Journal Issue: Transition to Adulthood Volume 20 Number 1 Spring
2010 Until recently, social inequalities among Americans (and
among young adults in particular) have been seen through a prism
of black-white differences. Although major socioeconomic
differences persist between native whites and blacks, the social
and economic divides between immigrant-origin groups, who are
overwhelmingly Hispanics and Asians, are even larger. The ethnic
diversity of contemporary immigrants pales in comparison with
the diversity of their social class origins. By far the most-
educated (Indians) and the least-educated (Mexicans) groups in
the United States today are first-generation immigrants, as are
the groups with the lowest poverty rate (Filipinos) and the
highest poverty rate (Dominicans)—a reflection of the
fundamentally different ways they enter the country: through
regular immigration channels, without legal authorization, or as
state-sponsored refugees. And their differing legal status
interacts with their human capital