Name of Report: The New Neighbors: A User’s Guide to Data on Immigrants in U.S. Communities
Organizational affiliation: The Urban Institute, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, The Providence Plan, KIDS COUNT
Authors: Randy Capps; Jeffrey S. Passel; Daniel Perez-Lopez; Michael Fix
Publisher: Annie E. Casey Foundation
Contact Information: Annie E. Casey Foundation, 701 St. Paul Street, Baltimore, MD 21202 www.aecf.org; The Urban Institute www.urban.org
Date: 2003
Pages: 66 pages
Content Summary
The report seeks to enlighten policy makers on the current state of immigrants in the United States, their growth, places of settlement and dispersal, countries of origin and status and length of time in the U.S. The report also offers uses for this data in regards to public policy and planning. The fifth section of the report is a detailed look at Rhode Island and illustrates how to develop an immigrant profile. This section contains more specified information about the immigrants of Providence including concentration of certain areas, linguistic issues, and immigrant growth. Most of the data on immigrant communities has been approximated given that many are illegal aliens or refugees and temporary citizens who have lost their status.
Major findings
Overall in the United States, of the immigrant population, 30-32% are legal aliens, 30-32% are naturalized citizens, 25% are undocumented, 4-5% are temporary residents, and 7.5% are refugee arrivals. Rhode Island has slow immigrant growth; 11% of its population is foreign born which is equal to the national average (see Frey, William H, The Diversity Myth). The areas where immigrants are concentrated, such as Providence, Pawtucket and Central Valley Falls (which all have at least 2x the percentage of immigrants in the state), have the most ethnically diverse neighborhoods in Rhode Island. Approximately, 21,000 households (5%) are linguistically isolated; meaning no one in the household over the age of 14 speaks English. Forty-six percent of those with Limited English Proficiency (LEP) speak Spanish, 38% of LEP speak other Indo-European languages and 18% speak an Asian language. Subsequently, 37% of Rhode Island’s immigrants come from Latin America, 33% from Europe 16% from Asia and 10% from Africa. The countries with the most representation are the Dominican Republic (see Itzigsohn, José, et al. "Mapping Dominican Transnationalism), Guatemala, Colombia, Portugal, Cape Verde, Cambodia, Laos, China and the Philippines. The Latino immigrant population accounts for more than 60% of all Rhode Island immigrants. In 2002, the Providence School Department reported that fifty-one percent of their students have Spanish as a dominant language despite the fact that 64% of them are U.S. born. In Rhode Island 3% of housing units are crowded but the average Latin American immigrant lives in a neighborhood where 10% of all housing is crowded. It is important to note that crowding is defined as more than one person living in a room. Also, Latin American immigrants are most likely to be undocumented
Related Issues
Although the report is very thorough in giving a general overview of the immigrant population in Rhode Island, it does not discuss issues such as refugee status, and undocumented immigrants. There is no breakdown of undocumented status or country of origin for refugees. Recently, Rhode Island has experienced an influx of African immigrants, but there was little to no mention of this in the report; there was also little discussion of the longstanding Cape Verdean community. The report also could have benefited from more information about immigrants and work status and occupation. Some immigrants enter the state with the right to work and some do not; this has a large impact on job wages, type of job and ability to be upwardly mobile. The nationwide data did show that the longer immigrants stayed in the country the more their economic well-being began to match those of native citizens but knowing work status upon entry and occupational status within six months to a year of arrival would help in terms of policy and planning.
Reference List
- Frey, William H. "The Diversity Myth." American Demographics. June 1998: 38. Academic Search Premier. www.brown.edu. 1 July 2004. Keyword: Statistics, Population, Race
- Itzigsohn, José, et al. "Mapping Dominican Transnationalism: Narrow and Broad Transnational Practices." Ethnic and Racial Studies 22 (1999): 316-339.
How to access this report
Annie E. Casey Foundation www.aefg.org ;
Adobe PDF document at: www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/310844_the_new_neighbors.pdf