Challenging The Paradoxes Of Integration Policies

This book traces Latin American migration to Europe since the 1970s. Focusing on Amsterdam, London, and Madrid, it examines the policies of integration in a comparative perspective that takes into account transnational, national, regional and local levels. It examines the entire mechanism that Latin American migrants confront in the European cities they settle, and provides readers with a theoretical framework on integration that addresses the concepts of multiculturalism, interculturality, transculturality and transnationalism. This work is based on rich qualitative data from in-depth interviews, focus groups and participant observation complemented by a substantial documentary and legislative analysis. It reveals that current policies are limited and migrants are excluded in most of the formal venues for integration. In addition, the book shows the many ways that migrants negotiate the constraints and imperatives of integration. In Western Europe today, immigrants are largely assuming the entire responsibility of their integration. This book provides readers with much needed insight into why European integration policies are not responding to the needs of immigrants nor to society as a whole.

Given current demographic trends, nearly one in five U.S. residents will be of Hispanic origin by 2025. This major demographic shift and its implications for both the United States and the growing Hispanic population make Multiple Origins, Uncertain Destinies a most timely book. This report from the National Research Council describes how Hispanics are transforming the country as they disperse geographically. It considers their roles in schools, in the labor market, in the health care system, and in U.S. politics. The book looks carefully at the diverse populations encompassed by the term "Hispanic," representing immigrants and their children and grandchildren from nearly two dozen Spanish-speaking countries. It describes the trajectory of the younger generations and established residents, and it projects long-term trends in population aging, social disparities, and social mobility that have shaped and will shape the Hispanic experience.

The story of West Indian immigrants to the United States is generally considered to be a great success. Mary Waters, however, tells a very different story. She finds that the values that gain first-generation immigrants initial success--a willingness to work hard, a lack of attention to racism, a desire for education, an incentive to save--are undermined by the realities of life and race relations in the United States. Contrary to long-held beliefs, Waters finds, those who resist Americanization are most likely to succeed economically, especially in the second generation.

Nowadays, the political discourse of European Social Democracy seems to pose more questions than to offer sound solution patterns and policies. This is, given the dynamic field of migration and integration, not unexpected and surprising. How migration and integration policies should be constructed and built up against the background of divergent national histories and cultures is still a demanding task. Thus formulating the right questions and intimating paths to solutions is the first decisive step. This book explores social democratic reactions, responses, and policies concerning the big issues of migration and multiculturalism. The authors map out a range of new social-democratic thinking having experienced waves of migration, different approaches of integration policies, and right-wing populist reactions in their respective countries.

Recent acts of terrorism in Britain and Europe and the events of 9/11 in the United States have greatly influenced immigration, security, and integration policies in these countries. Yet many of the current practices surrounding these issues were developed decades ago, and are ill-suited to the dynamics of today's global economies and immigration patterns. At the core of much policy debate is the inherent paradox whereby immigrant populations are frequently perceived as posing a potential security threat yet bolster economies by providing an inexpensive workforce. Strict attention to border controls and immigration quotas has diverted focus away from perhaps the most significant dilemma: the integration of existing immigrant groups. Often restricted in their civil and political rights and targets of xenophobia, racial profiling, and discrimination, immigrants are unable or unwilling to integrate into the population. These factors breed distrust, disenfranchisement, and hatred-factors that potentially engender radicalization and can even threaten internal security.The contributors compare policies on these issues at three relational levels: between individual EU nations and the U.S., between the EU and U.S., and among EU nations. What emerges is a timely and critical examination of the variations and contradictions in policy at each level of interaction and how different agencies and different nations often work in opposition to each other with self-defeating results. While the contributors differ on courses of action, they offer fresh perspectives, some examining significant case studies and laying the groundwork for future debate on these crucial issues.

An up-to-date and comparative look at immigration in Europe, the United States, and Canada Strangers No More is the first book to compare immigrant integration across key Western countries. Focusing on low-status newcomers and their children, it examines how they are making their way in four critical European countries—France, Germany, Great Britain, and the Netherlands—and, across the Atlantic, in the United States and Canada. This systematic, data-rich comparison reveals their progress and the barriers they face in an array of institutions—from labor markets and neighborhoods to educational and political systems—and considers the controversial questions of religion, race, identity, and intermarriage. Richard Alba and Nancy Foner shed new light on questions at the heart of concerns about immigration. They analyze why immigrant religion is a more significant divide in Western Europe than in the United States, where race is a more severe obstacle. They look at why, despite fears in Europe about the rise of immigrant ghettoes, residential segregation is much less of a problem for immigrant minorities there than in the United States. They explore why everywhere, growing economic inequality and the proliferation of precarious, low-wage jobs pose dilemmas for the second generation. They also evaluate perspectives often proposed to explain the success of immigrant integration in certain countries, including nationally specific models, the political economy, and the histories of Canada and the United States as settler societies. Strangers No More delves into issues of pivotal importance for the present and future of Western societies, where immigrants and their children form ever-larger shares of the population.

The migrant integration strategy is developed instead of migration policies and adopted in response to the recent forcibly displaced people across new-destination states. This paper discusses the policy challenges in the integration which provide a perspective from a political approach on the strategy in the European states. This discussion concludes the complexities challenges in cultural-political participation require greater attention and a suitable platform.

For many years Orlando Patterson has been a major contributor to the public discussion of race in America. In this eagerly anticipated new volume, the author of the National Book Award–winner Freedom in the Making of Western Culture presents a comprehensive exploration of contemporary interethnic relations.Americans are in the midst of a rejuvenated conversation about race. How we talk about race—or fail to—is one of the central themes of this book, which is certain to spark lively debate among intellectuals and policy advocates.Unflinching in his analysis, Patterson chides professional race advocates, the mainstream media, and his fellow academics for homogenizing the 33 million Americans of African ancestry into a single group beset by crises and intractable dilemmas. His willingness to challenge the received wisdom of conservatives, liberals, and genetic determinists alike affords us the opportunity to critically examine our own preconceived notions and prejudices.An experienced policy advisor, Patterson brings to the national discussion a lifetime of study of slavery, freedom, and ethnic inequality worldwide. His practical recommendations emphasize solutions to problems too often described as unsolvable. For the one-fourth of the Afro-American population at the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder, his suggestions include housing vouchers, limiting the influx of low-skilled immigrants, and instituting a highly original policy to reduce teenage childbearing. He remains firmly committed to school desegregation, supports intermarriage as a means of promoting full integration, and takes American religious leaders to task for the ”scandal of segregation” within their churches. Responding to widespread antagonism toward affirmative action, Patterson advocates retaining it for another fifteen years, eventually replacing it with a class-based policy.Standing as a challenge to those who insist on dwelling on the failures of race relations, The Ordeal of Integration admonishes Americans to stop exaggerating the intractability of persistent ethnic problems and start focusing on what works.

For a century, economists have driven forward the cause of globalization in financial institutions, labour markets, and trade. Yet there have been consistent warning signs that a global economy and free trade might not always be advantageous. Where are the pressure points? What could be done about them? Dani Rodrik examines the back-story from its seventeenth-century origins through the milestones of the gold standard, the Bretton Woods Agreement, and the Washington Consensus, to the present day. Although economic globalization has enabled unprecedented levels of prosperity in advanced countries and has been a boon to hundreds of millions of poor workers in China and elsewhere in Asia, it is a concept that rests on shaky pillars, he contends. Its long-term sustainability is not a given. The heart of Rodrik’s argument is a fundamental 'trilemma': that we cannot simultaneously pursue democracy, national self-determination, and economic globalization. Give too much power to governments, and you have protectionism. Give markets too much freedom, and you have an unstable world economy with little social and political support from those it is supposed to help. Rodrik argues for smart globalization, not maximum globalization.