When American citizens tell the stories of their ancestors coming to America, a common theme often emerges. Hardly anyone tells the tale of how their grandparents made an easy move and then started a booming business, no, people recount harrowing tales of backbreaking labor, awful factory conditions, work that immigrants could get because nobody else wanted to do it. These stories are often largely exaggerated, but they do bear some truth. The turn-of-the-century immigrants were faced with tremendous amounts of economic hardship. Is immigrating today any easier?
The general perception of the work that today’s immigrants do is very similar. We hear of former scientists and lawyers becoming tailors and delivery boys because their degrees do not translate here or because they do not speak English well enough. Though this does occur, to some extent, most of today’s immigrants are in a better position than those a hundred years ago. To begin with, many who come to America today can already speak the language fluently. This makes sense because many come from places such as Jamaica, India and the Philippines, where English is the national language. Compared to the early twentieth century, when almost half of the Italian immigrants who were questioned stated that they did not know how to read or write, immigrants today have a tremendous advantage. Being able to speak the language fluently and conduct business in it means that the immigrants have a much bigger chance at professional success in this country.
Language is not the only advantage that the new wave of immigrants has over the old. People all over the world today are more educated than they were a century ago, but the difference is much more pronounced in second and third world countries. While the immigrants of a century ago were largely uneducated – and those with an education often had one that meant little or nothing in America – comparatively huge percentages of today’s immigrants are well educated. Education varies by country, and the statistics range from Mexico, where 43% of immigrants have less than a ninth grade education, to India, whose immigrants have an extremely high rate of college and post-college education. This puts the immigrants in a much better position, allowing them to obtain jobs in much higher paying fields than the Jews and Italians could find many years ago.
The third advantage that immigrants today have is that many of them are able to bring over capitol from their home countries, in particular those hailing from Korea, China and India. The previous wave of immigrants often came with little more than the shirts on their backs, so they had nothing with which to start a business or help their families. Foner has made it clear that today’s immigrants do not have it easy and there are many challenges that they face, but their superior English skills, education and money give them a tremendous advantage over the immigrants of old, hopefully allowing them to assimilate more quickly into American society.
