ABSTRACT
Over the past quarter century, immigration has returned to center stage as a major issue in American society, politics, and academic scholarship. The percentage of immigrants in the national population is the highest since the first decade of this century, and in the cities of the West Coast, Texas, New York, Florida, and Illinois, immigrants and their children are visible in every major sector of the society and economy. Raymond Buriel and Terri De Ment addressed the question of sociocultural change for three of the most significant immigrant populations (Mexican, Chinese, and Vietnamese Americans) from the vantage point of family life and organization. The family is a strategic point from which to analyze changes in the lives of immigrants and their children. Families are the primary and most intimate units of reproduction and socialization, but they frequently also serve to mobilize labor, allocate resources, and broker communications and exchanges with other societal institutions. Moreover, change across generations in families is hypothesized to be the major mechanism of sociocultural adaptation from the origin to the host society.
