It is the general perception among the American society that earlier immigrates were successful compared to the immigrants of the current generation. Although this claim could be partially true based on one’s arguments as extracted from their experiences, the statement is basically a myth. This is because recent Pew Research center’s Statistics suggests that the inverse is true. The history course of the immigrants to the US radically shifted and took another direction after 1965 (Duggan et al., 2013). 1965 is the year during which the abolishment of the origins quota system law was put in place. As a result, it enabled immigrants to reunite with their families and exercise location mobility in a free manner. This brought about tends in which professionals migrated to the US to occupy various positions (Carmon, 1996). The paper provides an insight for the argument that recent immigrants have come to be more successful than their forefathers. The focus will be critically examining and analyzing their score in accordance to education, residential settlement and economic integration.
Educational attainment
The US economy is formed by the integration of various ethnic groups; the larger percentage is migrants from all over the world. The immigrant percentage carries a vital role to the development of the economy (SMITH, 2013). This is because they form the most educated group in the United States, hence occupying the larger part of the white collar jobs. Immigrants groups from various countries have steadily advanced in educational dimensions. The sequence has been from generation to the next since the preceding ones act as pathways. It indicates that those who came to the US earlier in such of better living played their card appropriately. They went up and down to get their children acquire education (Passel et al., 2010). As a result, their children succeeded and grew out to be high skilled and responsible adults. This is however not to assume that the earlier generation immigrants had no chance to progress in education. It is only that they faced great challenges, aggregately more than those facing the current generation.
The statistics also show that native born American that hold college degrees are insignificant compared to the immigrants. The distributions also broaden ahead with immigrants from the second generation enjoying the bigger share. Figures from statistics reflect an average of 67% of current immigrants graduating from college. This includes all immigrants who came from all corners of the globe. Comparing it with the number of those who arrived in the US earlier, there is an increase of about 30%. Those who have not graduated but enrolled to educational institutions, again American immigrants group forms the larger bracket. Going by these records, it is evident that the immigrants of second generation are more placed to achieving the American dream (Ehrenhalt, 2012). Therefore, in educational dimension, it is clear that the current immigrant group in the US surpass the level of their predecessors.
Residential assimilation and settlement
When immigrants arrived in the US in the early and middle twentieth century, their organizational settlement was based on ethnic enclaves. They were not subjected to a full interaction with other groups. Experts interpret the level of interaction as a determinant to whether one advances or is left behind (García, 2013). This is because interaction is a catalyst to economic advancement. Little efforts to get people know each other and have social and economic integration makes a group of people live by their few skills (Ramos, 2002). They are not able to absorb other life skills and techniques from other groups that are necessary for societal growth and development. It also hampers the chance to getting job opportunities and enjoys the value of life associated with community integration and unity. This was the environment the earlier US immigrant group was exposed to.
The situation is contrarily to the later immigrants group. This is because today’s immigrants are exposed to a high social environment. They live with different people from other ethnic backgrounds in their neighborhood (Fernández et al., 2008). This pattern of livelihood is critical to both social and economic dimensions. People get advantages of assimilation. An integrated society containing the rich, middle class people and the poor is molded. Transfer of appropriate norms, beliefs, and traditional practices is enabled. These among other elements are a necessity to enhancing and uplifting living standards of the society. Therefore, the differences in ways of settlements observed from the two immigrant groups can tell a lot about their success (Diamond, 2005). It is evidently clear the later or today’s immigrates have over shadowed their counterparts in attainment of life goals and satisfactory standards of living.
Economic integration
The earlier immigrant group faced adequate economic challenges upon arriving in the US. First, the economy was less developed and provided little opportunities as compared to the current US economy (Cose, 2001). Even through the country have made major industrial advancement, less opportunities existed in the economic environment for the immigrants of that time. This was accompanied by their aggregately less skills and technical capabilities they had during their time (Mohammad, 2002). The United States labor market therefore absorbed a small number of immigrants. More so, the absorbed group of labor received aggregately low remuneration. The result is that, their economical statuses put them in low social classes. Majority lived only within the struggle to provide themselves with basic needs and generally in the poor and middle classes (Schultz et al., 2013). This was brought about by the little chance of economic integration.
On the other hand, the situation with today’s immigrants is very different. People arriving in the United States go to a destination with much allowing factors of individual development. They get readily integrated with the native population and enjoy all aspects of social and economic integration. Since the US economy is much better in terms of growth, as compared to the earlier economy, immigrants fall into perfect environment that raises their statuses (Lederhendler, 1994). Statistics show that currents immigrants are competitive enough to getting involved directly with the development of the US economy. They do businesses freely and enjoy all factors of a broaden economy. It makes them in a better position to attain self actualization. High level and rate of individual success is essential to the success of the community and society at large.
The level of advancement of the earlier immigrant group to the US therefore cannot compare with that of today’s immigrants. The benchmark to fully satisfy this is through the three aspects, that is level of education, settlement, and economic integration. Earlier group only opened way for the new generation (Jacoby, 2004). Their benefits at that time were outweighed with the challenges that exposed them. This is contrarily to the current social and economic environment which is open enough for all residents regardless of their ethnic background (Perlmann, 2005). Therefore the concept and perception that today’s immigrants are less successful in comparison with the earlier generation is only but just a mere myth. The reverse is the reality.
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