Trajectories for the Immigrant Second Generation in New York City

It has become a truism to say that immigration hastransformed American society since 1965. Beginning with“gateway” cities like New York and Los Angeles, the effect ofnew immigrants now extends to small pork- or chickenprocessingtowns in Iowa or North Carolina. Indeed, theMarch 2004 annual demographic supplement to the CurrentPopulation Survey (CPS) indicates that almost 12 percent ofAmerica’s residents were born abroad, doubtless anunderestimate. In places where first-generation immigrantsconcentrate, like New York City, immigrants now make upalmost half the adult population—and in the case of Miami,more than three-fifths. This outcome has led scholars toundertake many studies of the new immigrants, for example,using individual traits to model individual earnings or lookingat the school performance or health conditions of the childrenof immigrants.[...]