This paper compares two contrasting ideals of what it means to become or to be American within the context of the language choices made by Hispanics in the United States. Its overarching question is: What contextual and individual-level factors influence the decision to maintain Spanish, or see to it that one's children learn and maintain it? I first model the configuration of area-specific circumstances that influence the incentive for bilingualism: the degree to which Spanish-English bilingualism (as opposed to English monolingualism) is viable or desirable in a particular metro area. When contextual incentives for bilingualism are included in individual-level models, context - especially bilinguals' status and Hispanics' political influence - greatly influences the odds of bilingualism among native-born Hispanic adults. Independent of incentives, there is evidence of a strong, positive critical mass effect.

This paper compares two contrasting ideals of what it means to become or to be American within the context of the language choices made by Hispanics in the United States. Its overarching question is: What contextual and individual-level factors influence the decision to maintain or learn Spanish, or see to it that ones children do so? I develop a tipping model of the configuration of area-specific circumstances that influence the payoff for bilingualism: the degree to which Spanish-English bilingualism (as opposed to English monolingualism) is viable or desirable in a particular metro area. The models tipping point is the bilingual:English monolingual ratio at which the utility functions for bilingualism and English monolingualism intersect. I find that area-specific payoffs influence the probability of bilingualism among Hispanic adults and that independent of payoffs residence in a place that is past the tipping point exerts a strong, positive effect on this probability. These results provide empirical support for the tipping model and its usefulness in studying macro and micro-level language outcomes.

For several decades,scholars have tried to assess the changing patterns of residential status in cities and suburbs. Most studies of central-city decline relative to the suburbs focus on a limited period of time or analyze a small set of metropolitan areas, typically the oldest and largest. The availability of national census samples spanning several decades, including standardized metropolitan classifications,1 enable us now to examine metropolitan residential status patterns on a national scale over a broad span of time. Some scholars have argued that central-city decline occurred with industrialization as the affluent migrated to the suburbs. The results of this study indicate, however, that the status decline of central cities relative to the suburbs was a slow process, particularly for small metropolitan areas. As late as 1940, central cities were of higher status than the metropolitan fringe in most metropolitan areas. In the early decades of the twentieth century, urban cores were of lower status than outlying areas only in the oldest and largest metropolitan areas, but much of thisstatusredistribution was occurring within the political boundaries of central cities. In addition, although many in high-status occupations were migrating to suburbs, cities of all sizes continued to attract large numbers of high-status in-migrants in the years preceding World War II.

This paper examines both the diffusion of the 1918 influenza epidemic and characteristics of victims within one community: Hartford, Connecticut. To the investigators' knowledge, this is one of the first studies to use a modern-day mapping technique to track the incidence of the 1918 epidemic within one community. Utilizing Geographic Information Systems (GIS), the paper investigates the geographic points of origin and the street-level pathways the disease traversed on a day-to-day basis. This allows the authors to measure the tempo of the epidemic spread as well as graphically indicate barriers that may have prevented movement of the disease across space. The GIS analysis furthermore allows the authors to graphically display the incidence and the spread of the disease for different subgroups in the population. The paper also constructs a detailed profile of the flu victims and calculates mortality rates for different areas within the City. To accomplish these objectives, a historical digitized street map is first constructed based upon the streets and address ranges that existed in 1918. Street addresses of flu victims (taken from death certificates) are then geocoded to their respective city blocks. Additionally, demographic information retrieved from the death certificates and from other historical sources is incorporated into a statistical database that is used in the GIS analysis and also to profile victims. The paper concludes with a discussion of how to employ the modern research technique of GIS to increase our understanding of other diseases that occurred in the past and may recur.

The increase in the proportion of children living in female-headed families implies that men's likelihood of living with their children has declined. However, this may understate men's coresidence with children, as many female family heads live with other men, either with their fathers or in cohabiting relationships. Many of the absent fathers of these children live with children, their younger siblings or with stepchildren. Sex differences in living with children may not have increased as much as have female-headed families.In this paper, we examine patterns of coresidence with children under age 15 over the period 1880 to 1990 in the U.S., using the Integrated Public Use Samples (IPUMS) of the U.S. Census. We distinguish between own children and other children, and compare men and women. We examine the extent to which men and women's living with children is a function of age, marital status, education, and farm residence. Our results are as follows:(1) Recent declines in male coresidential parenthood are simply extensions of the trend from 1880 onwards, rather than any new crisis in family life;(2) The long-term historical decline in parenting is quite similar for both men and women, with only a slight divergence towards fewer men engaged in coresidential parenting of an own child;(3) Coresidential parenting of children other than own children is somewhat higher among males, although differences were larger prior to 1950; and(4) The historical declines in fatherhood are associated with increasing non-farm residence and proportions unmarried. Fatherhood nevertheless continues to occupy a central, but more compact, role in the lives of American men.

In March 2000, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) announced that mixed-race people who mark both White and a nonwhite race will be counted as members of the nonwhite group for purposes of civil rights monitoring and enforcement. Although the rule is easy to understand and to implement, it is also controversial. In effect, the OMB allocation procedure is a modern application to all minority groups of the historical one-drop rule under which a person with any black ancestry was considered legally black. In this paper, we discuss some of the challenges that OMB's allocation procedure may face in civil and voting rights cases. We then use results from the 1990 U.S. census and from the 1998 census dress rehearsal to estimate how many people will be subject to racial reallocation and how this could change the aggregate socioeconomic characteristics of racial groups.We find that while multiple-race responses make up only a small fraction (about 3.7 percent) of the national population, reallocation could influence the racial classification of up to 10 percent of some state populations. Local level variation means that in some small areas the proportions of multiple-race respondents subject to reallocation will be even higher. In general, multiple-race respondents tend to have socioeconomic characteristics in between those of white and nonwhite groups. Allocation of mixed white-nonwhite individuals to the minority group tends to raise the socioeconomic profiles of the black and American Indian population, but to lower the socioeconomic profile of Asian Americans. The allocation rule, while protecting the overall minority count, will reassign a substantial number of people who have traditionally identified with the white population. This extension of protection may prove controversial and pose an additional challenge to civil rights, voting rights and other race-based policies, which already face heavy criticism.

This collection of original essays draws on a variety of theoretical perspectives, methodologies, and empirical data to explore the effects of West Indian migration and to develop analytic frameworks to examine it. This collection of original essays draws on a variety of theoretical perspectives, methodologies, and empirical data to explore the effects of West Indian migration and to develop analytic frameworks to examine it.

This paper examines changes in the time American children spent with their parents between 1981 and 1997, and the contribution to these changes of shifting patterns of female labor force participation, family structure, and parental education. Changes are decomposed into the parts attributable to changes in demographic characteristics and parts likely due to changes in behavior. In general, childrens time with parents did not decrease over the eriod, and in two parent families it increased substantially. Population level changes in demographic characteristics were found to have only small direct effects on time children spent with parents.

Studies have suggested that urban agglomeration enhances productivity by facilitating the firm-worker matching process. This article develops a model that formalizes this notion and demonstrates that, when firm capital and worker skill are complementary in production, urban agglomeration will tend to generate more efficient, yet segregated matches. As a result, not only will local market size be positively associated with average productivity, it will also generate greater between-skill-group wage inequality and a higher expected return to skill acquisition. Recent data from the counties and metropolitan areas of the United States is consistent with each of these implications.

This is an investigation of the dramatic growth, decline, and subsequent resurgence of the Chinese American population in the late 19th and early 20th century. Its purpose is to fix rough numbers around its "phantom growth," growth in a virtually all-male population that occurred between 1880 and 1940, while Chinese immigration was all but illegal. New, more detailed immigration estimates are produced through the application of cohort-component projection to the recently available Integrated Public Use Microdata Sample (IPUMS), a historical data set constituted from U.S. census manuscripts. We hope to cast light on several issues of historical and social significance.

ON THE AFTERNOON OF TUESDAY, AUGUST 7, 1923, members of the Ku Klux Klan from southeast Arkansas gathered on an athletic field at the Fourth District State Agricultural School just south of Monticello. At 5:00 P.M. they lined up their Model T Fords and drove through Monticello to boldly display their white sheets and other regalia. Large crowds gathered on the streets to see the Klansmen riding in their cars, sitting stiff-backed and staring straight ahead. As the whole community watched, Klan members drove up South Main Street and circled the courthouse on the town square. This parade produced images that were vivid and frightening.I After the parade, the Klansmen reassembled at a secret location near the town square and ate barbecue and watermelon. Seventeen Monticello men as well as others from nearby communities were "naturalized" into the order. It was a big day for the Klan, the first public demonstration of their presence in the southeastern section of the state. This local Klan group was exceptional in that membership lists and minutes of their weekly meetings have . . .

The question of the effects of race and sex discrimination laws on relative economic outcomes for blacks and women has been of interest at least since the Civil Rights and Equal Pay Acts passed in the 1960s. We present new evidence on the effects of these laws based on variation induced first by state anti-discrimination statutes passed prior to the federal legislation, and then by the extension of anti-discrimination prohibitions to the remaining states with the passage of federal legislation. This evidence in some ways improves on earlier time-series studies of the effects of anti-discrimination legislation, and is complementary to more recent work that revisits this question using data and statistical quasi-experiments that provide treatment and comparison groups. We examine the effects of race and sex discrimination laws on employment and earnings, in each case focusing on outcomes for black females, black males, and white females relative to white males. Overall, we interpret the evidence as corroborating the general conclusion that race discrimination laws positively impacted the relative employment and earnings of blacks, although the evidence is less dramatic than that in other research, and there are some sub-groups and periods for which we find little positive impact (more often for black males). We find some evidence that sex discrimination laws boost the relative earnings of females for both black and white females, although it is not robust. Finally, we find that sex discrimination/equal pay laws reduced the relative employment of black women and white women.

As consumer products are introduced, adoption rates tend to vary across socioeconomic groups. In the case of computers and Internet access, these gaps have been termed by many the "digital divide." People with higher incomes and more education have substantially greater rates of access to technology. Likewise, whites and city-dwellers are more likely to have computers and Internet access than non-whites and those who live outside metropolitan areas. As with many other products and services, technology is not equally distributed...