Below is another announcement about an online survey in need of Chinese American respondents:

Greetings. My name is William Nguyen, MA and I am a Ph. D Candidate at Alliant International University: CSPP. I am conducting a study that explores the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of Chinese American-identified undergraduate students attending a 2 or 4 year college/university in regards to their career decision-making process. I believe that the career theories currently in the literature fail to fully capture the Asian American experience and often neglect key facets of who we are: our culture, our experiences of acculturation, and the influence of honor and family.

If you are interested in participating, you will complete a 20 – 30 minute survey that asks you a myriad of questions related to your career decision-making process. All responses and identifying information will be kept confidential. As incentive for your participation, all participants that provide contact information will be entered in a raffle for either a $75, $50, or $25 gift card to Gap, Inc. (or any other department store of choice).

Should you have any questions about the research please contact: William Nguyen at wnguyen@alliant.edu. If you would like to participate, please click go to https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=DQKGz8ZQQ58Uuyq4aROxvA_3d_3d. Also, if you are interested in receiving results to this study, please contact William Nguyen with that request. Thank you for your time and consideration.

In Peace,

William W. Nguyen, MA, Ph. D Candidate
Alliant International University: California School of Professional Psychology
San Francisco, CA

As part of this blog’s mission of making academic research and data more easily accessible, understandable, and applicable to a wider audience and to practical, everyday social issues, I highlight new sociological books about Asian Americans and other racial/ethnic groups as I hear about them. As always, please remember that I highlight them for informational purposes only and do not necessarily endorse their entire content or arguments.

Twenty-First Century Color Lines: Multiracial Change in Contemporary America, edited by Andrew Grant-Thomas and Gary Orfield (Temple University Press)

The result of work initiated by the Harvard Civil Rights Project, this collection provides an excellent overview of the contemporary racial and ethnic terrain in the United States. The well-respected contributors to “Twenty-First Century Color Lines” combine theoretical and empirical perspectives, answering fundamental questions about the present and future of multiracialism in the United States:

• How are racial and ethnic identities promoted and defended across a spectrum of social, geopolitical and cultural contexts?
• What do two generations of demographic and social shifts around issues of race look like ‘on the ground?’
• What are the socio-cultural implications of changing demographics in the U.S.?
• And what do the answers to these questions portend for our multiracial future?

This illuminating book addresses issues of work, education, family life and nationality for different ethnic groups, including Asians and Latinos as well as African Americans and Whites. Such diversity, gathered here in one volume, provides new perspectives on ethnicity in a society marked by profound racial transformations.

The contributors include: Luis A. Aviles, Juan Carlos Martinez-Cruzado, Nilanjana Dasgupta, Christina Gomez, Gerald Gurin, Patricia Gurin, Anthony Kwame Harrison, Maria-Rosario Jackson, John Matlock, Nancy McArdle, John Mollenkopf, John A. Powell, Doris Ramirez, David Roediger, Anayra Santory-Jorge, Jiannbin Lee Shiao, Mia H. Tuan, Katrina Wade-Golden and the editors.

To complement my earlier post on recent studies on the second generation, another special issue from an academic journal focuses on issues related to social justice and activism among Asian Americans: “Asian American and Pacific Islander Population Struggles for Social Justice” in the journal Social Justice: A Journal of Crime, Conflict, and World Order (2008-2009, Volume 35 Issue 2):

This issue of Social Justice offers an overview of the struggle for social justice in the United States by Asian and Pacific Islanders, including the factors that shape oppositional consciousness and the possibility for collective action. Authors address Asian American activism in urban communities — particularly traditional Asian ethnic enclaves — around land use, affordable housing, as well as labor and community preservation.

Articles address grass-roots efforts to launch an anti-drug offensive, an environmental justice and leadership skills organization, to develop tools for Muslim women of South Asian descent to fight anti-Islamic sentiment, to confront the marginalization and stereotyping of Asian Americans in popular culture, to critique the racial differentiation of the Asian and Latino immigrant populations, and to expose how the model minority myth reinforces established inequities and places second-generation Asian Americans within a precarious, defensive dilemma in which they must constantly prove their worth as “real” Americans regardless of their legal citizenship status.

• Adalberto Aguirre, Jr., and Shoon Lio: “Spaces of Mobilization: The Asian American/Pacific Islander Struggle for Social Justice”
• Michael Liu and Kim Geron: “Changing Neighborhood: Ethnic Enclaves and the Struggle for Social Justice
• Jinah Kim: “Immigrants, Racial Citizens, and the (Multi)Cultural Politics of Neoliberal Los Angeles”
• Diane C. Fujino: “Race, Place, Space, and Political Development: Japanese-American Radicalism in the “Pre-Movement” 1960s”
• May Fu: “‘Serve the People and You Help Yourself'”: Japanese-American Anti-Drug Organizing in Los Angeles, 1969 to 1972″
• Bindi Shah: “The Politics of Race and Education: Second-Generation Laotian Women Campaign for Improved Educational Services”
• Etsuko Maruoka: “Wearing ‘Our Sword’: Post-September 11 Activism Among South Asian Muslim Women Student Organizations in New York”
• Lisa Sun-Hee Park: “Continuing Significance of the Model Minority Myth: The Second Generation”
• Meera E. Deo, Christina Chin, Jenny J. Lee, Noriko Milman, and Nancy Wang Yuen: “Missing in Action: ‘Framing’ Race in Prime-Time Television”
• Gregory Shank: “Paul T. Takagi Honored”

As part of this blog’s mission of making academic research and data more easily accessible, understandable, and applicable to a wider audience and to practical, everyday social issues, I highlight new sociological books about Asian Americans and other racial/ethnic groups as I hear about them. As always, please remember that I highlight them for informational purposes only and do not necessarily endorse their entire content or arguments.

Artifacts of Loss: Crafting Survival in Japanese American Concentration Camps, by Jane E. Dusselier (Rutgers University Press)

“Dusselier has given us an excellent thick description of the ways that Japanese American prisoners of both generations used arts and crafts as tools of survival. Future camp studies will have to take her work into account.”
– Roger Daniels, University of Cincinnati

In Artifacts of Loss, Jane E. Dusselier looks at the lives of Japanese American internees through the lens of their art. Dusselier urges her readers to consider these often overlooked folk crafts as meaningful political statements which are significant as material forms of protest and as representations of loss.

Jane E. Dusselier is an assistant professor of anthropology and Asian American studies at Iowa State University. Her previously published works include “Does Food Make Place? Food Protests in Japanese American Concentration Camps”.

For my readers who like (or are brave enough) to keep on top of the latest sociological research on immigration, assimilation, and the adaptation of second generation Asian Americans and Latino Americans, the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (2009, Volume 35 Issue 7) has just released a special issue that they’ve titled, “Local Contexts and the Prospects for the US Second Generation.”

Unfortunately, if you’re not in academics, you’re unlikely to find this journal in your local public library, only in college libraries. Below are the citations and abstracts for each of the articles contained in the issue:

Local Contexts of Immigrant and Second-Generation Integration in the United States

• Authors: Mark Ellis and Gunnar Almgren
• Pages 1059 – 1076
• Abstract: Our paper introduces this special issue of JEMS on the role of the local context in immigrant and second-generation integration in the United States. Recent literature has argued that national contexts are important for understanding the integration of immigrants and their descendents. The articles in this issue make the case that local contexts, broadly defined at any sub-national scale, are also important for understanding integration within the US; they suggest that it is incorrect to think of a singular and spatially undifferentiated integration process for US immigrants. In addition to previewing the contents of the articles in this issue, our paper includes a review of the meaning of generations and integration and a general discussion of the roles of local contexts in mediating processes of integration. This discussion raises questions about the appropriate spatial scale for the analysis of integration and for comparisons of the integration experience across contexts. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research on local contexts of integration within the US.

The Adaptation of the Immigrant Second Generation in America: A Theoretical Overview and Recent Evidence

• Authors: Alejandro Portes, Patricia Fernandez-Kelly, and William Haller
• Pages 1077 – 1104
• Abstract: This paper summarizes a research programme on the new immigrant second generation initiated in the early 1990s and completed in 2006. The four field waves of the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS) are described and the main theoretical models emerging from it are presented and graphically summarized. After considering critical views of this theory, we present the most recent results from this longitudinal research programme in the form of quantitative models predicting downward assimilation in early adulthood and qualitative interviews identifying ways for the disadvantaged children of immigrants to escape it. Quantitative results strongly support the predicted effects of exogenous variables identified by segmented assimilation theory and identify the intervening factors during adolescence that mediate their influence on adult outcomes. Qualitative evidence gathered during the last stage of the study points to three factors that can lead to exceptional educational achievement among disadvantaged youths, and which indicate the positive influence of selective acculturation. Finally, the implications of these findings for theory and policy are discussed.

Emerging Contexts of Second-Generation Labor Markets in the United States

• Author: Jamie Goodwin-White
• Pages 1105 – 1128
• Abstract: In this paper I examine how local labor market contexts matter for the Hispanic adult children of immigrants in the United States. Specifically, I consider how these workers fit into ethnic divisions of labour in five metropolitan areas: the traditional immigrant cities of Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, and the newer immigrant gateways of Atlanta and Phoenix. I focus on the changing economies of these cities in the 1990s, and how industrial changes affect the jobs and relative wages available to immigrants and their adult children. I also examine the extent to which the adult children of immigrants are occupationally clustered in ‘immigrant jobs’. Intergenerational occupational shifts vary by metropolitan area, but are heavily gendered across all of them. I also discuss the interactions of other scales of context, since state and national-level legislation, local organizing efforts and internal migration all shape the settings within which the children of immigrants come of age.

Immigrants and Neighborhoods of Concentrated Poverty: Assimilation or Stagnation?

• Author: Paul A. Jargowsky
• Pages 1129 – 1151
• Abstract: Immigrants in the United States often live, at least for a time, in neighborhoods that have high concentrations of fellow immigrants. Typically, these neighborhoods also have high poverty levels and are located near concentrations of the native-born poor. Conventional wisdom is that living in extremely poor neighborhoods leads to ‘concentration effects’ that exacerbate the problems of poverty and limit economic opportunity. While immigrants are not immune to the problems of crime, gangs, dilapidated housing and failing schools associated with high-poverty neighborhoods, it has been argued that immigrant neighborhoods provide advantages as well. These include the creation of parallel institutions, vernacular information networks and familiar cultural practices. The analyses presented here provide some support for this notion, by showing immigrants’ progress from higher- to lower-poverty neighborhoods over time. Yet Mexican immigrants do not transition nearly as rapidly, providing support for the segmented assimilation hypothesis

How Neighborhoods Matter for Immigrant Children: The Formation of Educational Resources in Chinatown, Koreatown and Pico Union, Los Angeles

• Author: Min Zhou
• Pages 1153 – 1179
• Abstract: This study examines the specific ways in which local institutions in inner-city neighborhoods affect the formation of educational resources for immigrant children. Local institutions here refer to observable neighborhood-based formal and informal organizations. Based on an ethnographic study of three Los Angeles immigrant neighborhoods—Chinatown, Koreatown and Pico Union (Mexican/Central American neighborhood)—I address two main questions. What types of institution exist at the local level, and how does ethnicity shape them? How do local institutions interact with one another to create tangible and intangible resources conducive to education, and how does ethnicity affect access to these resources? My findings suggest that the social structures of immigrant neighborhoods vary due to group-specific modes of incorporation, immigration histories and the host society’s reception; that community organising at the local level centers around certain common parameters in which co-ethnicity is a crucial component; and that neighborhood-based educational resources are available but the access is unequal and ethnically exclusive.

The Neighbourhood Context for Second-Generation Education and Labour Market Outcomes in New York

• Authors: John Mollenkopf and Ana Champeny
• Pages 1181 – 1199
• Abstract: While using a transnational optic to study first-generation immigrants is now widely accepted, most scholars assume that the same approach is not necessary when studying migrants’ children. They claim that, while immigrants might be involved in the economic, political and religious life of their homelands, their children are unlikely to follow suit. In this paper I argue against summarily dismissing the power of being raised in a transnational social field. When children are brought up in households that are regularly influenced by people, objects, practices and know-how from their ancestral homes, they are socialized into its norms and values and they learn how to negotiate its institutions. They also form part of strong social networks. While not all members of the second generation will access these resources, they have the social skills and competencies to do so, if and when they choose. Capturing these dynamics, and tracking how they change over time, requires long-term ethnographic research in the source and destination countries.

The Political Impact of the New Hispanic Second Generation

• Authors: John R. Logan, Sookhee Oh, and Jennifer Darrah
• Pages 1201 – 1223
• Abstract: The rapid growth of the Hispanic population in the United States, particularly those of the second generation, who have automatic rights of citizenship, could be expected to result in increased influence and representation in politics for this group. We show that the effect of a sheer growth in numbers at the national level is diminished by several factors: low probabilities of naturalization by Hispanic immigrants; non-participation in voting, especially by the US-born generations; and concentration of growth in Congressional Districts that already have Hispanic Representatives. It is a challenge for public policy to reduce the lag between population growth and political representation.

Roots and Routes: Understanding the Lives of the Second Generation Transnationally

• Author: Peggy Levitt
• Pages 1225 – 1242
• Abstract: While using a transnational optic to study first-generation immigrants is now widely accepted, most scholars assume that the same approach is not necessary when studying migrants’ children. They claim that, while immigrants might be involved in the economic, political and religious life of their homelands, their children are unlikely to follow suit. In this paper I argue against summarily dismissing the power of being raised in a transnational social field. When children are brought up in households that are regularly influenced by people, objects, practices and know-how from their ancestral homes, they are socialised into its norms and values and they learn how to negotiate its institutions. They also form part of strong social networks. While not all members of the second generation will access these resources, they have the social skills and competencies to do so, if and when they choose. Capturing these dynamics, and tracking how they change over time, requires long-term ethnographic research in the source and destination countries.

As part of this blog’s mission of making academic research and data more easily accessible, understandable, and applicable to a wider audience and to practical, everyday social issues, I highlight new sociological books about Asian Americans and other racial/ethnic groups as I hear about them. As always, please remember that I highlight them for informational purposes only and do not necessarily endorse their entire content or arguments.

Hollywood Faith: Holiness, Prosperity, and Ambition in a Los Angeles Church, by Gerardo Marti (Rutgers University Press)

In Christianity, as with most religions, attaining holiness and a higher spirituality while simultaneously pursuing worldly ideals such as fame and fortune is nearly impossible. So, how do people pursuing careers in Hollywood’s entertainment industry maintain their religious devotion without sacrificing their career goals?

For some, the answer lies just two miles south of the historic center of Hollywood, California, at the Oasis Christian Center. In “Hollywood Faith”, Gerardo Marti shows how a multiracial evangelical congregation of 2,000 people accommodates itself to the entertainment industry and draws in many striving to succeed in this harsh and irreverent business. Oasis strategically sanctifies ambition and negotiates social change by promoting a new religious identity as “champion of life” – an identity that provides people who face difficult career choices and failed opportunities a sense of empowerment and endurance.

The first book to provide an in-depth look at religion among the “creative class.” “Hollywood Faith” will fascinate those interested in the modern evangelical movement and anyone who wants to understand how religion adapts to social change.

Below is another announcement about an online survey in need of Asian American respondents:

Seeking Asian American and Biracial/Multiracial Asian American Participants for a Racial Experiences Study

Hello,

My name is Amanda Rivera and I am a doctoral student of clinical-community psychology at the University of La Verne. I am currently working on my doctoral dissertation, under the direct supervision of Christopher Liang, Ph.D.

Please consider participating in my study, which is focused on experiences of race. Participants will be entered in a raffle to win one of four $50 gift certificates to Target or Barnes and Noble. To participate in the study, individuals must be 18 years or older. The study should take approximately 30-40 minutes to complete and your responses will be kept confidential.

If you would like to participate in this study or would like more information please visit the following website:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=wtNOAs5gIR8MuXciq8_2bH6Q_3d_3d

In the event that you have any questions or concerns about this study, you may contact me at amanda.rivera@laverne.edu; my dissertation chair Dr. Christopher Liang at cliang@ulv.edu; or Al Clark, Ph.D., Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs at (909) 593-3511, extension 4240 (Institutional Review Board, 1950 Third Street, La Verne, CA 91750).

Thank you so much!

Regards,
Amanda Rivera

As part of this blog’s mission of making academic research and data more easily accessible, understandable, and applicable to a wider audience and to practical, everyday social issues, I highlight new sociological books about Asian Americans and other racial/ethnic groups as I hear about them. As always, please remember that I do so for informational purposes only and do not necessarily endorse their entire contents or perspectives.

Pinoy Capital: The Filipino Nation in Daly City, by Benito M. Vergara, Jr. (Temple University Press)

Home to 33,000 Filipino American residents, Daly City, California, located just outside of San Francisco, has been dubbed “the Pinoy Capital of the United States.” In this fascinating ethnographic study of the lives of Daly City residents, Benito Vergara shows how Daly City has become a magnet for the growing Filipino American community.

Vergara challenges rooted notions of colonialism here, addressing the immigrants’ identities, connections and loyalties. Using the lens of transnationalism, he looks at the “double lives” of both recent and established Filipino Americans.

Vergara explores how first-generation Pinoys experience homesickness precisely because Daly City is filled with reminders of their homeland’s culture, like newspapers, shops and festivals. Vergara probes into the complicated, ambivalent feelings these immigrants have—toward the Philippines and the United States—and the conflicting obligations they have presented by belonging to a thriving community and yet possessing nostalgia for the homeland and people they left behind.

Below is another announcement about an online survey in need of Asian American respondents:

Hello,

I wanted to share with you, and maybe your network about a new research project entitled: Negotiating the Complexities of Being Self-Identified as both Asian American and Lesbian, Gay or Bisexual (LGB). This project has two parts: (1) a web-based survey that will be distributed widely through listservs and Facebook sites like this one, and (2) about 10-12 open-ended telephone interviews about students experiences.

We need your help finding as many participants as possible across the United States! If you know people or groups that might be interested in participating in this study, could you forward this on?

The survey is located at:
http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB228DCWHVQVY

Thank you,
Sean
pepin101@gmail.com

Below is another announcement about an online survey in need of Asian American respondents:

My name is Young-Ran Lee, research scholar. I am working with Dr. Im, Ph D, MPH, RN, Professor, School of Nursing, University of Texas, Austin. We are currently conducting an Internet survey study entitled The Use of Internet Cancer Support Groups among Asian Americans Living with Cancer.

In the study, an Internet survey and an online forum using a Web site will be conducted to get information on the use of Internet Cancer Support Groups of Asian American cancer patients. This study is funded by the Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Research in Underserved Populations (CHPR) and the Expedited Proposal-Enhancement Grants (EP-EG).

We really hope that you permit to advertise about our research to your organization or friends or patients. Could you help us? Your helping will be greatly appreciated.

If someone is a cancer patient aged at least 18 years who can read and write English and whose self-reported ethnic identity is Asian American, she/he is invited to join the study. Her/his involvement in the study will consist of the following: (a) about 30 minutes are usually needed to complete the Internet survey; and (b) online forums will be conducted with the 9 topics for 1 month, should she/he agree to participate in and are selected for the additional online forum discussion.

Reimbursement for individual participation will be made by providing $10 gift certificate per internet survey participant and $50 gift certificate per online forum participant.

Our project website is at http://buda.nur.utexas.edu/casaa/

Below is another announcement about an online survey in need of Asian American respondents:

My name is Chia-Chun Li, a research assistant and doctoral student in UT-Austin, and now working with Dr. Im. Dr. Eun-Ok Im is conducting an Internet study on the physical activity attitudes among diverse ethnic groups of middle-aged women (40-60 Y/O), and we believe that Asian American women will benefit from participating in this study. Their participation can make our data more complete; besides, Asian women’s opinions and experiences are very imperative and cannot be neglected.

The purpose of this study is to explore attitudes of midlife women from four ethnic groups [Hispanic, Non-Hispanic (N-H) White, N-H African Americans, and N-H Asians] toward physical activity while considering the relationships between their attitudes and their actual participation in physical activity within the ethnic-specific contexts of their daily lives.

Your involvement will consist of the following: (a) about 30 minutes are usually needed to complete the Internet survey questionnaire; and (b) the online forums will be conducted for 6 months, should you agree to participate in the additional online forum discussion. Your participation is asynchronous (you can visit the online forum site and read and post messages at your convenience).

You will receive a gift certificate of 10 dollars for filling out the Internet survey, and an additional gift certificate of 50 dollars for participating in the additional online forum (only those who participate in the additional online forum for 6 months will be provided with this additional gift certificate). To get reimbursed for the online forums, you have to post at least one message per topic.

Please go to http://mapa.nur.utexas.edu to participate.

Thanks again for your help,

Chia-Chun Li, MSN, RN,
Graduate Research Assistant, doctoral student
School of Nursing, University of Texas at Austin
1700 Red River, Austin, TX 78701
E-mail: chiachunli@mail.utexas.edu
Phone: (512) 475-6352

Eun-Ok Im, PhD, MPH, RN, CNS, FAAN, Professor
School of Nursing, The University of Texas at Austin
1700 Red River, Austin, TX, 78701
website: http://buda.nur.utexas.edu/EOIM/