Residential Patterns of Arab Americans: Race, Ethnicity, and Spatial Assimilation (The New Americans: Recent Immigration and American Society)

Holsinger examines the ways that race and ethnicity are manifest in the urban landscape by analyzing the segregation and neighborhood characteristics of Arab Americans. The study focuses on Arab American communities in four metropolitan areas, New York City, Los Angeles, Detroit and Chicago. In general, locational outcomes of Arab Americans reveal disadvantage relative to other white ethnic groups, with exposure to whites decreasing dramatically during the last decade of the twentieth century. However, neighborhood quality is explained by socioeconomic and immigrant status. The advantage experienced by this diverse population relative to non-White racial and ethnic minorities suggests that immigration history, racial status and human capital shape the residential experience of Arab Americans.