Defining Difference: The Role of Immigrant Generation and Race in American and British Immigration Studies

This article reviews the ways in which Britain and the USA classify and analyse the integration of immigrants and their descendants. While both societies recognize racial differences in their official statistics and in the academic analyses of change over time, the USA tends to classify immigrants and their descendants by immigrant generation much more than Britain does. The importance of the concept of generation in American immigration research is highlighted and it is suggested that studies built on the importance of generation can illuminate social processes of integration in Britain. The complexities of defining and measuring immigrant generation are reviewed, including new developments in the measurement of generation that take into account age at migration, and historical period and cohort effects. Racial and ethnic minority groups formed through immigration may have very different characteristics depending on the average distance of their members from immigration – including the possibility of ‘ethnic leakage’, as more assimilated, later-generation individuals no longer identify with the group.Sociolog

The Impact of Racial Segregation on the Education and Work Outcomes of Second Generation West Indians in New York City

In this paper I focus on the third way in which race matters to second generation outcomes--ongoing institutional racism and the detrimental effects of racial segregation. I would like to suggest that while the cultural and identity reactions of second generation youth are important in determining their labor market outcomes, the structural constraints facing these youth have large independent effects. In other words, even the most non oppositional, un-race conscious, ambitious, school identified youth would face a very uphill battle to avoid crime and violence, do well in school, and get enough education in a local school to actually complete college. The literature on the second generation, including some of my own writing, has stressed the cultural and structural strengths of immigrants and their children and how they are able to overcome barriers which have cursed some native minorities in the US. However these barriers and the racial discrimination that sustains them are real and these real deprivations create failure among some youth. This paper is based on an in depth ace and interview study of first and second generation West Indians in New York City in the early 1990's. After a brief description of the research I concentrate on the ways in which neighborhood and school segregation function to limit opportunities in school and the labor market for second generation will flesh out the "black box" mechanisms by which race remains correlated with extreme disadvantage in our society even among the children of new immigrants.

Role of health in predicting moves to poor neighborhoods among Hurricane Katrina survivors

In contrast to a large literature investigating neighborhood effects on health, few studies have examined health as a determinant of neighborhood attainment. However, the sorting of individuals into neighborhoods by health status is a substantively important process for multiple policy sectors. We use prospectively collected data on 569 poor, predominantly African American Hurricane Katrina survivors to examine the extent to which health problems predicted subsequent neighborhood poverty. Our outcome of interest was participants’ 2009-2010 census tract poverty rate. Participants were coded as having a health problem at baseline (2003-2004) if they self-reported a diagnosis of asthma, high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, heart problems, or any other physical health problems not listed, or complained of back pain, migraines, or digestive problems at baseline. While health problems were not associated with neighborhood poverty at baseline, those with baseline health problems ended up living in higher poverty areas by 2009-2010. Differences persisted after adjustment for personal characteristics, baseline neighborhood poverty, hurricane exposure, and residence in the New Orleans metropolitan area, with baseline health problem(s) predicting a 3.4 percentage point higher neighborhood poverty rate (95% CI: 1.41,5.47). Results suggest that better health was protective against later neighborhood deprivation in a highly mobile, socially vulnerable population. Researchers should consider reciprocal associations between health and neighborhoods when estimating and interpreting neighborhood effects on health. Understanding whether and how poor health impedes poverty deconcentration efforts may help inform programs and policies designed to help low income families move to, and stay in, higher opportunity neighborhoods.Sociolog

Community-Guided Focus Group Analysis to Examine Cancer Disparities

Accountability for Cancer Care through Undoing Racism and Equity (ACCURE) is a systems-change intervention addressing disparities in treatment initiation and completion and outcomes for early stage Black and White breast and lung cancer patients. Using a community-based participatory research approach, ACCURE is guided by a diverse partnership involving academic researchers, a non-profit community-based organization, its affiliated broader-based community coalition, and providers and staff from two cancer centers

Genome wide association mapping of grain arsenic, copper, molybdenum and zinc in rice (Oryza sativa L.) grown at four international field sites

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