News Release

Metropolitan areas differ in receptivity to immigrants

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Penn State

University Park, Pa. - Immigrants to the United States find the most welcoming climate from native residents of cities mostly on the East Coast and in the Midwest, according to a Penn State study.

Of native-born Americans living in the 20 major metropolitan areas, those in Atlanta, Baltimore, Detroit, Miami, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Seattle and Washington, D.C. are the most open to immigrants. Positive attitudes toward immigrants are also to be found in Chicago, New York, Pittsburgh and St. Louis, says Dr. Gordon F. De Jong, Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Demography at Penn State and research associate of the University's Population Research Institute.

On the other hand, native-born Americans living in Dallas, San Diego, San Francisco and Tampa express the least receptive attitudes toward immigrants, while citizens of Boston, Houston and Los Angeles have generally cool attitudes toward immigrants.

In smaller metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas, attitudes toward immigrants are more positive in the five states comprising the industrial Midwest: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Non-metropolitan Americans in general tend to be the least hospitable to immigrants throughout the country, particularly in the Middle and South Atlantic tier of states extending from West Virginia and Maryland down to Florida, De Jong notes. The same rule holds true for non-metropolitan areas in those eleven states located east-west between the Mississippi River and the Rockies and north-south between the Canadian border and the Gulf of Mexico.

De Jong and Quynh-Giang Tran, doctoral candidate in sociology and demography, are co-authors of the paper, "Warm Welcome, Cool Welcome: Mapping Receptivity toward Immigrants in the U.S.," which appeared in a recent issue of Population Today, a publication of the Population Reference Bureau in Washington. D.C.

Immigrants usually receive a warmer welcome in locales, usually urbanized, which contain large concentrations of immigrants with a similar background, Tran says. Furthermore, immigrants are greeted more cordially in places where the native population has a higher level of education. However, a source of negative receptivity attitudes toward immigrants is the perception that illegal immigrants take unfair advantage of health and social services. "Residents' receptive attitudes appear to cool noticeably as unemployment rates of U.S. citizens increase, but attitudes improve when the jobless rates fall," the Penn State researcher says. "Rising unemployment among citizens triggers economic insecurity and feelings of resentment."

Negative attitude can occur when immigrants move to small towns and rural districts. Often citizens in rural areas have little prior experience interacting with contemporary immigrant groups, according to the researchers. In smaller metropolitan areas, native-born citizens in the five industrial Midwest states demonstrated the greatest receptivity toward immigrants, De Jong says. Furthermore, generally friendly attitudes toward immigrants were reported by Americans in smaller metropolitan areas in the prairie states between the Rockies and the Mississippi; Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana; the three Pacific states; Alaska; and New England. Native-born residents of similar-size communities in the Atlantic Coast states from New York to Florida, as well as those of the Rocky Mountain States, were the least receptive toward immigrants, the study says.

"Policymakers regularly use legislative and financial incentives and disincentives to regulate the size of immigration flows and the occupational skills of immigrants," De Jong adds. "But they infrequently address the receptivity of U.S. citizens toward immigrants -- attitudes that may be critical not only to the economic productivity of immigrants in their jobs, but also to their assimilation into the life of local communities and to their ability to adapt to the social norms and civil order expectations of U.S. society."

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