This book compiles findings on the children of recent immigrants to the United States. The dearth of accessible census data and the tendency for school records and scholarly surveys to compress second-generation youth into a classificatory scheme that obliterates their history have obscured a major phenomenon in U.S. society--a rapidly growing second generation with origins in Latin America and Asia, whose course of assimilation is uncertain. Four chapters are based on a survey of 5,266 eighth- and ninth-grade children of immigrants in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and San Diego. Data sources for other chapters include the 1990 census, other census sources, and surveys of second-generation immigrants in New York City and New Orleans. Together these studies suggest the absence of a modal social and economic adaptation among today's second generation, and the likelihood that in some instances, the process will lead to downward assimilation. Chapters are "Introduction: Immigration and Its Aftermath" (Alejandro Portes); "Language and the Second Generation: Bilingualism Yesterday and Today" (Alejandro Portes, Richard Schauffler); "Divided Fates: Immigrant Children and the New Assimilation" (M. Patricia Fernandez Kelly, Richard Schauffler); "Studying Immigrant Adaptation from the 1990 Population Census: From Generational Comparisons to the Process of 'Becoming American'" (Charles Hirschman); "Today's Second Generation: Evidence from the 1990 Census" (Leif Jensen, Yoshimi Chitose); "The Households of Children of Immigrants in South Florida: An Exploratory Study of Extended Family Arrangements" (Lisandro Perez); "The Crucible Within: Ethnic Identity, Self-Esteem, and Segmented Assimilation among Children of Immigrants" (Ruben G. Rumbaut); "Ethnic and Racial Identities of Second-Generation Black Immigrants in New York City" (Mary C. Waters); and "Social Capital and the Adaptation of the Second Generation: The Case of Vietnamese Youth in New Orleans" (Min Zhou, Carl L. Bankston III). Contains approximately 215 references and an index. (SV)