Papers by Rubén G. Rumbaut

Center for Research on Effective Schooling for Disadvantaged Students, CDS Report No. 11, 1990
Since the passage of the 1965 Immigration Act, the immigrant population of the United States has ... more Since the passage of the 1965 Immigration Act, the immigrant population of the United States has grown rapidly and has diversified with newly-arrived contingents from all over the world. Mexicans, Filipinos, and other Asian nationals are among the largest of the groups who have been admitted under regular immigration quotas. Their diversity has been heightened by the addition of political refugees, primarily from Southeast Asia. Unlike older waves of immigrants (some 90% of whom came from Europe) who concentrated primarily in northeastern and midwestern states, the new immigrants (some 90% of whom have come from Asia and Latin America) have settled principally in California. As a consequence of their sharply increased immigration, combined with the lower fertility of native-born women, foreign-born groups are growing much more rapidly than native-born groups -- a phenomenon that is redefining the state's ethnic mosaic. Although little is known at present about the U.S.-born or U.S.-reared second generation, immigrant children are bound to represent a sizable component of the next generation of Americans.
The objective of this report is to summarize current knowledge about immigrant students in California public schools. First, we review the most recent available evidence concerning the size, ethnic composition and other characteristics of both FEP (Fluent English Proficient) and LEP (Limited English Proficient) language-minority students enrolled statewide in K-12 public schools. Data from the Los Angeles Unified School District (the nation's second largest) will also be reviewed, as well as data from a recent statewide survey of immigrant students. Next we examine comparative indicators of the educational performance of immigrant students in San Diego high schools (including dropout rates, GPAs, achievement test scores, and educational aspirations). Finally we highlight the- findings of several recent case studies of the adaptation of selected immigrant and refugee groups in California high schools – focusing on Mexicans, Southeast Asians (Vietnamese, Lao, Hmong, Cambodian), Punjabi Sikhs from India, and Central Americans (Salvadorans, Guatemalans and Nicaraguans) -- and discuss the implications of these studies.

New York University Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2022
is a 25-year-old Vietnamese man. He works full-time at Pizza Hut, and lives with his girlfriend a... more is a 25-year-old Vietnamese man. He works full-time at Pizza Hut, and lives with his girlfriend and her 4-year-old son in San Diego. Without a high school diploma, Nghi is confined to a minimum-wage job with no benefits. He works six days a week, and is trying to get his life back on track. Nghi was recently released from prison, after serving three years of a six-year sentence for attempted burglary. With a prison record and an 11 th grade education Nghi faces major obstacles. His life until now has been one of hardship and bad choices. After fleeing Vietnam in a boat crammed with refugees, Nghi's family was resettled in San Diego upon arrival in the United States. During those early years, times were tough for the family, which depended on public assistance through state-sponsored refugee programs. After a few years, Nghi's dad landed a job at a large industrial company, making parts for airplanes; he also found companionship and remarried. Although doing better materially, the family still did not act as a cohesive unit, and parent-child bonds frayed. Nghi blames his early troubles on his dad's bad temper and his step mom's chronic nagging. Nghi found solace in a peer group of Vietnamese youths who were just as troubled. Together they got caught up in drugs, stealing, robberies and shootings. He left home at sixteen to escape home life and gain freedom from parental authority. This move, however, signaled a turn for the worse. Less than a year later, Nghi was expelled from school. Out of school and on the streets, Nghi's involvement in delinquent activity increased steadily. At 19, he picked up his first criminal charge for petty theft, for which he paid $500 and was put on probation. Two months later he was pulled over by police for possession of a shotgun. After making up a story, he was let go by the police without being charged. But he was not so lucky on his third encounter with the police. Four years after leaving home, at the age of 20, he was charged with commercial burglary. He confessed to the crime and was given the maximum sentence, of which he served half.

Ethnic and Racial Studies, Nov 20, 2019
California and the New Second Generation Waves of international migrants since the 1960s have tra... more California and the New Second Generation Waves of international migrants since the 1960s have transformed and will continue to transform the United States, and especially California. Indeed, recent estimates based on immigration trends and birth rates indicate that almost all of the growth of the U.S. working-age population between now and 2060 will consist of immigrants and their children (Passel and Cohn 2008; Vespa et al. 2018). In Southern California, the importance of children of immigrants for the overall workforce cannot be overstated. Even with recent immigration shifts to "new destinations," since the 1970s more immigrants have settled in Southern California than in any other metropolitan region of the world. Nearly 30% of young adults 18-34 in the U.S. have an immigrant parent, as do nearly 60% of all young adults in Southern California (Rumbaut and Komaie 2010). Southern California is home to the largest concentrations of Mexicans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Filipinos, Koreans, Japanese, Taiwanese, Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Iranians outside of their respective countries of origin, and to sizable contingents of others, including Armenians, Canadians, mainland Chinese, Hondurans, Indians, Laotians, Israeli and Russian Jews, and various Arab nationalities (Rumbaut 2004, 2008). More than half of the nearly 40 million people living in California today are immigrants or their US-born children. The demographic transformation of California has proceeded so rapidly that it is hard to imagine that Southern California itself had only relatively recently become a "new destination." From 1920 to 1960, according to historian Jon Wiener (2008), "Los Angeles was the whitest and most Protestant city in the United States, and the American city with the smallest proportion of immigrants." By the end of the 1980s, however, fully a third of all the 19.8 million immigrants in the U.S. had settled in California-and immigrants from eight of the top 10 countries of origin had established their primary settlements in California, a pattern that remains to date-with Los Angeles

Emerging adulthood, Oct 15, 2018
Through an analysis of qualitative interview and survey data, this study examines ethnic identity... more Through an analysis of qualitative interview and survey data, this study examines ethnic identity development from mid-adolescence to middle adulthood among a representative sample of immigrants' children from Mexico, the Philippines, and other countries, who were followed for more than twenty years. Findings reveal that ethnic self-identity labels are more stable in adulthood than adolescence or the transition to adulthood, but the importance of ethnic identity diminishes, especially among those born abroad. Most prefer ethnic identity labels referencing their origin country, reflecting family ties and cultural attachments. However, some, mostly foreign-born, shift to ethnic self-identity labels exclusively related to their American experience, including panethnic labels in response to U.S. racialization. Only a few actively resist such labeling and claim non-hyphenated American identities. Overall, the findings reveal how diverse ethnic identity development patterns over the life course are shaped both by ancestral attachments and the imposition of existing U.S. racial structures.

A Distorted Nation: Perceptions of Racial/Ethnic Group Sizes and Attitudes Toward Immigrants and Other Minorities
Social Forces, Dec 1, 2005
ABSTRACT Using a special module (MEUS) of the 2000 General Social Survey, we investigate American... more ABSTRACT Using a special module (MEUS) of the 2000 General Social Survey, we investigate Americans’ perceptions of the racial and ethnic composition of the United States. We show that, because of innumeracy, it is critical to gauge perceptions through relative, rather than absolute, group sizes. Even so, it appears that, as of 2000, roughly half of Americans believed that whites had become a numerical minority; such perceptions were even more common among minority-group members than among whites. Majority-group respondents’ perceptions of the relative sizes of minorities affect their attitudes towards immigrants, blacks and Hispanics, with those having the most distorted perceptions holding the most negative attitudes. Although perceptions of group sizes in the nation are linked to the perceived racial/ethnic composition of the communities where respondents reside, the effects of the former on attitudes are largely independent of the latter. Our findings highlight the frequently overlooked value of an old bromide against prejudice: education.

4. Coming of Age in “America’s Finest City”: Transitions to Adulthood Among Children of Immigrants in San Diego
“Coming of age,” a familiar phrase but an elusive process, can mean many things, but fundamentall... more “Coming of age,” a familiar phrase but an elusive process, can mean many things, but fundamentally it connotes the manifold changes that accompany the exit from adolescence and the entry into adult roles and responsibilities. However it is measured, coming of age is taking longer these days. The prolonged completion of higher education affects the timetables of other adult transitions, especially by delaying the entry into full-time work, the exit from the parental household, and decisions about marriage and children. Not only are more young Americans going to college, but they are taking longer to attain what are still called “two year” and “four year” degrees; more are also continuing on to seek advanced degrees in graduate or professional schools, and still others return to school to gain needed credentials or work skills in order to compete in rapidly changing local labor markets. Today, only a fourth (27%) of all those enrolled in higher education are so-called “traditional” full-time students who go directly from high school to a 4-year college or university, are supported financially by their parents, and work either part-time or not at all. In contrast, about 40% attend community colleges, most of whom tend to be “nontraditional” students who may have delayed going after finishing high school, lack the financial support of their parents, often work full-time or nearly full-time, and may already have children of their own. A growing proportion of them are ethnically diverse young adult children of immigrants, especially in regions of high immigration such as San Diego, the setting for the study reported here. We highlight the variety of trajectories San Diegans pursue from high school through college, and the complex financial, institutional and psychological struggles they encounter during the transition to adulthood. The 134 young adults that we interviewed are from a wide range of Latin American and Asian backgrounds and all are the children of immigrants. Through their narratives we illustrate how they come of age through the lens of their educational experience. The cases, most of whom were 24 or 25 years old at the time they were interviewed, were representatively drawn from the San Diego sample of the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS), a panel study which followed for more than a decade a large sample of young people growing up in immigrant families in San Diego, from the end of junior high school through their mid-twenties.
Perceptions of Racial/Ethnic Group Sizes and Attitudes Toward Immigrants and Other Minorities
Immigration, Economic Disadvantage, and Homicide: A Community-Level Analysis of Austin, Texas
Social Science Research Network, 2009
In this article, the effect of recent immigration on homicide rates across city of Austin, Texas ... more In this article, the effect of recent immigration on homicide rates across city of Austin, Texas census tracts is examined. Since 1980, Austin's recent immigrant population increased by more than 580% across the metropolitan area and it is now considered a “pre-emerging” immigrant gateway city to the United States. Therefore the changing population dynamics in Austin provide an excellent opportunity to study the effect of recent immigration on homicide. After controlling for structural predictors of homicide and correcting for spatial autocorrelation, our findings indicate that recent immigration is not associated with homicide.
Immigration, Economic Disadvantage, and Homicide
Homicide Studies, Jun 10, 2009
In this article, the effect of recent immigration on homicide rates across city of Austin, Texas ... more In this article, the effect of recent immigration on homicide rates across city of Austin, Texas census tracts is examined. Since 1980, Austin's recent immigrant population increased by more than 580% across the metropolitan area and it is now considered a “pre-emerging” immigrant gateway city to the United States. Therefore the changing population dynamics in Austin provide an excellent opportunity to study the effect of recent immigration on homicide. After controlling for structural predictors of homicide and correcting for spatial autocorrelation, our findings indicate that recent immigration is not associated with homicide.

Walter a. ewing, Ph.d. is Senior Researcher at the American Immigration Council. He writes on a w... more Walter a. ewing, Ph.d. is Senior Researcher at the American Immigration Council. He writes on a wide range of topics pertaining to U.S. immigration policy, including the impact of immigration on the U.S. economy, the unintended consequences of U.S. border-enforcement policies, and the relationship between immigration and crime. He has published articles in the Journal on Migration and Human Security, Society, the Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy, and the Stanford Law and Policy Review. He also authored a chapter in Debates on U.S. Immigration, published by SAGE in 2012. He received his Ph.D. in Anthropology from the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate School. daniel e. martínez, Ph.d. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and inaugural director of the Cisneros Hispanic Leadership Institute at The George Washington University. He is a co-principal investigator of the Migrant Border Crossing Study, a Ford Foundation-funded research project that involves interviewing recently deported unauthorized migrants about their experiences crossing the U.S-Mexico border and residing in the United States. Martínez also does extensive research on undocumented border-crosser deaths along the U.S.-Mexico border. He received his Ph.D. from the School of Sociology at the University of Arizona.
Immigration, Economic Disadvantage and Serious Property Crime: A Community-Level Analysis of Austin, Texas

Coming of Age in “America’s Finest City”
University of California Press eBooks, Sep 20, 2011
“Coming of age,�? a familiar phrase but an elusive process, can mean many things, but fundamental... more “Coming of age,�? a familiar phrase but an elusive process, can mean many things, but fundamentally it connotes the manifold changes that accompany the exit from adolescence and the entry into adult roles and responsibilities. However it is measured, coming of age is taking longer these days. The prolonged completion of higher education affects the timetables of other adult transitions, especially by delaying the entry into full-time work, the exit from the parental household, and decisions about marriage and children. Not only are more young Americans going to college, but they are taking longer to attain what are still called “two year�? and “four year�? degrees; more are also continuing on to seek advanced degrees in graduate or professional schools, and still others return to school to gain needed credentials or work skills in order to compete in rapidly changing local labor markets. Today, only a fourth (27%) of all those enrolled in higher education are so-called “traditional�? full-time students who go directly from high school to a 4-year college or university, are supported financially by their parents, and work either part-time or not at all. In contrast, about 40% attend community colleges, most of whom tend to be “nontraditional�? students who may have delayed going after finishing high school, lack the financial support of their parents, often work full-time or nearly full-time, and may already have children of their own. A growing proportion of them are ethnically diverse young adult children of immigrants, especially in regions of high immigration such as San Diego, the setting for the study reported here. We highlight the variety of trajectories San Diegans pursue from high school through college, and the complex financial, institutional and psychological struggles they encounter during the transition to adulthood. The 134 young adults that we interviewed are from a wide range of Latin American and Asian backgrounds and all are the children of immigrants. Through their narratives we illustrate how they come of age through the lens of their educational experience. The cases, most of whom were 24 or 25 years old at the time they were interviewed, were representatively drawn from the San Diego sample of the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS), a panel study which followed for more than a decade a large sample of young people growing up in immigrant families in San Diego, from the end of junior high school through their mid-twenties.
The new immigration
US Foreign Policy After the Cold War, 2003
... RUBEN G. RUMBAUT Michigan State University ... Still, note the authors, development rifts hav... more ... RUBEN G. RUMBAUT Michigan State University ... Still, note the authors, development rifts haveforged "three major migration divides in the world: the Rio Grande, separating the United States and Latin America; the Oder-Neisse, separating Western and Eastern Eu-rope; and ...
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2014
International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2001
This article reviews the evolution of the concept of assimilation in American social science. It ... more This article reviews the evolution of the concept of assimilation in American social science. It distinguishes assimilation from accommodation as modal adaptation outcomes of different immigrant generations, as well as various aspects that are commonly conflated by the concept (cultural adaptations, economic mobility, social acceptance into a native mainstream); discusses interrelated cultural (subtractive and additive acculturation), structural (primary and secondary integration), and psychological (identification) dimensions of the concept; and describes the process of 'segmented assimilation'how it is that different groups, in varying contexts of reception and incorporation, adapt to and are absorbed into different sectors of the society.

Public health reports (Washington, D.C. : 1974)
From 1975 to 1988, nearly 900,000 Indochinese refugees were resettled in the United States. This ... more From 1975 to 1988, nearly 900,000 Indochinese refugees were resettled in the United States. This paper examines patterns of fertility among these refugees from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam who have exhibited high levels of reproduction since their arrival. Data are drawn from sample surveys in San Diego and San Francisco, CA. Fertility levels were found to exceed five children per ever-married woman, a level that is consistent with perceptions of ideal family size in the homeland. Fertility levels were significantly higher among rural second-wave refugees than in the more urban first-wave groups. One explanation for the high fertility is that couples have migrated from areas where fertility is high, and they have not yet adapted their reproductive behavior to the low fertility environment of the United States. This possibility is reinforced by a general gender preference for boys and exacerbated by the fact that, while a majority of women are aware of methods of fertility control, ac...

Applied Developmental Science, 2008
Every day we are reminded of-indeed, we are surrounded by-the myriad ways in which the United Sta... more Every day we are reminded of-indeed, we are surrounded by-the myriad ways in which the United States remains a "permanently unfinished" society, a global sponge remarkable in its continuing capacity to absorb millions of people of all classes and cultures from every continent on earth. There are today nearly 40 million foreign-born persons in the U.S.-of whom 12 million are estimated to be undocumented, most from Mexico and Central America-and another 30 million of foreign-parentage. This immigrant-stock population, the largest ever, is a youthful one-and today's U.S.-born second generation, with a median age of 12, is poised to explode into adulthood in the coming 10 to 20 years. They are "coming of age" in an aging society undergoing profound social and economic transformations, all of which will have, inevitably, political ramifications. A great deal of how tomorrow's social contract between natives and newcomers is worked out, and how the commitment to democratic values of equity and inclusion is met, will hinge on the mode of political incorporation and civic engagement of newcomer youth today (Tienda 2002; Tienda and Mitchell, 2006). The essays in this issue provide a glimpse of the possibilities.

Assimilation's Bumpy Road
“Assimilation,” a protean concept with an American pedigree and a checkered past, is back in vogu... more “Assimilation,” a protean concept with an American pedigree and a checkered past, is back in vogue. But in academic and colloquial usage, in social science, public policy and popular culture, the idea and the ideal of “assimilation” have had a bumpy history. Over time the term has conflated various normative prescriptions (“e pluribus unum,” “melting pot”) and empirical descriptions (cultural adaptations, economic mobility, social acceptance by a dominant group) to make sense of the incorporation of “ethnic” difference in American life. After more than a century of use and misuse the term itself remains confusing and contentious. For a “canonical” concept, there remains surprising ambiguity as to its meaning, measurement and applicability. This essay, prepared for a Festschrift in honor of Herbert J. Gans, explores the history of the idea in American society and social science as a master frame and the teleology of Progress underlying it; considers cultural, social, legal, economic and identificational indices of intergenerational change among contemporary ethnic groups based on an array of census and survey data; and raises questions about the limitations and paradoxes of the concept itself in the study of ethnicity and inequality in American life. Despite the grand narratives of modernization which undergird the concept of assimilation, neither race nor religion nor ethnicity has vanished in American life. Linguistic “Anglicization” and other forms of acculturation do proceed rapidly, especially among immigrant children and the second generation. But alongside undeniable upward social mobility from the first to the second generation for most groups, especially the children of the poorest and least educated - though the gains appear to peak in the second generation and decline or plateau thereafter - there is compelling evidence of widening “ethclass” and legal inequalities, of new conflicts and political mobilizations around ethnic and racial issues, and of downward mobility and marginalization for vulnerable segments of these populations. An undocumented status has become a caste-like master status blocking access to the opportunity structure and paths to social mobility for millions of immigrants. A fraught concept like “assimilation,” weighted by the normative baggage of its past, seems ill-suited to grasp these complex dynamics and to focus critical attention on enduring structural inequalities and persistent ethnic and pan-ethnic formations in this “permanently unfinished” society.

I am my self and my circumstance," wrote José Ortega y Gasset, the Spanish philosopher, on the ev... more I am my self and my circumstance," wrote José Ortega y Gasset, the Spanish philosopher, on the eve of World War I, in his Meditations on Quixote. 1 The self in exile, and the circumstances of exile, are as varied as h uman character and human history. Forced uprooting from one's homeland and community-coerced homelessness-may be the common crisis that confronts all exiles and refugees, but such groups are affected by, perceive and react to their changed and changing circumstances in different ways. Exile is not a uniform journey, but many different journeys, and "it" cannot be grasped by a single vision, but many-reflecting the different vantages and framings of different selves, and indeed of the same self over time, in circumstances that never stay the same. The meaning of exile, and of home, varies-not least as a function of age and generation, of biography and history, of self and circumstance. A quarter of a century ago, in May 1976, my father and I, a psychiatrist and a sociologist, teamed together to offer our reflections and perspectives on the experience of exile. Joined by a common title, "Two Generational Perspectives on the Experience of Exile," we each presented short papers on this theme at the annual meetings of the American Society of Adolescent Psychiatry-which follow below, unedited, and comprise the first half of this chapter. 2 A quarter of a century later we collaborated again, at the invitation of Professor Peter I. Rose, adjusting and updating our respective visions and journeys with the passage of time. Those reflections, which were presented at a national symposium on "The Anatomy of Exile" at Smith College and subsequently revised, comprise the second half of this chapter.
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Papers by Rubén G. Rumbaut
The objective of this report is to summarize current knowledge about immigrant students in California public schools. First, we review the most recent available evidence concerning the size, ethnic composition and other characteristics of both FEP (Fluent English Proficient) and LEP (Limited English Proficient) language-minority students enrolled statewide in K-12 public schools. Data from the Los Angeles Unified School District (the nation's second largest) will also be reviewed, as well as data from a recent statewide survey of immigrant students. Next we examine comparative indicators of the educational performance of immigrant students in San Diego high schools (including dropout rates, GPAs, achievement test scores, and educational aspirations). Finally we highlight the- findings of several recent case studies of the adaptation of selected immigrant and refugee groups in California high schools – focusing on Mexicans, Southeast Asians (Vietnamese, Lao, Hmong, Cambodian), Punjabi Sikhs from India, and Central Americans (Salvadorans, Guatemalans and Nicaraguans) -- and discuss the implications of these studies.