Recent Immigration in the United States

What does it mean to be “American” in a country as diverse as the United States?
It has been decades since the Immigration Act of 1924 (Johnson-Reed Act) was passed. The law provided for a quota system that led to the slowing down of the rate at which new migrants moved into the United States. Immigration had brought more than 23.5 million people into the United States. Some people argue that the John Reed Act disadvantages some regions of the world while giving preference to others, though not explicitly. One of the regions disadvantaged by the John Reed Act, critics argue, is Southern and Eastern Europe. Critics also argue that the Johnson-Reed Act was one of the reasons Asian migration into the United States slowed down following World War II (Kraut, 2014, p. 707).
The United States enjoys the position of being a land filled with lots of opportunities for nearly all its residents. There are several opportunities for upward mobility and for people born in lower socioeconomic levels to drastically change their fortunes and move up the socioeconomic ladder. Nonetheless, critics of migration argue that migration is a disadvantage to poorer Americans as it leads to lower wages in jobs meant to give the poor a springboard to jump out of their situation. Unskilled immigrants are ready and willing to take various roles at lower wages. These fears have dominated political and economic debates over the past few decades (Ran & Fabio, 2006). A review of contemporary and historical evidence brings forth certain interesting observations. First, over time, the makeup of migration has been changing. In the past, the process of selecting migrants was mixed with skilled and unskilled workers being granted immigration permits. Today, there is a lot of emphasis on skills. Skill is the most observable characteristic being used by immigration offices (Abramitzsky, Platt & Katherine, 2013). This can be explained by a number of factors including by the fact that income inequality is rising in the United States and officials want to give people at the lower socioeconomic levels a fair opportunity to earn good wages. Further, as far as self-selection is concerned, it can be explained by the fact that the process of migration to the United States is an expensive one and the people most likely to take the initiative to go through the whole process are skilled workers with enough money to afford the process. This reality fits perfectly with the Roy model of self-selection (Abramitzky & Boustan, 2017).
The second observation is that the socioeconomic situation of immigrants does not always reflect the notion of the “American Dream.” Both today and in the past, the argument is that migrants come penniless and over the long-term, because of the “American Dream”, they rise to catch up with other Americans. The reality is that both immigrants and natives have almost the same level of wage growth. Since unskilled migrants start at the bottom, with a regular rate of wage growth, they fail to catch up with other Americans in one generation of existence.
This is especially true today but not as true as the pre-1900 era. During the pre-1900 era, migrants and natives held almost the same jobs and wage growth was almost the same across the board. Today, high-paying jobs require advanced specialized skills that may not be easy or affordable to train for as an immigrant. Another reality is that during the pre-1900 era, a typical immigrant was from Europe. Europe then was not as rich as the United States but it was not a lot poorer either.
There were a lot of similarities between jobs available, skills needed, and technology used in Europe and America during that era. Migrants, therefore, shared a lot in common with most American workers and they were able to get almost the same jobs as high-paid Americans. The heterogeneity in skills ensured that immigrants advanced at almost at the same rate as natives and were able to secure the “American Dream” within their lifetime (Ran, Platt & Katherine, 2013).
The third observation is that while immigrants getting employment in the United States might lead to a reduction in wages for some natives, in general, there is no evidence to support the claim that immigrants have a net negative effect on the nation’s economy. The reality, as is normal in most systems, is that immigration leads to winners and losers in the economy but the net effect is positive for the U.S. economy. Even when migrants lead to lower wages, gateway cities with lower wages often see new capital investments in the form of new factories to take advantage of the lower cost of labor (Abramitzsky & Boustan, 2017, p. 2).
Is the Idea of American Culture as a “Melting Pot” Still Valid?
Ethnicity theory over the twentieth-century focused mainly on the question of immigration and how immigrants could culturally assimilate into society. America is made up of several diverse minority communities but the need to fully assimilate into the American way of life is still a need for most immigrants. Israel Zangwill’s The Melting Pot (1908) explored American culture from the races that constitute it and made various theories surrounding ethnic assimilation popular. The play was a success then but many critics now posit that it does not accurately portray how the races of the United States should be accurately studied or understood (Mahfouz, 2013, p, 2).
The cultural mosaic (the salad bowl) theory calls for the United States to integrate its diverse ethnicities as one would combine different ingredients to make up a salad bowl. The model has brought a new way to think about cultural assimilation and the creation of the melting pot. In the creation of a salad bowl, the ethnicities that make up the United States should not lose their unique characteristics as they assimilate with other cultures in the country. There should be heterogeneity in the salad bowl just as fruit and vegetables do not lose their heterogeneity when making a salad. It is notable that under this model, it is not necessary for all people of a certain culture to assimilate into American culture for assimilation to be a success. Some people may choose to assimilate while others might choose to live on the edges as they fully keep their old culture and none of the United States’. Payant and Rose (1999) appreciate the challenges that come with this dichotomy as people struggle what balance to keep as they seek to maintain their own culture while also assimilating into mainstream American culture. It is the dilemma of assimilation that has plagued many migrant cultures around the world and not just in the United States.
Several thinkers in the 18th and 19th century developed ideas and theories to explore the idea of assimilation of different cultures into mainstream culture. It was, however, Israel Zangwill, a British writer, who came up with term melting pot in a work titled ‘The Melting Pot: Drama in Four Acts’. This was in 1909 and Zangwill noted that the United States represented the great melting pot of the world where all European races were melting and going through a reformation.
He noted that America would end up as a fusion of the world’s races. Multiculturalism in America flourished during this era and would continue over the next century. As America’s political and cultural leadership embraced the idea of America being a melting pot, it became part of America’s currency and the identity of America itself. The idea is still present in current America being that America is one of the most diverse nations of the world.
More importantly, even as diverse as America is, the nation has made tremendous progress in improving cultural relations between its several ethnic groups to ensure a harmonious and happy coexistence. Cultural, ethnic, and racial relations get better with time in the United States and the American people are generally more tolerant of cultures different from their own (Bueno, 2017, p.7).
One important factor that promotes the idea of America being a melting pot is the opportunities provided for the different ethnicities that land on its shores. Children of immigrants tend to do better socioeconomically than the first generation. The socioeconomic progress of immigrant’s children speaks volumes to the availability of the American Dream to all cultures within the melting pot. While this is positive, it is noteworthy that while there are opportunities available to move upwards, equality of opportunity has not yet been achieved.
For instance, while the second-generation Hispanic immigrants tend to outperform their parents, the third generation tends to settle at an educational and financial level that is below the national average. Third generation Hispanic immigrants and beyond seem to not assimilate to educational attainments that represent the national average but the average of their own Hispanic community. Therefore, even as America appreciates and pushes for the prosperity of the melting pot, outcomes within communities should be paid attention to as much as national outcomes (Orrenius, 2004, p.5).
To What Extent Should Recent Immigrants Be Expected to Trade Ethnic or National Identity For a New American Identity?
Identity preservation and the formation of a new identity is a complex process, especially at a community level. At a personal level, permanent immigrants face the most pressure to adopt an identity consistent with their new host nation and to leave behind the identity that identifies with their former nation. Nevertheless, the process of identity formation depends heavily on individual attitudes and perceptions. An assimilating citizen can choose to both preserve and adapt their identity to the mainstream identity of the host nation. One of the factors that make the process a success is the level of openness to new cultures that citizens of the host nation has. When there is a lot of immigration into a country, some social changes must take place.
The identities of the citizens of the host country are not set in stone. As they interact with immigrants, it is expected that, to an extent, their new experiences will lead to a normalization of the general identity of the population to normalize with the identities of the migrants. Further, since laws are supreme, the laws of the host nation will influence how immigrants operate within the host nation. Cultural practices that are inconsistent with the laws of the host nation always get abandoned. This alone can lead to a significant change in identity for certain ethnicities (Constant & Zimmerman, 2012, p. 15).
In the current highly capitalistic era, the place of identity in predicting how much economic opportunity one is bound to have cannot be ignored. Because identities at a community level can affect the community’s economic success, it is important to study how much of an effect this is. Usually, the closer the identity is to the national identity, the easier it is for the community to optimally take advantage of the economic opportunities available to it.
To this end, because America is very capitalistic, economic opportunity plays a big role in predicting how much an immigrant community will trade their ethnic identity to fit into the American identity. How a person relates to a particular ethnic group or religion will affect how they behave in the labor market. This does not mean that immigrant communities must leave most of their culture behind and assimilate with the mainstream American culture to see Economic success.
It means that their dominant way of thinking should not be in conflict with the cultural practices that make the American economic wheel go round. For instance, households that have two or more incomes have more opportunity for upward mobility than households that have only one income. Therefore, a community that puts great emphasis on the man being the breadwinner and the wife being a stay-at-home mother may lag behind if they follow through with that culture on migrating to America.
The United States remains a free country and people enjoy the free will to change or not change their identity as much as they want to or need to. Citrin and Sears (2009) observe that the policy of the United States as one that does not give any preference to any religious and ethnic preference. Instead, the United States focuses on creating a national identity that is consistent with the national ideals it holds dear such as the equality of all men, democracy, and tolerance.
Therefore, even when there is no overlap between cultures and identities, there need not be a competition between the cultures. They can coexist with each other. This leaves the individual with free will to chart their own course and examine how much their own beliefs align with the goals they want to achieve and act based on their own agency (Citrin and Sears, 2009, p. 152).
What Might Serve Such an Identity Encompass, and How Would It Be Attained?
There are more than one million new immigrants that move to the United States. The current population share of immigrants is about 13 percent of the total population. Throughout America’s history, a significant portion of the population was immigrant. In fact, Before the 1920s, up to 15% of the population was made up of immigrants.
American society is generally tolerant of new identities and cultures that are not similar to theirs. Nonetheless, immigrants are always motivated to assimilate into the American mainstream identity while also maintaining certain unique aspects of their own identity and culture (Hirschman, 2014, p. 11).
Most immigrants moving into the United States are doing so in search of more promising economic opportunities. Indeed, the impact that immigrants have had on the development of various economic fields in the United States cannot be overstated. Technology is one of the areas that have benefited a great deal from the migration of highly skilled labor into the United States. Higher education has also benefited a lot from bright foreign students who come to study in American colleges. A great number of these students proceed to become citizens and make great contributions to the American economy (Hirschman, 2014, p.8).
Given the fact that immigration is mainly spurred by economic reasons, the formation of identities is influenced greatly by the mainstream characteristics that enable migrants to position themselves well to take advantage of the opportunities available in the labor market. Public expression of ethnic identity may be frowned upon in some settings in the United States. Therefore, an immigrant may maintain their ethnic identity but never express them publicly where they may be frowned upon.
Where it is beneficial to their assimilation in the workplace, most people will express an identity that shows their allegiance to the mainstream American ideas. Yogeeswaran, Dasgupta, & Gomez (2012) noted that an ethnic minority emphasizing their national service led to them being seen as more American while emphasizing an allegiance to their ethnic minority made them appear less American. This reality plays a role in how identities of migrants are shaped and how they may go about developing new identities even when they do so unconsciously (Park & Judd, 2005).
The American education system also plays a big role in shaping the identities of the students that go through it. Children of migrants tend to align their ideas more with the mainstream American ideas than their migrant parents do after they go through the American education system. It is noteworthy that the school system in the United States has taken lots of steps to make education more equal for all people no matter their backgrounds.
While legal status still plays a big role in education outcomes, many states such as California, Texas, New York and others have taken steps to allow undocumented children to go to public colleges after graduating from high school at tuition rates similar to those of resident children. Greater access to the entirety of the American education system by migrant children has played a role in shaping the identity of migrant children (Orrenius, 2004, p. 5).
What Is Gained, Or Lost, When Immigrants Become “Americanized”?
An assimilated immigrant transforms into a new person that exhibits passionate love for both America and their home country. Most migrants are acutely aware of the general ever-present requirement that they show dedication to American ideals. The gain from this awareness is that they look at themselves as fully American and begin to push with patriotic spirit for various ethnic causes they care about. In this essence, the rest of America gets to appreciate that their ethnic group is just as American as any other group and takes steps to afford them opportunities that other Americans have that they may have been denied implicitly or explicitly. This leads to the creation of a more harmonious and equal society that is good for all Americans (Hanley, 2012).
Italian-Americans is one of the communities that have immigrated into the United States and taken advantage of their newly formed identity to help their community integrate fully into mainstream American culture. From the 1900s to the present day, Italian-Americans have been a key part of American culture and there are several American advancements that are directly attributable to the presence of Italians in America. All this was made possible by the formation of new identities and assimilation of Italian-Americans into the dominant mainstream American culture. It can be said that Italian-American’s didn’t lose their identity but created a new identity in America (Pechie, 2015, p. 21).
America values productivity and the Americanization of immigrants can be seen in their participation in the labor market. Notably, low-skilled immigrants without a high school diploma are likely to join the workforce at a higher rate than low-skilled natives without a high school diploma. Immigrants are less likely to remain unemployed than natives. The commitment to work is a net gain to the United States.
In fact, on average, an immigrant does better socioeconomically than a similarly skilled native over the course of 16 to 20 years because of their commitment to work. When controlling for factors such as educational attainment, immigrants tend to be more productive and earn more than natives. This doesn’t mean that immigrants achieve the average American income levels. Attainment of such levels would represent full economic assimilation but such “Americanization” has not yet been attained (Orrenius, 2004, p. 5).

References
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