Strangers no more's several contributions (and my few regrets)

The main strengths of the book include, I argue, the authors? sophisticated conceptualization of immigrants? and their offspring?s integration into the host society as complex, multi-dimensional processes which can contain contradictory tendencies; a well-executed and informative comparative analysis of these developments in several countries with ? rare among the social scientists ? a firm anchoring of the present situations in the past from which they emerge; and useful practical suggestions for policy-making derived by the authors from their findings. Rather than outright criticisms, I then present a few regrets regarding, on the one hand, the book?s presentation style or what I felt were some too forcefully stated claims, and, on the other hand, some un(der)explored issues which, in my opinion, merited more analytic attention.