Behind the contentious politics of immigration lies the question of how well new immigrants are becoming part of American society. To address this question, Inheriting the City draws on the results of a ground-breaking study of young adults of immigrant parents in metropolitan New York to provide a comprehensive look at their social, economic, cultural, and political lives.

Inheriting the City examines five immigrant groups to disentangle the complicated question of how they are faring relative to native-born groups, and how achievement differs between and within these groups. While some experts worry that these young adults would not do as well as previous waves of immigrants due to lack of high-paying manufacturing jobs, poor public schools, and an entrenched racial divide, Inheriting the City finds that the second generation is rapidly moving into the mainstream—speaking English, working in jobs that resemble those held by native New Yorkers their age, and creatively combining their ethnic cultures and norms with American ones. Far from descending into an urban underclass, the children of immigrants are using immigrant advantages to avoid some of the obstacles that native minority groups cannot.

Generations of immigrants have relied on small family businesses in their pursuit of the American dream. This entrepreneurial tradition remains highly visible among Korean immigrants in New York City, who have carved out a thriving business niche for themselves operating many of the city’s small grocery stores and produce markets. But this success has come at a price, leading to dramatic, highly publicized conflicts between Koreans and other ethnic groups. In Ethnic Solidarity for Economic Survival, Pyong Gap Min takes Korean produce retailers as a case study to explore how involvement in ethnic businesses—especially where it collides with the economic interests of other ethnic groups—powerfully shapes the social, cultural, and economic unity of immigrant groups.

This important new book charts a novel course in immigrant research by demonstrating how business conflicts can give rise to demonstrations of group solidarity. Ethnic Solidarity for Economic Survival is at once a sophisticated empirical analysis and a riveting collection of stories—about immigration, race, work, and the American dream.

Multiculturalism in the United States is commonly lauded as a positive social ideal celebrating the diversity of our nation. But, in reality, immigrants often feel pressured to create a singular formulation of their identity that does not reflect the diversity of cultures that exist in their homeland. Hindu Americans have faced this challenge over the last fifteen years, as the growing number of Indians that have immigrated to this country has more than doubled.

In A Place at the Multicultural Table, Prema A. Kurien shows how various Hindu American organizations—religious, cultural, and political—are attempting to answer the puzzling questions of identity outside their homeland. Drawing on the experiences of both immigrant and American born Hindu Americans, Kurien demonstrates how religious ideas and practices are being imported, exported and reshaped in the process. The result of this transnational movement is an American Hinduism—an organized, politicized, and standardized version of that which is found in India.

This first in-depth look at Hinduism in the U.S. and the Hindu Indian American community helps readers to understand the private devotions, practices, and beliefs of Hindu Indian Americans as well as their political mobilization and activism. It explains the differences between immigrant and American born Hindu Americans, how each understands their religion and their identity, and it emphasizes the importance of the social and cultural context of the U.S. in influencing the development of an American Hinduism.

God Needs No Passport argues that current debates about religion and immigration are based on assumptions that are out-of-sync with our national reality because they fail to grasp the strong connection between changes in immigration and changes in religious life. When we talk about how religion influences American culture and politics, we still really mean Protestantism. When we think about what religion is, where we look for it, and how it works we tend to think in traditional terms. Jewish and Catholic colors are included though they hardly dominate the design. Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism are barely visible. Today’s immigrants, however, are remaking the religious landscape by introducing new faith traditions and Asianizing and Latinoizing old ones. They don’t trade in their home-country membership card but challenge the taken-for-granted dichotomy between either/or, United States or homeland, and assimilation vs. multiculturalism by showing it is possible to be several things simultaneously and, in fact, required in a global world.