Developing an Index of Ethnic Community Participation

This paper is an attempt to construct an index of community characteristics of the Chaldean Iraqi-Americans residing in Metropolitan Detroit, Michigan, by suggesting that an ethnic occupation, a high degree of intermarriage within the ethnic group, and geographical proximity, might serve to unite the Chaldean community as effectively as ethnic associations united the communities in Raymond Breton's study. These three variables are found to be intercorrelated and predictive of the general cultural behavior of the Chaldean community as well as of their values, social interaction patterns, and certain phases of general culture. This has several consequences for ethnic research.