ABSTRACT
History has shown that the long-term incorporation of immigrant groups is heavily influenced by the progress achieved by the second generation—that is, the immediate descendants of immigrants. However, for much of the last century, immigration research in the United States has centered predominantly on the experiences of adult immigrants. This is because the children of earlier European immigrants were thought to assimilate—that is, become Americanized—more easily than their parents, giving rise to the general acceptance of a succession model of long-term immigrant incorporation, which argued that subsequent generations assimilate more comfortably than preceding ones.
