Toward a Population History of The Second Generation: Birth Cohorts of Southern-, Central- And Eastern- European Origins, 1871–1970

Past-present comparisons of second-generation progress are often plagued by vague references to the baseline, the past. This essay seeks to contribute some specificity to the understanding of second generations past for the sake of comparison and as a contribution to historical understanding in its own right. First, it defines the older second- generation groups that make for theoretically meaningful comparisons. It next determines when these relevant second-generation members grew up and the magnitude of each ethnic birth cohort. Finally, the essay calls attention to important shifts in the social composition of second- generation cohorts that have not been studied systematically before (when indeed noticed at all). Specifically, over time, the proportion of immigrant parents who arrived as children, arrived after the mass migration, or married a native-born American varies immensely. Such compositional shifts should interest those who study contemporary as well as past immigration, since these shifts will appear in some fashion in any immigration. The study also analyses Stanley Lieberson's work with ethnic cohorts in A Piece of the Pie, and confirms his fundamental conclusion.

"Mexicans Now, Italians Then: Intermarriage Patterns"

This working paper continues earlier efforts to compare the experiences of today's second-generation Mexican Americans with those of second-generation members of major immigrant groups of a century ago. Here the focus is on intermarriage. Contemporary data comes from 1998-2001 CPS data sets and historical data from the IPUMS data sets for 1920 and 1960. As in earlier papers, the precise definition of the relevant second-generation members is an important dimension of the work. In this paper the definition of outmarriage is important as well. The major conclusion is that outmarriage of second-generation Mexican Americans may seem low in absolute terms, but is comparable to the outmarriage rates for second-generation Italians at roughly similar stages of that group's adjustment to American society. Appendices take up questions such as evidence on the ethnic composition of the mixed second generation (native-born of mixed parentage) as revealed in earlier CPS data sets.

"Surveying American Jews and Their Views on Middle East Politics: The Current Situation and a Proposal for a New Approach"

This working paper takes up three related themes. In section 1, I briefly describe the issues relevant to surveying American Jews and highlight the importance of authoritative national surveys; in section 2, I note that these surveys have not included much exploration of American Jewish divisions over Israeli and American Middle East policy. In section 3, I propose the rudiments of a sample design that would meet the traditional needs of the national survey as well as the political opinion poll. This design is based on a rotating national panel of respondents, somewhat like the U.S. government's Current Population Survey. At the same time, data from earlier panels can be combined to increase sample size for the study of sociocultural issues that are less immediate in nature. Readers who are primarily interested in the issue of polling political opinion about Israeli and American Middle East policy may wish to read only sections 2 and 3. Those primarily interested in the proposal for a national survey based on a rotating panel may wish to read only section 3.

Young Mexican Americans, Blacks, and Whites in Recent Years: Schooling and Teen Motherhood as Indicators of Strengths and Risks

This paper stresses that the key to concerns about the progress of second-generation Americans is the fate of the Mexican second generation. It compares several indicators of the advances of second- generation Mexicans to those of non-Hispanic, native-born blacks and non-Hispanic, native-born white attainments. The analysis relies on the most recent available evidence from the CPS data of 1994–2000. Patterns of educational attainment are ambiguous, which suggests that the Mexican pattern and resembles that of older immigrant laboring groups of the past, who traded extended schooling for work. Patterns of teen and young-adult unwed motherhood, labor force attachment, and poverty suggest that to date the Mexican and black patterns do not converge. The male–female ratio among the groups underscores the point. The paper also argues that evidence on contemporary third-generation Mexican-Americans is largely irrelevant to expectations about the descendants of the current Mexican immigrants. The paper concludes with an argument that these data do not point clearly to second-generation decline; nevertheless, it also shows that if such decline is expected, there are ways to read these data, that would produce such a result.

"Views of European Races among the Research Staff of the US Immigration Commission and the Census Bureau, ca. 1910"

This paper discusses support for, and opposition to, racial classification of European immigrants among high-level researchers at both the United States Immigration Commission of 1907-11 (the Dillingham Commission) and the Census Bureau during those same years. A critical distinction must be made between the Commission members-political appointees who mostly supported some form of restriction at the time of their appointment-and the top research staff, whose views were remarkably wide ranging. Moreover, even staff members committed to a racialized outlook-such as Daniel Folkmar, author of the Commission's infamous Dictionary of Races and Peoples-deserve a closer look than historians have given them; for example, Folkmar and his superior on the staff had requested commentary from Franz Boas, who was then emerging as the most prestigious academic critic of racial theories (theories that assume group differences in behavior arise from biological endowments). Another feature of the narrative concerns the surprising number of staff who transferred from the Commission to the Census Bureau to work on the 1910 Census. Debates continued at the Bureau as well, this time over how to present the results of the new "mother tongue" question, which had been introduced to the Census questionnaire in response to pressure for a European "race" question. Indeed, Folkmar was also the chief author of the Census Bureau report on the mother-tongue data.

"Who's a Jew in an Era of High Intermarriage? Surveys, Operational Definitions, and the Contemporary American Context"

The old ways in which surveys of Jews handled marginal cases no longer make sense, and the number of cases involved is no longer small. I examine in detail the public-use samples of the two recent national surveys of Americans of recent Jewish origin-the National Jewish Population Survey (NJPS) and the American Jewish Identity Survey (AJIS)-and also explore the implications for the American Jewish Committee annual surveys of Jewish political opinion. When Jews are defined by the question "What is your religion, if any?" the effect is not primarily to eliminate secular or culturally oriented Jews. However, large majorities of the children of intermarriage will fail to reply "Jewish." Accordingly, the paper turns to two competing procedures for treating respondents of recent Jewish origin who do not report themselves to be Jewish by religion. The core Jewish population includes respondents who answer that they have no religion. I find this procedure problematic because the meaning of the "no religion" response has also changed: it no longer captures people with close connections to the Jewish world who deny the religious connection out of principle. Yet two out of three are the products of intermarriage. I tentatively suggest an alternative principle: self-identity. Americans of recent Jewish origin who are not Jews by religion should be asked (as they were in the 2000-01 the NJPS) whether they consider themselves Jewish for any reason. Those that reply in the affirmative should be counted as Jews. The paper examines the proportions of people affected by limiting surveys of American Jews to Jews by religion, and the results of using one or another procedure for deciding who else is a Jew. As an example, some demographic outcomes are tabulated using different definitions, as are responses to the question "How close do you feel to Israel?"

Demographic Outcomes of Ethnic Intermarriage in American History: Italian-Americans through Four Generations

This paper presents a new approach to measuring the extent of intermarriage among Americans of different ethnic origins. Using U.S. Census microdata and CPS data, measurements of the rates of Italian- American intermarriages across four generations are made to demonstrate that these rates were not merely high following the immigrant generation, but that even low estimates of intermarriage rates will produce high proportions of descendants of mixed origin. Extended asides show (1) how high proportions of Italian-immigrant men could in-marry despite the severe gender imbalance in the immigrant population, and (2) the importance of studying the proportion of immigrant arrivals who came to this country as children and the ambiguous generational status not just of these individuals (the '1.5 generation') but of their children ('2.5'?). Finally, the paper concludes by emphasizing the significance of the results for assimilation among past and future immigrants, the concept of generations, and current-day projections about the future racial composition of the United States.