Migration, Class and Transnational Identities ─ Croations in Australia and America

In this ethnographic and sociological study, Colic-Peisker (Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia) compares the migrant experiences of two cohorts of Croatians in Australia. One group arrived in the 1950s-70s and settled into a largely working-class milieu, while the other arrived in the 1980s-90s and integrated primarily into the ranks of professionals. In showing how the first group largely retained much of its national ethnic identity while the other is characterized by more cosmopolitanism, he highlights the role of class in conditioning experiences of ethnicity in the migrant experience. So readers are not misled by the subtitle ("Croatians in Australia and America"), it should be mentioned that the primary focus of the study is on Croatians in Australia, with America generally only being mentioned when the findings of the study challenge the general migrant studies literature on acculturation. Annotation c2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)