[NYTr] Aww... The Amerikan Dream Falters for 2nd Generation Immigrants

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by rick kissell

Christian Scence Monitor - August 10, 2007 edition - 
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0810/p01s03-ussc.html

American dream falters

Second generation immigrants' financial progress slows.

By Peter GrierStaf and Bina Venkataraman

WASHINGTON--Lionel Santibañez is better off because his parents came to
America. His father was illiterate and his mother spoke little English
when they arrived in Texas from Mexico in 1980. But they sacrificed,
saved, and pushed their kids into good schools -- and today Mr.
Santibañez is a college graduate who works at the M.D. Anderson Cancer
Center in Houston as a scientific editor.

"Absolutely I've had more opportunity than my parents," he says.

Raja Patel, on the other hand, is a second-generation immigrant who 
worries whether he's lived up to his parents' example. True, he's got a 
good job as a network engineer for an investment bank in New York City. 
But his father -- who emigrated from India in the late 1960s -- was a 
civil engineer who owned small stores on the side.

"I'm definitely not doing better financially than my dad," says Mr.
Patel.

For hundreds of thousands of immigrants to the US, the American dream 
lives. Their families prosper, with their children becoming more 
affluent than they were, according to a new report.

"The American engine of economic assimilation continues to be a
powerful force," concludes the Pew Charitable Trust study of immigrant
economic mobility.

But it's a force that may be faltering. The gains of second-generation 
immigrants have shrunk in recent years -- in part because 
first-generation immigrants now are poorer than at any time since World 
War II.

"I've been studying this stuff for a long time, and I was surprised by 
the amount of the first generation that is in bad shape," says Ron 
Haskins, the study's author.

The United States is now experiencing a wave of immigration comparable 
to the largest in its history. More than 1 million immigrants enter the 
United States legally every year, up from about 300,000 in the 1960s.
An estimated 500,000 illegal immigrants also enter the US annually, 
according to Pew.

The effect this influx has on the pay and prospects of nonimmigrant 
workers is a contentious issue. Some economists forcefully argue that 
immigration hurts the poor already present in the country -- 
particularly poor African-Americans. Others insist that the US economy 
is large enough to accommodate the newcomers easily.

The experience of the immigrants themselves, and the progress of their 
children, may receive less political attention. Yet immigrant economic 
mobility -- or lack of it -- could affect the US economy as a whole 
profoundly in coming years.

The American economy remains an escalator, carrying many children of 
immigrants to a better life, Pew found. Second-generation immigrants do 
much better than their parents, on average. They do so well, in fact, 
that they surpass the earnings of those whose families have lived in
the US much longer. Second-generation immigrants make 6.3 percent more
than nonimmigrant workers, according to data compiled by Pew.

Often this jump for the children is due to parental initiative and hard 
labor. David Hul's mother and father, for instance, fled Cambodia's 
cruel Khmer Rouge regime during the era of the Vietnam War. They came
to the US in 1981, eventually settling in Lowell, Mass.

Lack of English meant that Mr. Hul's father -- an engineer -- had to 
work long hours to eventually reach an employment level commensurate 
with his skills. Meanwhile, the senior Huls ran a convenience store on 
the side.

Hul, a Boston-based marketing manager for a technology firm, says he
has not had to worry about making a living as much as his parents did.
He says he's confident he will eventually be more financially
successful than they were.

But he knows his parents' drive helped him to his current economic
position.

The nationality diversity of immigrants -- both illegal and legal -- 
today is far different from in decades past. In the 1960s, Europe and 
Canada accounted for half the newcomers to the US. Now, they make up 
less than 20 percent.

Meanwhile, the percentage of immigrants from Latin America, the 
Caribbean, and Asia has jumped from about 50 percent in the 1960s to 
nearly 75 percent.

The educational mix of immigrants has remained relatively constant. The 
proportion of those with advanced degrees, at 12 percent, and those
with a high school degree or less, at 52 percent, is about the same
today as it was before 1970, according to Pew. .

However, the educational differences between immigrants from different 
regions of the world is "stark," in Pew's terminology. Half of Asian 
immigrants have at least a bachelor's degree. Half of Latin American 
immigrants haven't finished high school.

Not surprisingly, education plays a large role in the lives of many 
immigrants who have done well.

Kent Lee is a senior research scientist at a medical device technology 
firm in Minneapolis. His father, who immigrated to the US from Taiwan
in 1954, was the first person in his family to attend college. His
mother came to the US in 1972 as a graduate student.

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.]