The New Second Generation

Abstract

This chapter involves the second generation—children like Herbie—subject to conflicting pressure from parents and peers and to pervasive outside discrimination. Research on the new immigration—that which arose after the passage of the 1965 Immigration Act—has been focused almost exclusively on the first generation, that is, on adult men and women coming to the United States in search of work or to escape political persecution. The great deals of research and theorizing on post—1965 immigration offers only tentative guidance on the prospects and paths of adaptation of the second generation because the outlook of this group can be very different from that of their immigrant parents. An emerging paradox in the study of today&s;s second generation is the peculiar forms that assimilation has adopted for its members. In terms of typology of vulnerability and resources, the Punjabi Sikh second generation was very much at risk except for two crucial factors.