CaribWorldNews, NEW YORK, NY, Mon. May 19, 2008: Second generation West Indians largely earn more than native-born African-American and Puerto Rican New Yorkers their age and are less likely to have been arrested.
That`s the consensus of a new study, titled `Inheriting the City: the Children of Immigrants Come of Age,` by CUNY Graduate Center Professors John Mollenkopf and Philip Kasinitz, Mary Waters from Harvard and Jennifer Holdaway of the Social Science Research Council.
The study, reviewed by CWN, found that many second generation Caribbean Americans have strong connections to their parents` homelands and have visited it several times. Interest in and involvement in home country politics, however, did not reduce interest and involvement in civic affairs in New York. Of the immigrant second-generation groups surveyed, - Dominican, West Indian, South American, Chinese and Russian-Jewish immigrants - West Indians were most likely to vote and be engaged with New York’s civic life.
The report says West Indians have experienced considerable upward mobility yet report high levels of racial discrimination, particularly from the police. And, like other second generation immigrants surveyed, are less occupationally segregated than their immigrant parents.
They also live with their parents longer than do natives, regardless of race and generally report greater comfort with multigenerational living and are less likely to regard leaving their parents’ homes as part of the transition to adulthood.
In almost all groups, women outperform men in school, although men continue to earn more.
However, the authors of the study found that `although the first generation parents see themselves as distinct from native blacks, the second generation see themselves as young Caribbean Americans and insist that they are both African American and West Indians.
Researchers intensively examined and compared information gleaned for the $2 million study from a combination of 3,415 lengthy telephone surveys conducted between 1998 and 2000; 333 face-to-face follow-up interviews in 2000 and 2001; and a final round of 172 follow-up interviews in 2002 and 2003.
