Dear Editor,
Making it to North America is a dream come true. The dream that propels many immigrants to North America’s shores is the possibility of offering a better future for their children. The children of first-generation immigrants growing up close to the bottom of the income distribution (say, at the 25th percentile) are more likely to reach the middle of the income distribution than are children of similarly poor U.S.-born parents.
What’s more, no matter which country their parents came from, children of immigrants are more likely than the children of the U.S.-born to surpass their parents’ incomes when they are adults.
Even children of parents from very poor countries like Laos outperform the children of the U.S.-born raised in similar households.
What enables the children of immigrants to escape poor circumstances and move up the economic ladder? The answer we hear most often is that immigrants have a better work ethic than the US-born and that immigrant parents put more emphasis on education.
Despite the hatred directed at immigrants and refugees coming to the United States and other western nations, a new report suggests that children of migrants are the ones realizing the upward mobility of the American dream, rising out of poverty at higher rates than the children of parents born in the US. Similar trends can be found in other parts of the world too, like Canada.
Before we demonize immigrants, it would be best if we looked at the science. As studies elsewhere in the world have shown, such as those by Daniel Hiebert in Canada, after just 20 years, immigrants and their children tend to match median incomes for their host countries and reach levels of home ownership and employment that are equal to, or above, the rates found among native-born populations.
Many immigrants go to North America with little less education and end up doing better financially than Americans. Even though many immigrants start at a disadvantage, they overcome their disadvantages. Immigrants go to North America with a burning desire and hunger to succeed.
As a first generation Guyanese American, I went to America after dropping out of school and with little education, and was able to earned a master’s degree and own multiple houses .
My second generation children are married to Americans are outperforming their spouses. My children’s in-laws are impressed by our family’s upward mobility trajectory having come from one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere. Their in-laws are not as successful, and they are in tremendous financial debt.
Their in-laws have the utmost respect for our family for having started life at a disadvantage, our family was able to overcome the many obstacles and make it in America and even doing better than them financially.
When it comes to the American Dream, our family achieved it—big time.
Why the immigrants do better than many Americans? Because they don’t let their lack of education, racism, discrimination, or their disadvantaged past keep them from their goals to succeed.
Many of these immigrants wouldn’t have been so successful had they remained in their countries. The hunger and drive to succeed wouldn’t have been in them. Immigrating created the fuel that led to the fire that led to the drive to succeed.
That said, migrating is the key to financial upward mobility.
Yours faithfully,
Anthony Pantlitz
