…for the Immigration Policy Center, with Benjamin Johnson…
A question that arises repeatedly in the immigration debate is whether or not the children and grandchildren of modern-day immigrants from Latin America are moving up the socioeconomic ladder like the descendants of European immigrants who came to the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However, comparing immigrant communities from these two eras is no simple task. The progress enjoyed by previous waves of European immigrants can be evaluated with a century’s worth of hindsight. Successive generations of Italian Americans, for instance, have provided an increasingly clear contrast to the first-generation (foreign-born) immigrants who arrived at Ellis Island a hundred or more years ago with little – if any – money, education or knowledge of English. Such neat historical comparisons are not possible for Latinos, nearly half of whom are first-generation immigrants just starting the process of advancement begun decades ago by their European counterparts…
