Talk about burying the lede: success in life depends on where people settle

Why do journalists do this sort of thing? Emily Badger at The Upshot reports on a working paper from a team of economic historians at Princeton, Stanford and the University of California, Davis. They found that in every generation since the 1880s, children of poor immigrants (actually they say "sons") have been more economically successful than children of "similarly poor fathers born in the United States." That is, once immigrant families become established, many prove adept at getting ahead.

The adult children of poor Mexican and Dominican immigrants in the country legally today achieve about the same relative economic success as children of poor immigrants from Finland or Scotland did a century ago. All of them, in their respective eras, have fared better than the children of poor native-born Americans. If the American dream is to give the next generation a better life, it appears that poor immigrants have more reliably achieved that dream than native-born Americans have.

It would seem to me that the phenomenon that needs more study here is what's keeping poor native-born families from doing as well -- but that's not what this study is about.

The researchers examined whether their findings merely showed that first generation immigrants, learning a new language and culture, simply could not make much money, so the successes of their children stood out in contrast to the fathers. And they looked at whether second generation immigrants looked successful because the U.S.-born poor cohort to which they were compared included a lot of African Americans who suffer from the historic wealth gap arising from their family history of being enslaved and subjected to discrimination. But the apparent advantages of immigrant children still appear in the data when Black peers are left out of the comparisons.

So what's going on? Way at the end of Badger's article she explains: new immigrants tend to settle or move to places in the United States where the economy is strong and opportunity is greater.

So what else might explain this pattern that is so consistent through history and across diverse immigrant groups? The researchers point to one other factor that we know influences a child’s economic mobility — where he lives. Both documented and undocumented immigrants have tended to cluster in common international ports of entry, in major cities, in communities where jobs are easier to find. The places they have moved to have frequently been the same places that have offered better economic mobility to everyone.

In their data, when the researchers compare the sons of immigrants with the sons of native-born fathers who grew up in the same county, the difference in their mobility rates largely vanishes. This suggests that what separates these immigrant and native-born groups isn’t necessarily some quality inherent in their culture or work ethic, but rather their decisions on where to live.

Looked at another way, immigrants embody the upward mobility more native-born families in poverty might experience if they were more able or willing to move. In this way, immigrants have one significant advantage U.S.-born families don’t. They’re not bound by generations of family ties or by the feeling they can’t leave a particular place, whether things are going well there or not.

My emphasis. Immigrants do what residents of this rich land have always done if they could. They go where the getting is good; they "head out for the territory." Movement of people for a better life has always been how this country worked.

Like a lot of privileged white people, I can say I did this myself, trading in declining Buffalo, New York roots for mid-20th century California.

What needs sympathetic study is why some people can't, don't, or won't participate in the great national ebb and flow for better lives....
Meet a second generation immigrant who has found her niche -- and should be able to keep it, despite Trump's ugly attempt to expel her.