Tomás Jiménez: All Publications, Events and Press

Replenished Ethnicity

Erin Drankoski — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:14:00 -0500

Unlike the wave of immigration that came through Ellis Island and then subsided, immigration to the United States from Mexico has been virtually uninterrupted for one hundred years. In this vividly detailed book, Tomás R. Jiménez takes us into the lives of later-generation descendents of Mexican immigrants, asking for the first time how this constant influx of immigrants from their ethnic homeland has shaped their assimilation. His nuanced investigation of this complex and little-studied phenomenon finds that continuous immigration has

Some Illegal Immigrants to Be Held in Old Hotels, Nursing Homes | Christian Science Monitor

Cecille Isidro — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 18:54:00 -0400

... the detained immigrants ... suggests that rounding up all illegal immigrants is not at all feasible," says Tomas Jimenez of the New America Foundation. ...

Mexican-Americans Have Deep U.S. Ties

Erin Drankoski — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 10:09:00 -0400

Just about any celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 - October 15) will highlight the diversity among Hispanics.

They come from different parts of the Spanish-speaking world, have settled in various areas of the United States, have distinctive customs and come in all shapes and colors.

But an often overlooked difference among Hispanics relates to how many generations back they trace their roots in U.S. history.

Shaped by Immigration | KFNX

Erin Drankoski — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 10:21:00 -0400

Illegal Crossings Are Down, But Not Because of Border Fence

Cecille Isidro — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 06:48:00 -0400

Border Patrol apprehensions may have dipped to the lowest rate in 35 years, but it has nothing to do with border security. Rates of illegal migration are governed by social and economic forces, not by expensive surveillance technology, walls and the Border Patrol. It thus makes no sense to continue to rely on an expensive and failed border fortification as a centerpiece of our immigration policy.

CA EVENT: California v 2.0

Elizabeth Wu — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 21:00:00 -0400

A New America Event
06/22/2009 - 12:00pm

Faced with a deepening budget crisis and a paralyzed political system, a growing number of Californians have concluded that their government needs a complete overhaul. Join us to meet the leaders of the reform movement, to explore different paths to fundamental change, and to discuss some ideas for creating “California v 2.0,” an upgraded political system that meets the challenges of the 21st century.

Mexican American Assimilation

Cecille Isidro — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 12:22:00 -0400

An Attention Deficit South of the Border | NationalJournal.com

Cecille Isidro — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:06:00 -0500

Tomás Jiménez on Mexico-US relations: "Obviously, it is a big deal to particularly countries like Mexico whose citizens live in the United States in large numbers. Any country is going to want to be sure that its citizens are protected from human rights abuses, from labor abuses.

Bush and Obama's Immigration Policies: Integration | WTOP Radio

Cecille Isidro — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:29:00 -0500

Tomás Jiménez, Irvine Fellow at New America Foundation, discusses the Bush administration's immigration policies and their consequences for the Obama administration. He also explores what Obama can do to promote citizenship among new immigrants. Link to audio

U.S. Needs an Immigrant, Rather Than Immigration, Policy

Cecille Isidro — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 10:26:00 -0500

President George W. Bush's accomplishments on immigration reform fell well short of the comprehensive plan that he and others envisioned. Yet the Bush administration did more than any other in modern history to lay the groundwork for a much-needed immigrant integration policy. The Obama administration must now use that beginning to build a bolder immigrant integration policy - an immigrant policy that stands alongside our immigration policy.

CA EVENT: Does America Need an Integration Policy?

Elizabeth Wu — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 20:30:00 -0500

A New America Event
12/10/2008 - 7:00pm

Changes in Attitudes Toward Race Change Slowly Despite Obama

Cecille Isidro — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 11:27:00 -0500

Now that we've had time to let it sink in that Barack Obama will be the first African-American president, it's time to deal with the implications of this historic election for American race relations. Some observers have already hammered a marker into the road of history that designates the past as "Before Obama" and time going forward as "After Obama." As they see it, After Obama is the period when racism is no more. But they are letting the bright light of Obama's election blind them. We've got a long way to go in race relations.

Tomás Jiménez on ABC-7 San Francisco | 'Many Illegal Immigrants Leave U.S.'

Cecille Isidro — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:26:00 -0500

In California, lower paid illegals have harvested, cooked in restaurants, bussed tables, worked construction and helped remodel homes or landscape. Tomas Jimenez, Ph.D., is an Irvine fellow and a sociology associate professor at Stanford University. He studies immigration trends. "We have less of an ability to afford these services. Because of that they go back and so at some point the number we will need will find its own level," says Jimenez. LINK to video

Tomás Jiménez in the San Francisco Chronicle | '43% In State Speak Other Than English at Home'

Communications — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:26:00 -0400

Learning English is an essential skill for immigrants and their children, both for their personal success and for the good of the nation, said Tomás Jiménez, an Irvine Fellow at the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan public policy think tank.

"To borrow a non-English phrase, English is the lingua franca of the United States," said Jiménez, who also teaches sociology at Stanford University. "There are folks on the right who want people to speak only English, and there are folks on the left who think it's unimportant. We shouldn't be stamping out people's languages, but English should be additive. There are some legitimate concerns on both sides."

Government could do more to make English classes available to adults and help them integrate into society, Jiménez said. He pointed to Santa Clara County's Office of Human Relations, which promotes citizenship, English and leadership among immigrants, as a good example. LINK

CA Event: From Pluribus to Unum

Communications — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:45:00 -0400

A New America Event
07/25/2008 - 12:00pm

Though the southern border tends to be a focal point for debates about immigration, the anxiety that many Americans express is really about whether integration happens after people have crossed our country's borders. The question of immigrant integration is nowhere more relevant than in California, where more than one in four residents is foreign born. On Friday July 25th, Dr. Tomás Jiménez will discuss the state of immigrant integration amongst California's newcomers and their descendents. He will… more

Tomás Jiménez on Nightly News with Brian Williams | 'As U.S. Economy Slows, So Do Border Crossings'

Communications — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 08:52:00 -0400

Tomás Jiménez , New America Foundation: [on employment for undocumented workers] "When those economic opportunities decline, the number of immigrants that come here are also likely to decline..." LINK to video

Tomás Jiménez in TIME | 'Recession May Be Driving Off Illegals'

Communications — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 05:33:00 -0400

...Tomás Jiménez, a fellow at the New America Foundation, says that the vast majority of municipalities around the country haven't enacted any anti-immigration laws or seen any raids. So it's unlikely that most workers are leaving out of fear. "This happens a lot," he says. "DHS and border patrol taking credit for things that are actually driven by other forces."

Jiménez worries that the government will just pour more recession dollars into immigration raids and border enforcement at a time when it can least afford it... LINK

Automatic Americans

Ron Tang — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 07:42:00 -0400

Ending birthright citizenship is a placebo, not a solution to illegal immigration.

The debate over immigration is fundamentally about who we are as a nation,who we are not, and who we want to be.

It is thus no surprise that those most afraid of who we are becoming have moved to redraw the rules of inclusion by proposing to do away with birthright citizenship. Such a move is not only legally dubious, it is a threat to American prosperity.

Engine of Assimilation

adminn — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:25:00 -0500

Americans have little confidence that assimilation is happening today as it once did. According to a 2006 Pew Research Center poll, 44 percent of Americans believe that today's immigrants are not as willing to assimilate as those who came during the early 1900s. Their confidence is not likely to grow with the release of a new Pew Hispanic Center report, which shows that by 2050 nearly 1 in 5 people in the United States will be foreign-born. Nativists, such as columnist Patrick J. Buchanan, who has gone so far as to claim that the refusal of immigrants to assimilate is contributing to a state of emergency for American culture, are spurring this lack of confidence. What is prevailing is a one-eyed view that ignores the central principle of immigrant assimilation: It is an engine that runs on economic opportunity.

Our collective lack of confidence in assimilation stems from the fact that we have forgotten how it works. We tend to think that assimilation is born of a sudden decision, or that it is driven by some sort of epiphanic realization that assimilation is a smart choice. This misreading of assimilation gives rise to commonly heard refrains as, "Immigrants don't want to assimilate," "Why don't they assimilate like my ancestors did?" and "They just want to keep to themselves instead of becoming American."

In actuality, assimilation is a multigenerational process that unfolds as individuals pursue their economic aspirations. Assimilation is, in fact, a story of unintended consequences resulting from this pursuit. If we look closely, we can see the story being written everywhere. Assimilation is starting to take place in the life of a Dominican maid who comes to the United States for a better life, inches along the road of advancement, and gets a better job. She moves to a better neighborhood, where there may be fewer people of her ethnicity.

Assimilation is evident in the daughter of Vietnamese refugees. She works at a high-tech company, where she met her future husband, the great-grandson of Irish immigrants.

The grandson of Mexican farmworkers, knowing full well the economic advantages that come with more education, is attending college, where he is making lifelong friendships with an ethnically mixed crowd.

Assimilation can be seen inside a suburban home, where a Filipino immigrant and his high-school sweetheart, the granddaughter of Italian immigrants, are raising their two daughters. For all of these people, and millions of others like them, the pursuit of economic success inadvertently makes their ethnic origins a decreasingly important factor in how they conduct their lives -- how they choose their friends, their mates and their neighborhood.

And so the story of American assimilation should be regarded first as a tale of economic advancement -- moving to a new neighborhood, going to college, getting a better job, intermarrying -- and secondarily as a story about identity. Sociologists Richard Alba and Victor Nee summarize it best when they write that assimilation is "something that frequently happens to people while they are making other plans."

Of course, not everyone moves up the ladder. Some families remain stuck in poverty-stricken neighborhoods where there are too few pathways to economic success, and therefore too few chances to assimilate. Children grow up in poverty, and overcrowded and underfunded schools leave them ill prepared to compete in an economy that rewards brains far more than brawn. The consequences of squelched economic opportunity are all too apparent. Economic insecurity in the home and a lack of opportunities in school combine to drive some children of immigrants to underachieve.

Assimilation is not a choice. It is what comes about when people have the opportunity to improve their economic position. And so we are wasting our breath with demands that people hurry up and learn English to become American. Assimilation will happen when we power its engine. That means bringing to bear those forces that improve and increase educational and economic opportunities. Assimilation will proceed when we increase funding for schools and after-school programs in areas with large immigrant populations, expand state and federal grants that make college more affordable, improve vocational programs for those who are not college-bound, and expand internship programs that broaden the horizons of new Americans. Measures such as these help ensure that immigrants and their descendents have a chance to make other plans.

Tomás Jiménez in Las Vegas Sun | 'English-Only Rule on Bus Relaxed'

Communications — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 16:13:00 -0500

English-Only Rule on Bus Relaxed; Compromise seen as model for dealing with immigration (Las Vegas Sun)

...To Tomas Jimenez, an Irvine fellow at the New America Foundation who studies immigration and assimilation, the policies, ordinances and laws seen across the nation are “all partially motivated by people who are disgruntled by a change in culture.” ...