Rubén G. Rumbaut is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine.  A native of Havana, Cuba, he received his Ph.D. in Sociology from Brandeis University in 1978.  Dr. Rumbaut was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford in 2000-01, and a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation in New York City in 1997-98.  He is the Founding Chair of the Section on International Migration of the American Sociological Association, and an elected member of the ASA’s Council and of the Sociological Research Association. He is a member of the Committee on Population of the National Academy of Sciences, the Committee on International Migration of the Social Science Research Council, and the MacArthur Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood and Public Policy. 

An internationally known scholar of immigration and refugee movements and a leading expert on immigration in the United States, Dr. Rumbaut currently co-directs the landmark Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS), begun in 1991; and a large-scale study of Immigration and Intergenerational Mobility in Metropolitan Los Angeles (IIMMLA).  He directed the first National Survey of Immigration Scholars in the United States, which generated new knowledge about the social origins and intellectual formation of the multidisciplinary field of international migration studies.  Throughout the 1980s he directed the principal studies of the migration and incorporation of refugees from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia—the Indochinese Health and Adaptation Research Project andthe Southeast Asian Refugee Youth Study. He has traveled to Vietnam and Cambodia, and earlier to Sierra Leone, where he organized a field project on international health and economic development.  In the 1990s, he served as academic advisor for a prime-time 10-part PBS television series, Americas, focusing on Latin American and Caribbean societies, as well as on Mexicans, Cubans and Puerto Ricans in the United States.

Professor Rumbaut is the author of more than 100 scientific articles and chapters in scholarly volumes on the adaptation of immigrants and refugees in the United States. His research has focused on types of immigrants and their contexts of exit and reception, intergenerational differences in adaptation, crime and incarceration, bilingualism and language loss, ethnic identity, citizenship and national membership, infant health and mortality, fertility, depression, self-esteem, educational achievement and aspirations, social mobility and inequality, modes of acculturation, and paradoxes of assimilation. 

His books include the critically acclaimed Immigrant America: A Portrait (with Alejandro Portes; new ed. 2006); Immigration Research for a New Century: Multidisciplinary Perspectives (with Nancy Foner and Steven J. Gold); Origins and Destinies: Immigration, Race and Ethnicity in America (with Silvia Pedraza); and California’s Immigrant Children: Theory, Research, and Implications for Educational Policy (with Wayne Cornelius).  He has published two companion books based on CILS (with Alejandro Portes): Ethnicities: Children of Immigrants in America, and Legacies: The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation, the latter of which won the American Sociological Association’s top award in 2002 for Distinguished Scholarship, as well as the 2002 Thomas and Znaniecki Award for best book in the immigration field. 

As a member of panel of the National Academy of Sciences (with Marta Tienda et al.) he worked on two companion volumes on the Hispanic population of the United States, published in 2006 by the National Academies Press: Multiple Origins, Uncertain Destinies; and Hispanics and the Future of America.   He also edits (with Steven J. Gold) a research-oriented book series, “The New Americans: Recent Immigration and American Society” (LFB Scholarly Publishing, New York); under their editorship more than three dozen titles have been published since 2002 on a wide range of immigration topics.  

Relevant Publications

Alejandro Portes and Rubén G. Rumbaut, eds., The Second Generation in Early Adulthood.  Special issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies 28, 6 (November 2005).

Richard A. Settersten, Jr., Frank F. Furstenberg, Jr., and Rubén G. Rumbaut, eds., On the Frontier of Adulthood: Theory, Research, and Public Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.

Rubén G. Rumbaut, “On the Past and Future of American Immigration and Ethnic History: A Sociologist’s Reflections on a Silver Jubilee.”  Journal of American Ethnic History 25, 4 (Summer 2006): 160-167.

Rubén G. Rumbaut, “The Making of a People.”  Pp. 16-65 in Marta Tienda and Faith Mitchell, eds., Hispanics and the Future of America.  Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2006.

Rubén G. Rumbaut, Roberto G. Gonzales, Golnaz Komaie, Charlie V. Morgan, and Rosaura Tafoya-Estrada. "Immigration and Incarceration: Patterns and Predictors of Imprisonment among First- and Second-Generation Young Adults."  Pp. 64-89 in Ramiro Martínez, Jr., and Abel Valenzuela, Jr., eds., Immigration and Crime: Race, Ethnicity, and Violence.  New York: New York University Press, 2006.

Richard D. Alba, Rubén G. Rumbaut, and Karen Marotz, “A Distorted Nation: Perceptions of Racial/Ethnic Group Sizes and Attitudes toward Immigrants and Other Minorities.” Social Forces 84, 2 (December 2005): 899-917.
           
Rubén G. Rumbaut, “Turning Points in the Transition to Adulthood: Determinants of Educational Attainment, Incarceration, and Early Childbearing among Children of Immigrants.”  Ethnic and Racial Studies 28, 6 (November 2005): 1041-1086.

Cynthia Feliciano and Rubén G. Rumbaut, “Gendered Paths: Educational and Occupational Expectations and Outcomes among Adult Children of Immigrants.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 28, 6 (2005): 1087-1118.

Rubén G. Rumbaut, “Sites of Belonging: Acculturation, Discrimination, and Ethnic Identity among Children of Immigrants.” Pp. 111-163 in Thomas S. Weisner, ed., Discovering Successful Pathways in Children’s Development: New Methods in the Study of Childhood and Family Life.  Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.

Rubén G. Rumbaut, “Children of Immigrants and Their Achievement: The Role of Family, Acculturation, Class, Gender, Ethnicity, and School Contexts.” In Ronald D. Taylor, ed., Addressing the Achievement Gap: Theory Informing Practice.  Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing, Inc., 2005.

Rubén G. Rumbaut, “The Melting and the Pot: Assimilation and Variety in American Life.”  Pp. 154-173 in Peter Kivisto, ed., Incorporating Diversity: Rethinking Assimilation in a Multicultural Age.  Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2005.

Rubén D. Rumbaut and Rubén G. Rumbaut, “Self and Circumstance: Journeys and Visions of Exile.” Pp. 331-355 in Peter I. Rose, ed., The Dispossessed: An Anatomy of Exile.  Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2005.

Rubén G. Rumbaut, “Ages, Life Stages, and Generational Cohorts: Decomposing the Immigrant First and Second Generations in the United States.”  International Migration Review 38, 3 (Fall 2004): 1160-1205.         

Frank F. Furstenberg, Jr., Sheela Kennedy, Vonnie C. McCloyd, Rubén G. Rumbaut, and Richard A. Settersten, Jr., “Growing Up Is Harder to Do: A New Stage of Life.” Contexts 3, 3 (Summer 2004): 33-41.

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