According to data provided by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, from 1960 to 1978, Hispanic immigration increased significantly. Demographic trends reveal that Hispanic immigrants are increasingly working-age women, who disproportionately settle in particular urban areas and work at blue-collar jobs. (Author/GC)

Experience of entry into the workforce varies across societies (each offering a particular set of social conditions), and across social groups within a society. This article examines how urban Japanese working-class girls made sense of their first permanent full-time employment and conceived the transition to adulthood over the period 1989-92.…