NEW YORK, NY May 18, 2008 —Two separate studies released this week cast New York City as a place where immigrants assimilate quickly. WNYC's Marianne McCune reports.

The first study uses a century of national census data to look at how quickly generations of immigrants have matched their native born peers in economic and social trends. A researcher with the Manhattan Institute found New York immigrants score second in assimilation rates - those in San Diego come in first.

The second study is out of CUNY and looks in-depth at the children of immigrants born in New York City. It found that most of these groups are doing about as well economically and educationally as their native-born Caucasian peers, and that the children of Chinese and Russian Jewish immigrants are surpassing them. But the study concludes race does matter; researchers found the browner the skin of second generation immigrants, the worse they do economically -- even when education levels are parallel.

For WNYC, I'm Marianne McCune