Skip to main content
University of California Press

About the Book

The immigration patterns of the last three decades have profoundly changed nearly every aspect of life in the United States. What do those changes mean for the most established Americans—those whose families have been in the country for multiple generations?
 
The Other Side of Assimilation shows that assimilation is not a one-way street. Jiménez explains how established Americans undergo their own assimilation in response to profound immigration-driven ethnic, racial, political, economic, and cultural shifts. Drawing on interviews with a race and class spectrum of established Americans in three different Silicon Valley cities, The Other Side of Assimilation illuminates how established Americans make sense of their experiences in immigrant-rich environments, in work, school, public interactions, romantic life, and leisure activities. With lucid prose, Jiménez reveals how immigration not only changes the American cityscape but also reshapes the United States by altering the outlooks and identities of its most established citizens. 

About the Author

Tomás R. Jiménez is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Faculty Affiliate at the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity at Stanford University. He is the author of Replenished Ethnicity: Mexican Americans, Immigration, and Identity.

From Our Blog

Recommended Reading in the Aftermath of Mass Shootings

Understanding the history and motives for the United States's deeply embedded, systematic, and institutionalized racism against minorities and immigrants, and the acts of brutal violence that have ensued over and over again, can be aided by the research UC Press has published in the list compiled be
Read More

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations and Table
Preface
Acknowledgments

Introduction
1. The (Not-So-Strange) Strangers in Their Midst
2. Salsa and Ketchup—Cultural Exposure and Adoption
3. Spotlight on White, Fade to Black
4. Living with Difference and Similarity
5. Living Locally, Thinking Nationally
Conclusion

Notes
Works Cited
Index

Reviews

"Tomás Jiménez is one of the most nuanced, thoughtful scholars of immigration-driven diversity and cultural change I’ve come across."
National Review
"Jimenez’s book is an example of practical politics . . . [and] is accessible to a diverse set of students, including undergraduates and
graduate students. Social scientists, (im)migration, and race and ethnicity scholars will find it useful, given immigration’s prominence in our current political system."
IMR: International Migration Review
 “A quarter of all Americans are immigrants or the children of immigrants. In this groundbreaking book, Tomás Jiménez turns our attention to the 75 percent of Americans who are native born and asks how the great influx of immigrants changes them. He recasts assimilation as relational—immigrants change because they come to America, but established Americans change because immigrants are here. The dynamics of American neighborhoods, schools, churches, labor, and culture are being transformed through these reciprocal changes as immigrants become us and we become them. Jiménez has brilliantly captured the complex dynamics of this two-way assimilation. Beautifully written, theoretically sophisticated and innovative, yet rooted in the stories of everyday Americans, this book is an instant classic—a road map to twenty-first-century America.”—Mary C. Waters, Harvard University

“This pathbreaking book brilliantly reverses the social-science magnifying glass by focusing on ‘established’ Americans and revealing the adjustments they make as society changes around them because of the growing presence of immigrants. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in immigration and ethnic difference.”—Richard Alba, CUNY Graduate Center
 
“Immigration is a part of America’s DNA. Assimilation is not a one-way process, but relational, as newcomers also change established Americans. The Other Side of Assimilation is a game changer.”—Jennifer Lee, Columbia University
 
“While the basic contours of American value systems, constitutional order, and class structure have remained largely impervious to successive waves of immigration, the daily lives of ordinary Americans and street -level culture have been significantly affected by the growing presence of immigrants. The concept of ‘relational assimilation,’ introduced by this book, captures these realities.”—Alejandro Portes, Princeton University and University of Miami