cover image Newcomers in the Workplace: Immigrants and the Restructing of the U.S. Economy

Newcomers in the Workplace: Immigrants and the Restructing of the U.S. Economy

Louise Lamphere. Temple University Press, $80.5 (309pp) ISBN 978-1-56639-124-5

Through close analysis of the changing workplace in three U.S. communities, these informative academic essays chart the variety of work experience for new immigrants. Rural Garden City, Kans., has become a center for the low-wage meat-packing industry; Donald Stull describes the physical toll taken by such dangerous labor, and Janet Benson tells how Southeast Asian refugees support the industry by tolerating substandard living conditions. Unlike Garden City workers, those in Miami don't cross ethnic lines outside the workplace, according to Stepick; Stepick and Grenier explain how Latin, Anglo, African American and Haitian construction workers respond differently to management safety requests and how Haitians in the tourist industry are exploited more than Latinos. In Philadelphia, Judith Goode shows how Korean store owners hire local workers as community ``buffers''; Cynthia Carter Ninivaggi observes that an urban enterprise zone project did little to reduce poverty. Lamphere teaches anthropology at the University of New Mexico; Stepick and Grenier teach in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Florida International University. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Feb.)