Immigration: Issues of Ethnicity, Class, and Public Policy in the United States

Abstract

This article argues that the incorporation of immigrants into the advanced industrial states may be best understood in the context of recent theoretical debates over the changing character of racial and gender inequality. Specifically, it attempts to draw parallels between the conditions of working-class minorities and women born in the advanced economies and the economic progress of new immigrant groups. Shifting from a focus on individualized discrimination, emphasis is placed on the structural divisions within each immigrant group. For example, the bifurcation of the black community, resulting from the relative success of its middle class and the persistent decline of the underclass, is mirrored in the differentiation of immigrant and refugee groups. In contrast to the success stories of a few immigrant entrepreneurs or reconstituted fragments of an uprooted capitalist class, the majority within these immigrant and refugee groups are forming part of a restructured working class found throughout the advanced industrial states. This emphasis on the restructuring of the working class identifies grounds for a political framework based on a broad coalition of interests among those of various backgrounds who work for low and modest wages.