BOOK, FILM, AND VIDEO REVIEWS

Tales of Two Countries: Recent North Ameri-can Immigration Policies and Experiences

Becoming a Citizen: Incorporating Immigrants andRefugees in the United States and Canada. IreneBloemraad. Berkeley and London, UK: Universityof California Press, 2006. xv1369 pp. (ClothUS$55.00; Paper US$21.95)

Immigrant America: A Portrait. Alejandro Portesand Ruben Rumbaut. Third edition revised, ex-panded, and updated. Berkeley, and London, UK:University of California Press, 2006. xxxiii1460 pp.(Cloth US$ 55.00; Paper US$21.95)

ROBERT LEE ADAMS JR.DePaul University, International Studies Program

Immigration research, a central area in NorthAmerican sociology since the 1890s, reflects thediscipline’s ongoing public policy engagement. Soci-ologists have often produced empirically drivenstudies that address positions in policy debates andcontest xenophobic rhetoric. The recent influx ofimmigrants on the heels of post-1965 immigrationreforms in the United States of America (USA) andCanada makes immigration research even more rel-evant today. The two books under review examinethe fault lines of immigration in those two societies.Portes and Rumbaut provide a general overviewof immigration patterns, while Bloemraad reportsthe results of a more narrowly focused researchproject.

Portes and Rumbaut are two of sociology’smost prolific immigration scholars. The third editionof Immigrant America, first published in 1989,focuses on basic questions of political and culturalassimilation as well as ethnic identity formation.Portes and Rumbaut argue that immigration is aprocess, not an event. Consequently, they mobilizeempirical data to study broad immigration trendsand specific immigrant group patterns over time.Seeking answers to fours questionsFWhat? Where?Who? Why?Ftheir book provides a broad overviewof the immigration process, utilizing census data,survey research, and qualitative interviews.

The USA is currently experiencing the largestinflux of immigrants in its history and, according toPortes and Rumbaut, they are arriving from all partsof the world. Mexicans and Filipinos constitute thetwo largest immigrant groups, and California, Flor-ida, New York, and TexasFstates with dynamicand diversified economiesFare the most populardestinations. However, immigration impacts everystate in the country, Portes and Rumbaut empha-size, including largely rural states such as Iowa,North Carolina, and Oregon. They also emphasizethat there is no single factor driving immigration andthat no universal immigrant profile exists. Skilledand unskilled migrants enter the country seekingjobs in an American economy shifting from indus-trial manufacturing to services and high-technologyoperations.

The third edition of Immigrant America exten-sively revises and updates the original sevenchapters. Yet the book still covers the traditionalconcerns of immigration research: who and whereimmigrants come from; patterns of settlement andspatial mobility; occupation and economic adapta-tion; formation of ethnic identities and politicalparticipation; immigration and mental health; lan-guage acquisition and education trends; and thechildren of immigrants, or second generation. How-ever, the authors supplement the original sevenchapters with three new ones. A new introduction,‘‘Nine Stories,’’ paints a more intimate portrait oflinks between general immigration trends and thelives of individuals. Another new chapter, ‘‘Religionand the Enduring Practice,’’ synthesizes the growingbody of sociological literature on religious beliefsand practices in immigrant communities. Finally, theconcluding chapter, ‘‘Immigration and PublicPolicy,’’ considers the gap between the reality ofimmigration and the general public’s perception ofimmigration. Overall, Portes and Rumbaut providean excellent an overview of immigration in theUSA, and their analysis underscores the difficultiesfaced by policymakers, politicians, and social scien-tists who try to illuminate the benefits ofimmigration in a politicized public policy arena.

Like Immigrant America, Irene Bloemraad’sBecoming a Citizen considers the public policyimplications of immigration from a sociologicalperspective. Distinguishing immigrants from

Transforming Anthropology, Vol. 17, Number 1, pp. 65–74, ISSN 1051-0559, electronic ISSN 1548-7466. & 2009 by the AmericanAnthropological Association. All rights reserved.DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-7466.2009.01042.x. 65

refugees, Bloemraad explores familiar disciplinaryground, including immigrant politics, communityorganizing, and assimilation patterns. Yet eschewingthe traditional sociological emphasis on social capi-tal, education, and language acquisition asdeterminants of group success, she adopts a morestructural approach to argue that the reception givento newcomers plays a more significant role in shap-ing outcomes. Bloemraad explores these issuesthroughout the book’s seven chapters.

The two books differ in three significant ways.First, Bloemraad, mirroring a growing trend insociology, adopts a comparative approach to inves-tigate the immigration policies and incorporationstrategies of two seemingly similar liberal NorthAmerican democracies. Contrasts in how the statedefines and promotes citizenship create an importantinstitutional difference between the USA and Can-ada. The American tradition, Bloemraad argues,was shaped by the American Revolution and its em-phasis on individuals consciously exercising agencyto choose citizenship. It also privileged a specific ra-cial group (e.g., Whites and people of Europeandescent) to acquire full citizenship rights, while ex-cluding groups such as the Chinese and other Asians.In contrast, Canada embraced citizenship as a uni-fying mechanism to overcome ethnic, linguistic, andracial differences. Bloemraad’s comparative ap-proach illuminates how each immigrant groupresponds to a different set of institutional and na-tional conditions.

Second, Bloemraad restricts her examination ofimmigration policy to two issues: citizenship andpolitical incorporation. This narrow focus differssignificantly from Portes and Rumbaut’s use ofmultiple indicators to evaluate immigration policiesand patterns. In stark contrast to their Americanneighbors, Canadian governments at the local, pro-vincial, and federal levels implement extensivesupport and assimilation programs geared to moveimmigrants toward citizenship. The different ap-proaches to citizenship create drastically differentresults: 70 percent of the foreign-born are citizens inCanada as opposed to 35 percent in the USA(Bloemraad 2006:17–18). As Bloemraad ascertains,the larger pool of naturalized Canadian citizenstranslates into a larger number of elected officialsfrom immigrant communities at the local, provin-cial, and federal levels than the number holdinganalogous offices in the USA.

Finally, Immigrant America considers numerousimmigrant groups, whereas Becoming a Citizen fo-cuses on two immigrant groupsFthe Portugueseand VietnameseFin Canada and the USA Bloem-

raad’s controlled comparison allows her to showhow race and time of migration shape citizenshipand political incorporation in the two countries.Bloemraad analyzes the two groups’ efforts to orga-nize their communities in new environments as wellas rates and types of political participation. She ex-amines the Portuguese and Vietnamese who settledin the Canadian Province of Ontario and the Amer-ican Commonwealth of Massachusetts, payingspecial attention to the cities of Toronto and Boston,respectively.

Large numbers of Portuguese nationals beganarriving in Canada and the USA in the 1950s. Theywere mainly economic immigrants, although a smallpercentage came as political refugees fleeing the Est-ado Novo (New State) dictatorship (1933–74) inPortugal and its colonies. In contrast, large numbersof Vietnamese political refugees started coming toNorth America after the fall of South Vietnam in1975. During the 1990s, the motive shifted as moreVietnamese came searching for greater economicopportunities or to reunite with family members.Despite differences of race, immigration periods,and motivations for leaving home, Bloemraad’sanalysis reveals that structurally similar environ-ments created similar outcomes for Portuguese andVietnamese immigrants in Canada and the USA Al-though American pluralism has effectivelyintegrated these two groups into the labor force,she argues, the USA has generally resisted theenfranchisement of newly arriving ethnic groups.Meanwhile, Canadian multiculturalism has gonebeyond promoting the economic integration of im-migrants to encourage active citizenship and fullparticipation in Canadian political life.

Bloemraad’s conclusions highlight the impor-tance of state-sponsored multiculturalism at amoment when most developed nation-states are re-treating from multiculturalism. Her focus on twodifferent groups is also insightful. The challenge ofincorporating newcomers into the national fabrics ofdeveloping countries has also increased dramaticallyas they receive record numbers of immigrants,racially and culturally diverse, voluntary and invol-untary. Thus, Bloemraad’s work has importantpolicy implications far beyond North America.

Immigrant America and Becoming a Citizendemonstrate that social science research retains thepotential to present information that is essential forand integral to resolving public policy dilemmas.The major findings of these booksFthat immigra-tion has positive effects and that immigrants struggleto assimilate new values and practices, thereby con-tributing to the fundamental renewal of receiving

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societiesFmerit wide distribution and discussion.More generally, the books underscore the continu-ing relevance of rigorous scholarship for thedevelopment of effective societal strategies. Will theshrill debates surrounding immigration amplify ormute the voices of social scientists? This remains anopen question.

Walk With Me As I Travel Along the Way: Rac-ism Revealed

Power, Race, and Culture: The Evolution of a BlackAnthropologist. Janis Faye Hutchinson. Lanham,MD, and Oxford, UK: Hamilton Books, a memberof The Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group,2005. xii1102 pp. (Paper US$22.00)

The Coexistence of Race and Racism: Can TheyBecome Extinct Together? Janis Faye Hutchinson.Lanham, MD, and Oxford, UK: University Press ofAmerica, 2005. xi1189 pp. (Paper US$30.00)

MICHAEL E. HODGEMorehouse College, Department of Sociology

Janis Faye Hutchinson, a Black woman and an an-thropologist, asks us to accompany her on a difficultjourney toward inclusion in mainstream Americansociety. Her two books ask an old and deceptivelysimple but still fundamental question: ‘‘What is itlike to be Black inWhite America?’’ In one book, sheapproaches the question by presenting a systematicscientific analysis and, in the other, she does soby fashioning an engaging personal memoir. Bothbooks conclude that for many African Americansbeing Black in America is like living a continuouscontradiction. Every move that African Americanshave made toward progress during 370 years ofstruggle in the USA has been contradicted in somesense, preventing us from realizing the full benefits ofprogress. Some improvements socioeconomic con-ditions and life chances for Blacks have occurred,but these improvements have not been commensu-rate with the enormous effort to bring about change.

Hutchinson’s work, similar in many ways to thatof W. E. B. Du Bois, captures the estrangement ofAfrican Americans from mainstream Americansociety. In 1903, Du Bois wrote: ‘‘Alas, with theyears all this fine contempt began to fade; for theworlds I longed for, and all their dazzling opportu-

nities, were theirs, not mine’’ (1999:214). More thana century later, being Black still means to experienceexclusion, marginalization, oppression, and not be-ing taken seriously. Hutchinson observes: ‘‘I’ve seenmore racism than anybody. Like a shadow, it hasdogged my path from the personal experiencesgrowing up in Birmingham, Alabama to my educa-tional training and subsequent professional pursuits.. . . It has been unending, and undeniable. There isnothing serendipitous about the tons of data thatshow the collusive course history took in the direc-tion of race and power’’ (Power, Race, and Culture,p. 89). Blacks are bombarded on a daily basis withimages of material and status goals which we striveto attain. However, the goal appears unattainable,not due to a lack of ability among Blacks or somedeficiency in drive or motivation, but because Blackpeople have been (and continue to be) denied accessto the opportunity structures that make goal-attain-ment possible.

In The Coexistence of Race and Racism, Hutch-inson analyzes the nexus of race, racism, and power,pointing out that there has been a shift in the strat-egy of oppression, which raises doubts that raceand racism will simultaneously become extinct.When Du Bois wrote the statement quoted above,racism was blatant, exemplified by legally and mor-ally sanctioned segregation, discrimination, andlynching. In most places, racism was the standard ofand for behavior. Today, the standard, along withmany of the expected attitudes and actions, havechanged. For instance, racial segregation is now il-legal and violations of the law are, in theory at least,prosecutable. Although it is certainly true that livingand working conditions for Black Americans haveimproved in absolute terms since the early 1900s, thegap between Blacks and Whites seems to be widen-ing in many social arenas. Hutchinson’s excellentdiscussion of the health disparity between Blacksand Whites is an example. Mortality and morbidityrates, as well as rates of HIV infection and AIDS,among Blacks are vastly higher than among Whites.She also reports other socioeconomic indicatorsshowing that Black Americans remain woefully be-hind their White counterparts.

The neoconservative philosophical tenet thatrace is insignificant in modern society has becomethe ideological rationale for many White attitudestoward Blacks during the 21st century’s first decade.Public discourse has moved away from societalstructures that cause racism and discrimination, andnow holds disadvantaged groups responsible forinequality. Hutchinson’s work checkmates thisideological and discursive legerdemain.Race, Power,

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