Among the big talking points of the current immigration debate in the United States is the type of labor that should be admitted into the country. Many believe the entry of "unskilled" laborers should be severely restricted. Jamaican-born Eleanor Brown, a Reginald Lewis Fellow at Harvard Law School, is not one of them. Shortly after addressing the "Conference on the Caribbean: A 20/20 Vision " last month, Brown explained to Caribbean Today's Managing Editor Gordon Williams why more of the Caribbean's labor force should allowed to go overseas.
Using data on U.S.-born and Caribbean-born black women from the 1980-2000 U.S. Censuses and the 2000-2007 waves of the American Community Survey, documents the impact of cohort of arrival, tenure of U.S. residence, and country/region of birth on the earnings and earnings assimilation of black women born in the English-, French-, and Spanish-speaking Caribbean.
New York Cambridge Mass.: Russell Sage Foundation Harvard University Press
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
413 p, The story of West Indian immigrants to the United States is considered a great success. Many of these adoptive citizens have prospered, including General Colin Powell. But Mary Waters tells a very different story about immigrants from the West Indies, especially their children. She finds that when the immigrants first arrive, their knowledge of English, their skills and contacts, their self-respect, and their optimistic assessment of American race relations facilitate their integration into the American economic structure
Congressional Black Caucus members, black leaders and ousted Haitian Pres Aristide praised the Clinton administration for allowing Haitian refugees to be processed with a hearing on US ships and third country refugee centers.
