Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies recommends this unusually honest article in the Washington Post — Struggles of the second generation, by N.C. Aizenman. Subtitled “U.S.-born children of Latino immigrants fight to secure a higher foothold,” it starts off with a personal story like almost all Washington Post articles, but soon proceeds to the problems:
Whether they [the second generation of Latino immigrants] succeed will have consequences far beyond immigrant circles. As a result of the arrival of more than 20 million mostly Mexican and Central American newcomers in a wave that swelled in the 1970s and soared during the 1990s, the offspring of Latino immigrants now account for one of every 10 children, both in the United States and the Washington region.
Largely because of the growth of this second generation, Latino immigrants and their U.S.-born children and grandchildren will represent almost a third of the nation’s working-age adults by mid-century, according to projections from U.S. Census Bureau data by Jeffrey S. Passel, a demographer with the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center in Washington.
Not since the last great wave of immigration to the United States around 1900 has the country’s economic future been so closely entwined with the generational progress of an immigrant group. And so far, on nearly every measure, the news is troubling.
Second-generation Latinos have the highest high school dropout rate — one in seven — of any U.S.-born racial or ethnic group and the highest teen pregnancy rate. These Latinos also receive far fewer college degrees and make significantly less money than non-Hispanic whites and other second-generation immigrants.
The reporter points out that their parents, the original immigrants, started out with very little education so although their children have made gains they are still far behind. Here’s the one piece of good news in the article:
Perhaps the only yardstick by which the second generation has achieved unambiguous success is the one that has stirred the most public controversy: English proficiency. Despite fears among some people that English usage is diminishing in the Latino community, census data and several studies indicate that by the second generation, nearly all Latinos are fluent in English and that by the third generation, few can even speak Spanish.
Much of the article traces the life of one second-generation young man, a high-school dropout and former gang member. He now has two children with his wife or girlfriend and has settled down. But he earns very little, can’t see a better future, and thinks of leaving it all. This is not a perky immigrant story by any means, and I am grateful to the Washington Post for publishing it.