STRUCTURE OF THE STUDY

Through this multiyear ethnographic research project, the board sought to identify the ways in which recent immigrants interact with ethnically diverse established residents, and how host communities adapt to newcomers. Working with teams of multiracial and multi-ethnic researchers in the sites selected, the board examined, within the context of rapid economic change and frequently deep social divisions, if and how newcomers and established residents crossed social, cultural, and political boundaries to create and maintain community. The sites were selected to reflect a national panorama of economic and social diversity, underscoring coverage of as many of the largest immigrant and established groups as possible. The researchers, who lived and worked in the sites, interviewed, observed, and documented the everyday interactions of long-time residents and newcomers in different settings, including local neighborhoods, workplaces, schools, community and political organizations, and places of worship. The sites studied were:

• Albany Park, Chicago, Illinois. The contemporary social mix includes Southeast Asians, Poles, Koreans, African Americans, Middle Easterners, and Jews, among others. It reflects a new pattern of dispersed ethnicity, where members of various groups are distributed within a wide geographical area.

• Garden City, Kansas. The opening of the world's largest meatpacking plant turned this community of long-term resident Anglos and Mexican Americans into a diverse town that included Southeast Asian refugees and new immigrants from Mexico and Central America.

• Houston, Texas. Novel settlement patterns have included a new settlement of Central American immigrants within an Anglo section of town and an older neighborhood of low-income African-American and Latino residents.

• Miami, Florida. It is marked by the contrast between relations among resident Anglos and upper class Cuban immigrants with relations among working class Cubans, African Americans, and Haitians.

• Monterey Park, California. It combines Anglos, Asian Americans, and Latinos, and is a magnet for large-scale immigration from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China. It provides a textbook case for the political struggle over language, wealth, community development, and political representation.