Surveying Immigrant Communities

Policy Imperatives and Technical Challenges

Julie DaVanzo, Jennifer Hawes-Dawson, R. Burciaga Valdez, Georges Vernez, Christina Andrews, Barbara Levitan, Joyce E. Peterson, Robert F. Schoeni

ResearchPublished 1994

To assess the feasibility of a large-scale survey of immigrants, the authors conducted a pilot study, the Los Angeles Community Survey of Salvadorans and Filipinos, in 1991. The results are encouraging: The survey was able to obtain useful information from eleven-year-old census data to target high-concentration sample areas; it successfully recruited and trained bilingual staff; it enlisted respondents' cooperation at acceptable rates; and it elicited responses to sensitive questions, including immigration status, that are critical for developing and assessing policy. The authors conclude that costs for a similar survey conducted in selected sites across the country, though substantial, would be low compared with the potential costs that immigration may impose, or even with the costs of programs intended to address immigration issues. Appendixes contain the survey materials.

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DaVanzo, Julie, Jennifer Hawes-Dawson, R. Burciaga Valdez, Georges Vernez, Christina Andrews, Barbara Levitan, Joyce E. Peterson, and Robert F. Schoeni, Surveying Immigrant Communities: Policy Imperatives and Technical Challenges. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1994. https://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR247.html.
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The project was funded by the Ford Foundation and by the Center for Research on Immigration Policy.

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