Immigration, Assimilation, and Wage Discrimination: A Review

Introduction: Anti-Immigrant Sentiment and Its Economic Consequences

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 frequently rooted in prejudice and 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-Citizen and Being a Mexican Immigrant in California and Texas," examined labor markets in California and Texas. It found that non-citizen immigrants received significantly lower hourly wages in California compared with a demographically similar population in Texas. The researchers attributed this disparity to a series of anti-immigrant laws—including Proposition 187, 209, and 227—passed in California during the 1990s, which validated and reinforced prejudices against immigrant workers (Takei et al. 2009, pp. 73–74).

Social prejudices become more acceptable when policy initiatives are embraced by the public and passed by a majority of the state. Interestingly, despite its reputation as a progressive state, California has often been the launching pad for socially regressive referendums regarding property taxes, immigration, and marriage reform. These laws, the authors suggest, create a kind of state culture of popularly validated prejudice against immigrants.

California Legislation and Wage Disparities Among Mexican Immigrants

Of course, it could be argued that anti-immigrant attitudes permeate all of America, and that the Southwest may merely appear more prejudiced because of geographical factors and its higher immigrant population. The fact that California seems to express such attitudes more vehemently than even its neighbors may be the result of other social forces. The laws may reflect California's special circumstances—such as its highly competitive labor market—without actually causing prejudice. Nevertheless, the researchers note that the trend toward a wage disparity between immigrants and native-born Californians, while always present, became particularly pronounced when the state initiatives were passed.

Since propositions are passed by public referendums, a chicken-and-egg argument presents itself: did prejudice escalate, and were the referendums therefore passed as a result? The authors suggest that California's unique situation—in terms of both how it legislates and its economic conditions—created circumstances less favorable to tolerance of foreign-born workers.

The federal Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986 was also passed during this period. It directly penalized employers for hiring undocumented workers. The law was enforced across states, 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 the state-level laws (Takei et al. 2009, p. 75).

Limitations of the California-Texas Comparative Study

The study carries certain limitations. Chief among them is the difficulty of distinguishing between documented and undocumented workers, along with an acknowledged underreporting of data, since workers were often reluctant to divulge their immigration status. The authors also concede that many other possible factors associated with greater intolerance in California were not accounted for: "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).