 |
| David Hul of Lowell, Mass., expects to do better than his parents, who came to the US as Thai refugees. Nicole Hill |
American dream falters
Second generation immigrants' financial progress slows.
from the August 10, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
Mr. Lee remembers a constant focus on education from his parents. In the end, he and his two sisters all had the chance to attend college and graduate schools.
"It all depends on what base you come from," Lee says. "If you come from a family with an emphasis on good education, you can do well."
Overall, however, second-generation immigrants are not doing quite as well as they used to. Their income lead over nonimmigrant workers has shrunk, from 14.6 percent in 1970 to 6.3 percent today.
In part this is because their parents aren't doing as well, either. In 1970, the relative wages of first-generation immigrants were slightly higher than those of nonimmigrants. By 2000, their wages had fallen to 19.7 percent below those of nonimmigrants, according to Pew.
If this decline continues apace, wages of second-generation immigrants will fall below nonimmigrant pay by 2030.
"If low wages persist into the second and subsequent generations for substantial numbers of immigrants, economic hardship may persist beyond the first generation and assimilation into American society may become more difficult," says the Pew report on immigrants and economic mobility.
Not that assimilation is a snap now. After all, it's a process that involves more than money.
Take Wade Tsai, who, as a small boy, immigrated to the US from Taiwan with his parents in the late 1970s. His parents sweated when he was young, working at a series of restaurants, among other jobs, to ensure that Mr. Tsai and his sister could go to college.
But for all the years they have spent in the US, the parents remain tied to old tradition and culture. Tsai's mother still cannot speak English well, despite the fact that she was a cashier for many years. Neither she nor her husband was much help for their children when it came to adapting to American ways.
Today, Tsai is an engineering manager who lives in Seattle. He says that he has had to learn things that people who grew up in the US seem to know from birth, such as how to interact and the toughness of competition in business.
"You just kind of learn it as you go," he says. "So that's the most challenging part about being the second generation, because you have this disconnect between the old-school culture you've emigrated from, and the one you've come to."
• Elizabeth Armstrong Moore contributed from Portland, Ore.
RSS feed
){kind=link}