Knitting Social Networks: Gender and Immigrant Responses to Life in Urban Sprawl

Abstract

The nature of immigration to the United States has varied tremendously over the course of the last 100 years. While the rate of immigrants in comparison to the total population was as high as 14% in the early 1900s, it steadily declined due to regulations passed at the beginning of the First World War reaching its lowest point in 1970 at less than 5% (Bernard, 1998). Yet, ever since the early 1970s, in response to the Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments that replaced national-origin quotas with a single annual worldwide ceiling for all other immigrants while eliminating any numerical limitations for immediate relatives of U.S. citizens, the number of immigrants has been continuously on the rise. In 1996, about 1 of every 10 residents in the United States was foreign born. This is exemplified by the fact that more than one fourth of the present foreign-born population of the United States arrived after 1990 (U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 2004).

Citation

Avenarius, C.B. (2008), "Knitting Social Networks: Gender and Immigrant Responses to Life in Urban Sprawl", DeSena, J.N. (Ed.) Gender in an Urban World (Research in Urban Sociology, Vol. 9), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 149-200. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1047-0042(07)00007-4