Paradise Shift: Immigration, Mobility and Inequality in Southern California

Abstract

In a context of widening economic inequality and governmental persecution of undocumented immigrants, central theoretical and policy questions concern the social mobility (intra- and inter-generational) of new ethnic groups being formed as a result of mass migration from Latin America and Asia - especially the rapidly growing generation of children of immigrants now making their transitions to adulthood (finishing their education, entering full-time work, forming families of their own). In this paper findings are presented from merged samples of two research studies in Southern California (IIMMLA and CILS-III). The focus is on the educational mobility of foreign-parentage (1.5- and 2nd-generation) young adults of Mexican, Salvadoran, Guatemalan, Filipino, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian origin - representing distinct and segmented modes of incorporation. The analysis examines factors which facilitate or derail their mobility prospects, including the relative role of parental human capital and legal/citizenship status, family and neighborhood contexts growing up, early school achievement, acculturation, incarceration, and teenage and non-marital child-bearing, compared to patterns observed for native-parentage (3rd-generation and beyond) white, black, and Mexican-American peers. The relationship of acculturation and mobility, the resultant formation of new patterns of urban ethnic inequality and their implications for social science and public policy, are also addressed.

Keywords: immigration, inequality, mobility, legal status, education, incarceration, childbearing, acculturation, transitions to adulthood