Immigration, Naturalization, and Residential Asshnilation among Asian Americans in 1980*

We investigate the residential assimilation of Asian-origin groups in the U.S., paying particular attention to socioeconomic characteristics, immigrant status, and ethnicity. Our primary goal is to disentangle the competing influence of the last two variables. Data from a special tabulation of the 1980 U.S. census (PUMS-F) allow us to express residential outcomes measured in the aggregate as a function of individual characteris-tics. We restrict our sample to Asian-origin householders and use OLS for our analysis of both pooled and separate group estimates of residential assimilation. Our results support the link between social mobility and spatial mobility in that Asian-origin groups translate their socioeconomic achievements into residential assimilation. Contrary to some interpretations of standard assimilation models, we find that duration of residence in the United States does not have a particularly strong influence on residential assimilation. The effect of immigrant status is overshadowed by that of ethnic group membership, a factor that points to the diversity of experiences and contexts of arrival for Asian Americans. In this article we examine hypotheses derived from theories of structural assimilation and spatial mobility to study the residential assimilation of Asian-origin groups in the U.S. Our focus is on three important sets of residential influences: socioeconomic status, immigrant status (indicated by year of immigration and naturalization), and the impact of ethnic group identification within the Asian-origin population. We are particularly interested in clarifying the competing influence of immigrant status and ethnicity, which are often implicated but not always kept conceptually distinct in discussions of assimilation. * An earlier version of this article was presented at the 1991 annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, Cincinnati, Ohio. We would like to acknowledge the helpfu