In many respects, the United States remains a nation of immigrants. This is the first book length treatment of the impact of the 1996 welfare reform act on a wide range of immigrant groups in North America. Contributors to the book draw on ethnographic fieldwork, government data, and original survey research to show how welfare reform has reinforced socio-economic hardships for working poor immigrants. As the essays reveal, reform laws have increased the social isolation of poor immigrant households and discouraged large numbers of qualified immigrants from applying for health and welfare...

Aparicio examines the ways first- and second-generation Dominican-Americans in the dynamic northern Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights have shaped a new Dominican presence in local New York City politics.Through community organizing, they have formed coalitions with people of different national and ethnic backgrounds and other people of color, tackled local concerns, and created new routes for empowerment.

"An original and significant contribution to the growing field of Latino Studies that documents the emergence of a pan-ethnic and interracial sense of solidarity among Latinos and other people of color'."--Jorge Duany, University of Puerto Rico

"Clearly written, well argued, intellectually engaging. . . . this book shows that one can only hope to understand the political development of New York Dominicans by meticulous observation of a convergence of multiple factors. . . . An unprecedented chronicle of the evolution of Dominicans as political beings in New York."--Silvio...