“New” Kind of Immigration
The character of immigration has changed over the last few years, and, as Walter Russel Mead notes it’s going in a positive direction.
The conventional picture is of an unstoppable wave of unskilled, mostly Spanish-speaking workers—many illegal—coming across the Mexican border. People who see immigration this way fear that, instead of America assimilating the immigrants, the immigrants will assimilate us. But this picture is both out of date and factually wrong.
A report released this month by the Pew Research Center shows just how much the face of immigration has changed in the past few years. Since 2008, more newcomers to the U.S. have been Asian than Hispanic (in 2010, it was 36% of the total, versus 31%). Today’s typical immigrant is not only more likely to speak English and have a college education, but also to have come to the U.S. legally, with a job already in place.
What’s responsible for the change? The reasons include a rapidly falling birthrate in Mexico, dramatic economic growth there and the collapse of the U.S. residential construction industry—a traditional market for low-skilled, non-English speaking immigrants whose documentation was often subject to question.
Their country of origin or ethnicity is far less important than what they “bring to the table”.
Asians tend to be better-educated than most of the people in their countries of origin. Steeped in the culture of enterprise and capitalism, they’re more likely than native-born Americans to have a bachelor of arts degree. While family sponsorship is still the most important entry route for Asians (as for all immigrants), this group is three times more likely than other recent immigrants to come to the U.S. on visas arranged through employers.
In many cases, they’re not coming to the U.S. because of the economic conditions back home. After all, places like China, Korea and India have experienced jumps in prosperity and an explosion in opportunity for the skilled and the hardworking. But most of the new immigrants like it here and want to stay (only 12% wish they had stayed home).
More Asian-Americans (69%) than other Americans (58%) believe that you will get ahead with hard work. Also, 93% say that their ethnic group is “hardworking.”
…Nor does the community seem to be inward-looking or unwilling to assimilate. While just over half of first-generation Asian immigrants say that they speak English “very well,” 95% of those born in the U.S. say they do. Only 17% of second-generation Asian-Americans say that their friends are mostly members of their own ethnic group.
Perhaps reflecting this social integration, Asian-Americans are the most likely of all American racial groups to marry outside their own race: 29% married non-Asians between 2008 and 2010; the comparable figure for Hispanics was 26%, for blacks 17% and for whites 9%.
But there is something to be said for traditional cultural and social mores.
Only 16% of Asian-American babies are born out of wedlock, in contrast to 41% for the general population. In the U.S., 63% of all children grow up in a household with two parents; the figure for Asian-Americans is 80%….The hard work and strong family values appear to pay off: Asian-Americans’ median household income is $66,000 (national median: $49,800) and their median household wealth is $83,500 (national median: $68,529).
Bring on the Asians, I say!!
Look up the “Asiatic Barred Zone”sometime.
What I learned in the Border Patrol Academy was that Asians got treated worse than Blacks and Hispanics by immigration law-MUCH worse.
Check out what Anna May Wong went through every time she re entered the US.And she was a 2nd/3rd generation American.She was a famous actress too many people never heard of.
I am very proud to have moved out of RI after 60 years living in the state which is very narrow-minded old puritanical thinking separation by class, ethnic race and color to state HI where there is no majority race and everyone is treated as a minority.
There are no ethnic neighborhoods in HI; everyone lives together regardless of ethnic origin, culture, skin color, religion, language, wealth, politics, social status, sexual orientation, marital status or integrated marital status. HI has the highest percentage ethnic integrated marriages in the U.S.A. for a state per U.S. Census Bureau. A true real melting pot of the American nation.
Yes, there are a lot of Asians and Mexicans living in HI which are both very smart with college degrees and fluent in their native ethnic language, Hawaiian language and American language plus Chinese language!
So what if more Asians are immigrating to United States than Mexicans! Back in the 1800s both these groups were contracted to farm plantations in HI swelling the state population. In HI slavery was never practiced on the plantations because all labor was contract labor.
In the 1700s Africans and African-Americans or politically correct Blacks voyaged to HI and were welcomed into the HI Kingdom as the king’s advisors obtaining high social status and operating successful businesses as scientists, lawyers, educators and politicians leading to some U.S.A. wide discoveries in medical treatments and agriculture while those Africans in the Atlantic Ocean were being sold into slavery via the Brown family of RI.
During WWII all Japanese-Americans were rounded up and forced into internment camps (sort of a jail) because they were of Japanese origin.
Posted by Joe Bernstein:
“Asians got treated worse than Blacks and Hispanics by immigration law-MUCH worse.”
They were also the first to benefit from an “Amnesty”. After a lot of complaints from INS that “They all looked the same, and had the same names”, if they “confessed” illegal status, they were granted green cards. Those without documents were then considered “illegal”, in those days, that meant something. Check out the “Chinese Confession Cases”. On the dark side, “Chinatowns” have always had excessively high rates of alcoholism and other social disorders. Chinese gangs, or “tongs”, were also a problem.
Unlike many third worlders, they come from a society with a long history of central government (not always ideal) and educated elites. In a sense, they understand an orderly society. While I cannot give a statistic, they tend to learn English before coming here.
KenW,
Glad you found Utopia in Hawaii…yes, that was sarcasm. Not a hater. Just not a believer. How’s that homeless problem working out?
During WWII all Japanese-Americans were rounded up and forced into internment camps (sort of a jail) because they were of Japanese origin.
Posted by KenW at July 1, 2012 1:38 AM
What an ignorant comment from someone living in the state which has the highest percent of Japanese, virtually NONE of whom were interned by the leftist President and Congress in WW II.
Mind-boggling that you buy into the patent lie that Hawaiaan Japs were interned.
The only funny thing about the victory of the Open Borders extremists is the chuckle I get thinking that all these “Yes We Can” blacks voting in lockstep for the socialist party are digging their own grave. In a generation Latinos will have left blacks in the dust numerically and economically with Asians just getting ready to move into 3rd place. Blacks will be left as political ciphers.
@Warrington-wanna know another f**ked up thing I learned in the Academy?US citizen women LOST thier citizenship for marrying Asians during a certain period.A new special class of “immigrants”was created in 1940 to address this.”Immigrants” born here-!!And these illegals today and their “advocates”are whining-F**K THEM.
When I encounter Asians, I expect them to be engineers. Those few times I have encountered a large crowd of Asians, I did not feel trepidation.
A fleeting chance is all that’s left, as we are being stonewalled by President Obama Czarist court or Mitt Romney’s illusionary Senators and House of Representative Congress. We must ELECT every possible leader that we can, who believes in a true government and that is THE TEA PARTY. Not Obama’s Marxist-Socialist bloated administration, full of hundreds of agencies that is extracting money from all Americans at a rapid pace. Both parties agreeing to financially support the illegal alien invaders, running rampant across a country, bring with hard core criminals and unknown numbers of impoverished, desperate people. Whether by name or electing to cross the border is a violation of immigration law. But even though they are here to steal jobs, government services the Congress has played on the compassion of Americans to enact no laws that make it a Felony to enter our nation, unlike the corrupt government of Mexico. That any person who violates our border or arrives by plane can disappear, without being tracked as they do in Mexico and other countries. Worse still is that the government is misleads us about the fence, that they lie about it being secure, that outside the populated areas, you find nothing more than a few rusty posts and eroded barbed wire if it exists at all. This can be substantiated by going to the AMERICAN PATROL website, which has complete surveys, grid maps of our dangerous border and the revealing truth. The fact that the Supreme Court stunned the world by voting against the State of Arizona, in all but one provision, drove the nail even harder into America’s financial coffin by giving the Czars in Obama’s Imperial court the right to tax everybody for a Comprehensive health Care package. To me, this means millions of illegal aliens will join… Read more »
Tommy Cranston, There were 3 documented Japanese internment camps on Oahu and any overflow was sent to the mainland.
“The 442nd Regimental Combat Team (Japanese: 第442連隊戦闘団) of the United States Army, was composed of Japanese-American enlisted men and mostly Caucasian officers. They fought primarily in Europe during World War II, beginning in 1944. The families of many of its soldiers were subject to internment. The 442nd was a self-sufficient force, and fought with uncommon distinction in Italy, southern France, and Germany. The unit became the most highly–decorated regiment in the history of the United States Armed Forces, including 21 Medal of Honor recipients. The motto of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team was “Go for Broke.””
Max D, As with any large city with this pass recession we all have had problems with the homeless especially with mainlanders and foreign investors purchasing properties for investments and raising rents catering to tourists’ dollars. Lucky unlike back in RI Hawaii’s average daily 365 day temperature is 78 F degrees so many homeless have just purchased tents and set them up on the beaches which most all have free rest rooms and facilities plus BBQs, picnic tables and free parking. This created a problem on Oahu which first had to be addressed via changing laws which guarantee all residents free rights to beaches. Then notice had to be given to squatters/homeless that the beach would be closed for cleanup and once that occurred signs had to be posted indicating the city passed a new ordinance law specific to that beach and park were closed during certain hours over the night unless you had a $10 permit to camp overnight up to a daily limit not to exceed 6 days. Then they had to setup a permit system and the police had to start patrols of the beach and parks during closure hours. The city has been making sweeps through all 100 beaches and parks that ring Oahu but some homeless have moved into the bushes. The city has opened homeless shelters along with community and religious groups to get the people into some proper housing but you have diehards that want nothing doing with following rules and just keep moving from one place to the next when they are impacted with a cleanup (like in NH; “it’s live free die free”). About 90% of Oahu’s homeless are now in shelters and off the streets, beaches, parks and out of the bush but it’s been a hell of a battle… Read more »
Tommy Cranston,
You said; “During WWII all Japanese-Americans were rounded up and forced into internment camps (sort of a jail) because they were of Japanese origin.
Posted by KenW at July 1, 2012 1:38 AM
What an ignorant comment from someone living in the state which has the highest percent of Japanese, virtually NONE of whom were interned by the leftist President and Congress in WW II.
Mind-boggling that you buy into the patent lie that Hawaiaan Japs were interned.
Posted by at July 1, 2012 12:43 PM”
I suggest you review your American history (if you can read American English) and timeframe before you insert your foot into your mouth and out of your ass again. Your New England intelligence or lack thereof is showing and it is “Brown”. Are you next going to tell me the Holocaust never happened too like someone in Iran tried to tell the world which would place you in same class????
KenW
Except for ‘Quality of Life’ ranking, Hawaii looks a lot like Rhode Island just more expensive. Quality of Life is a big one though so I’ll bow to you for that.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/41666605/
“THE IDIOTS IN WASHINGTON KEEP TELLING US THAT OUR IMMIGRATION LAWS ARE BROKEN. THEY ARE NOT!”
No, they absolutely are not. Such duplicity. The laws – especially e-verify and the qualification guidelines on social programs – simply need to be enforced.
Setting aside for a moment the larger issue of the threat to the country’s sovereignty, it is the height of dishonesty and craven cowardice to refuse to enforce our immigration laws and then say, “Oh, look! Our immigration laws are broken! Guess we have no choice but to open wide the borders!”
@Monique-since when did the truth and common sense have any currency with the resident leftists here.
Personally,if Sammy really exists in Arizona,I hope he meets up with the less “noble” kind of border crossers.
These leftist idiots assign some higher status of humanity to people who sneak into the country or abuse hospitality.They wouldn’t be so tolerant if it were their house.Phony bastards.