The social practices described and analyzed in this report are based on a 2-year ethnographic study conducted in San Francisco and Sacramento (California) in neighborhoods that are home to five new immigrant groups: (1) Mexicans, (2) Chinese, (3) Vietnamese, (4) Mien (Lao), and (5) undocumented refugees from El Salvador. Interviews with more than two dozen state and local officials and 170 ethnographic interviews identified state and local policies and the realities of immigrants' lives. The stories told by the diverse new immigrants reveal subtle differences in each group's adaptation to the new economic realities that make low-paying jobs harder to find and require that increasing numbers of women work. Among the many policy recommendations is a proposal for the reform of bilingual education programs. Universal access to bilingual education and monitoring and evaluation of existing programs are necessary to ensure that both children and adults have opportunities to learn English without wasting public resources. Other recommendations concern health care, workplace reforms, and flexible social support programs. (Contains 37 references.) (SLD)