The second generation in early adulthood

We review the literature on segmented assimilation and alternative theoretical models on the adaptation of the second generation ; summarize the theoretical framework developed in the course of the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study [CILS]; and present evidence from its third survey in South Florida bearing on alternative hypotheses. We find that the majority of second-generation youths are moving ahead educationally and occupationally, but that a significant minority is being left behind. The latter group is not distributed randomly across nationalities, but corresponds closely to predictions based on immigrant parents' human capital, family type, and modes of incorporation. While it is clear that members of the second generation , whether successful or unsuccessful will assimilate – in the sense of learning English and American culture – it makes a great deal of difference whether they do so by joining the mainstream middle-class or the marginalized, and largely racialized, population at the bottom. Narratives drawn from the ethnographic module accompanying the survey put into perspective quantitative results and highlight the realities of segmented assimilation as it takes place today in U.S. society.

Keywords: Second generation; segmented assimilation; dissonant and consonant acculturation; modes of incorporation

To a greater extent than at the beginning of the twentieth century, second-generation youths confront today a pluralistic, fragmented environment that simultaneously offers a wealth of opportunities and major dangers to successful adaptation (Waters [44]; Fernandez-Kelly [9]). In this situation, the central question is not whether the second generation will assimilate to American society, but to what segment of that society it will assimilate. The past literature has identified three major challenges to educational achievement and career success by today's children of immigrants. The first is the persistence of racial discrimination; the second is the bifurcation of the American labour market and its growing inequality; and the third is the consolidation of a marginalized population in the inner city (Portes and Zhou [32]; Rumbaut [30]; Portes and Rumbaut [31]).

These challenges will be summarized below and evidence for each will be presented. This is important because the traditional normative view of assimilation as a uniform process is still strong, tending to distort our understanding of what is taking place on the ground. Several positions have emerged recently which offer alternative conceptualizations of the adaptation of the second generation. We examine this next as a prelude to the empirical analysis.

Alternative theoretical perspectives

Since the formulation of the segmented assimilation hypothesis, the idea has been subjected to numerous tests and discussion. For the most part, empirical results, in the form of case studies and survey analyses, have been supportive of the fundamental tenets of the theory. Thus, based on her study of West Indian families and teenagers in New York City, Waters ([45], p. 1) notes that:

Class mobility for immigrants and their children is no longer associated with increasing Americanization for all groups. Different trajectories of socioeconomic incorporation and success and cultural integration describe the experience of different families.

Similarly, after an intensive study of Mexican and Mexican-American youths in a California high school and a thorough review of the literature, Gibson ([13], p. 19) concludes:

A major finding to emerge from the international cases cited here, as well as recent studies is that minority students do better in school when they feel strongly anchored in the identities of their families, communities and peers and when they feel supported in pursuing a strategy of selective or additive acculturation...Conversely, those at greater risk of failure are those who feel disenfranchised from their culture.

A detailed analysis of non-enrolment in high school among native-born and foreign-born adolescents on the basis of 1990 Census data also generated findings broadly supportive of segmented assimilation theory. These include significant disparities in non-enrolment rates among different immigrant nationalities, the resilient educational advantage of Asian second-generation youths even after controlling for familial and residential factors, and the importance of family structure and of residence in central cities in accounting for these divergent outcomes. As the author concludes:

This study provides strong evidence of the familial and socio-economic characteristics that influence immigrant teenagers' educational enrollment. A significant share of some immigrant groups' higher non-enrollment rates can be explained by poorly educated parents, the absence of parents, and inner-city residence (Hirschman [16], p. 335).

Most theoretical reflections on segmented assimilation have endorsed the basic concept while seeking to extend it in one direction or another. Thus, Neckerman, Carter, and Lee ([24]) invoke a 'minority culture of mobility' among middle-class African-Americans which they argue could be usefully imitated by racialized immigrant families in confronting discrimination and avoiding the dangers that gangs and inner-city lifestyles pose to their offspring. While insightful and suggestive, Neckerman et al.'s argument remains strictly theoretical. There is no empirical evidence so far that immigrant families have deliberately adopted a 'minority culture of mobility'. In any case, those in a better position to do so are themselves middle class, a fact which largely insulates them from the challenges confronted by impoverished immigrant youths living in inner cities.

More recently, an alternative model to segmented assimilation has emerged in the form of re-assertion of traditional assimilation theory as the 'master process' governing the adaptation of the second generation. This model is associated with two pairs of authors who affirm that nothing truly significant has changed since children of Europeans were undergoing acculturation to America in the early twentieth century and that, hence, the contemporary situation can be readily understood within the framework of the 'canonical' notion of assimilation. One variant of this general position, advanced by Perlmann and Waldinger ([26]), asserts that the situation and challenges confronting children of immigrants today are not too different from those experienced by offspring of earlier European immigrants and, hence, that a reconceptualization of the process is unnecessary. Since classical assimilation theory essentially predicted a gradual, uniform process of upward mobility and incorporation into society's mainstream, this position basically asserts that, with variations at the margins, the second generation today is following the same uniform path (Waldinger and Perlmann [43]).

In the absence of suitable data, it is difficult to establish a reliable, one-to-one comparison between the experiences of children of immigrants at the turn of the twentieth century and today. However, this 'no-change' position is questionable on two grounds. First, it is difficult to see how the enormous transformations that the twentieth century wrought into American society could not have affected, in major ways, the patterns of immigrant incorporation. This is especially the case since sources of contemporary immigration, in terms of both nationality and social class, are so different from a century ago. These changes will be discussed below in the context of the actual challenges confronting today's second generation.

Second, the evidence gathered so far shows profound cleavages in social origins and contexts of reception of different immigrant nationalities and major gaps in levels of opportunities and disadvantages for their offspring, which render the prediction of a relatively uniform process implausible. Realities on the ground depart significantly from these rosy predictions. A recent analysis of educational, familial, and labour market outcomes among Mexican-origin youths by one of these authors points precisely in this direction (Perlmann [25]). The study, based on a proxy for the second-generation as foreign-born children who arrived in the United States before age 3, found extraordinarily high levels of school abandonment, high levels of teenage motherhood, male unemployment, and male institutionalization among Mexican-origin youths, one of the immigrant groups deemed to be most at risk of stagnation or downward assimilation. Despite these and other disadvantages, documented by the analysis, the author appears to argue against his own data by asserting that there is nothing resembling a 'complex of underclass behaviors' (Perlmann [25], p. 19) and, by extension, nothing to be really concerned about the future of Mexican-American youth.

An alternative position, advanced by Alba and Nee ([1]), accepts the heterogeneity of assimilation outcomes and even the possibility of no assimilation at all, but argues that all these alternatives can be brought under the pale of 'canonical' assimilation theory. Along the same lines, these authors describe an inclusive 'mainstream' to which immigrants assimilate that encompasses both middle and working classes, whites and blacks, and even the marginalized population in the nation's inner cities.[1] One can well appreciate the brave attempt by these authors to reconcile contrary positions, but must also note the theoretical pitfall to which this attempt leads: by attaching so many qualifications to their preferred concepts, and extending them so broadly, Alba and Nee ultimately turn 'assimilation' into a truism applicable to all situations and, hence, unfalsifiable. At least the first position, associated with Perlmann and Waldinger, advances a prediction that is testable in principle – the uniform character of the process and its similarity across all immigrant cohorts. By contrast, a revised assimilation theory that seeks to cover all contingencies can be readily accepted without advancing our understanding of the adaptation process as it takes place on the ground.

Eventually, Alba and Nee ([1], ch. 2), move on to provide their own theory of assimilation but, aside from some general considerations about 'bounded rationality' and the 'new' institutionalism, the theory provides no novel ideas relative to those advanced previously. These authors revisit the familiar role of human, social, and cultural capital in affecting assimilation outcomes and accept the possibility of downward mobility or even no assimilation at all. This is terrain covered in detail by prior researchers, including those that these authors criticize (Portes and Zhou [32]; Waters [44][45]; Portes and Rumbaut [31]). In the end, Alba and Nee's theory comes down to the optimistic expectation that second-generation youths at risk of downward assimilation will be a small minority, with the vast majority following the 'canonical' process of integration into the mainstream.

Alba and Nee's book provides a wealth of valuable information on the assimilation of earlier waves of immigrants to American society and, among other merits, re-vindicates the Chicago School whose nuanced perspective on the condition of the foreign-born was obscured by subsequent re-interpretations. However, their assertion that assimilation will be the master process governing the future of immigrant groups in America reinstates many of the problems that their own analysis criticizes. For if it is true that most descendants of today's immigrants will eventually assimilate to American society, it still makes a great deal of difference whether they do so by ascending into the ranks of a prosperous middle class or join in large numbers the ranks of a racialized, permanently impoverished population at the bottom of society.

Challenges confronted by today's second generation

Contrary to an all-inclusive characterization of the 'mainstream', it is evident that what immigrants aspire to for their children, if not for themselves, are the levels of occupational status and income making possible the enviable lifestyles of the mostly white upper middle class.[2] The promise of American society, which makes so many foreigners come lies in the access it provides to well-remunerated professional and entrepreneurial careers and the affluent lifestyles associated with them. At the same time, it is obvious that not everyone gains access to these positions and that, at the opposite end of society, there is a very unenviable scenario of youth gangs, drug-dictated lifestyles, premature childbearing, imprisonment, and early death. This is the scenario confronted by minority populations trapped in the American inner cities and described, in poignant detail, in the urban poverty literature.[3]

Immigrant families navigate between these opposite extremes, seeking to steer their youths in the direction of the true mainstream. They do so, however, with very different material resources and skills and confronting very different social contexts. Differences in class background, in physical features, and in contexts of reception all have decisive bearing on the resources that immigrant families can muster. It is such cleavages that a homogenous view of assimilation obscures rather than clarifies.

Race

One of the key features that children inherit from their parents is their race. Defined by contemporary standards, the majority of today's second generation is non-white, being formed by children of Asian immigrants, blacks from the West Indies and Africa, and blacks, mulattos, and mestizos from Latin America. The minority of white immigrants also come from Latin America and, in declining numbers, from Europe and Canada (Jensen [17]). Figure 1 presents the racial self-identities of second-generation youths in late adolescence, based on the follow-up survey of the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study [CILS]. As shown, only a minority identified themselves as white, the majority seeing themselves as Asian, Hispanic, Latino, Black, or Multiracial.

Graph: Figure 1 The racial identities of children of immigrants, 1996

Children of Asian, black, mulatto, and mestizo immigrants cannot escape their ethnicity and race, as defined by the mainstream. Their enduring physical differences from whites and the equally persistent strong effects of discrimination based on those differences, especially against black persons, throws a barrier in the path of occupational mobility and social acceptance. Immigrant children's identities, their aspirations, and their academic performance are affected accordingly (Fernandez-Kelly and Curran [10]; Lopez and Stanton Salazar [19]). As Waters ([45], pp. 10–11) remarks in the case of West Indians:

The teens experience racism and discrimination constantly, and develop perceptions of the overwhelming influence of race on their lives and life chances that differ from their parents' views. These teens experience being hassled by police and store owners, being turned down for jobs they apply for, and being attacked on the street if they venture into white neighborhoods.

As Alba and Nee ([1], p. 54) rightly note, civil rights legislation prohibiting ethnic and racial discrimination has effectively eliminated the most overt manifestations of these attitudes on the part of employers and the native mainstream population. This does not mean, however, that such attitudes disappear or cannot be expressed in other, equally destructive forms. An extensive sociological and anthropological literature has documented these subtler, but often worse forms of discrimination (Wilson [48]; Sullivan [38]; Kircheman and Neckerman [18]; Fernandez-Kelly [9]; Waters [45]). Not surprisingly, over 60 per cent of CILS respondents of Mexican and black Caribbean origin reported having experienced discrimination against themselves and up to 60 per cent of the latter believe that they would experience discrimination in the future 'no matter how much education I get' (Portes and Rumbaut [31], pp. 39–41).

Bifurcated labour markets

A second major barrier to successful adaptation, identified in earlier work, is the de-industrialization and progressive bifurcation of the American labour market. As the prime industrial power of its time, the United States generated a vast demand for industrial labour during the first three decades of the twentieth century. Indeed, this was the reason why European immigrants first and southern black migrants second were recruited and came in such vast numbers to northern American cities (Rosenblum [33]; Marks [20]). Beginning in the 1960s and accelerating thereafter, the structure of the American labour market started to change under the twin influences of technological innovation and foreign competition in industrial goods. Industrial re-structuring and downsizing brought about the gradual disappearance of the jobs that had provided the basis for the economic ascent of the European second-generation.

Between 1950 and 1996, American manufacturing employment plummeted, from over one-third of the labour force to less than 15 per cent. The slack was taken up by service employment which skyrocketed from 12 per cent to close on one-third of all workers. Service employment is, however, bifurcated between menial and casual low-wage jobs commonly associated with personal services and the rapid growth of occupations requiring advanced technical and professional skills (Bluestone and Harrison [5]; Sassen [37]).

In this changed market, high demand exists at the low end for unskilled and menial service workers and at the high-end, for professionals and technicians, with diminishing opportunities in-between. Adult immigrants, especially those with low levels of education confront this new hourglass labour market by crowding into low-wage service jobs. On the other hand, their children, imbued with American-style status consciousness and consumption aspirations, are generally not satisfied with the same roles (Gans [12]; Zhou, this Issue). A bifurcated labour market implies that, to succeed socially and economically, children of immigrants must cross in the span of one generation the educational gap that took their predecessors, descendants of European immigrants, several generations to bridge. They cannot simply improve on their parents' modest educational attainment, but must sharply increase it by gaining access to an advanced training and skills.

The existence of an hourglass-like labour market has been demonstrated empirically (i.e. Sassen [37]; Massey and Hirst [22]) and, certainly, second-generation youths come to understand the situation rather early. In late adolescence, the majority of respondents in CILS voiced lofty aspirations for a college or post-college degree, as shown in Figure 2. They realized that without a college degree or higher, chances for fulfilling their career and life dreams would be seriously compromised. Notice, however, the wide differences among nationalities and the wide discrepancies between ideal aspirations for an advanced degree and realistic expectations of getting one, especially among the more disadvantaged immigrant groups.

Graph: Figure 2 Educational aspirations and expectations of children of immigrants, selected nationalities, 1996

The stark differences between the shape of the American labour market at present and during its period of industrial expansion a century ago is another prima facie indicator of the qualitative distinctness in the process of second-generation adaptation yesterday and today. Contrary to the 'nothing has changed' school, the very high educational expectations voiced by children of immigrants today are at variance with what was aspired and actually achieved by most children of Italian or Polish peasants a century ago (Thomas and Znaniecki [[39]-20] 1984; Child [6]; Alba [2]).

Poverty and crime

The final external challenge confronting children of immigrants is that the social context they encounter, in American schools and neighbourhoods, may promote a set of undesirable outcomes inimical to successful integration such as dropping out of school, joining youth gangs, and using and selling drugs. This alternative path has been labelled downward assimilation because exposure to American society and entry into its social circles does not lead, in these cases, to upward mobility, but exactly to the opposite (Portes and Zhou [32]). The widespread poverty in American inner cities and the high incidence of crime and deviant lifestyles in them are linked to the transformation of the labour market that did away with the ladder of blue-collar jobs facilitating the upward mobility of earlier children of immigrants. The first victims of this transformation were not members of today's second generation , but the children and grandchildren of their predecessors – Southern blacks, Mexicans and Puerto Ricans – who were brought to fill the labour needs of the American industrial economy during and after World War I (Marks [20]; Massey and Denton [21]).

It must be clear that entrapment of these populations in central cities is the structural condition that underlies the proliferation of pathologies of which they are the first victims – the flight of the middle class, the deterioration of schools, the proliferation of gangs, and the occupation of the streets by the drug industry. The realities of life in American inner cities have been described in painstaking detail by African-American scholars such as Wilson ([48]); Anderson ([3]); Dance ([8]); Royster ([35]), and by Mexican-American scholars such as Vigil ([42][41]) and Lopez and Stanton-Salazar ([19]). When it comes to the second-generation , however, some mainstream authors have attempted to skip these realities, believing that it is insensitive to point to the structural conditions suffered by domestic minorities as challenges confronted as well by immigrants and their offspring. This is seemingly the position adopted by recent critics of the concept of downward assimilation who deny its existence, while subsequently pointing to the same phenomenon in different terminology.[4]

Academic sensitivities are of no concern to immigrant families who confront the realities of urban life in America as a fait accompli, conditioning their own and their children's chances for success. Because of their poverty, a large proportion of immigrant families (close to 40 per cent as of the latest count) cluster in central city areas (U.S. Bureau of the Census [40]). In that environment, second-generation youths confront the multiple problems of poor schools, street crime, the lure of drugs, and the option offered by youth gangs, all opposed to parental aspirations for educational achievement and occupational advancement.

The over 2,500 immigrant parents interviewed during the second CILS survey strongly voiced concerns about the perils confronting their children in schools and in the streets. As Figure 3 shows, vast majorities, over 80 per cent, were preoccupied about the negative influences their children receive in school and the gap between their own goals and values and those of their children's friends. Perlmann and Waldinger ([26]) speculate that these parental concerns may be exaggerated because the dangers confronting second-generation adolescents today are not too different from those faced by their European predecessors. While there is little hard evidence to establish this comparison, the key factor is that whatever the conditions were in the past, they do not make those at present any less real. When a number of immigrant families take the rather desperate measure of sending their children home to be educated in the care of kin in order to protect them from the dangers of American streets, we can be certain of facing actual fact (Matthei and Smith [23]; Rother [34]). The observations of many parents interviewed in the course of the CILS survey exemplify these concerns and the realities that underlie them:

Why? Why? Why should this country, the richest in the world, have such low educational standards and disruptive behaviour? It is so sad to see this country's children smoking grass or wearing their hair in spikes...You can wear anything to school, you can talk in class...no one can stop you.

Roger, 38, Nicaraguan father living in Miami

This is a bad area to live in because of the many homeboys using alcohol and drugs. Every night there is the sound of the police sirens...I want to move but the rent is cheap here. I am concerned about my younger children. I'm afraid they will join with the homeboys...I feel I cannot control the peer pressure; when they step out of the house, it's all over them.

Botum, Cambodian mother of six living in San Diego

(Portes and Rumbaut [31], p. 97).

Graph: Figure 3 Immigrant parents' concern with negative influences on their children, 1996

Similar observations abound in the scholarly and even in the journalistic literature. A lengthy New Yorker report about Mexican-American farm workers living in the Yakima Valley of Washington State remarked about the peculiar attitude of 'Juan', the U.S.-born son of one such family whose parents had become increasingly involved in protests against the exploitative practices of their employers:

The unhappy truth is that the rock-video culture that forms so much part of Juan's world view simply provides no referent for his parents' kind of heroism. The dignity of labour is no longer even a minor value in the devouring consumerism of the America Juan has grown up in.(Finnegan [11], p. 67).

Segmented assimilation emerges from the different ways in which second-generation youths approach these challenges and the resources that they bring to the encounter. Figure 4 reproduces the typology of adaptation paths across generations, developed on the basis of prior CILS results. It relates systematically parental human capital, family structure, and modes of immigrant incorporation to expected patterns of mobility. The following section clarifies the three ideal types of inter-generational mobility presented in this figure and provides new evidence about their determinants on the ground.

Graph: Figure 4 Paths of mobility across generations

Confronting the challenge

First narrative

Fast forward to the Entenza family who just came back from helping their son move into his own apartment in Princeton, New Jersey. The Entenzas are being interviewed in their comfortable home in the Miami suburb of Coral Gables. They are first generation Cubans. Ariel, who is 25, has always lived with his parents, following custom for unmarried Cuban children. The parents are owners of a medium-sized hardware store catering to a mostly Latin clientele. Ariel's mother, Teresa, came from Cuba with her family after the Castro government expropriated the department store they owned in Havana. Scraping together his savings and with the help of friends, Teresa's father was able to get himself into business. After she married Esteban, he went to work in his father-in-law's store. After the father passed away, Esteban took over the business. Teresa and Esteban have always lived in Miami, close to other Cuban families, always worked in the same business, and always attended the same church. They are both devout Roman Catholics.

As a child, Ariel Entenza attended Belen Prep, a Jesuit school transplanted from Havana and favoured by middle-class Cuban families. Afterwards, he moved to Florida International University, where he completed a degree in finance. First, he went to work in the same store founded by his grandfather, but his dad encouraged him to move on. 'We did not make all these sacrifices for him to be just a small businessman,' the father says. Ariel first went to work for a local firm and then accepted a well-paid job in the accounting department of a New Jersey firm. Leaving Miami and his home was a traumatic step, but his future career prospects required it.

Mario, Ariel's brother, joined the Marines and then went on to work for the sheriff's department of nearby Broward County (Ft. Lauderdale) where he is currently a sergeant. He says that he feels 'more Cuban than the old-timers'. During the protests following the forced removal of the child Elian Gonzalez to Cuba in 2000, he called his police station sick and stayed at home. 'I would do anything for this country, but I could not repress my neighbors,' he says. 'If I were not a cop, I would have been there protesting with them.'[5]

Human capital and social capital

Not all families possess the means to promote educational success and ward off the threats posed by discrimination, bifurcated labour market options, and street gangs and consumerism. Resources necessary to achieve this goal are of two kinds: 1) those that provide access to economic goods and job opportunities; 2) those that reinforce parental normative controls. Parents with high levels of education are in a better position to support their children's education for two reasons: first, they have more information about opportunities and pitfalls in the surrounding environment; and second, they earn higher incomes, giving them access to strategic goods. A home in the suburbs, a private school education, a summer trip back home to reinforce family ties are all expensive propositions, not within reach of the average immigrant family. Families able to afford them can confront the challenges faced by their children with a measure of equanimity.

Yet immigrant parents' human capital and family composition do not exhaust the range of forces moulding types of acculturation and subsequent adaptation outcomes. The outside environment supplies the other key factor. When a favourable reception by the government and society-at-large promotes the emergence of strong ethnic communities, the social capital grounded on ethnic networks, provides a key resource in confronting obstacles to successful adaptation (Portes and Rumbaut [31]: ch. 3).[6] The Entenza family illustrates a situation mid-point between the first and second adaptation paths portrayed in Figure 4: Despite modest resources and a parental education reaching only to junior college, the family succeeded because of its strong co-ethnic networks. Growing up in the midst of the Cuban middle-class enclave, Ariel and Mario never had to contend with drugs and were never approached by a gang. So well-ensconced were they in the community where they were born that it was a difficult decision for Ariel to move north in pursuit of his career and an impossible one for Mario to repress his neighbours.

The immigrant community

Community social capital depends less on the economic or occupational success of immigrants than on the density of ties among them. It makes little difference whether fellow nationals are highly educated and wealthy if they feel no obligation towards one another. It does not matter either that doctors and business owners come from the same country when they are physically dispersed or otherwise unreachable. On the other hand, modest but solidary communities can be a valuable resource, because their networks support parental guidance and parental aspirations for their children. Among immigrants of limited means, this function of social capital is vital (Zhou and Bankston [49]; Fernandez-Kelly and Konczal, this Issue).

In a foreign land, parental controls can wane fast when confronted with the sustained challenges of deviant lifestyles, media-driven consumerism, and peer influences. For isolated families, the situation can easily devolve into a pattern of parental powerlessness, early abandonment of school by children, and involvement in gangs and drugs. Alternatively, when parental expectations are reinforced by others in the community, the probability of successful adaptation increases. This is the situation that James Coleman ([7]) labelled 'closure'. In densely integrated communities, where children have internalized the goals of occupational success through high educational achievement, the threat of downward assimilation effectively disappears (Gibson [14]; Portes and Hao [28]; Zhou, this Issue).

The evidence

The third wave of the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study [CILS] was completed in 2002. The average age of the sample was 24 by this time. As reported in the Introduction to this Issue, an ethnographic module was added to the survey in the summer of 2002. In South Florida, a sample of fifty-five respondents, stratified by socio-economic status, gender and nationality were selected for intensive study. The story of the Entenza family and those presented below come from this module.[7] Survey data from South Florida are used subsequently to document patterns of adaptation in the second generation and compare them with alternative theoretical perspectives.

Second narrative

Eddie Cifuentes was born in Havana and came to the U.S. as a young child in the Mariel exodus of 1980. He is now twenty-five. His father, an auto mechanic, worked in a succession of odd jobs. So did his mother but, shortly after arriving in the U.S., the couple divorced and the mother 'took everything'. Eddie stayed with his father and attended a succession of public schools. Until the ninth grade, his education went normally and his grades were good, but then things went downhill. He fell in with 'the wrong kind of crowd' and, at seventeen, began to steal cars. He learnt the necessary skills from other kids at a junkyard. Later he began to deal drugs:

I was still 17 when I quit my first job and pretty much quit everything, left home, left school. At that time, it didn't bother me to do all those things. I was using drugs a little. Ecstasy wasn't around yet, but Ruthanol was already a big rave drug and it was a mind-eraser. I couldn't remember anything later.

To support himself and a growing drug habit, Eddie organized a regular business with about thirty customers. By the time he was nineteen, he was selling practically anything customers would want including cocaine, marijuana, ruthanol, and crack. On a typical Friday, as people prepared to party, he made more than twenty deliveries and grossed up to $8,000. Every month, he cleared at least $10,000.

His father disapproved of what Eddie was doing but, holding down three jobs himself, there was little that he could do. Besides, the boy had moved out of his father's home to lead a life of luxury. He bought two cars and supported his girlfriend, a former drugstore cashier, lavishly. He tried to launder his earnings by putting them in accounts in her name. At twenty, he was manufacturing crack and selling it to anyone, including pregnant women. The cops started trailing his Nissan Altima and he was eventually caught and convicted for theft, drug manufacturing, and racketeering. He served three years at a correctional institution.

Time in jail went more smoothly than Eddie had anticipated, that was 'only because I was Spanish...like everywhere there were cliques – your whites, your Spanish, your Asians: If you mess with someone, you're messing with three or four of his buddies'. Blacks were the majority, but Eddie often enjoyed the protection of prison guards, 'some real rednecks'. A fair-complexioned young man with striking blue eyes, Eddie had little trouble getting guards on his side and putting blame on others when fights broke out.

In prison, Eddie finally earned his GED. He also established a friendship with Ramon Ruiz, a 55-year-old lifer who took him under his wing. Eddie says that he learnt a lot from Ruiz. 'First of all, I learned family values; then I learned self-respect.' He came out of prison a transformed man, going to work first in his father's auto repair business. However, his prison record made things difficult for him when trying to find a better job. Eventually, through an acquaintance, he found a job doing electrical work for Artistic Dome Ceilings. The $500 to $800 a week he brings home are a far cry from his former earnings as a dealer, but is enough to support himself. Despite his record, he is expecting to become manager of the firm when its owner and current manager retires.

Eddie does not feel particularly Cuban nor does he have any significant ties to his ethnic community. Further, he has no strong feelings against Castro, having left the island as a baby. He vaguely sees himself as American and says that this country stands for freedom. Alone in the world, save for his stranded parents and a new Venezuelan girlfriend, with no economic resources, and a prison record, Eddie still sees the future with optimism. He puts all his hopes in eventually owning the small firm in which he works. 'I am so close to success, I can almost taste it', he says.

The second generation at a glance

The story of Eddie Cifuentes serves well to introduce our survey results because it illustrates the complexities of second-generation adaptation as it occurs on the ground. Quantitative data alone cannot do this. Living not three miles from where Ariel Entenza grew up, the views and the life prospects of the two young men are worlds apart: one securely ensconced in his community and with a solid educational record to his credit; the other, torn from these moorings and navigating a turbulent society as best he can, with only a weak high school education and a criminal past. Although both are Cuban, their parents' modes of incorporation were quite different: the Entenzas were part of the well-received and highly solidary early exile waves; the Cifuentes, part of the chaotic and stigmatized Mariel exodus. Although the young men probably do not know it, their families' contrasting contexts of reception have a great deal to do with their life paths. Yet both of them look at the future with optimism; success that 'almost can be tasted', although their chances of achieving it are quite different.

Segmented assimilation may be defined empirically as a set of strategic outcomes in the lives of young second-generation persons. One such outcome is educational attainment, in terms of both completed years of education and whether the person is still in school. A second includes employment, occupation and income; a third, language use and preferences. Indicators of downward assimilation include dropping out of school, premature childbearing, and being arrested or incarcerated for a crime. The CILS-III survey contains measures of all these variables. The results for the South Florida sample, unadjusted and adjusted for sample selection bias, as described in the introductory article, are presented in Table 1.

Table 1  Key Adaptation outcomes in early adulthood: children of immigrants, in south florida,2002

Variable	Unadjusted Mean/Per cent	Adjusted Mean/Per cent
Demographics:
Age	24.2	–
Sex (Female)	55.2	–
Per cent Living with Parents	52.4	–
Education:
Average Years Completed	14.5	14.3
Per cent Less than High School	4.0	4.0
Per cent High School Only	15.7	16.8
Per cent College Graduate or More	29.8	30.0
Per cent Still Attending School	52.0	52.0
Employment:
Per cent Employed Full-time	65.7	67.1
Per cent Unemployed	6.6	7.0
Per cent Self-employed	4.9	5.1
Occupational Prestige Score1	47.2	47.3
Income:
Average Family Income, $	58,345	58,425
Median Family Income,%	44,185	–
Per cent >$75,000	22.2	21.3
Per cent <$20,000	16.5	16.5
Per cent Received Cash Assistance, Last Year	3.2	3.4
Average Personal Income, $	23,172	23,136
Median Personal Income, $	19,200	–
Per cent > $50,000	4.7	4.7
Per cent < $15,000	32.6	32.0
Language:
Per cent Prefers English	65.9	64.7
Per cent Prefers Other Language	1.9	2.2
Per cent Prefers Children Bilingual	81.7	82.0
Legal:
Per cent Arrested, Last Five Years	9.6	10.4
Per cent Had Kin Arrested, Last Five Years	18.3	19.4
Per cent Incarcerated or Sentenced, Last Five Years	5.4	6.4
Per cent Males Incarcerated or Sentenced	9.6	11.1
Family:
Per cent Married	17.9	17.9
Per cent Cohabiting	5.2	5.2
Per cent with Children	17.6	17.6
Average Number of Children2	1.4	1.6
1 Average scores for employed respondents in Treiman Occupational Prestige Scores. Range is from 0 to 100.
2 Among respondents with children.

Adjusted means are generally quite close to the unadjusted figures and do not alter the substantive conclusions in any case. On average, figures show that the immigrant second generation is doing well with a mean of education of two years of college and with over half the respondents still attending school. High-school dropouts are less than 5 per cent, a figure below that reported for the Miami-Dade School System as a whole in 2000–2001 (5.8%). Another 16 per cent of respondents have only completed high school, which would put them at a disadvantage in the labour market. However, some in this category (9.9%) are still enrolled in school.

About one-third of our respondents have already graduated from college and, of these, 8.5 per cent have or are pursuing an advanced degree. Although these figures contrast markedly with the 44 per cent who seven years earlier said that they expected to achieve such a degree, (Portes and Rumbaut [31], p. 217), they still indicate that a sizable proportion of the sample is poised to attain professional and other high-status occupations. Over half the respondents are still in school on a full- or part-time basis so that the number of college graduates can be expected to increase in the future.

Already two-thirds of the sample is employed full-time and 8 per cent are unemployed, a figure that is about average for the population of this age cohort in South Florida. Since half our respondents are still attending school, a substantial number of these young people (26%) is both going to school and working full-time. Over 5 per cent have become entrepreneurs, a figure that is average for their age cohort, although detailed interviews in the ethnographic module revealed a widespread aspiration to do so.

At over $58,000 per year, average family income is high relative to the comparable 2000 census figure for the Miami metropolitan area ($54,939). The median family income is considerably lower, which is a statistical indication that the arithmetic mean is 'pulled' upwards by very high incomes. Family incomes only partially reflect respondents' personal earnings since the majority (52.9%) still live at home with their parents, so that reported figures are often the sum of parents' and children's incomes. Still this result is important because it reveals that, on average, second-generation young adults in South Florida live in comfortable, middle-class surroundings.

Over 20 per cent report average incomes that exceed $75,000 per year. On the other hand, 175 youths, representing 16 per cent of the sample, have to survive with yearly family incomes of less than $20,000. Personal incomes of our respondents are less than half of the family incomes, indicating the weight of parental income in the average figures above. About one-third of these youths had personal incomes of less than $15,000 which, in the absence of parental support, would place them at or below the poverty line.

Language use is a major indicator of assimilation. Results from the earlier CILS surveys showed that second-generation youths are universally fluent in English. They also showed that the vast majority prefers this language (Portes and Rumbaut [31], p. 123). Present results confirm that pattern: two-thirds of CILS-III respondents indicated that they preferred communicating in English, in comparison with just 2 per cent in favour of their parents' language. However, the number of youths that prefer to be bilingual increased from adolescence into early adulthood: in CILS-II when the sample's average age was 17, less than 12 per cent indicated a linguistic preference for anything other than English. At age 24, however, 33 per cent said that they preferred bilingualism. This tendency is still stronger when respondents were asked in what language they wanted to educate their own children.

In addition to dropping out of school and being unemployed, a key indicator of downward assimilation is running afoul of the law and, in particular, being sentenced or incarcerated for a crime. We asked our respondents if they had been arrested or had been incarcerated during the past five years. We also asked them if a family member had been arrested for a crime during the same period. In addition, we visited the Florida Department of Corrections website where data on all current felons, incarcerated or on probation, are published. By matching personal identifiers from prior surveys, it was possible to trace sample members who were behind bars or on probation at the time of the third survey, even if they had not returned a questionnaire or had not been interviewed.

For the sample as a whole, 10 per cent were arrested during the preceding five years and double that figure reported that other family members had been arrested. These figures compare with Federal Bureau of Investigation's [FBI] arrest statistics for the Miami Metropolitan Area which show an arrest index of 8.8 per cent for adolescents (age 10–17) and of 6.4 per cent for adults.[8] Since persons can be arrested for minor infractions (such as vagrancy or disorderly conduct), a more relevant indicator is having been sentenced and incarcerated (or placed on probation) for a crime. Over 5 per cent of the sample had been incarcerated during the past five years or were currently in jail or on probation. Among males, the figure increases to almost 10 per cent. These results can be compared with those reported by Western ([46]) for the population of the United States. Males imprisoned by age 40 represented 7.8 of the relevant national cohort in 1998 (Western [46], p. 530). The CILS South Florida male incarceration rate thus exceeds the national figure, even though its members only average 24 years of age.

A final indicator of downward assimilation is premature childbearing. At average age 24, our respondents confront multiple challenges to completing their education and moving ahead in the occupational world. Having children at this early age represents a significant burden in terms of time and money when many youths can least afford them. For the sample as a whole, over 20 per cent were already married or cohabiting in their early twenties and 18 per cent had at least one child. This last figure compares with an almost identical proportion among the same age cohort, 18–30, nationwide (18.2%) (Ruggles et al.[36]). Thus a significant minority of this age cohort, including its second-generation members, confront a family situation that imperils their long-term educational and occupational success.

Up to this point, the evidence indicates that, on average, the new second generation in South Florida is progressing well educationally, and that the majority lead comfortable lives. To this extent, the optimistic assimilation approach proposed by Alba and Nee is supported. However, this approach neglects a sizable minority that is falling behind educationally, that lives close to poverty, that is weighed down by premature childbearing and that, in the worst cases, is already in jail. For the segmented assimilation hypothesis to be disproved one of two things needs to be demonstrated: 1) that downward assimilation does not exist or affects only an insignificant number of second-generation youths; 2) that differences between immigrant nationalities are random so that, regardless of the average human capital and mode of incorporation of different groups, they will have about the same number of 'success stories' and failures in the second generation. If this were the case, theoretical predictions summarized in Figure 4 would be falsified. We have seen that the first of these two conditions does not obtain. The second is examined next.

National differences

There are significant variations by national origin in all the outcomes reviewed so far. These differences correspond to theoretical expectations concerning determinants of successful adaptation. For brevity, we concentrate here on six such outcomes, three indicative of individual or family success and three pointing towards negative outcomes. Relevant figures are presented in Table 2.[9]

Table 2  Key outcomes of second-generation adaptation by national origin, south florida, 2002

Nationality	Education	Family Income	Occupational Status1	Unemployed	Has Children	Incarcerated	N
	Average Years	High School or Less%	Mean $	Median $	Mean	%	Total %	Females%	Total %	Males %
Colombian	14.49	17.0	58,339	45,948	47.1	2.6	16.5	14.3	6.0	10.4	150
Cuban (Private School)2	15.32	7.5	104,767	70,395	52.0	3.0	3.0	16.7	2.9	3.4	133
Cuban (Public School)2	14.32	21.7	60,816	48,598	47.2	6.2	17.8	21.0	5.6	10.5	670
Haitian	14.44	15.3	34,506	26,974	43.9	16.7	24.7	31.2	7.1	14.3	95
Nicaraguan	14.17	26.4	54,049	47,054	46.9	4.9	20.1	23.2	4.4	9.9	222
West Indian	14.63	18.1	40,654	30,326	47.9	9.4	24.8	26.4	8.5	20.0	148
Other	14.55	20.8	59,719	40,619	46.4	7.3	16.6	20.8	4.9	8.3	404
Total	14.47	20.8	58,425	44,185	47.3	7.7	17.6	21.8	5.4	9.6	1,822
1 Treiman occupational prestige scores.
2 See endnote #9 for an explanation of the division of the Cuban sample between respondents who attended public and private schools in Miami.

High-school dropouts represent a small proportion of the entire sample, not exceeding 6 per cent of any nationality. For some groups, such as Colombians and middle-class Cubans from private schools, dropouts represent less than 3 per cent and only among West Indians (Jamaicans and other English-speaking Caribbean nationalities) does the dropout rate approach 6 per cent. There is greater variation in the number of youths who have gone no further than a high school education. As seen in Table 2, 20 per cent of second-generation youths are in this situation. The figure ranges from a low of less than 8 per cent among Cubans from private schools to over 25 per cent of second-generation Nicaraguans. The two black nationalities, Haitians and West Indians, are not particularly disadvantaged in this indicator, both having above-average proportions who exceeded a high-school education.

These numbers accord with those for average years of education: middle-class Cubans have almost a one-year educational advantage over everyone else, but all other groups cluster around the sample mean of 14.5 years, corresponding to a junior college education. Since 52 per cent of our respondents are still attending school (a figure that does not vary greatly across nationalities), average education for all may be expected to rise in the future.

As noted, family income should not be interpreted as reflecting respondents' earnings since many of them still live with their parents. Nevertheless, family income is important because it is a direct indicator of the kind of socio-economic environment in which these youths live. Seen from this perspective, the wide differences in family income are important. At one end are middle-class Cuban-Americans who enjoy a median family income of $70,395 per year, while, at the other extreme, Haitians must make do with $26,974. These figures can be compared with the median household income for the population of Miami/Ft. Lauderdale in 2000, $38,362. All Latin-origin groups in the CILS sample surpass this figure, while the two major black groups, Haitians and West Indians, do not even come close to it.

As noted already, mean incomes are generally higher than the median because they are statistically 'pulled' upwards by wealthier families. The size of the gap between mean and median incomes thus reflects the relative number of rich families or individuals and the size of their incomes for a particular group. This tendency is present among all immigrant nationalities in the sample but, while the gap is almost $25,000 for private school Cubans and $20,000 for those of 'Other' nationalities (mainly from South America and Europe), it is only $10,000 among West Indian and less than $8,000 among Haitians. These latter figures point to a uniformly low-income population, regardless of whether its second-generation members still live with their families or not.

The data on unemployment tell a similar story. These figures are the sum of respondents who report themselves 'unemployed and looking for work', 'recently laid off', and 'unemployed and not looking for work', minus those who are still attending school. The figures range from a low of 3 per cent or less among Colombians and private school Cubans to almost 10 per cent among West Indians and a remarkable 17 per cent among Haitians. To put this figure in perspective, recall that the unemployment rate among the working-age population of Miami/Ft. Lauderdale in 2000 was only 4.3 per cent. Notice that high unemployment and low average incomes among the offspring of black immigrants occur despite the fact that neither group exhibits unusually high dropout rates, nor are they the most likely to terminate their education with only a high school diploma.[10]

The dictum that the rich get richer and the poor get children is well supported by these results. While 97 per cent of middle-class Cubans avoided premature childbearing, the figure drops to about 82 per cent among their public school counterparts and other Latin nationalities and is even lower among black minorities. By age 24, fully 25 per cent of Haitian- and West Indian-origin youths were weighed down by children, on top of their severe difficulties in finding employment and achieving incomes above the poverty level.

Even more telling are differences in arrests and incarceration. Compared with an arrest rate of 6.4 per cent among persons 18 and over in Miami/Ft. Lauderdale and a crime index of 7.6 per cent for the metropolitan area in 2000, only 3 per cent of private-school Cubans were convicted for a crime during the preceding five years. The figure rises to 6 per cent among public school Cubans and Colombians, 7 per cent among Haitians, and 8.5 per cent among West Indians. Table 2 presents figures for those who were actually sentenced rather than just arrested, since arrests may be for minor offences. Nevertheless, if arrests rather than convictions are considered (corresponding more closely to the FBI statistics for the area), the figures would climb to 8 per cent among Haitian respondents and 11 per cent among Colombians and West Indians.

For males, differences are still wider. Those sentenced for a crime range from just 3 per cent among middle-class Cuban youths to about 10 per cent among other Latin groups to 15 per cent of Haitians and a remarkable 20 per cent of West Indians. To put the latter figure in perspective, it can be compared with the nationwide proportion of African-American males incarcerated by age 40, 26.6 per cent (Western [46]). With an additional sixteen years to go on average, it is quite likely that members of our West Indian sample will reach or surpass that figure.

Hence, no less than 10 and up to 20 per cent of black second-generation young adults live in poverty, are unemployed, and are in jail or on probation. This is the most tangible evidence of downward assimilation available in these data. In South Florida, it clusters overwhelmingly among children of non-white immigrants reflecting the enduring consequences of low parental human capital (for Haitians) and of a negative mode of incorporation linked to race (for both Haitians and West Indians). While it should be noted that the majority of both groups have managed to overcome barriers to successful adaptation, a sizable minority is being left behind.

Children of Latin American immigrants have fared better, but even among them, 15 to 20 per cent are weighed down by children and 10 per cent among males have already seen jail for a serious offence. The only exceptions are the relatively privileged offspring of early middle-class Cuban exiles. As the Entenza children illustrate, these youths were able to learn English and advance educationally while retaining their parents' language and grounding themselves solidly in their community. They represent the best example of the consequences of a favourable mode of incorporation in our sample. Their story contrasts markedly not only with those of other nationalities, but also with that of their own co-nationals whose parents came from less privileged backgrounds and who faced a more negative mode of incorporation. The life course of Eddie Cifuentes provides a stark illustration of the results.

Determinants of key adaptation outcomes

Factors leading to educational and economic achievement or failure in the immigrant second-generation were hypothesized to consist of family structure, family socio-economic status, and the mode of incorporation experienced by different immigrant groups (see Figure 4). These factors plus individual characteristics of respondents were measured during the first and second CILS surveys when they were in early and late adolescence, respectively. In this section, we examine how they bear on five key outcomes in early adulthood: educational attainment, occupational status, family income, the probability of having children, and the probability of having been incarcerated. Results are presented in Table 3. Each of the subsequent models includes a correction for sample selection bias. The corresponding predictor, lambda (λ) is interpretable as indicating the extent to which lost respondents in the third survey would have differed from the rest of the sample in each outcome (Heckman [15]; Berk [4]).

Table 3a  Determinants of key adaptation outcomes in the second generation, 2002

Predictors1	Education (Years)2	Occupational Status2	Family Income ($/Year)2
	I	II	I	II	I	II
Sex (Female)			1.954 (3.0)**	2.038 (3.1)**	−6915 (2.6)*	−6290 (2.3)*
Age	−.100 (2.0)*	−.100 (1.9)*	–	–	–	–
Length of U.S. Residence	–	–	–	–	–	–
Intact Family	.357 (3.4)***	.374 (3.5)***	–	–	–	–
Parental SES	.531 (8.3)***	.530 (8.2)***	–	–	11832 (5.4)***	11993 (5.4)***
Grade Point Average	1.075 (12.3)***	1.084 (12.2)***	2.159 (2.8)**	2.260 (2.9)**	–	–
Educational Expectations	.530 (6.4)***	.526 (6.4)***	2.084 (3.0)**	2.066 (3.0)**	–	–
Minority School	–	−.005 (2.1)*	−.034 (2.0)*		−251 (3.8)***	–
Education (Years)3	–	–	1.691 (7.9)***	1.716 (8.0)***	2580 (2.9)**	2771 (3.2)**
Inactive in School4	−.376 (3.5)***	−.366 (3.4)***	–	–	–	–
Nationality5
Colombian		–		–		–
Cuban		–		1.696 (1.9)*		–
Haitian		.532 (2.4)*		–		−15658 (2.1)*
Nicaraguan		–		–		–
West Indian		.391 (2.2)*		–		−16674 (2.7)**
λ	.385 (3.5)***	.391 (3.5)***	n.s.6	n.s.6	n.s.6	n.s.6
Constant	12.335 (17.8)	12.216 (17.3)	17.811 (2.8)	15.218 (2.8)	43097 (1.7)	42903 (1.7)
R2	.333	.337	.152	.157	.067	.073
N = 14827
1 Except where indicated, all predictors were measured at the time of the first survey in 1992–93. See Appendix for description of variables.
2 Unstandardized OLS regression coefficients. Only coefficients significant at the.05 level or less are included. Z-ratios in parentheses.
3 Measured in the second follow-up survey, 2001–02.
4 Measured in the first follow-up survey, 1995–96.
5 "Other" (mostly South American and European nationalities) is the reference category. Nationality indicators omitted from the first model.
6 Sampling bias due to non-inclusion in the final sample is not significant. *p<.05 **p<.01 ***p<.001.
7 CILS-III South Florida sample.

Educational attainment is well accounted for by the two nested models presented in Table 3. Jointly, these models explain one-third of total variance in education. Strong effects are associated with having lived in an intact family (both biological parents present) and with parental socio-economic status. These results are not surprising and conform to our theoretical expectations. The process of educational attainment 'builds on itself' starting from these family factors. They lead to better academic performance – indexed by junior high grade point averages – and to high levels of educational expectations at the time. As shown in Table 3, both of these factors affect subsequent educational attainment strongly and positively.

Education is measured in years, but the scale is not continuous (see Appendix). For this reason, regression coefficients cannot be interpreted as the net gain in years corresponding to each predictor. Since the dependent variable reflects approximately two-year 'jumps' in attainment, each coefficient can be multiplied by 2 to approximate its net effect. Following this metric, living in an intact family in early adolescence leads to a.7-year net gain in education, while each standard deviation unit in parental SES yields a 1-year advantage. Early academic achievement is the strongest predictor, with each higher grade in junior high school yielding approximately a 2-year gain in education.

The point that educational attainment is cumulative is confirmed by the negative effect of being out of school (inactive) in the late high-school years which leads to a net loss of about.7 years. The addition of nationality indicators to the model produces a noteworthy result: after statistically controlling for ethnic composition of schools and other family and individual predictors, it turns out that the two black immigrant groups, Haitians and West Indians, perform significantly better than average. This implies that, in comparable circumstances, these minority youths seek to compensate for their handicaps in race and parental human capital by acquiring more education.[11]

Ordinary least squares regression is also appropriate for the analysis of occupational achievement which is a continuous variable, indexed by Treiman occupational prestige scores. As shown in Table 3, occupation is significantly influenced by early school grades and aspirations, plus subsequent educational attainment. These results reinforce the earlier conclusion of cumulative effects of family and academic achievement on the chances for success in early adulthood. Controlling for these factors, young females achieved significantly better occupations than males. This result is partially due to the tendency among females to settle down early and to avoid actions which, like those leading to arrest and incarceration, have a strong negative bearing on subsequent employment. As seen previously, such actions are far more common among males.

As an outcome, family income is interpretable as indicating respondents' present level of economic well-being (whether due to their own efforts or their parents') and the resources on which they can count for the future.[12] A clear indicator of the character of this dependent variable is that its most powerful predictor is parental SES in 1992: each additional unit in our standardized measure of family status in 1992 yields an annual gain of approximately $12,000 a decade later. In addition to the decisive advantage of higher family status, respondents' own characteristics and achievements also affect their current incomes. In particular, education has a strong positive effect. The coefficient indicates that, net of parental SES, each additional two years in education leads to a gain of approximately $2,600 in annual incomes.

Most significant are the persistent effects of gender and race. Young females may do better in terms of occupational status, but this does not translate into higher incomes. On the contrary, and regardless of model specification, males retain a clear economic advantage. Since children's gender is almost a perfect lottery, parental contributions to aggregate family income should be comparable for youths of both sexes. Hence, the observed differences can be attributed to the actual earnings of respondents. The gender gap is quite sizable, with young women receiving approximately $6,300 per year less than males of comparable family backgrounds and achievement.[13]

Attending a minority school in early adolescence has a strong negative effect on subsequent incomes: each additional Per centage of minority school peers reduces annual incomes by $250 per year. This effect disappears, however, in the final model to be substituted by the very sizable coefficients associated with Haitian and West Indian origin. These negative results are attributable to the persistent influence of low parental human capital (among Haitians), and of a negative mode of incorporation due to racial discrimination (among both Haitians and West Indians). Both factors lead to low incomes among immigrant parents and to major difficulties in finding well-paid employment among their offspring. Recall that these are the groups that attained significantly more education than expected from their family backgrounds. Their efforts to compensate for racial discrimination with additional education were not successful, however: controlling for individual and family characteristics, second-generation Haitians and West Indians received on average about $16,000 less than other groups. The contrast between the above-average education achieved by these young persons and their below-average incomes stands as a stark reminder of the persistent power of racial barriers in the American labour market.

The two remaining dependent variables are dichotomies and are analysable through logistic regressions with a Heckman correction added for selectivity bias. None of these corrections turned out to be statistically significant. Having children in adolescence or early adulthood is, like educational attainment, a direct function of family and school characteristics, but the coefficients run in the opposite direction. Being raised in an intact family reduces the odds of premature childbearing by 35 per cent; the effect of parental SES is also significant and runs in the same direction.[14] On the other hand, attending a mostly minority school in early adolescence or becoming inactive in high school significantly increases the probability of premature parenthood. Abandoning school by itself increases the odds by 85 per cent.

The strongest effect on early childbearing, however, is that of educational attainment. Since both variables were measured during the CILS third survey, the question of causal order arises: It is as probable that more education reduces chances of premature parenthood than that teenagers burdened with children abandon their studies. In this situation, the coefficients in Table 3b are interpretable as indicating that educational attainment and early childbearing represent opposite paths of second-generation adaptation: one builds on early family and school advantages and points towards occupational success; the other reflects the cumulative effects of early handicaps and points towards downward assimilation.

Table 3b  Determinants of key adaptation outcomes in the second generation, 2002

Predictors1	Early Parenthood2	Incarceration2
	I	II	I	II
Sex (Female)	.672 (4.3)***	.650 (4.1)***	−1.584 (5.2)***	−1.680 (5.4)***
Age	–	–	–	–
Length of U.S. Residence	–	–	–	–
Intact Family	−.432 (2.1)*	−.437 (2.1)*	–	–
Parental SES	−.296 (2.3)*	−.318 (2.4)*	–	–
Grade Point Average	–	–	–	–
Educational Expectations	–	–	–	–
Minority School	.018 (3.6)***	.010 (2.4)*	–	–
Education (Years)3	−.426 (8.7)***	−.430 (8.7)***	−.195 (2.4)*	−.200 (2.4)*
Inactive in School4	.615 (3.4)**	.609 (3.4)**	–	–
Nationality5
Colombian		–		–
Cuban		–		–
Haitian		–		–
Nicaraguan		–		–
West Indian		–		.975 (2.0)*
λ	n.s.6	n.s.6	n.s.6	n.s.6
Constant	4.161 (2.9)	4.189 (2.9)	−.826 (0.3)	−.503 (0.2)
Pseudo R2	.157	.159	.149	.163
LR χ2 (d.f.)	225.88 (10)***	228.81 (16)***	82.94 (11)***	91.03 (16)***
1 Except where indicated, all predictors were measured at the time of the first survey in 1992–93. See Appendix for description of variables.
2 Logistic regression coefficients. Only coefficients significant at the.05 level or less are included. Z-ratios in parentheses.
3 Measured in the second follow-up survey, 2001–02.
4 Measured in the first follow-up survey, 1995–96.
5 "Other" (mostly South American and European nationalities) is the reference category. Nationality indicators omitted from the first model.
6 Sampling bias due to non-inclusion in the final sample is nott significant. *p<.05 **p<.01 ***p<.001.
7 CILS-III South Florida sample.

With the effects of education and other variables controlled, females are significantly more likely to have children early. The female odds of doing so are 50 per cent greater. Thus, not only women receive lower incomes than men, but they are more likely to face the burden and expenses of early parenthood. Given the much stronger propensity of females to follow this path, we replicated the analysis separately for them. Results, presented in the first columns of Table 4, reproduce those just discussed, indicating the resilient effects of parental SES, intact families, and early school characteristics. Controlling for these variables plus education effectively eliminates all differences among nationalities in this outcome.

Table 4  Determinants of early parenthood and incarceration among second generation males and females, 2002

Predictors	Early Parenthood (Females)1	Incarceration (Males)1
	I	II	I	II
Age	–	–	–	–
Length of U.S. Residence	–	–	–	–
Intact Family	–	–	–	–
Parental SES	−.366 (2.3)*	−.393 (2.4)*	–	–
Grade Point Average	–	–	–	–
Educational Expectations	–	–	–	–
Minority School	.013 (3.2)**	–	–	–
Education (Years)	−.444 (7.1)***	−.445 (7.1)***	−.195 (2.0)*	−.213 (2.2)*
Inactive in School	.744 (3.3)**	.744 (3.3)**	.888 (2.7)**	.899 (2.7)**
Nationality:
Colombian	–2	–	–2	–
Cuban	–	–	–	–
Haitian	–	–	–	–
Nicaraguan	–	–	–	–
West Indian	–	–	–	1.368 (2.2)*
λ	n.s.3	n.s.3	n.s.3	n.s.3
Constant	4.875 (2.7)	5.159 (2.8)	1.046 (0.4)	1.445 (0.5)
Pseudo R2	.159	.163	.094	.116
LR χ2	146.25 (10)***	149.40 (15)***	34.26 (10)***	42.34 (15)***
N = 8724			N = 6105
1 Logistic regression coefficients. Only coefficients significant at the.05 level or less are included. Z-ratios in parentheses.
2 Nationality method omitted from this model.
3 Sampling bias due to non-inclusion in the final sample is not significant. *p<.05; **p<.01; ***p<.001
4 CILS-III South Florida sample – males.
5 CILS-III South Florida sample – females.

The handicaps suffered by young second-generation women in incomes and early parenthood turn to advantage when we consider the final indicator of downward assimilation: sentencing and incarceration. Regardless of model specification, males are much more likely to follow this path. In the final model, the odds of incarceration for a crime are 4.4 times higher for males. Both model specifications indicate, once again, the cumulative character of the adaptation process. An initial model (not shown), excluding educational attainment, identified early grade point average and school inactivity as the only predictors with significant effects on the probability of incarceration. These effects ran in opposite directions, with GPAs decreasing this probability and school inactivity increasing it. These predictors were, in turn, strongly determined by two family characteristics: parental SES and intact families. When educational attainment enters the model, it eliminates all other significant effects. Since education is itself the product of family and early school characteristics, it basically embodies the accumulated effects of these factors.

Educational attainment in early adulthood is less an 'inhibitor' of crime and incarceration than its logical opposite. Young people who have attained a college degree or higher seldom do time in prison; those who dropped out or did poorly in school commonly do. Such polar outcomes stand as endpoints of second-generation adaptation in early adulthood and indicate its likely evolution in later life: education is a strong predictor of higher incomes and occupational success; premature childbearing (most common among females) and arrest and incarceration (most common among males) are linked with lower average education and, hence, poorer chances in the labour market.

Only one predictor remains significant after controlling for education and gender. The effect of West Indian origin shows that, after controlling for all other factors, black second-generation youths are significantly more likely to be incarcerated. The net odds are 2.6 times higher for West Indians than for comparable respondents of other nationalities. Given the overwhelming effect of gender on the likelihood of incarceration, it is appropriate to ask if this result holds when males are considered alone. We replicated the analysis on the male sub-sample and present findings in the last columns of Table 4.

Results show that early school abandonment retains an important effect among males, even after controlling for educational attainment. Net of both effects, West Indian young men continue to be significantly more likely to be in prison. This result reflects poignantly the disadvantages experienced by second-generation youths of colour. While Haitian males have incarceration rates second only to West Indians, no significant Haitian effect remains after controlling for other predictors. Hence, while the two black minorities are underprivileged in terms of economic rewards and vulnerability to arrest and incarceration, the causal sequence leading to these outcomes is different. Regardless of how it comes about, both groups exhibit a common pattern of significant disadvantage.

Conclusion

Third narrative

Jessica Wynters was born in Miami. Her father is originally from Jamaica. He worked as a shipmate arriving first in the U.S. in 1976. Now 55 years old, he is serving an eight-year prison sentence in Louisiana for illegal re-entry and smuggling. She has many half brothers and sisters on both sides of the family. Jessica had a difficult childhood. In junior high, she joined 'the wrong crowd'. She believes kids get in trouble because they try to rebel against the rules. By tenth grade, her grades had recovered somewhat but then she became pregnant. She first considered abortion but her mother, Carolyn, disapproved. Jessica delivered a son, Erik, who is now six years old. Five months ago, she was delivered of another child, this time a daughter whom she named Tess.

Tess' father, Kalongi, is now working in a lumberyard somewhere in Georgia while saving money to marry. He sends Jessica money regularly to support their child. Jessica met Kalongi in Overtown, Miami's poorest slum district, where she lived with her grandmother after Carolyn became a crack addict. During that period, the mother was in and out of jail all the time. She finally found religion and they both now regularly attend Mount Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in North Miami. Jessica plans to raise her children religiously.

Jessica did not graduate from high school, but despite all obstacles, she persisted and got her GED. She wanted to major in criminal justice as a first step to becoming a lawyer or, at least, a law enforcement officer. She started taking courses at Miami-Dade Community College but could not complete even one semester. Living alone with her child, she could not afford the time to study. Since then, she has held a succession of low-paid jobs and has been on and off welfare, although she does not like it: 'The agents get into your personal life. It's humiliating...you feel like a beggar.'

Jessica continues to dream of a career in law enforcement, although her chances of returning to school are dim. Another possibility is to become self-employed by buying goods in Miami – like clothing, shoes, and perfume – for sale in Jamaica. She already attempted this once although, as seen next, the results were catastrophic. Jessica calls herself Jamaican-American and believes that the United States is the land of opportunity and freedom. Despite all her troubles, she does not think that circumstances played a part in shaping her life. She strongly agrees that 'we are all masters of our destiny'.

About a year ago, in her efforts to become self-supporting, Jessica rented a Nissan Maxima, to shop for goods to re-sell in Jamaica. She rented it for a week. A friend who is also Kalongi's niece offered to take care of Erik during Jessica's absence. She also offered to keep the car while Jessica went to Jamaica and return it after a week. Unfortunately, the friend did not do so and also kept the money that Jessica had given her for the rental. As a result, Jessica was charged with grand theft upon her return from Jamaica, since her signature was on the rental agreement. The charge was later changed to failure to return a rental vehicle.

Jessica is currently under a three-year probation sentence and ordered to pay $3,700 in restitution. Her probationary status prevents her from leaving the state to join Kalongi in Georgia or attempt another business trip to Jamaica. The same status would keep her from working in any field related to law enforcement. She has no resources to hire a lawyer. 'It's been tough,' she says, 'but things will get better.'

Lessons for the future

Downward assimilation does not emerge from the stories of our respondents as a deliberate path, but as an outgrowth of a web of constraints, bad luck, and limited opportunities. Jessica Wynters shares with other members of our sample a police record derived from an original attempt to muster the resources to build a business. Her case also illustrates how difficulties with the law further entrap young persons. She cannot obtain a decent job and cannot pursue her life dream – ironically a career in law enforcement. Given her situation, it is striking that Jessica's value system is so utterly normative. There is something truly moving in her belief, shared with others in similar situations, that she can be 'master of her own destiny'. Against all odds, she keeps holding on to her dreams. Her recent return to church, along with her repentant mother, reinforces these hopes. In reality, chances of her breaking loose from the circle of poverty, pregnancy, and poorly-paid jobs are dim.

Results from our study are almost frightening in revealing the power of structural factors – family human capital, family composition, and modes of incorporation – in shaping the lives of these young men and women. While we stop short of the conclusion that 'context is destiny', there is little doubt that the opportunities for a successful career and a respected standing in society are widely divergent. The power of pervasive American racism and the dearth of compensatory programmes for the most disadvantaged members of society comes forth with unusual force in the divergent adaptation paths followed by second-generation youths and in their individual stories of success and failure.

To check on the generalizability of these results, we examined frequency distributions on the relevant dependent variables available in the 2000 Census for the principal second-generation nationalities in South Florida. This analysis used as proxy for the second-generation foreign-born persons aged 20–30 and brought to the United States before age 5, a method introduced by Perlmann ([25]). Results (not shown) are in agreement with those presented herein concerning the relative position, social and economic, of the principal second-generation nationalities in the region.

It makes little sense to speak of a uniform assimilation path for the second generation when such different outcomes are observed. It is equally useless to adopt an optimistic outlook where 'assimilation' can be each and all things. The challenges and traumas confronted by many children of immigrants reflect the realities of American society as it is today, on the ground. This divergence is not chaotic but follows, by and large, predictable channels: resources – intellectual, material, and social – build on each other and lead to ever greater advantages within and across generations; lack of skills, poverty, and a hostile context of reception also accumulate into frequently insurmountable difficulties. Segmented assimilation is a reality that assumes equally strong contours when one interviews a successful 24-year-old entrepreneur in his high-rise luxury office in Miami Beach, as when one visits a person who ten years ago was a child full of dreams for the future and who is today in prison.

From these results, it is evident that most of the new second generation is not joining the bottom ranks of society, but that a sizable minority is poised to do so. Since second-generation children are the fastest growing component of American youth, we ignore the forces leading to downward assimilation at our own peril. Rather than forcing immigrants and their offspring into a uniform assimilation path while otherwise abandoning them to their own resources, programmes that support selective acculturation – learning English while upholding the value of parents' language and culture – and that offer compensatory resources to deal with poverty and outside discrimination are needed to ward off the challenges confronted today by immigrant families. Theoretical positions that dismiss these challenges by asserting that there is really 'nothing new' only help to compound these problems.

Acknowledgments

An earlier version of this article was delivered as the Pitirim Sorokin Lecture before the Midwest Sociological Society in April 2003. The data on which the article is based come from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study [CILS] supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (SBR-9022555 and SES-0350789); Spencer Foundation (Senior Scholars Award to senior author); and Russell Sage Foundation (Nos 88-95-03; 88-01-55; and 88-02-05). We are grateful to the editors and anonymous reviewers of this journal for their comments. Responsibility for the contents of this article is entirely ours.

Appendix

Variables Used in the Multivariate Analyses

Outcomes: All outcomess measured in second follow-up (T3), all predictors measured in initial survey unless indicated as a first follow-up (i.e., T2) variable.	Measurement	Range	Mean
Unemployed	Dichotomous	1 Not employed	.070
		0 Employed
Incarcerated	Dichotomous	1 Convicted	.064
		0 Conviction status unknown
Education	Interval	10 Some high school, no diploma	14.3
	12 High school graduate
	14 Community, vocational, or 2-year college
	15 College student, no degree
	16 College graduate
	18 Begun or completed advanced degree
Family Income (annual)	Interval	$2,500 (min.)	$58,425
		$350,000
Predictors:
Sex	Dichotomous	0 Male	55.2
		1 Female
Age Years (in 2002)	Continuous	22–27	24.2
Length of U.S. Residence	Interval	1 Entire life	1.72
	2 Ten years or more
	3 Five to nine years
	4 Less than five years
Intact Family	Dichotomous	1 Both natural parents present	.581
		0 Other type of family or guardianship
Family SES (composite scale) Unit-weighted sum of father's and mother's education (years), father's and mother's occupational prestige (SEI scores) and home ownership. The scale is the original sample was standardized to mean 0 and standard deviation 1.	Continuous	−1.66 to 2.09	.11
Grade Point Average	Continuous	0 to 4.96	2.34
Educational Expectations	Dichotomous	0 Up to and including college	.484
		1 Post college degree
Percent Minority Students in School	Continuous	0–92	17.1%
Inactive in School (including dropout), at Time 2	Dichotomous	0 No	.22
		1 Yes
Predictors:
Cuban (Private School)	Dichotomous	1 Cuban (Private School)	.064
		0 Other group
Cuban (Public School)	Dichotomous	1 Cuban (Public School)	.367
		0 Other group
Nicaraguan	Dichotomous	1 Nicaraguan	.120
		0 Other group
Haitian	Dichotomous	1 Haitian	.062
		0 Other group
Colombian	Dichotomous	1 Colombian	.079
		0 Other group
West Indian	Dichotomous	1 West Indian	.089
		0 Other group
Other Nationality	Dichotomous	1 All other nationalities	.220
		0 Cuban, Nicaraguan, Haitian, Colombian, or West Indian

Notes 1 1. The text setting forth this inclusive definition reads as follows: "We do not limit the mainstream to the middle-class; it contains a working-class and even some who are poor, not just affluent suburbanites" (Alba and Nee 2003: 12). Other remarks along the same lines follow in the same chapter. 2 2. Despite their initial encompassing definition, Alba and Nee eventually recognize this fact. In their description of "new" assimilation theory, we find numerous references to a "mainstream" that cannot be but the economically successful native core of society. Thus, "viewed from the perspective of the mainstream, oppositional norms have a negative effect, insofar as they are associated with social behavior that opposes mainstream values and hence reinforces negative stereotypes" (Alba and Nee 2003: 51). Similar statements are found throughout the narrative. 3 3. This is a very rich literature that highlights, in painstaking detail, the plight of the American inner city and its young people. See, for example, Wilson (1987); Wacquant and Wilson (1989); Sullivan (1989); Massey and Denton (1993); Cowley (1999); Royster (2003), and many others. 4 4. While criticizing the segmented assimilation hypothesis as too pessimistic, Alba and Nee subsequently formulate statements that are quite similar to those advanced by this theoretical position. Thus, 'it is well known that some structures of opportunity readily accessible to poor immigrants and minorities are illicit, from the organized criminality of a mafia to the street corner opportunities of minority youth gangs. Oppositional norms, a feature of a reactive subculture formed in defiance of perceived rejection by mainstream authorities, contribute to maintaining a level of solidarity' (Alba and Nee 2003, p. 51). 5 5. Family interview conducted in Miami in the summer of 2002 by a field team directed by Patricia Fernandez-Kelly. All names in this and the following narratives are fictitious to protect the anonymity of respondents. 6 6. Social capital is defined as the ability to access resources through membership in social networks or larger social structures. Resources thus obtained can be of any kind, material and non-material (Coleman [7]; Portes [27]). 7 7. This is also the data base on which the following article by Fernandez-Kelly and Konczal is based. 8 8. These figures are for 1995, the last year for which data are available for 90 per cent or more of reporting police precincts. Figures for subsequent years are estimates. 9 9. The large Cuban sample is partitioned into two categories: 1) children who attended private bilingual schools and 2) those who attended public schools. Major differences were observed in the socio-economic status and academic performance of these two groups. Private school Cubans are usually the offspring of middle-class families who arrived as political exiles before 1980 and were favourably received by the U.S. government and the public. The schools that they attended are offshoots of elite educational institutions in pre-Castro Cuba, transplanted to Miami. This is the case, for example, of Belen Prep, a Jesuit school favoured by many of these families and included in CILS' first survey. Public school Cubans, on the other hand, include a large proportion of children of refugees who arrived during the 1980 Mariel exodus and subsequently. Their parents have significantly lower average levels of education and occupational skills than earlier exiles. More importantly, the Mariel exodus triggered a strong negative reaction from the American population and the U.S. government, making the context of incorporation of these later arrivals far more difficult than for pre-1980 exiles (Portes and Rumbaut 2001, pp. 261–67). 10. As seen previously, second-generation youths anticipated these conditions since their adolescent years. During the first CILS survey, they were asked whether they would experience discrimination in their future lives 'even if they achieved an advanced education'. For the sample as a whole, less than a third responded that they would, but among Haitian children the figure rose to 49 per cent and, among Jamaican children, to a remarkable 60 per cent. The same pattern was obtained three years later when the question was posed during the second survey. 11. The lambda (λ) coefficient is significant in both models meaning a non-negligible sampling bias effect on education. The sign of the coefficient is negative, indicating that lost respondents in CILS-III would have had lower average education than those actually interviewed. 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By Alejandro Portes; Patricia Fernández-Kelly and William Haller

Reported by Author; Author; Author