What I Am Thinking About Now: Professor Jose Itzigsohn (Sociology)

Since 1965, the United States has experienced its second large wave of immigration, re-igniting a concern with the future prospects of immigrants and their children. The question that emerges is what is the pattern of incorporation of contemporary immigrants? The debate has ranged between those who argue that the trajectory of incorporation of contemporary immigrants follows the path of earlier European immigrants and those who argue that contemporary immigrants experience downward assimilation. In his presention, Prof. Itzigsohn will analyze the intergenerational patterns of class stratification of Latinos, compare them to the class stratification of other ethnoracial groups, and propose a different answer to the question of the intergenerational patterns of incorporation: while the children of Latino/a immigrants experience upward mobility vis-à-vis the first generation, they enter a stable racialized class system that differentially constrains the mobility prospects of native and immigrant groups. This points to the need of bringing race and class to the center of the analysis of the incorporation experience.

What I Am Thinking About Now is an on-going informal workshop/seminar series to which faculty and graduate students are invited to present and discuss recently published work and work in progress.