About this transcript

On January 24, 2012, Philip Kasinitz, professor of sociology at the Graduate Center and Hunter College of the City University of New York, spoke at Vera as part of the Institute's Neil A. Weiner Research Speaker Series.

In his talk, "Immigration, Demographic Change, and Racial Justice," Professor Kasinitz explored how the past 40 years of immigration to the United States have complicated long-held notions of race and ethnicity and he challenged policy makers' ideas on the best ways to achieve racial justice. Center on Immigration and Justice project analyst Noëlle Marie Yasso (NMY) live-tweeted about the event from Vera's Twitter account, the transcript of which is reprinted below. Where applicable, [sic] is implied. Kasinitz also sat down with Michael Jacobson, Vera's director, to talk more about his research. Video of that conversation can be seen here.

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Hi everyone and welcome to Philip Kasinitz's talk on immigration and racial justice. I'll be live-tweeting his talk for the next hour - NMY

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Demographic context for Dr. Kasinitz's talk: there are now about 38 mil immigrants in US, most "non-white." About 1/3 are undocumented-NMY

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Inequality between undocumented immigrants and others has grown, as well as inequality between residents and citizens. - NMY

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Arrival of new immigrants complicates fairly strict notions of racial and ethnic identity we have here in US. - NMY

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Usual story about race and immigration: US was successful at assimilating immigrants, mostly European. Established ethnic institutions - NMY

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"There is broad consensus in social science research that immigrants' children are better educated, are English dominant." - NMY 

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Areas of continuing controversy in research according to Dr. Kasinitz are differences among immigrant groups by race, future mobility, - NMY

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level of criminal activity, and big differences in political participation "Consistent finding is that immigrants commit fewer crimes"- NMY

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"Difference in political participation is counterintuitive." Findings that higher economic status and education do not necessarily mean -NMY 

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higher political participation.-NMY

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Dr. Kasinitz moving on to discussing intersection of race and class in lives of immigrants and creation of minority institutions - NMY

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Many institutions founded in 60s to improve lives of native minorities in NY changing their mission and widening their services to help -NMY

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recent immigrant groups without explicitly stating their changing mission. - NMY  

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"Big concern: relative success of the children of immigrants of color in settings designed to correct injustice -NMY

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"obscures long-term inequality and injustice present in native minority communities" - NMY  

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Underlying question according to Dr Kasinitz: "how do immigrants become racialized?" - NMY  

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"Only tool available to undocumented immigrants in US to combat some persecution is claiming racial discrimination." - NMY

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"Trop of illegality, exclusion, non-personhood has become more central in the immigration debate than race" - Dr. Kasinitz - NMY  

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"In some contexts, seeing immigrants in racial terms misses the social significance of political exclusion for the undoc population" - NMY

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Dr. Kasinitz on rising nativism: "very little stigma attached to demonizing #undocumented immigrants. Illegal ends the conversation."-NMY

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Dr. Kasinitz gives example of birther movement against Obama that emphasized his foreignness and non-Americanness rather than his race.-NMY

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"Legal distinction between native person of color and immigrant is the key to life chances and access to mainstream society."-NMY

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Dr. Kasinitz argues that it ill serves a democratic society to have a large part of its population be a member economically and socially-NMY 

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but not politically. "It is dangerous for a democratic society." - NMY 

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Now discussing effect of legal status on parents on US citizen children of undocumented immigrants. - NMY 

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Mounting evidence that there is an effect today. Dr. Kasinitz points to a study indicating that having undocumented parents amount -NMY

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to a year's loss in education of US citizen children. - NMY

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"Exclusion of undocumented and new immigrants hurts civic participation and hurts integration and economic fortunes of LEGAL immigrants"-NMY

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"Are we moving from a system based on phenotype to one based on legal status?" Dr. Kasinitz ends with compelling question. Time for q&a -NMY

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Question from Vera employee: "What does qualitative research show immigrants saying about integration and exclusion?"-NMY

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A: "Depends on who's asking. Compared to parents, children say they are much more American, comment on their parents' ambivalence."-NMY

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"Chinese and Korean schools have expanded and changed their mission re: Americanization - started out teaching the language"-NMY

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"ended up teaching culture, ethnic solidarity, after-school care and tutoring." - NMY

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Side note: for up-to-date info on Chinese immigration, see MPI's recent profile: http://www.migrationinformation.org/USFocus/display.cfm?id=876 on Chinese immigrants in US - NMY

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Dr. Kasinitz: "Urban culture becomes culture with which many children of immigrants identify." -NMY

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Question from Oren Root, Director of Vera's Center on Immigration and Justice. Check out Oren and CIJ's work at http://www.vera.org/centers/center-immigration-justice - NMY

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Oren: "what do you make of duality of ideals of openness, cosmopolitan elites aspire to and realities at the ground level?" –NMY

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Dr. Kasinitz agrees that there is duality though NY is unusual in that the elites push for ideals that seek to remedy realities-NMY

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Dr. Kasinitz: challenge is in integration in new places where immigrants are going to, places with no precedent or vocabulary for this-NMY

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Alright everyone, thanks for following the live tweet of Philip Kasinitz's talk on immigration, demographic change and racial justice-NMY