Renewed immigration to the United States is prompting a fundamental ethnic and racial restructuring of American society. Indeed, some observers claim that the U.S. will become a "minority majority" country in a few short decades -- a projection that stimulates much social and political anxiety. Traditional immigration gateways (e.g., California and New York -- especially their major cities, Los Angeles and New York) have struggled to respond to rapidly changing demographics. Immigration affects almost every aspect of society in these contexts; from housing and labor markets to cultural identities and inter-group conflicts.

While research and policy communities have attempted to address the impact of renewed immigration on communities in gateway states, immigration increasingly impacts non-traditional destinations, as convincingly demonstrated by Census 2000. Small communities across the country are experiencing dramatic demographic changes, and the economic, political and social changes that follow. The pace of these changes challenges our conventional understanding about the causes and consequences of immigration.

This miniconference seeks to bring together scholars from multiple disciplines interested in immigration and ethnicity in the United States. Our intent is to transcend some of the disciplinary boundaries in order to induce fresh thinking about immigration and ethnicity in the U.S. As a starting point for our discussions, we offer the following hypothesis: the nature of immigration and its impacts are conditioned in important ways by the geographic context(s) in which it occurs. We conceive of geographic context at multiple scales, ranging from the body (e.g., multi-ethnic individuals), to neighborhoods to cities to states and regions. As immigration increasingly characterizes non-traditional destinations, we need new ways of theorizing and studying the processes and their outcomes.

Pictures from the conference