Immigration: Issues of Ethnicity,Class,and Public Policy in the United States

Abstract

This article argues that the incorporation of immigrants into the advanced industrial states may be best understood in the context of recent theoretical debates over the changing character of racial and gender inequality. Specifically, it attempts to draw parallels between the conditions of working-class minorities and women born in the advanced economies and the economic progress of new immigrant groups. Shifting from a focus on individualized discrimination, emphasis is placed on the structural divisions within each immigrant group. For example, the bifurcation of the black community, resulting from the relative success of its middle class and the persistent decline of the underclass, is mirrored in the differentiation of immigrant and refugee groups. In contrast to the success stories of a few immigrant entrepreneurs or reconstituted fragments of an uprooted capitalist class, the majority within these immigrant and refugee groups are forming part of a restructured working class found throughout the advanced industrial states. This emphasis on the restructuring of the working class identifies grounds for a political framework based on a broad coalition of interests among those of various backgrounds who work for low and modest wages.

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References

1. William Julius Wilson , “The Black Community in the 1980's: Questions of Race, Class, and Public Policy,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 454 (Mar. 1981).

2. For example, see Barry R. Chiswick , “The Economic Progress of Immigrants: Some Apparently Universal Patterns,” in Contemporary Economic Problems, ed. W. Fellner (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1979), pp. 357-399.

3. The National Research Council defines the problem as follows: “A second type of wage discrimination... arises when the job structure within a firm is substantially segregated by sex, race, or ethnicity, and workers of one category are paid less than workers of another category when the two groups are performing work that is not the same but that is, in some sense, of comparable worth to their employer.” Donald J. Treiman and Heidi Hartmann , Women, Work, and Wages: Equal Pay for Jobs of Equal Value (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1981), p. 9.

4. Robert L. Bach , Western Hemispheric Immigration to the United States: A Review of Selected Research Trends (Washington, DC: Georgetown University, Center for Immigration Policy and Refugee Assistance, 1984).

5. Pastora San Juan Cafferty , Barry R. Chiswick , Andrew M. Greeley , and Teresa A. Sullivan , The Dilemma of American Immigration: Beyond the Golden Door (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1983).

6. Alejandro Portes and Alex Stepick , “Unwelcome Immigrants: The Labor Market Experiences of 1980 (Mariel) Cuban and Haitian Refugees in South Florida,” American Sociological Review, 50:493-514 (Aug. 1985).

7. Robert L. Bach , “Review Essay,” Journal of International Affairs, 33(2):339-350 (Fall-Winter 1979).

8. Michael J. Piore , Birds of Passage: Migrant Labor and Industrial Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), p. 72.

9. Ibid., p. 77.

10.

10. Alejandro Portes and Robert L. Bach , Latin Journey: Cuban and Mexican Immigrants in the United States (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).

11.

11. See, for example, Morrison G. Wong and Charles Hirschman , “Labor Force Participation and Socioeconomic Attainment of Asian-American Women,” Sociological Perspectives, 26(4): 423-446 (Oct. 1983).

12.

12. Robert L. Bach , “The New Cuban Exodus: Political and Economic Motivations,” Caribbean Review, 11(1):22-25, 58-60 (Winter 1982).

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13. Among working-class immigrant women, conditions were doubly difficult. Monica Boyd has observed, for example, that the lower occupational status of immigrant women in Canada seems to be due not only to their being women, but to their being foreign-born as well. Monica Boyd , “At a Disadvantage: The Occupational Attainments of Foreign Born Women in Canada,” International Migration Review, 18(4):1113 (1985).

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14. Wilson , “Black Community in the 1980's.”

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15. Alejandro Portes , “Modes of Structural Incorporation and Present Theories of Labor Immigration,” in Global Trends in Migration: Theory and Research on International Population Movements, ed. Mary M. Kritz , Charles B. Keely , and Silvano M. Tomasi (New York: Center for Migration Studies, 1981), pp. 279-297.

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16. Portes and Bach , Latin Journey.

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17. Stephen Castles , “The Social Time-bomb: Education of an Underclass in West Germany,” Race and Class, 4 (1980).

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18. James O'Connor , The Fiscal Crisis of the State (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1973).

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19. Michael J. Piore and Charles F. Sabel , The Second Industrial Divide: Possibilities for Prosperity (New York: Basic Books, 1984).

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20. Robert L. Bach and Marta Tienda , “Contemporary Immigration and Refugee Movements and Employment Adjustment Policies,” in Immigration: Issues and Policies, ed. Vernon M. Briggs, Jr. , and Marta Tienda (Salt Lake City, UT: Olympus, 1985).

21.

21. See, for example, Robert L. Bach , “Labor Force Participation and Employment among Southeast Asian Refugees in the United States” (Report, Office of Refugee Resettlement, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1984.)

22.

Ivan Light , “Asian Entreprise in America: Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans in Small Business,” in Self-Help in Urban America, ed. Scott Cummings (New York: Kennikat, 1980), pp. 33-57.

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23. Portes and Bach , Latin Journey.

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24. Wilson , “Black Community in the 1980's.”

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25. For example, see Gary P. Freeman , “Migration and the Political Economy of the Welfare State,” this issue of The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.