Throughout Chapter 5 of Borjas’ We Wanted Workers, he focuses on the concept of economic assimilation and how this differs from assimilation in other areas of life. Borjas begins by addressing the idea that immigrants who have been in the country longer have significantly higher levels of economic assimilation than those who are newer to the country. However, he then goes on to quote Huntington from his book Who Are We? in which he points out that Mexican immigrants are assimilating at a much slower rate and much less than other immigrants in the past. From here he goes on to address this perceived “slow down” of assimilation of immigrants in the United States. He explains an interesting phenomenon in which the immigrants in the two major waves of immigration, before 1920 and after 1980, do not assimilate particularly fast or well. In fact, it is the immigrants who came in between these periods of time, when there were heavy immigration restrictions, that assimilated the most. In order to address this phenomenon and further explain it, Borjas defines ethnic enclaves. This is the concept that if there is an immigrant ethnic group concentrated in a specific area in the receiving country, there is less need or desire to assimilate to the country’s culture. Therefore, considering that the waves contained a great number of immigrants, there are more people who tended to cling together and could get by without assimilating. When applying this to the mass Mexican immigration, Borjas makes a point to state that the Mexican immigrants are not in a unique position because they are Mexican. They are in a unique situation because of the amount of them, the skills that they bring with them, and the concentration of them in various parts of America. It is important to recognize that based on immigration theory, the Mexicans are performing exactly how one would expect them to perform.
When moving forward and attempting to address immigration in the future, it seems to me that Borjas would possibly present that the United States should restrict immigration to a certain extent in order to promote assimilation. However, I struggle with this morally. While I do understand that economically, this is a viable step, I feel that it may not be in line with American values and our national identity. I am curious to hear other people’s opinions about this question. What do you think Borjas would suggest for the future? What do you think is the best next step?