Mary C. Waters – författare

The United States prides itself on being a nation of immigrants, and the country has a long history of successfully absorbing people from across the globe. The integration of immigrants and their children contributes to our economic vitality and our vibrant and ever changing culture. We have offered opportunities to immigrants and their children to better themselves and to be fully incorporated into our society and in exchange immigrants have become Americans - embracing an American identity and citizenship, protecting our country through service in our military, fostering technological innovation, harvesting its crops, and enriching everything from the nation's cuisine to its universities, music, and art. Today, the 41 million immigrants in the United States represent 13.1 percent of the U.S. population. The U.S.-born children of immigrants, the second generation, represent another 37.1 million people, or 12 percent of the population. Thus, together the first and second generations account for one out of four members of the U.S. population. Whether they are successfully integrating is therefore a pressing and important question.Are new immigrants and their children being well integrated into American society, within and across generations? Do current policies and practices facilitate their integration? How is American society being transformed by the millions of immigrants who have arrived in recent decades? To answer these questions, this new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine summarizes what we know about how immigrants and their descendants are integrating into American society in a range of areas such as education, occupations, health, and language.

Written by a team of renowned sociologists with experience in both the field and the classroom, The Art and Science of Social Research offers authoritative, accessible and balanced coverage of the methods used to study the social world. The authors highlight the challenges of investigating the unpredictable topic of human lives while providing insights into what really happens in the field, the laboratory and the survey call centre. A streamlined Second Edition is now accompanied by three new InQuizitive activities and writing tutorials that help students master the building blocks of research and hone key writing skills.

In this perceptive and revealing study, Mary Waters explores the 'reinvention' of ethnicity in the lives of the grandchildren and great grandchildren of European immigrants, asking how their ethnic heritage is lived, maintained, and celebrated. Through in-depth interviews with sixty third and fourth generation white ethnics in suburban California and Pennsylvania, the author discovers a surprisingly resilient sense of ethnicity among people who could reasonably label themselves simply 'American'. Mary Waters' research brings to light a fascinating history of American immigration, revealing aspects of a shared culture and ideology and the unique ways in which ethnic identities fulfill very American needs. Describing the 'symbolic ethnicity' of later generation white ethnics as a quintessential American phenomenon, she argues that ethnicity has retained its importance in our lives precisely because it allows people to reconcile the contradictory American values of choice, individuality, and community.In addition to her exploration of the symbolic ethnicity of later generation middle-class whites, Mary Waters addresses its cost to society, contrasting it with the optionless ethnicity of non-white Americans. Her conclusions in "Ethnic Options" constitute an invaluable contribution to our understanding of contemporary American life.

What is it like to become an adult in twenty-first-century America? This book takes us to four very different places - New York City, San Diego, rural Iowa, and Saint Paul, Minnesota - to explore the dramatic shifts in coming-of-age experiences across the country. Drawing from in-depth interviews with people in their twenties and early thirties, it probes experiences and decisions surrounding education, work, marriage, parenthood, and housing. The first study to systematically explore this phenomenon from a qualitative perspective, "Coming of Age in America" offers a clear view of how traditional patterns and expectations are changing, of the range of forces that are shaping these changes, and of how young people themselves view their lives.

What is it like to become an adult in twenty-first-century America? This book takes us to four very different places - New York City, San Diego, rural Iowa, and Saint Paul, Minnesota - to explore the dramatic shifts in coming-of-age experiences across the country. Drawing from in-depth interviews with people in their twenties and early thirties, it probes experiences and decisions surrounding education, work, marriage, parenthood, and housing. The first study to systematically explore this phenomenon from a qualitative perspective, "Coming of Age in America" offers a clear view of how traditional patterns and expectations are changing, of the range of forces that are shaping these changes, and of how young people themselves view their lives.

This unique collection of original essays brings a comparative perspective to issues of social inequality. First-rate sociologists from around the world have contributed to this exciting and rigorous volume, drawing upon their own research in the fields of race and ethnicity, class and inequality, and gender and sexuality. Contains original essays by first-rate scholars on issues of social inequalities around the worldFeatures research and examples from the USA, Canada, UK, Australia, France, Portugal, Finland, and JapanReviews research on issues of social inequalities from the fields of race, class, and genderReflects on methodological issues and the strengths of qualitative researchProvides students with an important overview of the development of social stratification studies

This unique collection of original essays brings a comparative perspective to issues of social inequality. First-rate sociologists from around the world have contributed to this exciting and rigorous volume, drawing upon their own research in the fields of race and ethnicity, class and inequality, and gender and sexuality. Contains original essays by first-rate scholars on issues of social inequalities around the worldFeatures research and examples from the USA, Canada, UK, Australia, France, Portugal, Finland, and JapanReviews research on issues of social inequalities from the fields of race, class, and genderReflects on methodological issues and the strengths of qualitative researchProvides students with an important overview of the development of social stratification studies

The story of West Indian immigrants to the United States is considered a great success. Many of these adoptive citizens have prospered, including General Colin Powell. But Mary Waters tells a very different story about immigrants from the West Indies, especially their children. She finds that when the immigrants first arrive, their knowledge of English, their skills and contacts, their self-respect, and their optimistic assessment of American race relations facilitate their integration into the American economic structure. Over time, however, the realities of American race relations begin to swamp their positive cultural values. Persistent, blatant racial discrimination soon undermines the openness to whites the immigrants have when they first arrive. Discrimination in housing channels them into neighborhoods with inadequate city services and high crime rates. Inferior public schools undermine their hopes for their children's future. Low wages and poor working conditions are no longer attractive for their children, who use American and not Caribbean standards to measure success.Ultimately, the values that gained these 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 in the United States. In many families, the hard-won relative success of the parents is followed by the downward slide of their children. Contrary to long-held beliefs, Waters finds, those who resist Americanization are most likely to succeed economically, especially in the second generation.

Listen to a short interview with Mary WatersHost: Chris Gondek | Producer: Heron & CraneSalsa has replaced ketchup as the most popular condiment. A mosque has been erected around the corner. The local hospital is staffed by Indian doctors and Philippine nurses, and the local grocery store is owned by a Korean family. A single elementary school may include students who speak dozens of different languages at home. This is a snapshot of America at the turn of the twenty-first century.The United States has always been a nation of immigrants, shaped by successive waves of new arrivals. The most recent transformation began when immigration laws and policies changed significantly in 1965, admitting migrants from around the globe in new numbers and with widely varying backgrounds and aspirations. This comprehensive guide, edited and written by an interdisciplinary group of prominent scholars, provides an authoritative account of the most recent surge of immigrants. Twenty thematic essays address such topics as immigration law and policy, refugees, unauthorized migrants, racial and ethnic identity, assimilation, nationalization, economy, politics, religion, education, and family relations. These are followed by comprehensive articles on immigration from the thirty most significant nations or regions of origin. Based on the latest U.S. Census data and the most recent scholarly research, The New Americans is an essential reference for students, scholars, and anyone curious about the changing face of America.

One fifth of the population of the United States belongs to the immigrant or second generations. While the US is generally thought of as the immigrant society par excellence, it now has a number of rivals in Europe. The Next Generation brings together studies from top immigration scholars to explore how the integration of immigrants affects the generations that come after. The original essays explore the early beginnings of the second generation in the United States and Western Europe, exploring the overall patterns of success of the second generation.While there are many striking similarities in the situations of the children of labor immigrants coming from outside the highly developed worlds of Europe and North America, wherever one looks, subtle features of national and local contexts interact with characteristics of the immigrant groups themselves to create variations in second-generation trajectories. The contributors show that these issues are of the utmost importance for the future, for they will determine the degree to which contemporary immigration will produce either durable ethno-racial cleavages or mainstream integration.Contributors: Dalia Abdel-Hady, Frank D. Bean, Susan K. Brown, Maurice Crul, Nancy A. Denton, Rosita Fibbi, Nancy Foner, Anthony F. Heath, Donald J. Hernandez, Tariqul Islam, Frank Kalter, Philip Kasinitz, Mark A. Leach, Mathias Lerch, Suzanne E. Macartney, Karen G Marotz, Noriko Matsumoto, Tariq Modood, Joel Perlmann, Karen Phalet, Jeffrey G. Reitz, Rubén G. Rumbaut, Roxanne Silberman, Philippe Wanner, Aviva Zeltzer-Zubida, andYe Zhang.