Ivan Hubert Light

Ivan Light is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. He received the "Distinguished Career Award" from the International Migration Section of the American Sociological Association in 2000 in recognition of his pioneering publications dealing with immigrant and ethnic minority entrepreneurship. His Deflecting Immigration received the American Sociological Association "Best Book" award in 2006. Professor Light has published many articles dealing with immigration to the United States, organized crime, and American social history. Deadly Secret of the Lusitania is his first novel.Professor Light has authored six books on immigration, entrepreneurs, and urban sociology. His earliest is Ethnic Enterprise in America (University of California, 1972). The next, Cities in World Perspective (Macmillan, 1983) is a comparative and historical treatment of urban societies around the world. His next two books were Immigrant Entrepreneurs: Koreans in Los Angeles (University of California, 1988) and Immigration and Entrepreneurship (Transactions Publishers, 1993). There followed Race, Ethnicity and Entrepreneurship in Urban America (Aldine de Gruyter, 1995). Immigrant Entrepreneurs and Immigrant Absorption in the United States and Israel (Avebury, 1997) brings together articles that compare Israel and the USA as immigrant-reception societies. In collaboration with Steven Gold, Professor Light published Ethnic Economies (Academic, 2000), which integrates the voluminous international literature on that topic. His latest nonfiction work is Deflecting Immigration: Networks, Markets, and Regulation in Los Angeles (Russell Sage, 2006) Professor Light received a bachelor's degree in history from Harvard University (1963) and a doctoral degree in sociology from the University of California at Berkeley (1969). He resides in Claremont, California. His hobbies are watercolor landscape painting and hiking.