Review of Remaking the American Mainstream: Assimilation and Contemporary Immigration By Richard D. Alba and Victor Nee

Authors

Hal Barron, Claremont Graduate University

Date of this Version

Fall 2004

Comments

Published in Great Plains Research Vol. 14, No. 2, 2004. Copyright © 2004 The Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Used by permission.

Abstract

Co-authored by two distinguished sociologists, this book is a valuable synthesis of scholarship on recent immigration to the United States that explores whether assimilation is still a viable theory for understanding the new arrivals' experiences. In a thorough and nuanced analysis comparing contemporary patterns of acculturation with those of earlier European and Asian immigrants, Alba and Nee argue strongly for the continued utility of the concept. Notwithstanding some serious caveats and concerns, they are extremely optimistic about the future of immigrants and of American society, which they see as increasingly more united by common social experiences than divided along ethnic and cultural lines.