This research project is designed to understand the formation of such new ethnic communities, both why they form as well as their influence on larger American society. It focuses its attention on four different recent immigrant streams: Mexicans, Chinese, Filipinos and residents of the former Soviet Union. It asks two major research questions regarding these four groups: Why and how do ethnic communities form among immigrants to the United States? And, once formed, how do such communities influence and reshape American institutions? The research will be conducted in one of the major ports of entry of immigrants to the United States, the Chicago metropolitan area. Sample surveys of the households of immigrants will be conducted both in urban Chicago as well as in suburban areas where many of the recent immigrants now settle. The interviews will be designed to reveal the ways in which new ethnic communities develop, the strength of those communities and the effects of those communities, both of individuals and of organizations, on local institutions, such as politics but also local cultural institutions.
The information generated from this research will help social scientists as well as the general public to better appreciate the ways in which immigrants and their communities contribute to and help to refashion American society. America is a society that has been built and composed of immigrants who arrive on American shores from different countries and places. Many such immigrants come here intent on finding work and new opportunities unavailable to them in their homelands. Once they arrive they work hard to become part of the American mainstream and thus are absorbed into the main lineaments of American society. This research project will help scholars understand the important role that immigrants play in the continuing evolution of America and the ways in which their established communities feed into this process. Understanding the how and under what conditions immigrants retain or abandon their cultural roots is important and timely. The project collaborators plan to disseminate the results of their research widely both in professional research papers as well as in the local and national media.
