Books by Roger Waldinger

Waldinger examines why African-Americans have fared so poorly in securing unskilled jobs in the postwar era and why new immigrants have done so well. Using New York to look at the relationships among race, immigration, and social mobility, Waldinger offers a new understanding of a serious social problem and fresh approaches to attacking it.

International migration presents the human face of globalization. Roger Waldinger addresses a paradox at its core: emigrants departing one society become immigrants in another, tying those two societies together. He explains how interconnections between place of origin and destination are built and maintained and why they eventually fall apart.

How the Other Half Works solves the riddle of America's contemporary immigration puzzle: why an increasingly high-tech society has use for so many immigrants who lack the basic skills that today's economy seems to demand. In clear and engaging style, Waldinger and Lichter isolate the key factors that explain the presence of unskilled immigrants in our midst. Focusing on Los Angeles, the capital of today's immigrant America, this hard-hitting book elucidates the other side of the new economy, showing that hiring is finding not so much "e;one's own kind"e; but rather the "e;right kind"e; to fit the demeaning, but indispensable, jobs many American workers disdain.