Re-thinking assimilation and why it matters: an intellectual, career and life journey – Richard Alba in conversation with Paul Statham

ABSTRACT

Richard Alba, the American sociologist whose research is known for developing assimilation theory to fit the contemporary multi-racial era of immigration, reflects on the evolution of his thinking, influences and future directions for sociology in this interview. In a wide-ranging discussion, Alba talks about his early motivations and personal experiences that brought him to the topic of assimilation and his way of doing sociological research. He then moves on to discuss the impact of Re-making the American Mainstream (2003), co-authored with Victor Nee, one of the most highly cited books in sociology. After offering his thoughts on the benefits and limits of cross-Atlantic exchanges on integration and assimilation, Alba addresses recent challenges from postcolonial and critical race theories. The conversation then shifts to examine in detail some of his contemporary views outlined in The Great Demographic Illusion (2020) and elsewhere. Finally, Alba looks forward to the next steps of his journey.

KEYWORDS:

• Richard Alba
• assimilation
• integration
• immigration
• racism

Introduction

¹The stimulus for this Special Issue dedicated to Richard Alba,² Assimilation and Integration in the Twenty-First Century: Where have we been and where are we going?, was Richard's formal retirement from the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center in 2022.³ At the same time, the 50th anniversary of this journal, the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (JEMS), marked by the publication of this issue in 2024, provides an opportunity to reflect on assimilation and integration issues today. We decided that a fitting finale to this collection of essays on assimilation and integration would be to interview Richard. This is so that readers can gain a feel for the ideas, experiences and challenges that have shaped his intellectual journey, direct from the horse's mouth. It also allows Richard an open space away from strictures of formal academic writing to offer reflections and re-state his views on some core issues in the study of assimilation and integration, past, present and future.

Paul Statham and Nancy Foner⁴, editors of the Special Issue, designed a semi-structured interview schedule that aimed to organise the conversation into four distinct parts: growing up and the early years of his intellectual development; the evolution of his thinking about new assimilation; queries about his recent substantive contributions on the US; and finally, on what's next for Richard Alba? On the 21st September 2023, Paul Statham visited Richard at his home in Brooklyn and they spent the morning in conversation. The published version is pretty much the conversation as it occurred with very minor editing and a few post-hoc embellishments only for purposes of clarity. We hope this published interview provides additional access and insight to Richard's work, intellectual evolution and contemporary thinking on assimilation for readers that stands alongside his prodigious published output.

Part one: growing up, formative ideas, and the early years

Paul:

So, thank you very much for agreeing to do this, Richard.

Richard:

Well, no, thank you very much. I really appreciate it. You’ve come to Brooklyn to do the interview. How can I not be appreciative? Thank you.

Paul:

Okay. So, let's begin at the beginning then. How did you become interested in doing academic research and in particular writing on processes of assimilation in American society?

Richard:

Well, there's quite a long story there. In the early part of my intellectual life -I’m now referring to teenage years- I went to a select high school of science, and then to an Ivy League college, Columbia. I was really interested in math and science, but particularly in math, which I was very good at early on. But I came from a family where no one had really been university educated. There were a few books at home, but not many. And I was young when I went to Columbia because I graduated high school at 16, as many New Yorkers in my birth cohort did, because there was a special program that accelerated us. At the university I was frankly dazzled by all the intellectual possibilities that I really didn't know about. I did study math, but I also studied a lot of literature and languages. When I graduated, however, I didn't know what to do next. Part of my predicament was that I had no family models to follow. And I was more than a little burnt out, I think, because I’d worked very hard. As a working-class kid from a non-intellectual family background, I was in overdrive when it came to academic achievement. So, I went to Europe for a while on a travelling fellowship from Columbia. When I came back, I was still unsure of what to do next. I went to graduate school in math briefly but found that it no longer suited me. So I took a job as a computer programmer for five years, first at IBM, and then at Columbia, at the Bureau of Applied Social Research⁵ and the computer centre. Looking back on this period, I see now that I was feeling lost because I couldn't figure out how to direct my life towards the kind of intellectual excitement I had relished at the university. Then came the anti-war movement which was very meaningful to me. I was already against the Vietnam War in the early 1960s. I didn't come from a family that had any kind of left-wing leanings, quite the opposite. I came from a pretty conventional, culturally conservative working-class Catholic background; my mother was even the rare Irish Catholic of that period who voted Republican. But a profound event shaping my life, and my understanding of it, was my father's death in the U.S. military in late 1945, when I was two years old. Obviously, the war was over then, but he was not discharged at its end and remained stationed in Europe. He was killed there in the barracks by a soldier showing off a souvenir German pistol. That death marked my childhood and made me feel different – not just in the sense that my family was more financially stressed, but also because all of the children around me had fathers, or so it seemed. As a result, I had a very strong antipathy to war and to guns.

A momentous event for me was the 1968 student occupation of the Columbia campus, which shattered my understanding of the social world – that's a correct formulation. I was very drawn to the occupation, though I also could not risk joining the occupiers because I was a Columbia employee. But on the night the police came, I was in a group protecting the entrance to one of the buildings. The police charged us, swinging their batons, and evicted or arrested everyone. The occupation made me see that a lot of what I thought, what I took for granted as ‘normal’ or even ‘rational’, was just really social convention, and could be -and deserved to be- changed. The indelible image of the occupation in my mind is a photograph of a student sitting at the president's desk with his feet up and smoking a cigar.

I thought that this new understanding was worth probing more deeply. Since part of my computer experience had been at the Bureau of Applied Social Research, which was the Lazarsfeld⁶-run research operation at Columbia, I was familiar with quantitative survey research. So, on the one hand, I saw a chance to combine the two sides of me, the quantitative hard side and the more interpretive side that had been very attracted to literature. On the other, I saw that there were immense societal problems that I really hadn't thought about in a very deep way before, and there was an opportunity to generate knowledge about them. I applied to graduate school; and since I had from my Bureau days very strong connections to the Sociology department, I had no trouble getting in.

That's how I was launched in what was a new direction for me. Now at that point, I was not interested in ethnicity; I thought of myself as a methodologist, as someone whose contributions would come from mathematical knowledge and computer skills, and, indeed, my very first publication, on social network analysis, appeared in The Journal of Mathematical Sociology⁷. But over the course of my graduate career ethnicity became more central to my thinking. This happened in part through reflection on my sense of difference from my social surroundings growing up, a feeling in many contexts that I was an outsider. When I went to Catholic school, which I did for six years, I was an outsider because it was an Irish Catholic-dominated environment, and even though my mother was second-generation Irish, I was understood as different because of my name. Then, when I went to public school where I was in academically selective tracks and a specialised high school, I was an outsider because almost all of the kids that I liked and admired were Jewish, and I was not that, obviously. And when I went to Columbia, I was a working-class Catholic kid in a pretty elite environment and again I always felt not quite in.

So, it was thinking about those experiences that led me to try to do research on ethnicity and its place in American society. When I began my dissertation, I was very strongly influenced by the intellectual climate of the time. This was the early 1970s and the big voices that one easily encountered were the those of Andrew Greeley⁸ and others like him who were insisting that these ethnic differences were really a kind of bedrock structure for American society. But the way I started my research into survey data that Greeley and Peter Rossi had collected on Catholic ethnics was via minutiae: I would look at individual cases in the data, and it just didn't seem like the view of ethnicity as rock solid was real – it didn't seem like this was really acknowledging the changes that were taking place. So, I eventually gravitated as I worked on my dissertation towards a recognition that the major pattern was assimilation. That's how I got started.

Paul:

That leads naturally then into talking about your earlier books that focussed on ethnic identity among Italian-Americans and from what you’ve already said, to what extent was this a personal journey … 

Richard:

Well, it definitely was a personal journey. And it was a journey of discovery of larger patterns that I could fit myself into. One aspect of that experience that deserves special note was that I encountered a lot of hostility. First of all, there was hostility from people like Andrew Greeley. He had co-created the really valuable survey data I was using; Greeley and his collaborator, Peter Rossi, did an excellent job.⁹ Their comprehensiveness allowed me to uncover things that they hadn't seen because they had taken a conventional set of simplistic ethnic categories (everyone fits in one and only one) for granted. Their categories didn't shine sufficient light on the ethnic mixing that was going on. But I got comments from very senior people in the field that I was betraying my people with this … 

Paul:

That’s quite strong … 

Richard:

One needs to understand the intellectual climate of the time. There was for example an Italian-American intellectual movement, centered in the Italian-American Historical Association, which was broader than the study of history and included a lot of people in the social sciences. By and large its members dwelled on what they perceived as the persistence and distinctiveness of Italian-American ethnicity, for example, Richard Gambino's influential 1970s book, Blood of My Blood¹⁰, and believed Italians to be very disadvantaged in a WASP¹¹-dominated society. They were quite hostile to what I wrote, and some spent considerable time trying to disprove my conclusions. One of the things this has done, which is still relevant to me today, is to inure me to this sort of criticism.

Paul:

So, you’ve always been working against the grain … 

Richard:

I’ve always been working against the grain. I believe that if I have strong evidence and good reasons to think that something is the case, I should stick to my position.

Paul:

And did that impact on the trajectory of your career institutionally as well?

Richard:

Maybe … Maybe, I mean, how should I put this … I think that when I came into the academic world, and particularly into sociology, the view of Italian-Americans was very unflattering. They were viewed as people of strong practical intelligence, but not very good at abstract thinking. And there was a lot of research, I’m thinking of Herbert Gans¹², ‘The Urban Villagers’, for example. I admire him in so many ways, and he was very sympathetic to his subjects. Nevertheless, the overall view that you would take away from that research is that there's not that much intellectual life going on among Italian-Americans. So, I think that was another part of it, that there was a certain set of ideas about people coming from my background that weren't very helpful for me. So, I was never able to get to a top department. I feel extremely lucky to have lived long enough to finally get some honours and recognition that seem appropriate.

Paul:

That's a good way of putting it. So, you’ve been talking about your journey, now thinking about your intellectual evolution, has this been then, to some degree, a solitary path, or were there also people who were influential or inspiring … 

Richard:

No, I don't think of it as solitary. I think there were definitely other people. Well for one, Mary Waters¹³. I think I encountered her somewhat later in my career, in the sense that I was already tenured when she emerged from graduate school. We both did studies of ethnic identity at the same time, and I think if you took our two studies and put them together, that composite really gives you a good idea of what was going on. She and I were very much in tune with one another, and I must say that she's just been very supportive, very generous, and because of her talents and her position at Harvard, she's very powerful, right?

Paul:

Mary’s coming to give the keynote at our Migration Conference at Sussex, in October¹⁴, like you did some years ago.

Richard:

Oh, okay, good. But there are others too: Charles Hirschman¹⁵ and Doug Massey¹⁶, for example, I think the people coming out of the more empirical side of sociology who had studied these topics had a better appreciation of what was going on.

Paul:

And what about the Bureau? Do you see yourself to some degree as working in the Lazarsfeld¹⁷ tradition?

Richard:

There's no question that tradition influenced me. I think what I took from it, which I hold to today, is that sociology may not be a science in the sense that the natural sciences are, but it can be a science where the goal is to derive rigorous knowledge. For all of the warts in the Columbia School, that was a message it really delivered. And given my own background in science and math, it was a message I was extremely receptive to, and I still believe in. I believe that should be the goal, the primary goal.

Paul:

And do you think we’re moving away from that?

Richard:

I do. But I think I understand why. Everybody who gets into sociology is motivated in part by social justice concerns. One way of trying to move forward is to say that we are generating knowledge that is relevant to social justice. The other way, which I think we are blundering into and which I see as not healthy for an academic discipline in the long run, is to say we’re going to do social justice work directly. There are a lot of people who do social justice work in the world. Our comparative advantage as social scientists is that we’re good at generating knowledge, and I think we’re losing sight of what is our best role in the long term.

Part two: questions on new assimilation: scholarly contribution and evolution

Paul:

In the second round of questions, the aim is trying to bring out some of the general themes of your contributions and the work that you’ve done. Remaking the American Mainstream¹⁸ is one of the most highly cited books in sociology and has become established as a classic in the study of migration. Why do you think the book has had such an enormous impact?

Richard:

That's a really interesting question. For one thing, I think the issues of integration as it's put in Europe, and assimilation as it's put in the United States, which are maybe not quite identical concepts but very similar ones, are critical to societal futures in the 21st century. And the literature that existed at the end of the 20th, which was mainly American, was really inadequate for the contemporary period of migration. Particularly, I think of Gordon's Assimilation in American Life¹⁹, which was actually a huge conceptual influence on me when I was beginning my dissertation. But it was inadequate, because it didn't really have an appropriate understanding of how a society that is going through immigration-ignited changes is going to turn out. In a weird chapter in the book where Gordon talks about Sylvanians and Mundovians, the idea was really that the immigrant group would eventually disappear into the dominant one. That was historically inaccurate, though I find it understandable. Why? Because Gordon was writing in the early 1960s, when the fact that assimilation was occurring was clear, but it was really very much a process that was ongoing at that time. Writing in the immediate aftermath of the breakthrough election for white ethnics of Kennedy, and seeing all sorts of assimilation patterns that were evident at that point, made him say, “Yes, look, this is happening!” But where was it going? So, he wound up with a speculative and very simplistic understanding of its eventual outcome.

When Victor²⁰ and I wrote the book, we wanted to reach an understanding of how society could evolve, and how groups could evolve, that was appropriate for the twenty-first century, and for a much more multiracial America. And I give Victor a lot of credit for the ideas; the book was truly a collaborative endeavour. We had all sorts of disagreements in the course of writing the book, but one of them came very late and turned out be quite seminal for the book's development. Victor said, ‘I can't accept this argument because’, and he named somebody that he felt very close to who was an Afro-Caribbean. He asked pointedly, ‘Where does he fit?’ And that question led us to the idea of the mainstream. Suddenly the scales fell, and we realised that we had fallen into a kind of tacit acceptance of the Gordon scheme that the dominant group is going to prevail. And it didn't make any sense in the early twenty-first century. Then, historically, as I’ve said over and over again, it doesn't make any sense when you look at what happened in the big period of mass assimilation in the mid twentieth century U.S.. But the fullness of that insight came to me later.

Paul:

Moving back to the period when the book came out and we’ve talked about going against the grain. Did you face a backlash?

Richard:

I don't think so. But there's definitely a backlash now. Well, I don't know if it's a backlash, it's actually better put as a kind of quiet dismissal of these ideas. At the time I think the book was welcomed because it opened up a possible future in which differences didn't entirely disappear, but they became much more muted and didn't have deep impacts on people's lives.

Paul:

So, at the time it was accepted as a progressive evolution of ideas?

Richard:

Yeah. I thought so.

Paul:

And you’ve been writing about assimilation and integration in the U.S. for many decades. What do you see as the most significant ways in which your work has evolved or changed, particularly from the early days?

Richard:

Unlike a lot of social scientists who work from the abstract downward, I work from the empirical upward; that's always been my way. So, when I was writing about Italians, there were a lot of, if you will, larger societal conditions that I was kind of accepting, without questioning. And so, in a sense, I need to think about them [pause] … Well, I think some ideas really had to be altered, and expanded, in order to move toward the contemporary situation. Of course, you remember the Italian book²¹ was written at a point where no one really appreciated the significance of the post-1965 immigration. It came out in ‘85. It was really another decade before people understood that we were in a new permanent immigration era that's really going to change American society. And then I began to see that the ideas needed to be reconfigured in various ways to meet this new situation.

Paul:

And that's where the initiative for Re-making the American Mainstream came from?

Richard:

The way that started actually was interesting. There was a major conference in 1996, on Sanibel Island, in Florida, that resulted in a set of papers published in the International Migration Review. And the first draft of the Alba and Nee theoretical scheme appeared as one of those papers²². I was invited to present a paper on assimilation. And Victor and I had talked a little bit about our thinking–we’d known each other for a couple of decades from our time together at Cornell, when we were both junior faculty who perceived ourselves as outsiders. I sensed in him a very simpatico intellect and so I invited him to join me in this paper. So, the paper was presented, and I still remember that I anticipated a critical reaction, because that was what I had experienced before. And I was aware that Phil Kasinitz²³, whom I didn't know then, was going to be discussant. Contrary to my fears, he really was open to the ideas that we expressed and generous in his treatment of the paper. So, it had a very positive impact at the conference, and the paper became one of the most highly cited articles that's ever appeared in International Migration Review. That favorable reception was how it all got started. I remember Mary (Waters) saying to me at the conference, you should write a book. I thought, yeah, we’ve got 125 pages -it was 125-page paper that we presented!- and I thought, “oh, another summer and we’ll be done.” [laughs]. Well, the book took seven years because there was a lot of thinking that had to go into it that went beyond what we had achieved in the paper.

Paul:

Shifting back a bit, your writing is distinguished by a deep sensitivity to history. Why do you feel that appreciation of history is so important to understanding contemporary processes?

Richard:

It's in a dialogue between the concrete to the abstract. I think that history gives us a stronger understanding of how things work on the ground, and it serves as a corrective to the simplifications that occur in the ideal-typical thinking that many sociologists employ. When we look at, say, the process of assimilation for Italian-Americans, it contradicts the very streamlined narrative of, “Yeah, well, each generation, blah, blah, blah”. I mean there are all sorts of divergences and nuances that need to be taken into account, like the persistence of some degree of prejudice, associated especially with the mythic aspects of Italian-American organized crime. And I think I would say the same thing today: that the history, the prior history of assimilation, shows us some of the complications on the ground that we need to take into account when we evaluate similar processes occurring today, like intermarriage, for example. Constantly I hear the refrain, “Well, intermarriage doesn't eliminate ethnic difference, there are all these ways that it survives within families.” Absolutely, that's true. But that was also the case in the earlier period. A historical view shows, that is, analogous complications when you look on the ground at what happened during the post-World War II period of mass assimilation. But this ethnic survival doesn't mean that intermarriage isn't somehow moving the boundary, if you will, forward. And I see that blindness to assimilation history as a failing in a lot of the contemporary critique. In fact, I would assert that this history has fallen into obscurity, whereas that of racial domination is better known today than it was in the past. Both are important to our understanding of American society, and neither can be regarded as wholly adequate without the other.

Paul:

So, do you think it's bringing some of the messiness of social life and those narratives in to give it better feeling?

Richard:

Yes … yes. History gives us a better understanding and it gives us a better way of pinning down why something really matters. I think that intermarriage matters in a way that's not being taken into account in a lot of contemporary critiques, because on the whole it brings people into much more mainstream social contexts. And yes, the family may try to preserve some ethnic traditions, but the larger social context—in which children are raised, for example– matters a lot.

Paul:

And do you think that we don't have enough history in contemporary sociology?

Richard:

[contemplative sigh] I think that, when you talk about ethnicity and race, history is essential to an understanding of how they have been constituted. These are phenomena that may be remarkably historically contingent. That requires us to bring history in.

Paul:

Changing direction a bit, what drew you to expand your research and analysis to Western Europe and to comparisons with the US?

Richard:

First, I’ve always liked languages and I always wanted to spend time abroad during my sabbaticals. So, when I had my first sabbatical in 1986, our family spent a year in Germany, because of Gwen's²⁴ pre-existing contacts with German researchers. I’d studied a lot of German as a student, so I was able to get into the discussions going on in Germany fairly quickly, because I had strong language skills. I saw numerous analogies, but also differences, from the United States and I wanted to try to understand the German situation better. Second, there was the possibility of working with Nancy²⁵, of course. It's been a great collaboration and friendship. So, I brought my knowledge about Germany and France from spending periods in both countries and reading in their literatures and Nancy brought her understandings of the Netherlands and Great Britain. You know, I think that it made sense to us to try to see as much as we could what similarities there were, and what differences. And I think it also brought home to both of us how complicated and difficult these comparisons are … treacherous even.

Paul:

Yes. But do you think it brought any added value or insights to your general perspective?

Richard:

I think it has convinced me that the idea of the mainstream society is an idea that carries. This can be applied to European society as a way of understanding integration, and where integration processes can lead, just as it applies to American society.

Paul:

Now, thinking about the very distinctive public narratives about immigration and ethno-racial diversity, as well as different composition effects, what then -and I’m also a comparativist- are the limits to comparing the US and European experiences?

Richard:

Well, you could also say what are the limits to comparing this historical period and that one? There are a lot of unique features to each that it's very hard to take full account of. So, in over-time comparison in the U.S., we see assimilation processes, but they’re always clothed, if you will, in historically contingent features. For example, in the United States in the middle of the 20th century when white ethnics were assimilating, there was no real immigration from their origin countries, so what does that mean? I think that the goal should be to try to identify as far as possible the core sociological processes that are at work. I’m still not so sure about the across space comparison.

Paul:

That’s an interesting perspective, obviously speaking here to a European, because particularly in the current period of time, it seems to me very clear that the basic idea of immigration is seen very differently in Europe than it is over here.

Richard:

Well, we should talk more about that, but I think that the need for immigration in both places is clear. There's no way we can avoid more immigration. Because we have ageing societies, immigration is needed for all sorts of reasons of vitality: economic vitality, cultural vitality, and so on. And we’ve entered an era where people in many parts of the world are being forced out of their homes for reasons of war, for reasons of climate change, and migration elsewhere is far more possible than ever before. These migrations may be controllable to some extent, but they are ultimately unstoppable, so our societies are going to have to learn to adapt to ongoing immigration. And ongoing immigration is, I think, in the long run, good for the wealthy societies where many migrants are heading.

Paul:

They’re going to have to learn a new political narrative to be able to do that.

Richard:

Well maybe. I don't think it's only narrative. I think it's also … what so complicates the cross-space comparison is the different - very different - institutional set ups in different places.

Paul:

Particularly the role of the state, because in the European context, of course, it’s seen that the state gives patronage to integrate minorities, whereas particularly in your work, it becomes clear that it’s more demographic evolution.

Richard:

Right. And in the U.S. it's much more that minorities are on their own: the approach is laissez-faire. As you may have noticed, the U.S. has announced that it's going to let all the half million Venezuelans who’ve come in very recently work, meaning they’re on their own.

Paul:

Whereas in Europe, migrants seem to be now being cut loose by the state without any support, so it ends up being the worst of both worlds. Moving on now, do you think that U.S. and European understandings of assimilation and integration process are relevant for other global regions?

Richard:

I don't think I could tackle that. For one thing I think we’re talking about immigration countries. Not all countries are immigration countries. Some of them are emigration countries. And some countries that might in the future be immigration countries -like China- have not received much immigration in recent history. I don't know. Of course, we’re also talking about pretty liberal democracies with a certain degree of shared cultural understanding. I just don't know how well these ideas will travel to such different societies.

Paul:

OK, now moving on again, do you think there’s been sufficient attention in the assimilation and integration perspective on cultural adaptation processes from the majority side and from the dominant populations?

Richard:

No, I agree that there hasn't. And I think that Maurice Crul's²⁶ paper that you just published online in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (JEMS)²⁷ is a sign that this is a terrain that needs much more attention and is likely to get it. But I do think we should keep in mind that while there's a mutuality of cultural influences to some degree, they still take place within an institutional framework and a language that is established really by the dominant society. So, we should be careful to preserve a sense of the balance of forces. There's an asymmetry.

Paul:

So, it's not just a situation of flux. It's a structured … 

Richard:

Yeah. It's an asymmetry.

Paul:

That's certainly true. It's an interesting answer. Moving on … Now many see your work as optimistic … 

Richard:

Yes. My family would say you’re kidding. They see me as a pessimist!

Paul:

That’s what Nancy said as well, by the way [laughs].

Richard:

I think part of this is because, again, I’m working against the grain, and I see sociology in contemporary United States as presenting a rather bleak picture of American society. I say that in the following sense: the standard trope in sociological research is the explanation of inequality. But that explanation often presents the mechanisms in ways that leave little room for change. Inequality seems overdetermined. Nevertheless, the society does change, even if it remains far from the society that we would like. I see a set of blinders in the way sociology is practiced -I’m trying to think of the right formulation here- I mean that studying inequality and the way in which it's reproduced seems like the intellectual coin of the realm in the discipline's status system. But I think that leaves us adrift when it comes to understanding the possibilities for change, and in fact, the reality of change. To be sure, I share the general bleakness of the moment about American society. We have a political system that is just no longer functional. It's hit the limits of what is possible within the constitutional framework that we have, and the state has come fully under the control of the very wealthy. The electorate is deeply, deeply polarised. I don't see that coming to an end anytime soon. And we’re unable to solve almost anything important: economic inequality, which is very severe; climate change to which we are the most important contributor on the planet; and racial inequality, in particular between blacks and whites, which has been proven very intractable.

Paul:

So, do you think that the people who say you’re being optimistic then … do you think it's because you lay out the possibility for a different alternative?

Richard:

Yes, I think so. And I also understand what I’m doing in a certain way. Sociology is a collective effort. I’m not the only person doing things—at best, each of us gets to contribute a thread to a continually woven tapestry. Most sociologists seem to me rather pessimistic because of this overdetermination of inequality. I have that very much in mind. So, I’m emphasising, and deliberately so, the possibilities and the reality of change.

Paul:

Okay. And do you think then that change happens naturally, then, through evolution … ?

Richard:

Some of it does. Much of it does. Not all of it. Obviously, policy is important. But in the United States I think that a lot of change has come about as an evolution of society under demographic pressures created by immigration, voluntary and forced. Or let's say, changes in much larger structures like the economy create changes on the ground that percolate upward to affect elites like the political class or culture creators.

Paul:

Moving on then, some scholars reject concepts such as integration, assimilation and mainstream as meaningful concepts for understanding race and society today. Why do you think they’re wrong to do so?

Richard:

There seems to be a European side and an American side and they’re somewhat different. The European side, represented by Favell²⁸ and Schinkel²⁹, is different in its emphases from the anti-racism discourse in the United States; both need attention. I see the European view that integration is a form of neo-colonialism as ultimately a dead end. You know, I’m not saying that this isn't a way one can understand some aspects of integration, such as the power differentials between natives and immigrants. I do agree that that's the case. But where does that go? How does that help the immigrants and their children who are facing concrete problems in their lives and aspire to improve them?

Then there's simply the reality. There is a reality to integration and assimilation that I think is being denied and misunderstood. Let me take the United States because that's obviously the case I know best. The rejection of assimilation as a way of understanding change today comes mostly from scholars who see American society in terms of systemic racism and white supremacy. Yet the evidence that assimilation is taking place, especially for a significant part of the new immigrant groups, is to me abundant. I would say that the same holds for assimilation's impact on the larger society, on what I’ve called the mainstream.

Take having an African-American President. In 2000, if we had asked social scientists in America, ‘Will there be a black president in the next ten years?’, the answer would have been laughter, ‘that's not remotely possible’. After the election, social scientists spent considerable effort in dispelling any notion that America is a post-racial society, and I agree entirely that this idea is false; but nevertheless the election represented remarkable change. So, we have to understand that there are changes taking place. There is an opening up to some extent of the mainstream that's being driven especially by the new immigration and the social ascent of large parts of the second and third generations, and Obama is the son of an immigrant. Social scientists at least need to respect what's happening and inform us about the implications. Dismissing it is not useful.

Paul:

It seems that critical race theorists and integration scholars always seem to talk past one another to a certain extent.

Richard:

I see, let’s come to critical race theory.

Paul:

To what degree is this because of fundamentally different understandings of the role of social science? And is a greater dialogue possible?

Richard:

Well, I hope dialogue is possible, I believe in dialogue. I’m willing to talk to critical race theorists. I don't know if they’re willing to talk to me. Let me not understate the value of critical race theory: I think that it is a truly important intellectual innovation that has contributed mightily to our understanding of why the black/white divide has been so intractable in American society. It's told us a lot about Western intellectual traditions, for example, my now deceased colleague at the Graduate Centre, Charles Mills³⁰ was a philosopher who wrote extremely insightfully and in a revelatory manner about the racially exclusive vision of Enlightenment philosophers like Emmanuel Kant. That's a huge contribution to our understanding of Western ideas.

However, I see the critical race theory understanding in the United States as coming overwhelmingly out of the African-American experience. That's an experience that begins with people who were enslaved and continues past emancipation to the present, because the freedmen and their descendants have been held back and excluded in many ways that have been baked into the social system.

To my mind, there's a crucial oversight at the heart of critical race theory, because it -or certainly most of its adherents- divide the world between whites, who are dominant, and everybody else, seen as people of colour. But the problem is that people of colour make up a far from homogeneous category. Specifically, when it comes to assimilation, a critical distinction must be made between immigrants and their descendants, on the one hand, and people who are the descendants of the conquered or the enslaved, on the other. That's a profound distinction in social trajectory and in social psychology. We know that in the United States today that the children of immigrants have an optimism that is remarkable. They believe they can get ahead. They understand there's discrimination, but they believe that they can work hard enough and overcome it. The descendants of African Americans who’ve been oppressed for generations in the United States don't generally have that same understanding. And let me also say, lest somebody misunderstand my views, it's also true, that the white-dominated culture makes a distinction in merit between the people who have chosen to come to the United States to improve their lives and the people who were conquered and/or enslaved in the past. Whites are more accepting of the descendants of immigrants because they understand -often from their own family history- this particular struggle to get ahead and be accepted. So, I think that on both sides, both the dominant side and the minority one, there are forces at work that forge a difference in social trajectory that favours the descendants of immigrants.

If we don't take this distinction into account, then we’re really missing something quite profound; and we are misunderstanding the nature of the obstacles faced by different groups of colour, which are much more entrenched for African Americans and many Native Americans, especially those on reservations. Moreover, the fact that many people of colour are immigrants or their descendants means that the relevant history is not only is the history of race, but also that of immigrant integration. What I see also missing in critical race discussions comes from the dismissal of the assimilation history of the United States. I think that we can learn a lot from that history and by looking for the resemblances today to what happened in the past.

Paul:

OK … 

Richard:

One more point about critical race theory. So, one of the objections of its adherents to assimilation is that non-whites will never be treated like whites. But I believe there's an intriguing historical counter to that claim and it has to do with Hawaii, which social scientists seem to have forgotten about. Hawaii used to be a significant subject for sociological study because of the high rates of interracial marriage there, but that's fallen out of view. But I’ve become interested Hawaii, because my colleague John Torpey³¹ and I, discovered by accident that the rate of hate crimes there is very low. So, we thought: what is going on? Of course, Hawaii really stands out in comparison to other American states because whites are a minority, and also because there's been extensive family mixing among whites, native Hawaiians, and Asians. The percentage of people who claim to be of mixed race is much higher in Hawaii than it is in any other American state.

So, John and I have begun looking into the history of Hawaii to understand how this mixing and mutual tolerance have come about. Something very striking in this history bears on this critical-race claim. During the post-World War Two period in Hawaii -that is, in the period in which the mass assimilation of white ethnics took place- the same kinds of economic changes occurred there as on the mainland. These changes were the drivers of assimilation on the mainland. Hawaii, before that point, was really a plantation society. The early-arriving white families engaged in settler colonialism, overthrowing the Hawaiian monarchy and ending the archipelago's independence, and in racial capitalism, importing Chinese, Japanese and Filipino workers to serve as field hands on plantations. The racially hierarchical plantation economy was dominant through the first half of the twentieth century, but not afterwards, when higher education expanded and the occupational structure shifted towards middle-class as well as professional and managerial occupations. Who benefited from these changes? On the mainland, it was the white ethnics, but in Hawaii, it was Asians. What happened in very short order was the social ascent of Hawaiian-born Asians, particularly the Chinese and the Japanese.

So, we have the same overall structural changes driving assimilation in these two settings, but different beneficiaries: in the case of Hawaii they were non-whites, coming from groups that were racially oppressed previously, whereas the beneficiaries on the mainland were whites. So, the critical-race cliché that the assimilation of ethnic Jews and Catholics in mid-twentieth century American could happen only because they could ultimately be accepted as whites should be rejected. In fact, in the same period, Asian ethnics on Hawaii could ascend socially and become part of the mainstream in the same way as whites elsewhere in the U.S.. And this occurred despite the fierce racism directed towards Asians on Hawaii during the preceding period, intensified for the Japanese by the widespread suspicions of their loyalty during World War II. I can already hear the objection that the demographic context of Hawaii was very different from that on the mainland, that in particular there were not enough whites to fill the openings generated by economic transformations. But that's precisely the point in a way because today there are not enough qualified whites to staff the positions in higher economic tiers opened by the departure of the baby boomers.

Paul:

That's an interesting case. You’re opening up a new world up to me there, it's not something that I knew. So, you’re going to be writing that up?

Richard:

We will write it up!

Part three: questions arising from recent contributions on assimilation today

Paul:

So, in this next section we’re going to zoom in a bit, on your more recent work, notably the ideas you present in The Great Demographic Illusion³² and also your contribution to this Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (JEMS) special issue³³, I’m going to ask you some specific questions on your more recent thinking.

First, you argue that some ethno-racial minorities achieve upward social mobility that is not at the expense of the dominant white group, something that you call ‘non-zero-sum mobility’. Now, given the deep and increasing socioeconomic inequalities in Western societies today, how far can demographic change go as a motor for expanding and diversifying the mainstream?

Richard:

Well, that's a very good question and I certainly can't give a definitive answer. But there's no question in my mind that today, in part because of these inequalities, that this upward ascent into the mainstream is selective and that we’re talking about modest but still sizeable portions of especially the descendants of recent immigrants. Now, the extent to which African Americans are involved is still [sighs] uncertain in my mind. I don't think that they are as able to take advantage of these opportunities to the same extent as the children and grandchildren of immigrants. But I do think that when we look at culture, for example, which is the topic I write about in JEMS³⁴, it's very clear that African Americans are in the vanguard of an ongoing transformation of popular culture in all of its forms and I think that this change parallels the influential cultural changes during the era of white-ethnic assimilation.

The contemporary cultural changes suggest that the mainstream is tilting away from exclusive whiteness and is being widely understood as more multicultural, if you will, reflecting the greater diversity of and origins of the population and the society. I mean, that's an opening up. Granted, this process is at present very geographically patchy – it's happening in some parts and not in other parts of the country, but it's happening certainly in the parts where there's a lot of diversity. I think it's possible that once the opening up is established, it can expand. And of course, the principal driver of that expansion is going to be ongoing demographic change, which is going to continue throughout this century.

Paul:

If we look back historically, obviously, the previous expansion of the mainstream was driven by great economic growth … 

Richard:

Yes, absolutely.

Paul:

What do you think about the type of economic growth that we have today, for example, with things like the gig economy, there seem to be questions about the extent to which that leads to wealth distribution and redistribution the same way.

Richard:

I don't believe that we can infer a wealth redistribution or a lessening of economic inequality from the changes in the mainstream. Unlike in the past, economic change is not a main driver of assimilation today. The United States, and the United Kingdom for that matter, are outliers among economically advanced societies in terms of economic inequality. For us, inequality is a massive problem, which the political system seems incapable of addressing. Addressing it would mean things like greater redistribution through the tax system, and not only do we not see that, we don't see any sign that it's a realistic prospect in the near future. In that way I’m really quite pessimistic. I don't see economic inequality as fundamentally changing. But I still say that there are important changes taking place in the mainstream society that are driven especially by immigration and the assimilation and integration of a good part of the descendants of the immigrants. What they imply is change in the ethno-racial sorting of individuals among the slots in the economic hierarchy, rather than change to the hierarchy itself. More and more non-white Americans will show up at or near the top. Indeed, that is already happening, if we look at the executive suites in Silicon Valley.

Paul:

So, the beneficiaries of “non-zero-sum mobility” today, are they likely to be limited to and privilege some non-white ethnic and racial groups over others? And if so, will there be new ethno-racial group hierarchies, or do you envisage a more general sort of withering away of ethnicity?

Richard:

Well, I don't think we’re anywhere near a withering away of race. For the foreseeable future we will certainly have ethno-racial hierarchies and racism. From my perspective, racism on the one hand and assimilation on the other refer to distinct sets of social processes which can coexist. They certainly coexist in the United States. I think that yes, you could say that assimilation is taking place within a racial hierarchy, but that doesn't mean necessarily that the assimilating children of immigrants, in particular, are going to become white. That's where I see a departure from the scenario envisioned by a white supremacy concept. But racism–and colorism–are important, these hierarchies will remain. They’ll be, I’m not sure how to put this exactly … [pause]. Well, I think one of the big phenomena of the near future is going to be the growing heterogeneity within ethno-racial populations and by that I mean that the marks of disadvantage are going to be very varied within these groups.

Paul:

Others have argued that the contemporary assimilation processes you describe are equivalent to whitening. In your view, what makes them capable of delivering a different outcome?

Richard:

Well, obviously to some extent there's whitening. There are, I’m sure, people who think of themselves as white, or do so much of the time, many of whom come from recently mixed family backgrounds. No question. But I think there are -just as there were for the white ethnics- incentives to define oneself differently. Affirmative action is more or less dead as a social policy, but the impulse to diversify, which exists in many institutions, is not. There are still potential benefits to defining oneself as not white or not exclusively so. And the changes in the broader culture, such as its very evident diversification, contribute to a sense for many people that they don't want to define themselves as white, even if this is an option in the first place; they want to retain a hold on some other part of their background, as long as it doesn't interfere with their ability to get along with other people and to get ahead.

Paul:

So, we talked a little bit about black African Americans. So how can black African Americans access the assimilation processes you identify? Is the black African American historical experience of racism so distinctive that it requires specific radical interventions and policies compared to other ethnic racial minorities?

Richard:

I think it is very distinctive and it does demand interventions that immigrant groups should not receive. The issue of reparations, economic and moral, raised by Ta-Nehisi Coates³⁵ and many others recently, is of great consequence. The United States has been willing to give reparations to some other minorities, to the Japanese, for example, because of their incarceration on the mainland during the war. I think that in the long run it's both a moral and equity imperative for the descendants of the enslaved. I recognize, however, that at the moment the public support to confront it is sorely lacking. I find Coates's argument that reparations must include a moral recognition by white Americans of the centrality of slavery to the country's development convincing, and it underscores the paramount importance of public support.

Paul:

Now turning to your contribution in JEMS³⁶. For those familiar with your work, a striking and perhaps surprising feature of your contribution is your core focus on culture. Why did you think it was necessary to add a study on popular culture to the portfolio? And do you think that in the future researchers should supplement social structural analysis with empirical studies of cultural changes in consumption?

Richard:

Well, first of all, even way back when I was writing about Italians, if you look at how I constructed an explanation of their assimilation, it has the same elements I’m still pointing to, like the major structural changes that allow for the non-zero-sum ascent of many members of a group, their growing social proximity to others in the mainstream, and [strong emphasis] cultural change. The way I put it for Italians was that the cultural changes following World War II gave them moral parity with the mainstream. Now, of course, that reflects my understanding of how the Italians were seen at that time. I think now I would broaden that to say that these changes also created a more sympathetic portrait of many members of the group and gave them a sense that their story is being told as part of the national story. The last enhances their sense of membership in the society.

Tomás Jiménez³⁷, in his book The Other Side of Assimilation, wrote persuasively about relational assimilation, the sort of interpersonal exchanges that bring about a shift in a mainstream individual's understanding of who this non-mainstream or immigrant or child of immigrants is. Yet that's a limited process because it requires interpersonal relations. Changes in popular culture are a much broader process of bringing about similar kinds of alterations in the understanding of who others are and are especially important for that reason. I see them as very evident in the United States today, but not just in the United States. I think they are evident across the immigration societies. And, yes, people should study cultural change!

Paul:

I think it’s quite interesting though going back to the issue of black African Americans, how in the cultural domain … 

Richard:

African Americans have always been culturally influential, but never as much as today. Jazz, for example, appeals very much to an elite audience, granted a racially mixed one including whites. It's obvious also that black Americans made many, many contributions to popular music, especially rock and roll, but I don't see that as a successful way of conveying the fullness and the complexity of the African American experience. Their cultural place has much expanded because of their growing impact on many levels, from television to literature.

Paul:

Okay. Another feature of your JEMS contribution is that you chose to use the label ‘not white’ rather than ‘people of colour’. And this was, of course, in response to the JEMS contribution³⁸ by Paul Starr³⁹ and Edward Freeland⁴⁰ showing that there are significant variations in the way that people from different ethno-racial groups self-identify with the people of colour identity in the US. So, how important are these subjective self-identifications for the way that we define ethno-racial groups?

Richard:

I think that there's a meaningful tension between these self-identifications in the real world and in the categories that we are using; it indicates a sloppiness in our thinking. That sloppiness is to me very evident in the category white. So, on the one hand, when we talk about whites, we mean people who are of the dominant population in the United States, understood to be more or less coterminous with Americans of predominantly European descent. On the other hand, when we use white -and this is very true, you know, in the race literature- we’re referring to race in the sense of the features of physical bodies like skin colour by which social distinctions are made among people. Those two really don't exactly meet. The problematic looseness of these concepts becomes apparent if we look at the Latino population. A sizeable part of it is visually white and an even larger part of it thinks of itself as racially white.

And I know social scientists try to square these racial identifications with the classification of Hispanics as ‘people of color’. For example, there's Julie Dowling's book⁴¹ on Hispanic racial identities. But, as is often true of small-scale qualitative studies, we have to take into account the context in which the study was done – in this case, South Texas. South Texas is a very special environment where the conquest of Mexicans in the war for Texas independence and then the Mexican-American War, had enormous repercussions for at least a century. Mexicans were treated as inferiors and one of the ways that they resisted was to assert their citizenship as guaranteed by the treaty that ended the Mexican-American War and their white racial classification, which came out of that citizenship. I think we make a mistake when we broadly generalise from a few qualitative studies. This is one example of the need to contextualise smaller-scale qualitative studies that are being used to challenge assimilation understandings. I think, by contextualising them, we better understand the realm of their validity.

Paul:

So where do we go from here in the search for adequate categories of analysis and categories of practice in research on ethno-racial groups?

Richard:

Well … [pause, sigh] Well, I do think that we need a marriage of quantitative and qualitative studies. To really appreciate, say, the meanings of identities and the roles they play in people's lives, we need qualitative research. When somebody says they’re white or Asian, obviously we don't know what that self-identification means in terms of the everyday. But we also need the quantitative part, because all qualitative studies that I’m aware of are contextually limited. We need the broad-scale quantitative data as a frame in which to place them. It's like, you know, looking at a painting. We can focus on a specific part and admire the brush strokes, but to understand how these contribute to the overall visual impact, we have to also see at the same time the larger picture of which they’re a part.

When it comes an understanding of the twenty-first century evolution of race and ethnicity, I don't think that's something that any single person can do. It requires a collective effort of putting together quantitative evidence and qualitative evidence. And I would hope that there’ll be groups of us who will be willing to undertake that in the future, because I do think that a lot of what people are focusing on now in the mixed-race research is on identity, and identity, as Mary (Waters)⁴² and I have shown, is a highly variable phenomenon. Just because people identify or don't identify with their ethno-racial background doesn't tell us what role that background plays in their lives.

It's helpful to recognise in my opinion that identity is not just a personal characteristic but also contextual one. People are expressing an identity vis à vis specific others; they have particular social contexts in mind. Perhaps identity is better understood as an interactive contextual property rather than a personal one. And again, I say that if we’re going to understand how change is occurring, we have to understand better how people locate themselves in different social contexts and what roles those contexts play.

Paul:

Okay, that’s a good answer to a difficult question that we’re probably not going to resolve … 

Richard:

That’s a very difficult question … 

Finale: looking forward (and back): what’s next?

Paul:

We’re now moving on to the close of our interview.

Richard:

I’m amazed we’ve got there!

Paul:

So, looking forward and back, if you had to point to your most important contribution in the field, what would you say it is, and why?

Richard:

Well, I think it's the idea that Victor (Nee)⁴³ and I developed in Remaking the American Mainstream: that we can think about assimilation and integration as not the extinction of previous identities, but a muting of their effects on where people are located in society, and with whom they interact. And that this process can be understood as the absorption of people into a kind of mainstream society, which opens up many more opportunities than they would have had if they were kept on its margins.

Paul:

And looking ahead, what do you see as the key topics that should be addressed and assessed by future research?

Richard:

Oh God! [laughs]

Paul:

And people are going to do what you say, you know … 

Richard:

Yeah, sure. Well, it's just, what do I even want to say. I think … [sigh] I’m not sure … 

Paul:

In the frontpiece of the Great Demographic Illusion (Alba 2020), you quote George Orwell, “To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle.” Have you enjoyed the struggle and has it been worth it?

Richard:

[Laughs out loud] Well, I have enjoyed this struggle. And, you know, it's a struggle that has engaged a lot of my intellectual capacity for a long time. I see myself as having really changed over time and continuing to change. I am grateful to have been able to play the roles that I’ve played, because I’ve enjoyed the challenges, and I believe that I’ve made a contribution. And … what else can I say?

Paul:

So, what's next for Richard Alba?

Richard:

[sigh] Well, I feel strongly that I need to come back. I’m not going to do large research projects, but because of my unease with the current intellectual climate concerning race and ethnicity, I am going to try to lay out what I think is a clear set of ideas that I hope will point the way for others to come.

Paul:

Okay.

Richard:

And enjoy piano, which I’ve just begun learning to play.

Paul:

In Hawaii … [Both laugh] Okay, thank you very much, Richard.

Richard:

Alright. Wow. Well, this was a good conversation.

Paul:

We did it … 

Richard:

You’re a very good conversation partner.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Richard D. Alba is an American sociologist, who was a Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY), and at the Sociology Department at the University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY), where he founded the University at Albany’s Center for Social and Demographic Analysis (CSDA). He is known for developing assimilation theory to fit the contemporary, multi-racial era of immigration, with studies in America, France, and Germany. In 2020 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. https://www.gc.cuny.edu/people/richard-alba

2 Paul Statham is Professor of Migration and Director of Sussex Centre for Migration Research (SCMR), a Centre of Excellence at the University of Sussex. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. https://profiles.sussex.ac.uk/p72922-paul-statham

3 See the CUNY news tribute to Richard Alba https://www.gc.cuny.edu/news/immigration-and-race-scholar-who-bucks-conventional-thought and the event celebrating his retirement https://www.gc.cuny.edu/events/celebrating-scholarship-richard-alba).

4 Nancy Foner is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. https://www.hunter.cuny.edu/sociology/faculty/nancy-foner

5 From 1940 to 1977, the Bureau of Applied Social Research (BASR) conducted surveys on a wide range of social, professional, and academic issues. BASR was founded by Paul F. Lazarsfeld in 1937 as the Office of Radio Research. In 1940, it became part of Columbia University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/bureau-applied-social-research#:~:text=From%201940%20to%201977%2C%20the,School%20of%20Arts%20and%20Sciences

6 Paul F. Lazarsfeld (1901–1976) was one of the major figures in twentieth-century American sociology. Founder of the Bureau of Applied Social Research at Columbia University he conducted large-scale studies of the effects of communication through mass media on society, particularly on voting behaviour. https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Paul_Lazarsfeld

7 Alba, Richard D. 1973. “A Graph-Theoretic Definition of a Sociometric Clique.” The Journal of Mathematical Sociology 3(1): 113–126. DOI: 10.1080/0022250X.1973.9989826.

8 Father Andrew M. Greeley. The Education of Catholic Americans was a famous study of the effects of Catholic education in America by two well-known sociologists, Fr. Andrew M. Greeley and Peter H. Rossi. The book was one of many studies of different aspects of life and groups within American society sponsored by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. Today the book is available as Greeley, Andrew M., Peter H. Rossi, and Stephen M. Krason. 2014. The Education of Catholic Americans. New York: Routledge. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781351298247/education-catholic-americans-andrew-greeley-peter-rossi-stephen-krason

9 See footnote 8.

10 Gambino, Richard. 1974. Blood of My Blood. The Dilemma of Italian-Americans. Twenty Million Misunderstood Americans. New York: Doubleday & Company.

11 White Anglo-Saxon Protestants.

12 Herbert J. Gans is a German-born American sociologist who taught at Columbia University from 1971 to 2007. His first book, The Urban Villagers (1962), described Boston's diverse West End neighbourhood, where he mainly studied its Italian-American working class community. Gans, Herbert J. 1962. The Urban Villagers. Group and Class in the Life of Italian-Americans. New York: The Free Press. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_J._Gans

13 Mary C. Waters is the John L. Loeb Professor of Sociology at Harvard University and the PVK Professor of Arts and Sciences. https://sociology.fas.harvard.edu/people/mary-c-waters

14 10th Annual SCMR-JEMS Conference, ‘Re-thinking Migration and Inclusion in a Divided World’, 18th October 2023, Sussex Centre for Migration Research, University of Sussex, Brighton.

15 Charles Hirschman is Boeing International Professor in the Department of Sociology and the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington. https://soc.washington.edu/people/charles-hirschman

16 Doug Massey is Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs, with a joint appointment in The Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. https://sociology.princeton.edu/people/doug-massey

17 Paul F. Lazarsfeld see footnote 6 above.

18 Alba, Richard and Victor Nee. 2003. Remaking the American Mainstream. Assimilation and Contemporary Immigration, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

19 Gordon, Milton M. 1964. Assimilation in American Life. The Role of Race, Religion, and National Origins. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Milton Myron Gordon (1918–2019) was a Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He was most noted for having devised a theory on the Seven Stages of Assimilation.

20 Victor Nee is Frank and Rosa Rhodes Professor of Economic Sociology at Cornell University and Director of the Center for the Study of Economy and Society. https://sociology.cornell.edu/victor-nee

21 Alba, Richard D. 1985. Italian Americans: Into the Twilight of Ethnicity. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

22 Alba, Richard and Victor Nee. 1997. ‘Rethinking Assimilation Theory for a New Era of Immigration’. International Migration Review 31 (4): 826–874. https://doi.org/10.1177/019791839703100403

23 Philip Kasinitz is Presidential Professor of Sociology at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center. https://www.gc.cuny.edu/people/philip-kasinitz

24 Gwen Moore (Richard's partner), Emeritus Professor Department of Sociology, University at Albany, State University of New York. https://www.albany.edu/sociology/faculty/gwen-moore-phd

25 Nancy Foner is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. https://www.hunter.cuny.edu/sociology/faculty/nancy-foner

26 Maurice Crul is a Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. https://research.vu.nl/en/persons/maurice-crul

27 Crul, Maurice. 2024. “Integration Into Diversity Theory Renewing – Once Again – Assimilation Theory.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 50 (1): 257–271. DOI: 10.1080/1369183X.2023.2258688

28 Adrian Favell is Professor of Social and Political Theory at the Cork Centre for Architectural Education, University College Cork.

29 Willem Schinkel is Professor of Social Theory at Erasmus University Rotterdam. https://www.eur.nl/en/people/willem-schinkel

30 Charles Wade Mills (January 3, 1951 – September 20, 2021) was a philosopher who was a Professor at City University Graduate Center (CUNY) and Northwestern University. https://www.gc.cuny.edu/news/memoriam-distinguished-professor-charles-w-mills-philosopher-who-changed-conversation-about-race-us

31 John Torpey is a Professor of sociology and history and director of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies at the City University Graduate Center (CUNY). https://www.gc.cuny.edu/people/john-torpey

32 Alba, Richard. 2020. The Great Demographic Illusion. Majority, Minority, and the Expanding American Mainstream. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

33 Alba, Richard. 2024. “Culture’s Role in Assimilation and Integration: The Expansion and Growing Diversity of U.S. Popular Culture.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 50 (1): 27–46. DOI: 10.1080/1369183X.2023.2213046

34 See article in footnote 33.

35 Ta-Nehisi Coates is an American author and journalist who has written extensively about cultural, social, and political issues, particularly regarding African Americans and white supremacy. In July 2019, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Danny Glover, and Cory Booker testified before Congress demanding reparations for slavery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ta-Nehisi_Coates

36 Alba, Richard. 2024. “Culture’s Role in Assimilation and Integration: The Expansion and Growing Diversity of U.S. Popular Culture.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 50 (1): 27–46. DOI: 10.1080/1369183X.2023.2213046

37 Jiménez, Tomás. 2017. The Other Side of Assimilation: How Immigrants are Changing American Life. Oakland: University of California Press. Tomás Jiménez is a Professor of Sociology and Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity and founding co-director of Stanford's Institute on race. https://sociology.stanford.edu/people/tomas-r-jimenez

38 Starr, Paul and Edward P. Freeland. 2024. ‘People of Color’ as a Category and Identity in the United States.’ Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 50 (1): 47–67. DOI: 10.1080/1369183X.2023.2183929

39 Paul Starr is Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs and Stuart Professor of Communications and Public Affairs, Princeton University. https://www.princeton.edu/~starr/index.html

40 Edward Freeland is Executive Director of the Princeton University Survey Research Center and a lecturer at the School of Public and International Affairs. https://psrc.princeton.edu/people/edward-p-freeland-phd

41 Dowling, Julie. 2014. Mexican Americans and the Question of Race. Austin: University of Texas Press. Julie A. Dowling is an Associate Professor in the Department of Latina/Latino Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. https://sociology.illinois.edu/directory/profile/dowlingj

42 Mary C. Waters is the John L. Loeb Professor of Sociology at Harvard University and the PVK Professor of Arts and Sciences. https://sociology.fas.harvard.edu/people/mary-c-waters

43 Victor Nee is Frank and Rosa Rhodes Professor of Economic Sociology at Cornell University, Director of the Economic Sociology Lag, and Director of the Center for the Study of Economy and Society. https://sociology.cornell.edu/victor-nee