Puncturing myths - Immigrant assimilation does happen

Some myths are disproved here, read this and you can see the assimilation happens, automatically. - - Donna Poisl

UNION-TRIBUNE EDITORIAL

It's the strangest thing. Much of the heat generated by the immigration debate comes from myths masquerading as facts, things which people are passionate about and know to be true but actually are false.

As when some people say immigrant birthrates in the United States are going up, but all the available research points to newcomers having smaller families for economic reasons. Or when some say immigrants aren't learning English when, actually, native-language retention is the real challenge. Or when we say illegal immigrants don't pay taxes when, actually, they pay a bundle in sales taxes and property taxes.

Also on the list: the assumption that recent waves of immigrants, especially from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America, aren't assimilating and that they and their children usually wind up stuck in a permanent underclass because they lack wealth, skills and education.

Again, simply not true, according to a timely and important new study from researchers Michael J. White and Jennifer E. Glick, who examined the issue for the Russell Sage Foundation. The study – “Achieving Anew: How New Immigrants Do in American School, Jobs, and Neighborhoods” – takes aim at several misconceptions about immigrants and how they fare in U.S. society. According to the study, the poverty gap between immigrants and natives decreased from 1994 to 2004 and the poverty level for immigrants fell over the entire decade; immigrants who arrive in the United States as children and attend U.S. schools tend to achieve parity with natives at the same socioeconomic status; and, over the generations, children of immigrants and immigrant children do as well as the children of U.S. natives unless they encounter obstacles such as poverty or discrimination.

And here's a troubling surprise. The researchers found that adults who were born in the United States to immigrant parents were more likely to have a college degree than adults who were in the third generation.

This sort of finding challenges the conventional wisdom that the longer an immigrant family stays in the United States, the better off it is. In some respects, that's true. No matter what some folks believe, assimilation happens. And when it does, immigrants are invariably better off. But there are also some bad habits that people pick up living in the United States, such as taking for granted the value of an education.

Studies like this are extremely important, even if many Americans aren't ready to accept all of their conclusions. The immigration debate already has plenty of fear, division and animosity. What it could use more of is facts.

And who knows? If those facts are given a fair hearing, we might just get beyond a lot of the emotion surrounding the immigration issue and get closer to a viable solution. A great country deserves no less.