Here are a couple of things you might not know about immigrants in the United States these days:
- On the whole, today's immigrants arrive with better English skills than the Southern and Eastern European immigrant groups of a century ago. Those who don't know English when they arrive are less likely to learn, though.
- Even though the process of becoming a citizen is much more complicated than a century ago, the naturalization rate has barely budged over the past century. Of course, some immigrant groups naturalize much more often than others.
- For the first time in history, the nation's largest immigrant group earns less, on average, than the typical native-born person. Even Italian immigrants in 1910 made more money than average Americans, even though they tended to be poorly educated. Their secret? They moved to cities, where the big opportunities were, while the native born were still predominantly in rural areas.
- None of the most common proposals for immigration reform will do much to encourage immigrants to assimilate -- economically, culturally, or civically. There is an alternative, though.
How do I know these things? I wrote an award-winning book about them! Here are a few ways you can learn a bit more about it:
If you have two minutes, you can watch the highlights of a presentation I made at the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh this past Monday.
If you have more time than that, you can watch the entire presentation here.
And if you have about $30, you can buy your own copy.
