Becoming American: Why Immigration Is Good for Our Nation's Future Read Online Free Page B
Author: Fariborz Ghadar
research debunks each of these myths. Additionally, while reviewing the research literature, I found that immigrants demonstrate a remarkable pattern of strengths. They have high levels of engagement in the labor market, and the children of immigrants go on to outperform their parents.
Children of immigrants learn from watching their parents work hard at making something of their lives in a country offering a chance to succeed. Many of them carry on to achieve great things. They do so in part to give something back to the country that allowed them and their parents the chance for a better life.
Immigrants have contributed to their new country in so many significant, positive ways. They have made American society and culture richer. As the sixty-nine-year-old, Indian-born novelist Bharati Mukherjee, who came to the United States in her twenties, said, “America has transformed me. It does not end until I show that I (along with the hundreds of thousands of immigrants like me) am minute by minute transforming America. The transformation is a two-way process: It affects both the individual and the national-cultural identity.” 4
Many of today’s immigrants arrive already prepared to contribute to a global economy. They are frequently the best and brightest (if not also the most motivated) from their countries, and they come possessing the risk-taking personality of the entrepreneur.
Peter Linder, second-generation Austrian immigrant, whose parents fled Vienna near the beginning of Hitler’s rise to power, is a successful entrepreneur and investor. In Philadelphia, he started three companies, two of them successful.
He says, “The mold of Jews coming here was that parents believed education was the most important thing. For a lot of cultures, education is very, very important, but it’s not so important for people in this country.”
Still, these virtues were and unfortunately are not always recognized, particularly in times of national tension or economic stress, when reactionary forces place obstacles to block the immigrants’ path toward assimilation and success.
Yet as Charles Darwin said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.” Particularly in times of political tension or economic stress, immigrants have been the most responsive to change. Despite the obstacles, immigrants adapt and keep moving forward.
If we look at some of the statistics on immigrants in our society, we begin to recognize patterns. While the number of immigrants according to the 2010 Census is almost four times what it was in 1910, the percentage of immigrants with respect to the total U.S. population is not at an all-time high.
Foreign-Born Population and Foreign-Born as Percentage of the Total U.S. Population, 1850 to 2010
Elizabeth M. Grieco, Edward Trevelyan, Luke Larsen, Yesenia D. Acosta, Christine Gambino, Patricia de la Cruz, Tom Gryn, and Nathan Walters, U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division, The Size, Place of Birth, and Geographic Distribution of the Foreign-Born Population in the United States: 1960 to 2010 . Annual Meetings of the Population Association of America, San Francisco, CA, May 3–5, 2012.
Some of the misconceptions about immigration have to do with its effects on the economy, and immigrants are easily singled out as exacerbating our economic woes. In particular, mass immigration and illegal immigration are the focus of much concern and anxiety, while much less attention is given to immigrants who enter legally.
“The Founding Immigrants”—a New York Times op-ed by Kenneth C. Davis
Often, the disdain for the foreign was influenced by religion. Boston’s Puritans hanged several Friends after a Bay Colony ban on Quakerism. In Virginia, the Anglicans arrested Baptists.
But the greatest scorn was generally reserved for Catholics—usually meaning Irish, Spanish, and Italians. Generations of white American
Children of immigrants learn from watching their parents work hard at making something of their lives in a country offering a chance to succeed. Many of them carry on to achieve great things. They do so in part to give something back to the country that allowed them and their parents the chance for a better life.
Immigrants have contributed to their new country in so many significant, positive ways. They have made American society and culture richer. As the sixty-nine-year-old, Indian-born novelist Bharati Mukherjee, who came to the United States in her twenties, said, “America has transformed me. It does not end until I show that I (along with the hundreds of thousands of immigrants like me) am minute by minute transforming America. The transformation is a two-way process: It affects both the individual and the national-cultural identity.” 4
Many of today’s immigrants arrive already prepared to contribute to a global economy. They are frequently the best and brightest (if not also the most motivated) from their countries, and they come possessing the risk-taking personality of the entrepreneur.
Peter Linder, second-generation Austrian immigrant, whose parents fled Vienna near the beginning of Hitler’s rise to power, is a successful entrepreneur and investor. In Philadelphia, he started three companies, two of them successful.
He says, “The mold of Jews coming here was that parents believed education was the most important thing. For a lot of cultures, education is very, very important, but it’s not so important for people in this country.”
Still, these virtues were and unfortunately are not always recognized, particularly in times of national tension or economic stress, when reactionary forces place obstacles to block the immigrants’ path toward assimilation and success.
Yet as Charles Darwin said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.” Particularly in times of political tension or economic stress, immigrants have been the most responsive to change. Despite the obstacles, immigrants adapt and keep moving forward.
If we look at some of the statistics on immigrants in our society, we begin to recognize patterns. While the number of immigrants according to the 2010 Census is almost four times what it was in 1910, the percentage of immigrants with respect to the total U.S. population is not at an all-time high.
Foreign-Born Population and Foreign-Born as Percentage of the Total U.S. Population, 1850 to 2010
Elizabeth M. Grieco, Edward Trevelyan, Luke Larsen, Yesenia D. Acosta, Christine Gambino, Patricia de la Cruz, Tom Gryn, and Nathan Walters, U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division, The Size, Place of Birth, and Geographic Distribution of the Foreign-Born Population in the United States: 1960 to 2010 . Annual Meetings of the Population Association of America, San Francisco, CA, May 3–5, 2012.
Some of the misconceptions about immigration have to do with its effects on the economy, and immigrants are easily singled out as exacerbating our economic woes. In particular, mass immigration and illegal immigration are the focus of much concern and anxiety, while much less attention is given to immigrants who enter legally.
“The Founding Immigrants”—a New York Times op-ed by Kenneth C. Davis
Often, the disdain for the foreign was influenced by religion. Boston’s Puritans hanged several Friends after a Bay Colony ban on Quakerism. In Virginia, the Anglicans arrested Baptists.
But the greatest scorn was generally reserved for Catholics—usually meaning Irish, Spanish, and Italians. Generations of white American
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