictive legislation in the 1920s and especially by the back-to-back global cataclysms of the Great Depression and the Second World War,

the current flows show no sign of abating. On the contrary, inasmuch as

immigration is a network-driven phenomenon and the United States remains

the premier destination for a world on the move, the likelihood is that it will

Immigration and Ethnicity

395

continue indefinitely. To varying degrees of closeness, the tens of millions of

immigrants and their children in the USA today are embedded in often intricate

webs of family ties, both here and abroad. Such ties form extraordinary trans-

national linkages and networks that can, by reducing the costs and risks of

migration, expand and serve as a conduit to additional and thus potentially

self-perpetuating migration. Remarkably, for example, a recent poll in the

Dominican Republic found that half of the 7.5 million Dominicans have relat-

ives in the USA and two-thirds would move to the USA if they could. Similarly,

by the end of the 1980s, national surveys in Mexico (a country now of 100

million people) found that about half of adult Mexicans were related to someone

living in the United States, and that one third of all Mexicans had been to the

United States at some point in their lives; more recent surveys suggest still larger proportions (Massey and Espinoza, 1997). Immigrants in the USA in 1990 who

hailed from the English-speaking Caribbean, notably from Jamaica, Barbados,

Trinidad, Belize, and Guyana, already constituted between 10 and 20 percent of

the 1990 populations of their respective countries ± a growing double-digit

group which now also includes El Salvador. By the same token, despite four

decades of hostile relations, at least a third of Cuba's population of 11 million (and maybe half of Havana's) now have relatives in the USA and Puerto Rico,

while over 75 percent of first-and second-generation Cubans in Miami have

relatives in Cuba ± ironically, a greater degree of structural linkage than ever before in the history of US-Cuban relations. Not surprisingly, when in July 1999

the US diplomatic mission in Havana held a lottery for 20,000 immigration visas

to the USA, it received 541,000 applications in 30 days ± meaning that about 10

percent of the total eligible population of Cuba applied to leave. Potentially vast social networks of family and friends are implied by these figures, microsocial

structures that can shape both future migration and incorporation processes, as

well as patterns of settlement in areas of destination, and may offer hints about the future of American pluralism (Rumbaut, 1997).

Causes and Contexts of Contemporary

Contemporary Immigration

Changes in US immigration laws ± in particular the amendments passed in 1965,

which abolished the national-origins quota system and changed the preference

system to give greater priority to family reunification over occupational skills ±

have often been singled out as the principal reason for thè`new immigration''

and the change in the national origins of its composition. But the ostensibly

causal effects of the 1965 Act have been exaggerated, especially so with regard to Latin American immigration (legal or illegal) and the large-scale entry of Cold