American Sociological Review 78(5) 849–871 © American Sociological Association 2013 DOI: 10.1177/0003122413497012 http://asr.sagepub.com The United States is in the midst of the largest, most ethnoracially and socioeconomically diverse wave of immigration in its history. Social scientists seeking to understand the implications of the associated changes for edu- cational achievement and ethnoraciality have followed the lead of theoretical traditions that explain how minorities become racialized (Bonilla-Silva 1997; Omi and Winant 1994) or how immigrant-origin populations (immigrants and their children) assimilate to various ethnora- cial and class segments of U.S. society (Portes and Rumbaut 2001; Portes and Zhou 1993). Empirical research tends to treat the third-plus generation (U.S.-born individuals of U.S.-born parents), and particularly whites, as the standard 497012ASR XX X 10.1177/0003122413497012American Sociological ReviewJiménez and Horowitz 2013 a Stanford University Corresponding Authors: Tomás R. Jiménez and Adam L. Horowitz, Department of Sociology, 450 Serra Mall - MC 2047, Stanford, CA 94305-2047 E-mail: tjimenez@stanford.edu; ahorowitz@stanford.edu When White Is Just Alright: How Immigrants Redefine Achievement and Reconfigure the Ethnoracial Hierarchy Tomás R. Jiménez a and Adam L. Horowitz a Abstract Research on immigration, educational achievement, and ethnoraciality has followed the lead of racialization and assimilation theories by focusing empirical attention on the immigrant- origin population (immigrants and their children), while overlooking the effect of an immigrant presence on the third-plus generation (U.S.-born individuals of U.S.-born parents), especially its white members. We depart from this approach by placing third-plus-generation individuals at center stage to examine how they adjust to norms defined by the immigrant- origin population. We draw on fieldwork in Cupertino, California, a high-skilled immigrant gateway, where an Asian immigrant-origin population has established and enforces an amplified version of high-achievement norms. The resulting ethnoracial encoding of academic achievement constructs whiteness as having lesser-than status. Asianness stands for high- achievement, hard work, and success; whiteness, in contrast, represents low-achievement, laziness, and academic mediocrity. We argue that immigrants can serve as a foil against which the meaning and status of an ethnoracial category is recast, upending how the category is deployed in daily life. Our findings call into question the position that treats the third-plus generation, especially whites, as the benchmark population that sets achievement norms and to which all other populations adjust. Keywords achievement, assimilation, immigration, race, whiteness