Choice
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.

Based on the results of the 1980 decennial census, this book focuses on the foreign-born. The New Chosen People is filled with demographic data clearly presented in text and tables, and is devoid of unnecessary jargon (but also, unfortunately, devoid of much sense of "feeling" for the individuals and groups represented by the numbers). This volume provides a very useful, straightforward, comprehensive, and neatly partitioned examination of the push and pull factors that prompt emigration. The authors also offer an assessment of such processes as selection, sponsorship, naturalization, and resettlement, and a close look at the impact of immigration on the economy, English language proficiency, refugee policy, and what is happening with the native-born offspring of the immigrants. The final chapter goes beyond the census figures. There Jasso, a sociologist, and Rosenzweig, an economist, discuss the reforms that have taken place since 1965, which have dramatically altered patterns of emigration and methods of integration of both economic migrants and political refugees. College, university, and public libraries. -P. I. Rose, Smith College