Exploring Involvement of Immigrant Organizations With the Young 1.5 and 2nd Generations: Latin American Associations in Canada and Israel

This paper explores the extent of involvement of immigrant organizations with young 1.5 and 2nd generation immigrants by comparing two Latin American organizations: CSSP (The Centre for Spanish Speaking Peoples) in Canada and OLEI (Organizacion Latinoamericana en Israel) in Israel. By means of qualitative methodology, the findings indicate that while CSSP provides services to such young immigrants this is not the case with OLEI. This difference in the activities of these organizations can be explained by a theoretical schema composed of two key variables: characteristics of the immigrant population (motivation for immigration and the cultural heritage) and characteristics of the host country (immigration and integration policies and the society’s attitude towards immigrants). The paper demonstrates the usefulness of descriptive comparative case studies in unearthing antecedent variables that can help in building theory.