ABSTRACT
Building on ethno-surveys and multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork conducted in New York, Paris, and Barcelona, this chapter discusses immigrant representation, ethnic organizations, urban citizenship rights, and minority political participation in these cities. The ethno-survey results are triangulated and calibrated with data collected through participant observation, expert interviews, informal interviews, and in-depth interviews as well as from secondary sources, census data, and survey results from large random samples. Different state-society relationships, citizenship ideological models, and civil society and institutional arrangements have differential effects for the larger minority groups in these three cities. The chapter describes how organizations and institutions differently mediate immigrant political incorporation, social integration, and structural assimilation given the different social, political, and institutional contexts of each city. It proposes that one should simultaneously study both immigrant organizations and relatively isolated immigrants in order to better assess the effects and limitations that immigrant organizations have on polity and community.
