ABSTRACT
One of every five Americans, more than 55 million strong, is a first-or second-generation immigrant (Portes & Rumbaut, 2001). The “new” immigrants to the United States, the second largest flow of international migrants in the last century, present different profiles than did those who migrated from Europe. Many of these post-World War II immigrants, non-European and non-English-speaking, who come from developing nations in Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean (Rumbaut, 1997), are people of color who cannot assimilate easily into White, mainstream, American society (SuarezOrozco & Suarez-Orozco, 2001). Because this new wave of immigration was unparalleled both in its size and in its diversity (color, class, and cultural origins), there are profound implications for the study of immigration and its impact on developmental processes. As children of immigrants enter U.S. schools in unprecedented numbers, examining their experiences provides a unique opportunity to investigate adaptation in a new and different sociohistorical period.
