Integration of New Immigrants in the USA - Essay Example

“Immigration is driving America's demographic change, demographers and others who work with immigrants and refugees reported at the APA Expert Summit on Immigration held in San Antonio in early February” (Farberman, 2006).

Immigration does not provide immigrants with a high standard of living until many years after settlement in the host country. Most immigrant families fall below the poverty line in terms of living and their children are disadvantaged in terms of poor educational opportunities. This can be estimated from the fact that 30% of the children belonging to Mexican immigrant families, 29% are children of Dominican Republic immigrants, 34% of children of Cambodian immigrants, and 29% of children of Afghan immigrants in the USA live below the poverty line (Farberman, 2006). While the initial few years are tough for the immigrants, they yield many economic benefits for the nationals of the host country. New immigrants provide business entrepreneurs with the opportunity to maximize their provides because “migrants perform tasks, at rates of pay, which most domestic workers would be unwilling to work at” (The Economic Affairs Committee, 2008a, p. 100). However, the labor costs go down because of the willingness of the immigrants to work at lower wages (The Economic Affairs Committee, 2008b, p. 37). While this benefits the business entrepreneurs, it adversely affects the employees of the host country whose salaries go down in comparison. Nevertheless, “the total gains accruing to some U.S.-born workers are larger than the total losses suffered by others” (Peri, 2010).

According to Hirschman (n.d., p. 1), the social perceptions towards immigration are shaped by its economic outcomes as well as an emotional dimension that a vast majority of Americans feel more comfortable socializing with people they know than with strangers. There is an inherent fear that the immigrants would show reluctance to give up their original values and culture for the sake of integrating into American society and culture. This fear might be a potential hurdle in the way of native Americans extending the hand of help to the new immigrants to help them overcome the obstacles of assimilation into the new culture. “This trend in immigration has and will continue to have a significant impact on all U.S. institutions, from schools to the labor force to media and politics, to health care” (de las Fuentes cited in Farberman, 2006).

To date, most of the research discussing the factors affecting the immigrants or the natives of the host countries is either about old immigrants or their children or the immigrants in general. There is a gap in the literature about the effects of immigration on the life of new immigrants and the factors affecting the new immigrants’ integration in the host country. This research will particularly focus on the population of new immigrants to study these factors. Knowledge of the factors affecting the new immigrants is fundamental to the development and implementation of strategies to remove the hurdles in their way so that they can settle as quickly as possible and start playing their constructive role in society and contributing to the nation’s economy.

Research Question
The literature review suggests that immigrant families have to face a lot of economic, psychological, and emotional challenges soon after immigration. This leads to the development of the question; what factors hinder the integration of new immigrant families in the host countries? Factors that would be uncovered after this research might include but not be limited to culture shock, lack of awareness of opportunities, linguistic barriers, and racism. Read More