Immigration and assimilation processes in modern societies

Immigration and Assimilation

Immigration & Assimilation

Immigration and assimilation: Literature review

The recent economic downturn has caused a corresponding and often irrational rise in fears of illegal immigration. Claims that immigrant workers are 'taking away jobs from Americans' are often blatantly based in prejudice and they can impact the employment prospects and wages of even legal immigrants. One comparative study from the Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences entitled "The cost of being a Mexican non-citizens and being a Mexican immigrant in California and Texas" examined the labor market in California and Mexico. It found that non-citizen immigrants received significantly lower hourly wages in California as compared with a demographically similar population in Texas. They attributed this fact to a series of anti-immigrant laws such as Proposition 187, 209, and 227 that were passed in California during the 1990s which validated prejudices against immigrant workers (Takei et al. 2009, pp. 73-74).

Social prejudices become more acceptable because of the public embrace of these policy initiatives, passed by the majority of the state. (Interestingly, despite its reputation as a progressive state, California has often been the launching pad of quite socially regressive referendums regarding property taxes, immigration, and marriage reforms. These laws, suggest the authors, create a kind of state culture of popularly validated prejudice against immigrants. Of course, it could be argued that this type of anti-immigrant attitude permeates all of America. The Southwest may merely seem more prejudiced against immigrants because of geographical reasons and its higher population of immigrants. The fact that California seems to express it more vehemently than even its neighbors may be the result of other social forces -- the laws may reflect its special circumstances, such as its competitive labor market, but not actually cause prejudice. But the researchers note that, this trend towards a wage disparity between immigrants and native-born Californians, while always present, did become particularly pronounced when the state initiatives were passed. Since propositions are passed by public referendums, a chicken-and-egg argument seems obvious -- did prejudice escalate, and thus the referendums were passed? The authors suggest that the unique situation of California, in terms of the way it legislates as well as its economic conditions, created conditions less favorable to tolerance of foreign-born workers.

The federal law known as the Immigration Reform and Control Act IRCA (IRCA) of 1986 was also passed during this period of time. It directly penalized employers for hiring non-documented workers. The law was enforced in California and Mexico, but the authors hypothesized that because California had a more competitive labor market than Texas, and because of a greater concentration of Mexican immigrants in California, the IRCA had greater social effects in California when combined with state laws (Takei et al. 2009, p.75).

The study is problematic, given the difficulty of segmenting documented and undocumented workers, and admitted inevitable underreporting of data due to workers reluctant to divulge their immigration status. It notes that there are many other possible factors associated with greater intolerance in California beyond the psychological effect of the state referendums -- "for example, industrial changes taking place between California and Texas -- have not been accounted for in this study…the literature notes that immigrants in California faced declining wages during the 1990s due to a broad restructuring of the economy of the state" (Takei et al. 2009, p.90).

The composition of the immigrant population could also affect receptivity. For example, length of U.S. residence and cultural and linguistic fluency can make immigrant workers more acceptable, and thus result in higher wages. "In the short run, immigrants earn significantly less than native-born workers…In industrialized countries, there is apparently a tendency for citizens to be less willing to take on certain menial and low-status jobs as economies advance…Thus, immigrants compensate for their lower earnings by putting in more working hours with their strong motivation to work... immigrants generally improve their wage returns to their human capital with increasing length of stay in the host country" (Takei et al. 2009, p.77) However, if prejudices against immigrants continue unabated, it is possible that this cultural legacy of employment may be hard to shake off even for long-time residents, despite the researcher's contention that, regardless of state: "With increasing time in the United States, Mexican immigrants have higher rates of English fluency, higher levels of education, higher presence in higher-status occupations, higher labor market wages, and lower poverty rates" (Takei et al. 2009, p.77).