immigrants and the american dream essay

• Criminal Justice

My immigrant family achieved the American dream. Then I started to question it.

by Amanda Machado

In summer 2007, I returned home from my freshman year at Brown University to the new house my family had just bought in Florida. It had a two-car garage. It had a pool. I was on track to becoming an Ivy League graduate, with opportunities no one else in my family had ever experienced. I stood in the middle of this house and burst into tears. I thought: We’ve made it.

That moment encapsulated what I had always thought of the “American dream.” My parents had come to this country from Mexico and Ecuador more than 30 years before, seeking better opportunities for themselves. They worked and saved for years to ensure my two brothers and I could receive a good education and a solid financial foundation as adults. Though I can’t remember them explaining the American dream to me explicitly, the messaging I had received by growing up in the United States made me know that coming home from my first semester at a prestigious university to a new house meant we had achieved it.

• I spent the last 15 years trying to become an American. I've failed.

And yet, now six years out of college and nearly 10 years past that moment, I’ve begun questioning things I hadn’t before: Why did I “make it” while so many others haven’t? Was this conventional version of making it what I actually wanted? I’ve begun to realize that our society’s definition of making it comes with its own set of limitations and does not necessarily guarantee all that I originally assumed came with the American dream package.

I interviewed several friends from immigrant backgrounds who had also reflected on these questions after achieving the traditional definition of success in the United States. Looking back, there were several things we misunderstood about the American dream. Here are a few:

1) The American dream isn’t the result of hard work. It’s the result of hard work, luck, and opportunity.

Looking back, I can’t discount the sacrifices my family made to get where we are today. But I also can’t discount specific moments we had working in our favor. One example: my second-grade teacher, Ms. Weiland. A few months into the year, Ms. Weiland informed my parents about our school’s gifted program. Students tracked into this program in elementary school would usually end up in honors and Advanced Placement classes in high school — classes necessary for gaining admission into prestigious colleges.

My parents, unfamiliar with our education system, didn’t understand any of this. But Ms. Weiland went out of her way to explain it to them. She also persuaded school administrators to test me for entrance into the program, and with her support, I eventually earned a spot.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that Ms. Weiland’s persistence ultimately influenced my acceptance into Brown University. No matter how hard I worked or what grades I received, without gifted placement I could never have reached the academic classes necessary for an Ivy League school. Without that first opportunity given to me by Ms. Weiland, my entire educational trajectory would have changed.

The philosopher Seneca said, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” But in the United States, too often people work hard every day, and yet never receive the opportunities that I did — an opportunity as simple as a teacher advocating on their behalf. Statistically, students of color remain consistently undiscovered by teachers who often , intentionally or not, choose mostly white, high-income students to enter advanced or “gifted” programs , regardless of their qualifications. Upon entering college, I met several students from across the country who also remained stuck within their education system until a teacher helped them find a way out.

Research has proved that these inconsistencies in opportunity exist in almost every aspect of American life. Your race can determine whether you interact with police, whether you are allowed to buy a house , and even whether your doctor believes you are really in pain . Your gender can determine whether you receive funding for your startup or whether your attempts at professional networking are effective. Your “foreign-sounding” name can determine whether someone considers you qualified for a job. Your family’s income can determine the quality of your public school or your odds that your entrepreneurial project succeeds .

These opportunities make a difference. They have created a society where most every American is working hard and yet only a small segment are actually moving forward. Knowing all this, I am no longer naive enough to believe the American dream is possible for everyone who attempts it. The United States doesn’t lack people trying. What it lacks is an equal playing field of opportunity.

2) Accomplishing the American dream can be socially alienating

Throughout my life, my family and I knew this uncomfortable truth: To better our future, we would have to enter spaces that felt culturally and racially unfamiliar to us. When I was 4 years old, my parents moved our family to a predominantly white part of town, so I could attend the county’s best public schools. I was often one of the only students of color in my gifted and honors programs. This trend continued in college and afterward: As an English major, I was often the only person of color in my literature and creative writing classes. As a teacher, I was often one of few teachers of color at my school or in my teacher training programs.

While attending Brown, a student of color once told me: “Our education is really just a part of our gradual ascension into whiteness.” At the time I didn’t want to believe him, but I came to understand what he meant: Often, the unexpected price for academic success is cultural abandonment.

In a piece for the New York Times , Vicki Madden described how education can create this “tug of war in [your] soul”:

To stay four years and graduate, students have to come to terms with the unspoken transaction: exchanging your old world for a new world, one that doesn’t seem to value where you came from. … I was keen to exchange my Western hardscrabble life for the chance to be a New York City middle-class museum-goer. I’ve paid a price in estrangement from my own people, but I was willing. Not every 18-year-old will make that same choice, especially when race is factored in as well as class.

So many times throughout my life, I’ve come home from classes, sleepovers, dinner parties, and happy hours feeling the heaviness of this exchange. I’ve had to Google cultural symbols I hadn’t understood in these conversations (What is “Harper’s”? What is “après-ski”?). At the same time, I remember using academia jargon my family couldn’t understand either. At a Christmas party, a friend called me out for using “those big Ivy League words” in a conversation. My parents had trouble understanding how independent my lifestyle had become and kept remarking on how much I had changed. Studying abroad, moving across the country for internships, living alone far away from family after graduating — these were not choices my Latin American parents had seen many women make.

An official from Brown told the Boston Globe that similar dynamics existed with many first-generation college students she worked with: “Often, [these students] come to college thinking that they want to return home to their communities. But an Ivy League education puts them in a different place — their language is different, their appearance is different, and they don’t fit in at home anymore, either.”

A Haitian-American friend of mine from college agreed: “After going to college, interacting with family members becomes a conflicted zone. Now you’re the Ivy League cousin who speaks a certain way, and does things others don’t understand. It changes the dynamic in your family entirely.”

A Latina friend of mine from Oakland felt this when she got accepted to the University of Southern California. She was the first person from her to family to leave home to attend college, and her conservative extended family criticized her for leaving home before marriage.

“One night they sat me down, told me my conduct was shameful and was staining the reputation of the family,” she told me, “My family thought a woman leaving home had more to do with her promiscuity than her desire for an education. They told me, ‘You’re just going to Los Angeles so you can have the freedom to be with whatever guy you want.’ When I think about what was most hard about college, it wasn’t the academics. It was dealing with my family’s disapproval of my life.”

We don’t acknowledge that too often, achievement in the United States means this gradual isolation from the people we love most. By simply striving toward American success, many feel forced to make to make that choice.

3) The American dream makes us focus single-mindedly on wealth and prestige

When I spoke to an Asian-American friend from college, he told me, “In the Asian New Jersey community I grew up in, I was surrounded by parents and friends whose mentality was to get high SAT scores, go to a top college, and major in medicine, law, or investment banking. No one thought outside these rigid tracks.” When he entered Brown, he followed these expectations by starting as a premed, then switching his major to economics.

This pattern is common in the Ivy League: Studies show that Ivy League graduates gravitate toward jobs with high salaries or prestige to justify the work and money we put into obtaining an elite degree. As a child of immigrants, there’s even more pressure to believe this is the only choice.

Of course, financial considerations are necessary for survival in our society. And it’s healthy to consider wealth and prestige when making life decisions, particularly for those who come from backgrounds with less privilege. But to what extent has this concern become an unhealthy obsession? For those who have the privilege of living a life based on a different set of values, to what extent has the American dream mindset limited our idea of success?

The Harvard Business Review reported that over time, people from past generations have begun to redefine success. As they got older, factors like “family happiness,” “relationships,” “balancing life and work,” and “community service” became more important than job titles and salaries. The report quoted a man in his 50s who said he used to define success as “becoming a highly paid CEO.” Now he defines it as “striking a balance between work and family and giving back to society.”

• Vox First Person: If ambition is ruining your life, you need to read Thoreau

While I spent high school and college focusing on achieving an Ivy League degree, and a prestigious job title afterward, I didn’t think about how other values mattered in my own notions of success. But after I took a “gap year” at 24 to travel, I realized that the way I’d defined the American dream was incomplete: It was not only about getting an education and a good job but also thinking about how my career choices contributed to my overall well-being. And it was about gaining experiences aside from my career, like travel . It was about making room for things like creativity, spirituality , and adventure when making important decisions in my life.

Courtney E. Martin addressed this in her TED talk called “The New Better Off,” where she said: “The biggest danger is not failing to achieve the American dream. The biggest danger is achieving a dream that you don’t actually believe in.”

Those realizations ultimately led me to pursue my current work as a travel writer. Whenever I have the privilege to do so, I attempt what Martin calls “the harder, more interesting thing”: to “compose a life where what you do every single day, the people you give your best love and ingenuity and energy to, aligns as closely as possible with what you believe.”

4) Even if you achieve the American dream, that doesn’t necessarily mean other Americans will accept you

A few years ago, I was working on my laptop in a hotel lobby, waiting for reception to process my booking. I wore leather boots, jeans, and a peacoat. A guest of the hotel approached me and began shouting in slow English (as if I couldn’t understand otherwise) that he needed me to clean his room. I was 25, had an Ivy League degree, and had completed one of the most competitive programs for college graduates in the country. And yet still I was being confused for the maid.

I realized then that no matter how hard I played by the rules, some people would never see me as a person of academic and professional success. This, perhaps, is the most psychologically disheartening part of the American dream: Achieving it doesn’t necessarily mean we can “transcend” racial stereotypes about who we are.

It just takes one look at the rhetoric by current politicians to know that as first-generation Americans, we are still not seen as “American” as others. As so many cases have illustrated recently, no matter how much we focus on proving them wrong, negative perceptions from others will continue to challenge our sense of self-worth.

For black immigrants or children of immigrants, this exclusionary messaging is even more obvious. Kari Mugo, a writer who immigrated to the US from Kenya when she was 18, expressed to me the disappointment she has felt trying to feel welcomed here: “It’s really hard to make an argument for a place that doesn’t want you, and shows that every single day. It’s been 12 years since I came here, and each year I’m growing more and more disillusioned.”

I still cherish my college years, and still feel immensely proud to call myself an Ivy League graduate. I am humbled by my parents’ sacrifices that allowed me to live the comparatively privileged life I’ve had. I acknowledge that it is in part because of this privilege that I can offer a critique of the United States in the first place. My parents and other immigrant families who focused only on survival didn’t have the luxury of being critical.

Yet having that luxury, I think it’s important to vocalize that in the United States, living the dream is far more nuanced than we often make others believe. As Mugo told me, “My friends back in Kenya always receive the message that America is so great. But I always wonder why we don’t ever tell the people back home what it’s really like. We always give off the illusion that everything is fine, without also acknowledging the many ways life here is really, really hard.”

I deeply respect the choices my parents made, and I’m deeply grateful for the opportunities the United States provided. But at this point in my family’s journey, I am curious to see what happens when we begin exploring a different dream.

Amanda Machado is a writer, editor, content strategist, and facilitator who works with publications and nonprofits around the world. You can learn more about her work at her website .

First Person is Vox’s home for compelling, provocative narrative essays. Do you have a story to share? Read our submission guidelines , and pitch us at [email protected] .

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Is the American dream worth the risk? These migrants hope so

Lilly Quiroz

Outside the Embajadores de Jesús migrant shelter in Tijuana, people plan and hope for a new life ahead. Toya Sarno Jordan for NPR hide caption

Outside the Embajadores de Jesús migrant shelter in Tijuana, people plan and hope for a new life ahead.

TIJUANA, Mexico — My parents had never heard of the American dream when they came to the United States from Mexico in the early '80s, but they wanted what it supposedly offered. They were after a better life with more work opportunities.

Four decades later, they are intimately familiar with the concept and say they attained their version of the dream. My dad says he has a family, a home and a better life than he could have had in Mexico.

My sisters and I benefited from our parents' aspirations, too. In Spanglish, my mom says, " Ustedes vinieron a succeed, no para sobrevivir. " In other words, we are here to succeed, not to survive.

There are migrants today seeking a similar dream, but with less say in how that happens. Last week, migrants were flown from Texas to Martha's Vineyard, saying they were promised jobs that never existed and that they were lied to about their destination.

The so-called American dream remains a compelling tale among migrants south of the border, but the objective has shifted. For many, simply trying to stay alive is what's driving them towards the United States.

Migrants are waiting longer and face instant rejection by the U.S.

In a cramped shelter with a tin roof and rows of tents lined up side-to-side, Jesús Ariel puts on his shoes to start the day while his seven-year-old son blows bubbles and tries to keep them afloat.

"We left our home to try to realize that dream," he says.

The pair is staying at Movimiento Juventud 2000 — one of about 20 migrant shelters in Tijuana — while they wait for their chance to enter the U.S. to ask for asylum. They fled here from Honduras after Jesús Ariel was attacked by gang members.

"Honestly, things are very dangerous there. But thank God, I am here," he says. "We came with the dream to accomplish something, at least have a little house."

Jesús Ariel and his son Jesús Ezequiel consider themselves lucky that they can share a tent. Toya Sarno Jordan for NPR hide caption

Jesús Ariel and his son Jesús Ezequiel consider themselves lucky that they can share a tent.

There is a sense of community and shared purpose at the Movimiento Juventud 2000 shelter. Toya Sarno Jordan for NPR hide caption

There is a sense of community and shared purpose at the Movimiento Juventud 2000 shelter.

Andres Ortiz Perez gets ready for the day ahead at the shelter. Toya Sarno Jordan for NPR hide caption

Andres Ortiz Perez gets ready for the day ahead at the shelter.

The shelter they currently call home is in Tijuana's Zona Norte red light district — a section of the city where prostitution is legal and cartels are known to operate. Still, Jesús Ariel says he feels comfortable here because he and his son sleep together in their own tent. While they've only been at this shelter for a few days, they have been in Mexico for more than a year.

This is not unusual, says Rafael Fernández de Castro, the director at the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at UC San Diego.

"In the past, shelters were for migrants to stay three or four or five days and then come across to the U.S.," he says. "Now it's different. In the shelters, migrants are staying months, even years."

The reasons are varied. Some people are waiting on legal appointments, while others have applied for asylum in the U.S. and that process can now drag out for months. Tijuana has become one of the main hubs for migrants to wait.

Many have already tried to cross the border but have been turned back because of Title 42. The pandemic public health order invoked under President Trump — and still in place under President Biden — prevents migrants from asking for asylum at the border, and instead allows border agents to swiftly expel them from the U.S. without hearing their claim.

There were nearly 1.8 million expulsions of migrants during the first two years of the policy. The recidivism rate of those trying to cross increased from 7% in 2019 to 27% in 2021.

Lunch at the Movimiento Juventud 2000 shelter is a communal experience. Toya Sarno Jordan for NPR hide caption

Lunch at the Movimiento Juventud 2000 shelter is a communal experience.

Feeding everyone in the shelters is a team effort. Toya Sarno Jordan for NPR hide caption

Feeding everyone in the shelters is a team effort.

Jesús Ariel and his son are among those recidivists who have tried to cross more than once. For them, there's too much on the line to give up now.

Migrants across Tijuana often speak of gang violence, death threats or extortion as their reason for leaving their homes, and why they fear going back. It's hard to calculate how many migrants are currently living in Tijuana, since they are constantly moving, but Fernández de Castro estimates there are about 35,000 migrants here hoping to be granted asylum in the U.S.

"It's very difficult to separate the fear from the economic need," he says of their motivation. "I will say both of them come together."

But the American dream won't become a reality for everyone.

There were more than 280,000 applications for asylum filed in the U.S. in 2020 , the latest year with data. Fewer than 32,000 individuals were granted it.

It's a perilous journey that can end in a mass grave

Not everyone buys into the American dream. Lourdes Lizardi believes it is a lie. The migrant activist has spent the past 28 years helping people find refuge in Tijuana, and she has seen hopes fade when confronted with a sometimes cruel reality.

"They come looking for that famous American dream that sometimes turns into a hellish dream," she says.

Lourdes Lizardi says there are other options besides the American dream. Toya Sarno Jordan for NPR hide caption

Lourdes Lizardi says there are other options besides the American dream.

For some, their entire lives are condensed to what can fit on a bunk bed mattress. Toya Sarno Jordan for NPR hide caption

For some, their entire lives are condensed to what can fit on a bunk bed mattress.

Lizardi says the situation has become increasingly dangerous for migrants over the past 15 years, particularly as the cartels have grown in power and influence.

Before, she says, migrants would occasionally fall victim to crime in Tijuana. Now, they are the target, as cartels see them as easy prey for drug trafficking, extortion and kidnapping. Four shelters in Tijuana have recently installed panic buttons that migrants can press to warn of danger nearby.

Lizardi has seen people die on their journey to the U.S. and doesn't believe the pursuit is worth the risk. Just this month, eight migrants were found dead as they attempted to cross near Eagle Pass, TX.

Those who die in the state of Baja California end up in Dr. Cesar Raúl González Vaca's medical lab. He is the director of the forensic service in the state, which receives about 1,600 bodies each year found in Tijuana, Mexicali and Tecate.

"These are border cities where we frequently find bodies that have a link to migration, and who die trying to cross or due to other violent causes," Vaca says.

Most often the bodies belong to people from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and central Mexico. When they aren't claimed by family and friends, they end up in mass graves. In Tijuana, 10 bodies are buried together in a single grave, and about 120 graves are added every year.

In recent years, Vaca's lab has begun keeping better records of where bodies are buried in the event that someone does come looking for their loved one's remains.

But for those who can't be identified, their journey from faraway places across Central and South America ends with their anonymous bodies dropped into mass graves in a dusty field on the outskirts of Tijuana, with no trace for their families to ever find.

Abraham Lujano Pineda, 5, sits on his father's lap outside the Embajadores de Jesús shelter. Toya Sarno Jordan for NPR hide caption

Abraham Lujano Pineda, 5, sits on his father's lap outside the Embajadores de Jesús shelter.

Marbles can be serious business for the boys who gather outside the shelter. Toya Sarno Jordan for NPR hide caption

Marbles can be serious business for the boys who gather outside the shelter.

Mabel, Dora and Juliet Alvarez, from Honduras, take some time for themselves at the Embajadores de Jesús shelter. Toya Sarno Jordan for NPR hide caption

Mabel, Dora and Juliet Alvarez, from Honduras, take some time for themselves at the Embajadores de Jesús shelter.

Parents are making impossible decisions

Inside the Embajadores de Jesús shelter at the end of a bumpy dirt road in Tijuana, kids are playing loudly. On top of sleeping cots, they smile and dance to rhythmic beats blasting out of loudspeakers. Outside, others shoot marbles on the dirt road, game faces on.

They're all in their own world. That is, until they have to decide what shoes they're going to take with them on the journey to the U.S.

That's what Daniel Gutierrez's seven-year-old daughter had to consider one morning: Would her shoes, which fit a little loose, be comfortable enough to continue walking up and down hills?

"And it hit us really hard that morning, because we didn't imagine she would be thinking about that, feeling that anxiety that we would be trying to cross again," he says.

The family is preparing for their third attempt asking for asylum, but Gutierrez says he and his wife never anticipated the psychological trauma their children would take on.

Gutierrez and his family are also escaping gang violence. Their business was being extorted back home in Guatemala, and after a gang didn't get their way, they received death threats. They are seeking safety but no longer want to compromise their children's mental health. Gutierrez and his wife have promised their kids this will be their final attempt to get into the United States.

"We're not looking for anything luxurious," Gutierrez says. "All we really want is to give our kids a better education."

While they would like to make this reality come true in the U.S., they will settle for Tijuana as their new home.

Daniel Gutierrez worries about the toll the journey is taking on his family. Toya Sarno Jordan for NPR hide caption

Daniel Gutierrez worries about the toll the journey is taking on his family.

The mother and daughters of the Gutierrez family go for a walk around the shelter. Toya Sarno Jordan for NPR hide caption

The mother and daughters of the Gutierrez family go for a walk around the shelter.

Back at the Movimiento Juventud 2000 shelter, Sarai Raudales is also concerned about her children.

She escaped Honduras with her husband and two small children after facing threats on two fronts: her husband's mechanic shop was facing extortion by a local gang, and her children received death threats after her ex-husband killed a police officer.

Raudales had less than four hours to leave her home after they received the death threats. They grabbed what they could and took the first bus headed towards Mexico. On such little notice, Raudales says she couldn't afford bus tickets for the whole family, and she feared her 12-year-old daughter would be kidnapped or forced into sex trafficking along the way — so the decision was made to leave her behind with family. "I'm afraid I won't get the chance to see her again," Raudales says. "I'm afraid they'll also retaliate against her because I left with the little ones."

Raudales is determined to do whatever it takes to keep her children safe, even if that means giving them up.

"If I wasn't able to cross, I'd let the [United States] government keep my kids so it could take care of them," she says. "Because in Honduras [the gangs] are going to kill them. So, as a mother, I just want them to be safe."

"Most of us come because we're fleeing. Because we're all in difficult situations. In other words, nobody wants to leave their home."

Raudales wishes Americans understood that it's not an easy choice.

"Many of you feel safe at home where you grew up, where you were born," she says. "When we left, I left my mother, my brothers, everyone. And I don't know if I can see them again."

There are some offering a Mexican dream

American life has been imperfect, but my parents say they chose the right dream for themselves. Others, like Daniel Gutierrez's family, might have that decision made for them, and instead have to create a new life south of the border.

Lourdes Lizardi, the migrant activist, says this might not be the worst thing.

"The whole world is still chasing the American dream," she says, "When there are Mexican dreams, Canadian dreams, Chinese dreams, all these other dreams."

Tijuana Mayor Montserrat Caballero Ramírez also encourages migrants to choose her city as the place to call home, and tries to assure them that she can maintain peace and safety.

A mother from Haiti dresses her child at the Embajadores de Jesús shelter. Toya Sarno Jordan for NPR hide caption

A mother from Haiti dresses her child at the Embajadores de Jesús shelter.

A father and daughter from Haiti step outside the Embajadores de Jesús shelter. Toya Sarno Jordan for NPR hide caption

A father and daughter from Haiti step outside the Embajadores de Jesús shelter.

"[The American dream] has been romanticized a lot," she says. "We need to tell the citizens of the world that these dreams can be built wherever you are."

"I think Tijuana is a safe city. We do not have the peace that we would like in the whole country, I would be lying to you if I said that, but we are going for stability."

For some, Tijuana may offer enough safety and stability to build a content life. But others will keep trying, no matter what, to reach that famous American dream.

Patrick Wood, A Martínez, Milton Guevara and Maya Rosenberg contributed to this report.

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Waking Up from the American Dream

If you are an undocumented person anywhere in America, some of the things you do to make a dignified life for yourself and your loved ones are illegal. Others require a special set of skills. The elders know some great tricks—crossing deserts in the dead of night, studying the Rio Grande for weeks to find the shallowest bend of river to cross, getting a job on their first day in the country, finding apartments that don’t need a lease, learning English at public libraries, community colleges, or from “Frasier.” I would not have been able to do a single thing that the elders have done. But the elders often have only one hope for survival, which we tend not to mention. I’m talking about children. And no, it’s not an “anchor baby” thing. Our parents have kids for the same reasons as most people, but their sacrifice for us is impossible to articulate, and its weight is felt deep down, in the body. That is the pact between immigrants and their children in America: they give us a better life, and we spend the rest of that life figuring out how much of our flesh will pay off the debt.

I am a first-generation immigrant, undocumented for most of my life, then on DACA , now a permanent resident. But my real identity, the one that follows me around like a migraine, is that I am the daughter of immigrants. As such, I have some skills of my own.

You pick them up young. Something we always hear about, because Americans love this shit, is that immigrant children often translate for their parents. I began doing this as a little girl, because I lost my accent, dumb luck, and because I was adorable in the way that adults like, which is to say I had large, frightened eyes and a flamboyant vocabulary. As soon as doctors or teachers began talking, I felt my parents’ nervous energy, and I’d either answer for them or interpret their response. It was like my little Model U.N. job. I was around seven. My career as a professional daughter of immigrants had begun.

In my teens, I began to specialize. I became a performance artist. I accompanied my parents to places where I knew they would be discriminated against, and where I could insure that their rights would be granted. If a bank teller wasn’t accepting their I.D., I’d stroll in with an oversized Forever 21 blazer, red lipstick, a slicked-back bun, and fresh Stan Smiths. I brought a pleather folder and made sure my handshake broke bones. Sometimes I appealed to decency, sometimes to law, sometimes to God. Sometimes I leaned back in my chair, like a sexy gangster, and said, “So, you tell me how you want my mom to survive in this country without a bank account. You close at four, but I have all the time in the world.” Then I’d wink. It was vaudeville, but it worked.

My parents came to America in their early twenties, naïve about what awaited them. Back in Ecuador, they had encountered images of a wealthy nation—the requisite flashes of Clint Eastwood and the New York City skyline—and heard stories about migrants who had done O.K. for themselves there. But my parents were not starry-eyed people. They were just kids, lost and reckless, running away from the dead ends around them.

My father is the only son of a callous mother and an absent father. My mother, the result of her mother’s rape, grew up cared for by an aunt and uncle. When she married my father, it was for the reasons a lot of women marry: for love, and to escape. The day I was born, she once told me, was the happiest day of her life.

Soon after that, my parents, owners of a small auto-body business, found themselves in debt. When I was eighteen months old, they left me with family and settled in Brooklyn, hoping to work for a year and move back once they’d saved up some money. I haven’t asked them much about this time—I’ve never felt the urge—but I know that one year became three. I also know that they began to be lured by the prospect of better opportunities for their daughter. Teachers had remarked that I was talented. My mother, especially, felt that Ecuador was not the place for me. She knew how the country would limit the woman she imagined I would become—Hillary Clinton, perhaps, or Princess Di.

My parents sent loving letters to Ecuador. They said that they were facing a range of hardships so that I could have a better life. They said that we would reunite soon, though the date was unspecified. They said that I had to behave, not walk into traffic—I seem to have developed a habit of doing this—and work hard, so they could send me little gifts and chocolates. I was a toddler, but I understood. My parents left to give me things, and I had to do other things in order to repay them. It was simple math.

They sent for me when I was just shy of five years old. I arrived at J.F.K. airport. My father, who seemed like a total stranger, ran to me and picked me up and kissed me, and my mother looked on and wept. I recall thinking she was pretty, and being embarrassed by the attention. They had brought roses, Teddy bears, and Tweety Bird balloons.

Getting to know one another was easy enough. My father liked to read and lecture, and had a bad temper. My mother was soft-spoken around him but funny and mean—like a drag queen—with me. She liked Vogue . I was enrolled in a Catholic school and quickly learned English—through immersion, but also through “Reading Rainbow” and a Franklin talking dictionary that my father bought me. It gave me a colorful vocabulary and weirdly over-enunciated diction. If I typed the right terms, it even gave me erotica.

Meanwhile, I had confirmed that my parents were not tony expats. At home, meals could be rice and a fried egg. We sometimes hid from our landlord by crouching next to my bed and drawing the blinds. My father had started out driving a cab, but after 9/11, when the governor revoked the driver’s licenses of undocumented immigrants, he began working as a deliveryman, carrying meals to Wall Street executives, the plastic bags slicing into his fingers. Some of those executives forced him to ride on freight elevators. Others tipped him in spare change.

My mother worked in a factory. For seven days a week, sometimes in twelve-hour shifts, she sewed in a heat that caught in your throat like lint, while her bosses, also immigrants, hurled racist slurs at her. Some days I sat on the factory floor, making dolls with swatches of fabric, cosplaying childhood. I didn’t put a lot of effort into making the dolls—I sort of just screwed around, with an eye on my mom at her sewing station, stiffening whenever her supervisor came by to see how fast she was working. What could I do to protect her? Well, murder, I guess.

Our problem appeared to be poverty, which even then, before I’d seen “Rent,” seemed glamorous, or at least normal. All the protagonists in the books I read were poor. Ramona Quimby on Klickitat Street, the kids in “Five Little Peppers and How They Grew.” Every fictional child was hungry, an orphan, or tubercular. But there was something else setting us apart. At school, I looked at my nonwhite classmates and wondered how their parents could be nurses, or own houses, or leave the country on vacation. It was none of my business—everyone in New York had secrets—but I cautiously gathered intel, toothpick in mouth. I finally cracked the case when I tried to apply to an essay contest and asked my parents for my Social Security number. My father was probably reading a newspaper, and I doubt he even looked up to say, “We don’t have papers, so we don’t have a Social.”

It was not traumatic. I turned on our computer, waited for the dial-up, and searched what it meant not to have a Social Security number. “Undocumented immigrant” had not yet entered the discourse. Back then, the politically correct term, the term I saw online, was “illegal immigrant,” which grated—it was hurtful in a clinical way, like having your teeth drilled. Various angry comments sections offered another option: illegal alien . I knew it was form language, legalese meant to wound me, but it didn’t. It was punk as hell. We were hated , and maybe not entirely of this world. I had just discovered Kurt Cobain.

Obviously, I learned that my parents and I could be deported at any time. Was that scary? Sure. But a deportation still seemed like spy-movie stuff. And, luckily, I had an ally. My brother was born when I was ten years old. He was our family’s first citizen, and he was named after a captain of the New York Yankees. Before he was old enough to appreciate art, I took him to the Met. I introduced him to “S.N.L.” and “Letterman” and “Fun Home” and “Persepolis”—all the things I felt an upper-middle-class parent would do—so that he could thrive at school, get a great job, and make money. We would need to armor our parents with our success.

We moved to Queens, and I entered high school. One day, my dad heard about a new bill in Congress on Spanish radio. It was called the DREAM Act, and it proposed a path to legalization for undocumented kids who had gone to school here or served in the military. My dad guaranteed that it’d pass by the time I graduated. I never react to good news—stoicism is part of the brand—but I was optimistic. The bill was bipartisan. John McCain supported it, and I knew he had been a P.O.W., and that made me feel connected to a real American hero. Each time I saw an “R” next to a sponsor’s name my heart fluttered with joy. People who were supposed to hate me had now decided to love me.

But the bill was rejected and reintroduced, again and again, for years. It never passed. And, in a distinctly American twist, its gauzy rhetoric was all that survived. Now there was a new term on the block: “Dreamers.” Politicians began to use it to refer to the “good” children of immigrants, the ones who did well in school and stayed off the mean streets—the innocents. There are about a million undocumented children in America. The non-innocents, one presumes, are the ones in cages, covered in foil blankets, or lost, disappeared by the government.

I never called myself a Dreamer. The word was saccharine and dumb, and it yoked basic human rights to getting an A on a report card. Dreamers couldn’t flunk out of high school, or have D.U.I.s, or work at McDonald’s. Those kids lived with the pressure of needing a literal miracle in order to save their families, but the miracle didn’t happen, because the odds were against them, because the odds were against all of us. And so America decided that they didn’t deserve an I.D.

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The Dream, it turned out, needed to demonize others in order to help the chosen few. Our parents, too, would be sacrificed. The price of our innocence was the guilt of our loved ones. Jeff Sessions, while he was Attorney General, suggested that we had been trafficked against our will. People actually pitied me because my parents brought me to America. Without even consulting me.

The irony, of course, is that the Dream was our inheritance. We were Dreamers because our parents had dreams.

It’s painful to think about this. My mother, an aspiring interior designer, has gone twenty-eight years without a sick day. My dad, who loves problem-solving, has spent his life wanting a restaurant. He’s a talented cook and a brilliant manager, and he often did the work of his actual managers for them. But, without papers, he could advance only so far in a job. He needed to be paid in cash; he could never receive benefits.

He often used a soccer metaphor to describe our journey in America. Our family was a team, but I scored the goals. Everything my family did was, in some sense, a pass to me. Then the American Dream could be mine, and then we could start passing to my brother. That’s how my dad explained his limp every night, his feet blistered from speed-running deliveries. It’s why we sometimes didn’t have money for electricity or shampoo. Those were fouls. Sometimes my parents did tricky things to survive that you’ll never know about. Those were nutmegs. In 2015, when the U.S. women’s team won the World Cup, my dad went to the parade and sent me a selfie. “Girl power!” the text read.

My father is a passionate, diatribe-loving feminist, though his feminism often seems to exclude my mother. When I was in elementary school, he would take me to the local branch of the Queens Public Library and check out the memoir of Rosalía Arteaga Serrano, the only female President in Ecuador’s history. Serrano was ousted from office, seemingly because she was a woman. My father would read aloud from the book for hours, pausing to tell me that I’d need to toughen up. He would read from dictators’ speeches—not for the politics, but for the power of persuasive oratory. We went to the library nearly every weekend for thirteen years.

My mother left her factory job to give me, the anointed one, full-time academic support. She pulled all-nighters to help me make extravagant posters. She grilled me with vocabulary flash cards, struggling to pronounce the words but laughing and slapping me with pillows if I got something wrong. I aced the language portions of my PSATs and SATs, partly because of luck, and partly because of my parents’ locally controversial refusal to let me do household chores, ever, because they wanted me to be reading, always reading, instead.

If this all seems strategic, it should. The American Dream doesn’t just happen to cheery Pollyannas. It happens to iconoclasts with a plan and a certain amount of cunning. The first time I encountered the idea of the Dream, it was in English class, discussing “The Great Gatsby.” My classmates all thought that Gatsby seemed sort of sad, a pathetic figure. I adored him. He created his own persona, made a fortune in an informal economy, and lived a quiet, paranoid, reclusive life. Most of all, he longed. He stood at the edge of Long Island Sound, longing for Daisy, and I took the train uptown to Columbia University and looked out at the campus, hoping it could one day be mine. At the time, it was functionally impossible for undocumented students to enroll at Columbia. The same held for many schools. Keep dreaming, my parents said.

I did. I was valedictorian of my class, miraculously got into Harvard, and was tapped to join a secret society that once included T. S. Eliot and Wallace Stevens. I was the only Latina inducted, I think, and I was very chill when an English-Spanish dictionary appeared in our club bathroom after I started going to teas. When I graduated, in 2011, our country was deporting people at record rates. I knew that I needed to add even more of a golden flicker to my illegality, so that if I was deported, or if my parents were deported, we would not go in the middle of the night, in silence, anonymously, as Americans next door watched another episode of “The Bachelor.” So I began writing, with the explicit aim of entering the canon. I wrote a book about undocumented immigrants, approaching them not as shadowy victims or gilded heroes but as people, flawed and complex. It was reviewed well, nominated for things. A President commended it.

But it’s hard to feel anything. My parents remain poor and undocumented. I cannot protect them with prizes or grades. My father sobbed when I handed him my diploma, but it was not the piece of paper that would make it all better, no matter how heavy the stock.

By the time I was in grad school, my parents’ thirty-year marriage was over. They had spent most of those years in America, with their heads down and their bodies broken; it was hard not to see the split as inevitable. My mom called me to say she’d had enough. My brother supported her decision. I talked to each parent, and helped them mutually agree on a date. On a Tuesday night, my father moved out, leaving his old parenting books behind, while my mom and brother were at church. I asked my father to text my brother that he loved him. I think he texted him exactly that. Then I collapsed onto the floor beneath an open drawer of knives, texted my partner to come help me, and convulsed in sobs.

After that, my mom became depressed. I did hours of research and found her a highly qualified, trauma-informed psychiatrist, a Spanish speaker who charged on a sliding scale I could afford. My mom got on Lexapro, which helped. She also started a job that makes her very happy. In order to find her that job, I took a Klonopin and browsed Craigslist for hours each day, e-mailing dozens of people, being vague about legal status in a clever but truthful way. I impersonated her in phone interviews, hanging off my couch, the blood rushing to my head, struggling not to do an offensive accent.

You know how, when you get a migraine, you regret how stupid you were for taking those sweet, painless days for granted? Although my days are hard, I understand that I’m living in an era of painlessness, and that a time will come when I look back and wonder why I was such a stupid, whining fool. My mom’s job involves hard manual labor, sometimes in the snow or the rain. I got her a real winter coat, her first, from Eddie Bauer. I got her a pair of Hunter boots. These were things she needed, things I had seen on women her age on the subway, their hands bearing bags from Whole Foods. My mom’s hands are arthritic. She sends me pictures of them covered in bandages.

My brother and I now have a pact: neither of us can die, because then the other would be stuck with our parents. My brother is twenty-two, still in college, and living with my mom. He, too, has some skills. He is gentle, kind, and excellent at deëscalating conflict. He mediated my parents’ arguments for years. He has also never tried to change them, which I have, through a regimen of therapy, books, and cheesy Instagram quotes. So we’ve decided that, in the long term, since his goal is to get a job, get married, have kids, and stay in Queens, he’ll invite Mom to move in with him, to help take care of the grandkids. He’ll handle the emotional labor, since it doesn’t traumatize him. And I’ll handle the financial support, since it doesn’t traumatize me.

I love my parents. I know I love them. But what I feel for them daily is a mixture of terror, panic, obligation, sorrow, anger, pity, and a shame so hot that I need to lie face down, in my underwear, on very cold sheets. Many Americans have vulnerable parents, and strive to succeed in order to save them. I hold those people in the highest regard. But the undocumented face a unique burden, due to scorn and a lack of support from the government. Because our parents made a choice—the choice to migrate—few people pity them, or wonder whether restitution should be made for decades of exploitation. That choice, the original sin, is why our parents were thrown out of paradise. They were tempted by curiosity and hunger, by fleshly desires.

And so we return to the debt. However my parents suffer in their final years will be related to their migration—to their toil in this country, to their lack of health care and housing support, to psychic fatigue. They were able, because of that sacrifice, to give me their version of the Dream: an education, a New York accent, a life that can better itself. But that life does not fully belong to me. My version of the American Dream is seeing them age with dignity, being able to help them retire, and keeping them from being pushed onto train tracks in a random hate crime. For us, gratitude and guilt feel almost identical. Love is difficult to separate from self-erasure. All we can give one another is ourselves.

Scholars often write about the harm that’s done when children become caretakers, but they’re reluctant to do so when it comes to immigrants. For us, they say, this situation is cultural . Because we grow up in tight-knit families. Because we respect our elders. In fact, it’s just the means of living that’s available to us. It’s a survival mechanism, a mutual-aid society at the family level. There is culture, and then there is adaptation to precarity and surveillance. If we are lost in the promised land, perhaps it’s because the ground has never quite seemed solid beneath our feet.

When I was a kid, my mother found a crystal heart in my father’s taxi. The light that came through it was pretty, shimmering, like a gasoline spill on the road. She put it in her jewelry box, and sometimes we’d take out the box, spill the contents onto my pink twin bed, and admire what we both thought was a heart-shaped diamond. I grew up, I went to college. I often heard of kids who had inherited their grandmother’s heirlooms, and I sincerely believed that there were jewels in my family, too. Then, a few years ago, my partner and I visited my mom, and she spilled out her box. She gave me a few items I cherish: a nameplate bracelet in white, yellow, and rose gold, and the thick gold hoop earrings that she wore when she first moved to Brooklyn. Everything else was costume jewelry. I couldn’t find the heart.

I realized that, when my mother found the crystal, she was around the same age I am now. She had probably never held a diamond, and she probably wanted to believe that she had found one in America, a dream come true. She wanted me to believe it, and then, as we both grew up, alone, together, she stopped believing, stopped wanting to believe, and stopped me from wanting to believe. And she probably threw that shit out. I didn’t ask. Some things are none of our business. ♦

• Winter 2021

The State of the American Dream

A Brief History of the American Dream

Over time, the phrase “American dream” has come to be associated with upward mobility and enough economic success to lead a comfortable life. Historically, however, the phrase represented the idealism of the great American experiment.

If you ask most people around the world what they mean by the “American dream,” nearly all will respond with some version of upward social mobility, the American success story, or the self-made man (rarely the self-made woman). Perhaps they will invoke the symbolic house with a white picket fence that suggests economic self-sufficiency and security; many will associate the phrase with the land of opportunity for immigrants. No less an authority than the Oxford English Dictionary defines the American dream as “the ideal that every citizen of the United States should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative.”

If success and prosperity are the American dream, however, it’s hard to understand why it was under assault by a mob of insurrectionists at the Capitol in January — but that is precisely what international commentators concluded. From Iran to Australia to Britain, global observers construed the Capitol riot as an assault on “the American dream,” although it was not a mob driven by economic grievance, but rather an explicitly political assault on the democratic process.

No matter how often we talk about the American dream as a socioeconomic promise of material success, the truth is that most people — even people around the world — understand instinctively that the American dream is also a sociopolitical one, meaning something more profound and aspirational than simple material comfort. And indeed, that’s what the phrase denoted to the Americans who first popularized it.

In 1931 a historian named James Truslow Adams set out to make sense of the crisis of the Great Depression, which in 1931 was both an economic crisis and a looming political crisis. Authoritarianism in Europe was on the rise, and many Americans were concerned that similar “despotic” energies would support the fabled “man on horseback” who might become an American tyrant. Adams concluded that America had lost its way by prizing material success above all other values: Indeed, it had started to treat money as a value, instead of merely as a means to produce or measure value.

Adams concluded that America had lost its way by prizing material success above all other values: Indeed, it had started to treat money  as   a value, instead of merely as a means to produce or measure value.

For Adams, worshipping material success was not the definition of the American dream: It was, by contrast, the failure of “the American dream of a better, richer, and happier life for all our citizens of every rank.” Adams did not mean “richer” materially, but spiritually; he distinguished the American dream from dreams of prosperity. It was, he declared, “not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.”

That repudiation is crucial, but almost always overlooked when this famous passage is quoted. Adams specifically gainsays the idea that the American dream is of material success. The American dream, according to Adams, was about collective moral character: It was a vision of “commonweal,” common well-being, well-being that is held in common and therefore mutually supported.

It was, as Adams said, a “dream of social order,” in which every citizen could attain the best of which they were capable. And it was that dream of social order that was so conspicuously under assault on January 6 th . It was the same American dream that Martin Luther King Jr. would call to service in the civil rights struggle in 1963, when he told white America that Black Americans shared that dream:

I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…”

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

The idea of an American creed, now all but forgotten, was once a staple of American political discourse, a broad belief system comprising liberty, democratic equality, social justice, economic opportunity, and individual advancement. Before 1945, when it was replaced by the Pledge of Allegiance, the creed was recited by most American schoolchildren — including, presumably, a young Martin Luther King Jr.:

I believe in the United States of America as a government of the people, by the people, for the people, whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed; a democracy in a republic and a sovereign nation of many sovereign States; a perfect Union, one and inseparable; established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes.

It was in that creed that the phrase the American dream was first used to articulate — not in 1931, when it was popularized, but when it first appeared in American political discourse, at the turn of the 20 th century.

The American dream was rarely, if ever, used to describe the familiar idea of Horatio Alger individual upward social mobility until after the Second World War. Quite the opposite, in fact. In 1899, a Vermont doctor made the news when he built a house with 60 rooms on 4,000 acres, which was described as “the largest country place in America” at the time. It came as a shock to readers, and struck many of them as an “utterly un-American dream” in its inequality: “Until a few years ago the thought of such an estate as that would have seemed a wild and utterly un-American dream to any Vermonter,” one article commented. “It was a state of almost ideally democratic equality, where everybody worked and nobody went hungry.” We don’t have to accept that Vermont was ever a utopian ideal to recognize that the comment overturns our received wisdoms about the American dream. Today, such an estate would seem the epitome of the American dream to most Americans.

The American dream was rarely, if ever, used to describe the familiar idea of “Horatio Alger” individual upward social mobility until after the Second World War.

In 1900, the New York Post warned its readers that the “greatest risk” to “every republic” was not from the so-called rabble, but “discontented multimillionaires.” All previous republics, it noted, had been “overthrown by rich men” and this could happen too in America, where monopoly capitalists were “deriding the Constitution, unrebuked by the executive or by public opinion.” If they had their way “it would be the end of the American dream,” because the American dream was of democracy — of equality of opportunity, of justice for all. Again, today most Americans would clearly say that becoming a multimillionaire defines the American dream, but the fact is that the expression emerged to criticize, not endorse, the amassing of great personal wealth.

Although many now assume that the phrase American dream was first used to describe 19 th century immigrants’ archetypal dreams of finding a land where the streets were paved with gold, not until 1918 have I found any instance of the “American dream” being used to describe the immigrant experience — the same year that the language of the “American creed” was first published.

There were only a few passing mentions of the idea of an American dream before Adams popularized it in 1931, most notably in Walter Lippmann’s 1914 Drift and Mastery, which described what Lippmann called America’s “fear economy” of unbridled capitalism. Lippmann argued that the nation’s “dream of endless progress” would need to be restrained, because it was fundamentally illusory: “It opens a chasm between fact and fancy, and the whole fine dream is detached from the living zone of the present.” This dream of endless progress was indistinguishable, Lippmann wrote, “from those who dream of a glorious past.” Both dreams were equally illusory.

For Lippmann, the American dream was the idea that the common man is inherently good and a moral barometer of the nation, the belief that “if only you let men alone, they’ll be good.” For Lippmann, the American dream was a delusion not because upward social mobility was a myth, but because undisciplined goodness is:

The past which men create for themselves is a place where thought is unnecessary and happiness inevitable. The American temperament leans generally to a kind of mystical anarchism, in which the “natural” humanity in each man is adored as the savior of society…  “If only you let men alone, they’ll be good,” a typical American reformer said to me the other day. He believed, as most Americans do, in the unsophisticated man, in his basic kindliness and his instinctive practical sense.  A critical outlook seemed to the reformer an inhuman one; he distrusted … the appearance of the expert; he believed that whatever faults the common man might show were due to some kind of Machiavellian corruption. He had the American dream, which may be summed up … in the statement that the undisciplined man is the salt of the earth.

The American faith in the individual taken to its inevitable extreme creates the monstrosity of a self with no consciousness of other standards or perspectives, let alone a sense of principle.

James Truslow Adams ended The Epic of America with what he said was the perfect symbol of the American dream in action. It was not the example of an immigrant who made good, a self-made man who bootstrapped his way from poverty to power, or the iconic house with a white picket fence. For Adams, the American dream was embodied in the Main Reading Room at the Library of Congress.

It was a room that the nation had gifted to itself, so that every American  — “old and young, rich and poor, Black and white, the executive and the laborer, the general and the private, the noted scholar and the schoolboy”  — could sit together, “reading at their own library provided by their own democracy. It has always seemed to me,” Adams continued,

to be a perfect working out in a concrete example of the American dream — the means provided by the accumulated resources of the people themselves, a public intelligent enough to use them, and men of high distinction, themselves a part of the great democracy, devoting themselves to the good of the whole, uncloistered.

It is an image of peaceful, collective, enlightened self-improvement. That is the American dream, according to the man who bequeathed us the phrase. It is an image that takes for granted the value of education, of shared knowledge and curiosity, of historical inquiry and a commitment to the good of the whole.

It is an image of peaceful, collective, enlightened self-improvement. That is the American dream, according to the man who bequeathed us the phrase.

That depiction of a group of Americans serenely reading together on Capitol Hill serves as a deeply painful corrective for the nation we have become, filled with people who put political partisanship above country, above democracy, above any principle of civic good or collective well-being.

Writing in the midst of the Great Depression, Adams was neither naïve nor especially sentimental about the America he was viewing in 1931. His reflections on the Library of Congress as the American dream led him to conclude that its fundamental purpose was to keep democracy alive:

No ruling class has ever willingly abdicated. Democracy can never be saved, and would not be worth saving, unless it can save itself. The Library of Congress, however, has come straight from the heart of democracy, as it has been taken to it, and I here use it as a symbol of what democracy can accomplish on its own behalf.

That is the American dream: what democracy can accomplish on its own behalf for its citizens. The first voices to speak of the “American dream” used it not as a promise, or a guarantee, but as an exhortation, urging all Americans to do better, to be fairer, to combat bigotry and inequality, to keep striving for a republic of equals. That is the American dream we need to revive: the dream of a social order defined by the American creed, a belief in the United States of America as a government whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed; a democracy in a republic.

• Previous Article The Evolution of the Idea An Essay by J.H. Cullum Clark, Director of the Bush Institute-SMU Economic Growth Initiative
• Next Article From a Vietnamese Orphanage to a Life of Service in America A Conversation with Kimberly Mitchell, Bush Institute Veteran Leadership Program Participant

Immigration and the American Dream, Part 1

Subscribe to the center for economic security and opportunity newsletter, joanna venator and jv joanna venator senior research assistant richard v. reeves richard v. reeves president - american institute for boys and men.

June 19, 2014

If immigration reform is dead, is that bad news for social mobility and the American Dream? Eric Cantor’s surprise primary defeat has widely been attributed to his stance on immigration: the conventional political wisdom is that his defeat signals the end of any chance of immigration reform passing.

Immigration and upward mobility co-exist in the American imagination. With little more than their wits and their ambition, new Americans from Andrew Carnegie to Arnold Schwarzenegger have flocked to our shores, and worked their way up. But what do the data tell us?

We decided to revisit and update the data presented in Brookings’ 2008 report, Getting Ahead or Losing Ground: Economic Mobility in America on the educational attainment, wages, and intergenerational mobility of immigrants.

Not all immigrants are low-skill, low-education workers…

First point: for all the fears of a flood of unskilled workers into the United States, it looks like the educational attainment of immigrants has not changed much in the last fifty years. Immigrants with less than a high school education have made up about 30% of the country’s immigrants consistently for over 40 years.

Educational attainment varies by the immigrants’ region of origin, however. Immigrants from Latin America are less likely to have the equivalent of a high school diploma, while Asian and European immigrants are more likely have a bachelor’s degree or higher.

Children of immigrants are exemplars of the American Dream

Second-generation Americans’ educational attainment is much higher than their parents. In fact, second generation Americans are more likely to get college or advanced degrees than non-immigrants:

Again, there are ethnic differences here: the children of Asian immigrants typically have very high educational attainment levels, bringing up the average level of educational attainment for all immigrant children, whereas the children of Latin American immigrants typically have lower educational attainment than non-immigrant children.

But this is not to say that the second-generation Latin American immigrants have been less successful in seizing the American Dream – while they have low levels of education compared to the country as a whole, they have nonetheless far surpassed their parents.

Measuring mobility for immigrants

Social mobility for first or second generation immigrants is an area of research that is unfortunately underdeveloped. The bulk of research on social mobility relies on having access to the income or occupation of a parent generation, but when the parent is an immigrant, this may not be available or may not be easily comparable to US data. As such, immigrants are often not included in estimates of mobility (for example, our Social Genome Model at Brookings is restricted to non-immigrant children). But understanding how immigrants fit into the mobility conversation is not a question that can ignored. Tomorrow we’ll take a stab at examining what we do know about social mobility and opportunity for immigrants and their children.

Immigrants & Immigration

Economic Studies

Center for Economic Security and Opportunity

January 13, 2022

Charles Kamasaki

March 26, 2021

Anna Brinley, Ann Hilbig

October 4, 2019

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Out of Many, One: Immigration, Identity and the American Dream

Knight Foundation asked four leading scholars and community leaders to consider this question: “What is the most important trend that will transform how Americans think about community over the next decade?” Ali Noorani, Executive Director, the National Immigration Forum , shares insights below. Click here to download and view all essays.

Unprecedented global migration, how it is perceived and how it is experienced, is the prism through which we will understand the 21st century American community. How we respond determines what kind of America future generations live in.

In just over 25 years the number of international migrants in the world increased approximately 70 percent to reach 257.7 million . In the same period, the U.S. foreign-born population more than doubled to reach 49.8 million immigrants in 2017. Along the way, America experienced the Great Recession and economic disruptions driven by technology and globalization that changed the way we work and the way we relate to one another.

Over the course of 2018, the National Immigration Forum convened 26 Living Room Conversations to better understand how Americans are grappling with these changes. What we heard, what we learned, offers a roadmap for civic leaders across the political spectrum to help communities grapple with the politics of immigration.

Over the last few years, stories of mass migration have found their way to our homes, filtered through our news feed of choice, bringing a level of urgency to the debate. For many of us, when we see the Central American child on the train or the Syrian family in the raft, we are led to believe by certain press and politicians that they will be our neighbor in a matter of weeks. As our communities diversify, through marriage or migration, our new neighbor reminds us of what we saw on our screen. Diversity brings to our communities new languages, new customs, new religions. Our divisive politics define our perception, creating unease and insularity.

The fragmentation of traditional media and the powerful influence of social media bring these changes into sharp focus. We don’t trust our institutions, so we turn to our friends and family for the information and influence that shapes our opinion. For Americans worried that their children will not be better off than they are, it feels like the movement of goods, people, commerce, and ideas presents future generations an overwhelming set of economic and social challenges.

In some cases, leaders respond with a hardened politics, the building of actual and metaphorical walls, legislation that seeks to exert greater control at the local and national level. Paralyzed by anger and fear, the politics and policies of these communities stymie growth. And that feeds into the sense of victimhood as neighboring communities that embrace the challenges and opportunities of immigration see greater economic growth.

The combination of a more diverse America and a rapidly-changing economy has exacerbated a perception that immigrants and immigration are a threat, not a benefit, to American communities.

Those policy makers looking to lead more inclusive communities, buoyed by the rule of law, thrive with growing, diverse populations. They do the hard work necessary to help communities understand the changes around and beyond them. Fears are acknowledged and addressed, not dismissed and ignored. Programs and policies are put into place to welcome immigrants and refugees into the community without displacing native born residents.

The combination of a more diverse America and a rapidly-changing economy has exacerbated a perception that immigrants and immigration are a threat, not a benefit, to American communities. In this new normal, there are two paths we can take. One leads to an expanded sense of community, positively influenced by a diversity of sights, sounds and relationships that come from global migration. The second, darker path is more insular, narrowed by fears of immigration.

These days, it feels like America has chosen the second path where leaders are quick to sow seeds of xenophobia and division. The seeds that lead to cultural, security and economic fears define the questions that polarize the nation’s immigration debate:

• Culture: Are immigrants and refugees isolating or integrating? Do they live in isolated enclaves, or are they immersed in the community, learning English and becoming American?
• Security: Are immigrants and refugees threats or protectors? Are they national security or public safety threats, or do they make positive contributions to communities, even serving in law enforcement and in the military?
• Economy: Are immigrants and refugees takers or givers? Are they taking jobs and benefits, or are they economic contributors?

Rather than help Americans understand and facilitate the cultural and economic changes around them, supporters of immigration ignore these questions, while anti-immigrant forces weaponize them. Yet, we observed that when Living Room Conversations participants were able to voice their fears and feel heard, the discussion migrated away from division towards solutions.

Changing course requires us to understand the broader context of demographic change, the fears Americans have, and, more importantly, how to acknowledge and address those fears. Only then can America live up to the ideal of e pluribus, unum – “out of many, one.”

A Changing Nation

In a historical context, what we’re experiencing is not new. In 1890 and again in 1910, U.S foreign-born residents and citizens made up at least 14.7 percent of the nation’s population. Decades of xenophobia and political backlash followed the 1910 crest, resulting in multiple laws restricting immigration. Today, with 13.7 percent of the United States’ current population being foreign born, we are at a similar inflection point . What lies ahead depends on how Americans think about and engage with community.

Today, more than 40 million U.S. residents and citizens were born in another country. And, while immigration of generations past diversified the ethnic makeup of the nation, modern day immigration has made today’s America more racially and ethnically diverse than ever before. The Pew Research Center paints a colorful statistical portrait of America in 2016 where Mexican immigrants accounted for 26 percent of the nation’s foreign born, with the next largest origin groups are those from China (6 percent), India (6 percent), and the Philippines (4 percent). And America will only become more diverse in the years ahead, with Asians as a whole projected to become the largest immigrant group by 2055.

The diversification of America’s communities is not wholly dependent on future immigration. In fact, new U.S. Census estimates found that for the first time, in 2013 over half of babies born in the U.S. were non-white. Which means, “non-Hispanic whites will cease to be the majority group by 2044.

The challenge is that the combination of demographic and economic changes is hard to unpack for Americans who see their community and their livelihood changing at the same time.

For recent generations of Americans, a diverse America is the reality they were born into. But, for the nation’s Baby Boomers — those born between 1946 and 1964 — these were tectonic shifts that rattled their economic and social framework. In 1960, 88.6 percent of the U.S. population was white, dropping to 72.4 percent in 2010. In 1970, 4.5 percent of the nation’s population was Hispanic. Just 40 years later the Hispanic population quadrupled to 16.3 percent.

In the 1990’s, as the nation’s immigrant population began to grow, the Baby Boomer generation peaked at 78.8 million. At this point, Baby Boomers were between 25 and 45 years old, and beginning to start their families, worrying about college tuition and job prospects for their children. And along comes immigration and globalization to fundamentally reshape their socioeconomic reality.

As American Action Forum President Douglas Holtz-Eakin said in 2016 before the House Ways and Means Committee, from World War II to 2007, the economy grew fast enough that GDP per capita — a crude measure of the standard of living — doubled on average every 35 years, or one working career. Coming out of 2008’s Great Recession, projections indicated that it would double every 75 years. And, in 2016, those households that worked full-time for the full year saw zero increase in their real incomes. As Holtz-Eakin put it, “The American Dream is disappearing over the horizon.” For many Americans experiencing this new reality, particularly as their children came of working age, immigration was a source of competition, not of optimism.

It isn’t hard to see why Americans are feeling stress and anxiety about their future. Demographic, economic and cultural shifts lead them to question their sense of community and turn too quickly to blame immigrants as the source of their problems. Our politics track this anxiety as the generational and geographic divide between political parties grows. So much so that the difference in generational diversity is driving not only a competing sense of community, but divergent political priorities.

Our starting point in this case is the fact that nearly half of Americans under the age of 20 are minority, while over three-quarters of those 65 and older are non-Hispanic white. William Frey, a Brookings Institution demographer, writes, “The rapid growth of minorities from the ‘bottom up’ of the age structure is creating a racial generation gap between the old and young that reflects the nation’s changing demography.” He finds that 75 percent of the population over age 55 is white, while 54 percent of those under age 35 are white – a “gap” of 21 percent, nationally. As a result, the lived experience of Baby Boomers is fundamentally different than Millennials; a difference that lays the foundation for very different perspectives on community.

Most importantly, Frey finds, “The gap is especially high in states that that have received recent waves of new minority residents to counter more established old whiter populations: Arizona leads all states with a gap of 33 percent.” Nevada, New Mexico, Florida and California round out the top five. With the exception of New Mexico, all five states have been the epicenter of heated immigration debates as older voters pressure lawmakers to clamp down on immigration through a range of local enforcement policies.

To state the obvious, our changing nation has changed our politics. The echo chamber nature of our political debate creates bubbles where perceptions of community are narrow and divisive. Driven by primary elections, policy makers have little incentive to explain these changes to their electorate, much less reach out beyond their base. As a result, a racial and geographic divide to our politics settles in.

Luzerne County, which includes and surrounds Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, provides a 2016 election example. The county’s diversity index — which measures the variance of the racial and origin-based composition of a given population — increased by 360 percent from 2000 to 2015. It was one of the counties that saw a dramatic swing from blue to red in 2016. President Barack Obama carried Luzerne County by nearly 5 percentage points in 2012. Four years later, based on a campaign defined by racial and geographic fearmongering, President Trump carried the county by more than 19 points.

The racial gap between the parties grew in 2018. While 54 percent of whites voted for Republicans, African Americans, Latinos and Asians voted for Democrats at 90 percent, 64 percent and 69 percent, respectively. And, geographically speaking, urban and suburban voters preferred Democratic candidates, while voters in small towns and rural places favored Republicans.

Estimates indicate that by 2040, approximately 70 percent of Americans will live in the 15 largest states. Even as New York City, Los Angeles and Houston continue to see population growth, 30 percent of the country’s population — living in smaller states without major metropolitan centers — will hold disproportionate electoral power. Unless political and civic leaders have strategies to help communities understanding the changes they see (or read about), political dysfunction will lead to national tension.

Coming of age in big cities that include a greater range of economic opportunities, many (mostly liberal) Americans are insulated from the demographic and cultural changes Americans in suburban or rural communities struggle with. Diverse, urban environments have been built over generations, and the changes there have been steady and gradual. While not perfect or easy, cities allow youth and families to familiarize themselves with the idea of diversity. Over time, it becomes the norm as institutions in urban areas shape, and were shaped by, the diversity of the populations they served or engaged.

Suburban and rural parts of the country, home to an older and white population, with less access to the spoils of the technology economy, experienced these demographic changes more recently, and more dramatically. The changes that took place were proportionately larger, faster, and more acute – and accompanied changes as the global economy shifted. Demographic changes became a proxy for economic disruption.

Unless we change course, the political divide between young and old, rural and urban, will only widen as migration pressures are exacerbated by continuing economic shifts. Needless to say, the need for a different understanding of the American community has a certain level of urgency.

With or without immigration, the American community is becoming more diverse. As Richard Longworth of the Chicago Council for Global Affairs put it, “You can’t build a wall against hormones.” Which means we are not going to return to the Baby Boomer definition of America.

So charting a viable path toward compromise and common purpose requires us to meet people where they are, understanding the origins of their hopes and fears and reactions to their fast-changing communities. Our current politics and politicians limit the opportunities to do this kind of work. Ultimately, we must work together to hold elected officials from both parties accountable for divisive rhetoric.

Understanding the Fears

Deepened understanding of these fears and anxieties starts with careful listening. The National Immigration Forum works to engage conservative and moderate faith, law enforcement and business leaders living in the Southeast, South Central, Midwest and Mountain West, regions that have experienced some of the fastest growth in the foreign-born population and are struggling with the political and cultural changes that come with it.

In the sprint of 2018, Forum staff traveled to dozens of rural and suburban communities in conservative regions of the country to convene “Living Room Conversations.” We tapped into our networks of faith, law enforcement and business leaders to recruit 10-15 participants per conversation in order to better understand how conservative leaning rural and suburban communities perceived a changing America. A discussion guide designed by a team of researchers helped us lead robust and open conversations that included themes of identity, community and polarization, and perceptions about immigrants.

We launched this learning campaign to test our hypothesis that Americans grapple with three specific fears that lead to critical questions of our changing sense of community:

To complement our findings, we partnered with More in Common, an international initiative to build stronger and more resilient communities and societies, which had just completed an exhaustive quantitative survey of the American public. More in Common’s report, “Hidden Tribes : A Study of America’s Polarized Landscape,” provides greater texture to these issues. Rather than a typical conservative versus liberal categorization of the public, their research led to a segmentation of the American public into seven tribes. Four of the tribes, they concluded, are a part of the “Exhausted Majority.”

More in Common’s findings aligned with the results of our Living Room Conversations, “Unsettling changes in our economy and society have left many Americans feeling like strangers in their own land.” They defined the Exhausted Majority as being:

• Fed up with the polarization plaguing American government and society
• Feeling forgotten in the public discourse, overlooked because their voices are seldom heard
• Flexible in their views, willing to endorse different policies according to the precise situation rather than sticking ideologically to a single set of beliefs
• Believe we can find common ground

Just because the Exhausted Majority is, well, exhausted, it doesn’t mean they agree on the issues. Their views on issues range across the spectrum but they are turned off by polarization, feel disregarded in the public discourse, and are flexible in their views. So, while there are certainly a large number of Americans trying to find consensus on our nation’s changing communities, finding that consensus requires careful listening.

As the authors wrote, “It would be a mistake to think of the Exhausted Majority merely as a group of political centrists, at least in the way that term is traditionally understood. They do not simply represent a midpoint between the warring tribes of the left and right. They are frustrated with the status quo and the conduct of American politics and public debate.”

This mirrors what we saw in our 26 Living Room Conversations across the country in 2018. Participants wanted leaders to hear their concerns. They sought information they can trust. And there was an unambiguous desire to rise above polarization and divisiveness in order to build coalitions and advance overdue policy reforms.

Before specific fears or anxieties came to the fore, questions of identity undergirded the conversation.

Francis Fukuyama wrote that the nation’s identity crisis is exacerbated by the perception of invisibility. “The resentful citizens fearing the loss of their middle-class status point an accusatory finger upward to the elite, who they believe do not see them, but also downward to the poor, who they feel are unfairly favored.” Therefore, “Economic distress is often perceived by individuals more as a loss of identity than as a loss of resources.

The perception that one’s job is going to be taken by the Mexican next door, or the Mexican in Mexico, creates a deep distrust of demographic change and the elites who seem so comfortable with it. Again, perception melds into reality and our political leaders are ill equipped to navigate the changes – or, more often, exploit the changes to divide rather than unite the electorate.

Fukuyama goes on, “The rightward drift also reflects the failure of contemporary left-leaning parties to speak to people whose relative status has fallen as a result of globalization and technological change.” The nation’s changes are much bigger than demography.

The authors of a new book, Identity Crisis, define “racialized economics” as “the belief that undeserving groups are getting ahead while your group is left behind.” As Washington Post columnist Dan Balz explained, “Issues of identity — race, religion, gender and ethnicity — and not economics were the driving forces that determined how people voted, particularly white voters.” We know from recent data that 69 percent of Americans — including 56 percent of Republicans — believe immigrants are “an important part of American identity.” But what shines through in our work, whether it was the Living Room Conversations or our broader approach, is that the when you localize the concept of “identity,” the term speaks as much to people’s hopes as to their fears.

“You’re a little bit of everything, and that’s really what America is … and that is the beauty and some of the angst in America … that you don’t want to give up your heritage.”

In Corpus Christi, Texas, we heard about the loss of American identity, while in Memphis, Tennessee, we heard that the church can be a powerful entity that organizes efforts to build transformative and inclusive national identities. In Gainesville, Florida, a man told us that “we are tribal and can’t handle difference,” whereas up the road in Tallahassee, we heard, “One of America’s proudest and most beautiful things is that it is a melting pot of cultures.” In Bentonville, Arkansas, a participant remarked, “You’re a little bit of everything, and that’s really what America is … and that is the beauty and some of the angst in America … that you don’t want to give up your heritage.”

Identity also speaks to a person’s community; which, at times, is different from the idea of an American identity. Numerous participants told us their identities were tied to their local communities, their neighborhoods, their sense of place. In Texas, unsurprisingly, there was a strong affinity with the idea of being “a Texan.” And Bentonville had a deep sense of civic pride when participants talked about the community’s growing diversity. Overlooking people’s economic concerns would be an error, but so would underestimating the power of identity as it underlies broader fears and anxieties people have.

With change taking hold all around them, we watched law enforcement officers, small business owners, and pastors — in real time — soul-searching, exploring what these changes mean to their own identities. Those who were hopeful saw their identities connected to larger themes of values and ideals. Those who were fearful found themselves in the midst of “an identity crisis.” But if they felt heard, if their opinion mattered, the tension melted out of the room.

So, why does the imperative to help America reimagine a sense of community in this global environment feel so challenging?

We need to move past binary arguments that attempt to delineate between race and class concerns. As our work has demonstrated, Americans experience immigration in a much more complicated way; our explanation of immigration, and engagement of the public, has to be just as complex.

Culture: Are immigrants integrating or isolating?

While cultural concerns are linked to identity, participants spoke to them in the context of a changing country, not always how they identified within those changes. For some participants, issues of race and ethnicity were central. For others, language determined whether an immigrant was integrating into American culture. Diversity and inclusion were also a consistent theme; as one participant in Fresno, California, said, “We don’t celebrate diversity … and too often it’s been us and them.”

A participant in El Paso, Texas, captured the tension between cultural integration: “It’s just easy to be American, and that is what this country is about, that we assimilate and unite as Americans … and I see that as a problem with some immigrants that want to isolate themselves and try to continue their own cultural behaviors — styles and behaviors … while they want to take advantage of the privileges of America … ”

In Appleton, Wisconsin, we heard that immigration “grows our culture, makes us more educated, [and] better people.” In Lubbock, Texas, a participant remarked, “I think [immigrants] bring a lot to our community by way of service and family values.” But in Las Vegas, Nevada, we heard that although immigrants are viewed as patriotic and hardworking, there were anxieties around a loss of cultural and language unity.

The conversations echoed More in Common’s findings: that freedom, equality and the American Dream are beliefs that make someone American, and that the ability to speak English can be valued as an important marker of American identity.

Security: Are immigrants threats or protectors?

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, security and terrorism concerns have loomed large in the nation’s immigration debate. More recently, the administration’s enforcement actions at the border and in the interior, along with progressive efforts to “Abolish ICE” and create “sanctuary cities,” have further polarized the debate. As the Trump administration falsely conflates immigration, terrorism and crime in order to achieve political goals, voters are left looking for information they can trust.

Our conversations indicated that personal relationships mitigated fears that center on security. People were willing to extend the benefit of the doubt to the “good” immigrants they knew. But many participants indicated that portrayals of immigrants as security threats are pervasive throughout the media. Therefore, even if people believe that such portrayals are misleading, what they read in the newspaper or saw on the television influenced their opinions.

Some 65 percent of Americans, including 42 percent of Republicans, do not believe that undocumented immigrants are more likely to commit serious crimes, according to Pew Research. This maps to reports that show, “immigrants are much less likely to commit crimes than the native-born.”

In the border town of El Paso, we observed a tension between some Americans wrestling with a desire to be compassionate as they fear threats posed by unauthorized immigration. The conversation in Mesa, Arizona, which included a handful of local law enforcement officers, revealed that although issues of legality and criminality continue to plague local residents’ perceptions and attitudes, participants generally agreed that immigrants do not pose an increased security threat. In Parker, Colorado, the sense among participants was that the broader community did believe immigrants posed a security threat.

Security fears are difficult to overcome. Even if someone feels immigrants are not a threat, one tragic incident, one hyperbolic headline, can plant a seed of doubt. All of which underscores the importance of local law enforcement in the conversation about the changing American community.

We often hear that immigrants have a bootstraps mentality — they work as hard as they can to build a better life. Data suggest that these participants are echoing national sentiment. A 2017 Gallup Poll found that 45 percent of Americans believe immigrants make the economy better overall, compared with 30 percent who believe immigrants make the economy worse overall. It’s a sentiment that lines up with the contributions immigrants make to the U.S. economy: According to New American Economy, immigrants paid $105 billion in state and local taxes, and around $224 billion in federal taxes, in 2014.

Participants in southern border communities, where the economy is closely tied to Mexico and to immigration, recognized the economic benefit of immigration. In San Marcos, California, participants saw that the economy is dependent on the ability of businesses to buy and sell in both the U.S. and Mexico. There was general agreement among participants in Corpus Christi that immigrants were an economic benefit. On the other hand, thousands of miles from the border in Spartanburg, South Carolina, participants remarked that some in the community invoked the economy as a reason to close borders and deport people here without authorization.

Fears related to the economy can be persistent. We can address questions of culture and security only to have questions about jobs and trade linger. Business leaders, at the national or local level, can help Americans understand a changing community when they partner with other civic leadership. Speaking to American competitiveness and growth in a fashion that serves all workers, American and immigrant, helps people understand the value of immigration to the nation. When the message is immigrant-centric, people feel left out of the conversation, believing elites are looking for cheaper workers.

Changing Hearts and Minds

More in Common concluded, “To bring Americans back together, we need to focus first on those things that we share, and this starts with our identity as Americans.” Questions of race, religion, and patriotism led to competing frames that pushed people apart. But, “One belief that brings Americans together is a sense that the country is special.”

We observed that when Living Room Conversations participants with different religious or political beliefs felt that their individual concerns were being heard, the tension in their voices dissipated, and their faces brightened. The discussions turned towards solutions, not divisions. In our conversations, we saw the same theme More in Common found in their data: a need for new approaches and a different conversation on immigration that helps people come together.

Taken together, the Living Room Conversations left us with a powerful realization: American identity is being reshaped as perceptions related to culture, security and the economy are shifting. Quickly changing demographics are not solely responsible; the industries of the past are giving way to the industries of the future, and the transition from a post-industrial to a knowledge-based economy is disruptive. New technologies, social norms and conventions are accentuating the way many Americans view issues such as immigration. When it comes to identity in the context of culture, security, and the economy, there is both optimism and concern.

“It’s very easy to hate from a distance,” one participant in Spartanburg said. But as people get to know the immigrant family next door, at their child’s Little League games, or one pew over at church, they come to understand them, appreciate them, love them and value their individual contributions to the larger American story. The challenge in front of us is whether we can bridge the personal relationships with a broader perception of immigrants.

Which leads to the foundational question: What actually changes people’s hearts and minds? It is easy to assume, and a lot of social change campaigns do, that if you can change someone’s attitude or emotion towards something, you can change behavior. But that isn’t really true, or, at least it’s not the whole picture.

From the Theory of Planned Behavior we learn that campaigns that focus solely on creating an emotional reaction, shifting an attitude or even creating empathy, don’t tend to have sustained and lasting effects on behavior. In other words, the emotionally gripping story of a mother seeking asylum or a successful immigrant business owner offers a fleeting sense of what is possible. And in this media environment, that moment is quickly replaced by the next headline.

Taking a step back to offer an audience an emotion, attitude or empathetic moment connected to an underlying belief or value, allows for a conversation about change that can be sustained. And when that value or belief is connected to a person’s self-perception and connected to the norms of their community, there is potential for behavioral change.

The new normal is a fast changing, fast moving world that impacts the way Americans see themselves and each other. And, at least for the foreseeable future, the fears of migration and immigration will continue to be exploited for political gain.

Few politicians can step into this fray unless they are willing to cross partisan lines. Which is hard to imagine these days.

But local leadership — the pastor, the police chief, the local business owner – have the potential to bridge the divide. These are the trusted messengers who can operate within the networks of friends and family that are some of the most trusted places in society.

They are the local leadership with the trust and the credibility to help Americans understand the shifting nature of community in the context of global migration. They are trusted leadership who can meet people where they are, but not leave them there.

About the Author

Ali Noorani

Ali Noorani is the Executive Director of the National Immigration Forum, a non-partisan advocacy organization working with faith, law enforcement and business leaders to promote the value of immigrants and immigration. Growing up in California as the son of Pakistani immigrants, Noorani quickly learned how to forge alliances among people of wide-ranging backgrounds, a skill that has served him extraordinarily well as one of the nation’s most innovative coalition builders. Noorani is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, holds a Master’s in Public Health from Boston University and is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley. Noorani is a regular contributor to Boston Public Radio, the author of “There Goes the Neighborhood: How Communities Overcome Prejudice and Meet the Challenge of American Immigration,” (Prometheus, April 2017) and host of “Only in America” podcast. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Click here to download essay and view full footnote references . The author’s views expressed in this essay are his own.

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Immigrants and the American Dream

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From my ten years documenting the poverty, pain, and frustration of lower-income communities it is easy to conclude that the American Dream is dead for the working class. There is one big exception though: Newer immigrants, who despite poverty, are still optimistic.

The American Dream is best captured in how people talk about the future, especially for their kids. While most working class Americans see their children’s future as dimmer than their own, working class immigrants see it as brighter.

The best example came from Battle Creek, Michigan, where I met a retired couple who had both worked for Kellogg’s. In the course of telling me about their life, Sue, 73, mentioned she was “glad I am not young now.”

That is a stunning thing to say and so I asked her why, expecting to hear about a particular personal tragedy, or a battle with depression, or hopefully a discussion about the contentment that can come with aging. Rather she said, “Me and my husband have had a good life. We could get good jobs with benefits straight out of high school. My daughter and her children cannot do that. They have to work weekends and are always anxious and worried. I wouldn’t want that life.”

That same day I met Stephen who came to US from Kenya at 14, who was happy and optimistic about his life, and expected any future children would do better, because “No matter who is in the White House, you just have to work really hard. I kept working hard and eventually I got myself promoted. That couldn’t happen in Kenya.”

I found this attitude all over and could give example after example of immigrants, who despite having little money, were happy .

That optimism is why I looked forward to visiting places like El Paso and East Los Angeles, because I knew I would find communities, that although poor, had a sense of place and worked in a hard to define but easy to recognize way.

The oft glamorized nostalgic past when lower-income communities focused on the decency from hard work, religion, and family, is the present in these places. Although you hear as much Spanish spoken in them as English. Or find congregations built around mosques rather than churches, like in the Somali-American community of Lewiston, Maine.

In these places the American Dream, as defined by the residents, is working. They can get a job, without a college degree, that gives them enough stability to buy a home, raise a family, and then retire to watch their kids do even better. All while driving to church each Sunday in a F-150 with both a Mexican and US Flag pasted to the rear window.

Why is the American Dream working for newer immigrants and not for the rest of the working class?

It is partly perspective. Many of the immigrants have left behind awful situations, such as the Bosnian and Iraqi immigrants in Buffalo and Utica. Or the Yemeni Americans who run corner grocery stores in Brooklyn, the Bronx, and tougher neighborhoods all over the US.

In El Paso an older man living in an apartment far too small for the three generations in it, explained that he could look over to the Mexican side of the border fence at the end of the street and be reminded of the poverty he escaped, and if he forgets about that, the gunshots ringing across each night would remind him.

Yet it is deeper than just perspective. It is also about attitude and worldview. Newer working class immigrants haven’t fully accepted America’s dominant secular and material culture that views credentials as the central goal of life and individual liberty as the central form of meaning.

They still put their personal desires second to longer term social connections, including family, faith, and local community. The result is they maintain strong communities centered around the church social, the backyard bbq, the sports league, and other things not connected to career building.

They are also happier because they have yet to be chewed up and spit out by our educational meritocracy.

In an East LA McDonald’s I met a young woman who came each night to use the free WiFi to do homework and play on her game console. She was going to a local community college, rather than a “better school”, because as the oldest daughter she was needed as her mom’s translator.

While she sees staying to care for her mother as the right thing to do, it is the wrong thing as judged by broader society. And that is the problem.

The American Dream as envisioned by our elites, the one she hasn’t accepted, would have her leave home, go into debt, get a degree, and then compete with millions of others for a few jobs in far away expensive towns. All to grow a big resume. If along the way she feels bad about her mom, she can always pay someone else to translate for her.

That version of the dream is broken because it is rigged against the working class. That dream requires everyone transforming into a resume building optimization machine to compete with elites on their narrow terms.

That is the dream that her children, or grandchildren, will probably come to accept and pursue, because they will be told over and over to do that, from guidance counselors, the media, Hollywood, and eventually their parents as they further buy into the dominant US mantra of, “Go to the best college you can! No matter the cost!

Yet they will almost all fail because our educational system is built to crush the working class, who start with so much stacked against them. It is a system that devalue those things they care about that cannot be justified by a utility function. Like religion or staying close to home to care for your mom.

After a few generations of attempting run up a down escalator, her grandchildren will probably become as frustrated and angry as the working class blacks and whites I met all across the country, who have grudgingly realized that version of the American Dream is dead.

Or, they might become as cynical, hardened, and as anti-immigration as the working class white guy sitting next to me at an Applebee’s who mocked the elite’s attitude as, “Oops, we broke the working class, let’s import another!”

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Column: We need immigrants more than ever. They keep hope in this country alive

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When I think about the American dream, I think of Julio Arana.

He was my student at Cal State Fullerton a decade ago, a crackerjack of a kid from Jalisco who didn’t know what he wanted to do with life but knew the United States was the place to do it in. Today, the 36-year-old is a real estate agent who owns seven properties, from Orange County to the Coachella Valley, and flips houses like a cook handles pancakes. But Arana prides himself most on helping young couples, Latinos and not, buy their first homes.

“I couldn’t have done this in Mexico,” he told me as we stood in front of his latest purchase, a beat-up 1925 Spanish Revival in Santa Ana just down the street from another house he owns. Long-haired, tanned and tattooed, Arana wore a stylish brown hat and a T-shirt with Emiliano Zapata drawn as the grinning skull logo of punk icons the Misfits . “The one thing this country still offers is that the little guy can get it.”

We were at his newest acquisition because he wanted me to see something: On the side of the house, on a wall behind a trellis near the driveway, was a bas-relief stucco swastika the size of an adult head. A previous owner was a World War II veteran, but Arana had no idea why the white-power emblem was there. A historical curio? Emblematic of the previous owner’s beliefs?

It didn’t matter: It was personal to Arana.

“The first property I bought, in Desert Hot Springs, I had to evict Nazis,” he said. “This is full circle.”

Drawing on an unprecedented poll, this series tells the stories of immigrant life in America today, putting their voices in the foreground.

Just a few moments earlier, we had spoken to his neighbor, Marco Chavez. Arana told him his story — he came to this country without papers as an 8-year-old — and the 61-year-old Chavez shared a bit of his: An immigrant from Morelos who bought his home in the early 2000s. His five children are college graduates. He just finished a living trust.

“My chamacos have come out good,” Chavez told us in Spanish, holding a coffee cup in one hand and a cigarette in another as he looked at his three vintage VW buses parked on the street. “We’ve all done good.”

Julio and I were getting ready to drive 10 minutes away, to a Santa Ana duplex where he was finishing up an ADU. “For us [immigrants] ... there’s all this opportunity around us. People leave their homelands out of despair, and their hope is gone. Here, there’s hope. I see it all around me.”

When my editor first told me that a nationwide L.A. Times/KFF poll found that immigrants are more optimistic about life in the United States than native-born Americans, my initial response was: story of my life.

I was raised in a run-down granny flat in Anaheim a stone’s throw from a lumberyard, the only place my immigrant parents could afford when they married in 1978. By the time I was 10 in 1989, my mother — a tomato canner — and my truck-driving dad had saved up enough to buy a post-World War II tract home in a better part of town.

World & Nation

In an increasingly pessimistic era, immigrants espouse a hallmark American trait — optimism

Immigrants to the U.S. face extensive challenges, but they still report high levels of optimism about their futures and trust in American institutions, a comprehensive survey has found.

Sept. 17, 2023

Within five years, our street went from majority white to almost exclusively Latino. Our former neighbors moved to Washington, Arizona and other states because, they told my parents, the neighborhood wasn’t “safe” anymore, and California was changing.

Thirty-five years later, my dad and youngest brother are still there, the mortgage paid off years ago . I own my own home. So does the sister that follows me.

My parents never explicitly told us about the American dream. Each grew up in wrenching poverty in Zacatecas, one of the poorest states in Mexico. They couldn’t give us much besides a roof over our heads and back-to-school clothes from Montgomery Ward, but their lives were an unspoken lesson: Life in this country is tough, but life back in the rancho was far harder. You’ve got a shot here — so make something of it, because we did.

The L.A. Times/KFF survey also revealed that Latino immigrants aren’t just optimistic, on some measures, they’re more optimistic than other immigrant groups. It’s a tendency that USC sociology professor Jody Agius Vallejo said “studies have found time and time again” — and that more than a few pundits find weird.

She has devoted her research to studying upper- and middle-class Latinos , whose stories of hope and achievement like that of my family and Julio are legion. That includes the family of her husband, immigrants from Jalostotitlán, Jalisco, who settled in Watts in the 1960s and established a pioneering Latino grocery chain .

“I do get frustrated when people are surprised that Latinos are optimistic,” Agius Vallejo said. “Why wouldn’t they [be]? We can’t discount the fact that Latinos have been subject to significant discrimination and segregation and still make something of themselves. It’s a point of pride for them.”

That’s why I roll my eyes when I hear Americans whine about how their country is ruined — and few are more histrionic than former President Trump. Just this July, he told a rapt crowd that “the American dream is being torn to shreds” and the country is “going to hell, and it’s going to hell very fast.”

Whiners: If you don’t like the U.S., leave. Leave it to immigrants.

When I think of the American dream, I think of my uncle, Ezequiel Miranda.

He, my late mother and three aunts came to the United States as children with my grandparents in the early 1960s. They picked crops near Hollister, Calif., before making their way down to Anaheim, where my grandfather, José Miranda, had picked and packed oranges in the 1920s in what was then a segregated city. My uncle dropped out of school in seventh grade, fearing what might happen after he beat up the white bully who had made his life hell for too long.

I still remember the granny flat in Anaheim that mi tío , his wife, Marbella, and five of his six children lived in when I was growing up in the 1980s. It was next to a muddy alley, in a barrio worse than ours. But my uncle, a member of Cement Masons Local 500 for more than 30 years who worked on projects including Disney California Adventure and what’s now called the Crypto.com Arena, lived the maxim he always told his children and us cousins: A trabajar . Get working.

He bought a small house in Anaheim, traded that one for a bigger one down the street and then settled into a two-story home with a swimming pool in Placentia, where he and Marbella still live. They’re finally empty-nesters: Last week, my cousin Placido, his wife and their two teenage daughters moved into a four-bedroom home in Anaheim after selling their condo during the pandemic and staying with his parents.

At 46, he’s the last of his siblings to own a home. His house is on the type of street where neighbors mistook mi tío for the gardener.

“When we bought it, it looked like the set of Jack Tripper’s apartment,” Plas said, referring to a character in the 1970s and ’80s sitcom “Three’s Company,” as he took me on a tour of his kitchen (I call my cousin Plas, and he calls me Gus. Assimilation!). He’s a delivery driver for Frito-Lay who didn’t go beyond community college but is probably the smartest person I know. He sells movie memorabilia and sneakers on EBay as a side hustle, once offering a slew of $1 white T-shirts online for $25 apiece.

New floorboards, cabinets, fixtures, lights and walls gleamed. The granite countertops were on their way.

“My dad came in, and he began to tear things out immediately,” Plas said. “My two handles for this drawer,” he continued, sheepishly shaking his head, “took an hour and a half to install.”

Ten languages, thousands of phone calls: Accurately polling immigrants posed unprecedented challenges

Carrying out the KFF/L.A. Times survey of immigrants required work far beyond the normal survey, but the result provides a unique source of information about America’s immigrant population.

We moved on to his backyard, where mi tío had trimmed hedges that the previous owner let overgrow. He’s now 70 but looks decades younger. I asked mi tío how he felt about how life turned out in the U.S.

“I go to one street, there’s one of my kids. Go to another, another,” he said in Spanish. He’s usually gregarious but now was soft-spoken. “I worked for 50 years. This is my dream.”

“The reason people don’t feel [the American dream] is attainable is because everything is just more expensive,” Plas said. “They almost resign themselves to saying, ‘I can’t buy a house.’

“But when you grow up with dirt floors and laminate roofs, that motivates you to reach for more. When we went to McDonald’s growing up, it was a special occasion. When my parents would buy ice cream, we’d all get just one spoonful and knew to appreciate it.”

“Now,” Plas concluded with his usual sly smile, “my daughters leave cereal in their bowl.”

The L.A. Times/KFF survey might not be news to you. It might even seem boring. But its findings are vital. It’s the template for how this country can move forward from the chaos and division that have afflicted us since the rise of Trump.

To adapt a phrase from Thomas Jefferson, the tree of liberty must be refreshed with immigrant hope.

The doom and gloom that too many Americans screech about on social media and in their personal lives — on both sides of the red-blue divide — is a betrayal of what brought their ancestors here, and what continues to attract people from across the world. Pessimism, not political differences, is what’s bringing down this country; the optimism of newcomers is our best shot to survive.

When I think about the American dream, I think about the bus that arrived Sept. 9 at Union Station from Brownsville, Texas . It’s the 13th such one-way trip since June arranged by the administration of Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.

He signed off on them shortly after L.A. declared itself a sanctuary city , meaning city personnel and resources can’t be used to help federal officials deport immigrants.

Abbott says he’s sending us migrants to protest the supposed lax security at the U.S.-Mexico border, but he’s really mocking the American dream . His moves are descended from Proposition 187, the 1994 California ballot initiative that sought to make life miserable for immigrants without legal status but was eventually ruled unconstitutional.

I grew up in that era, and its rank xenophobia propelled me to not just devote my life to fight back, but also to look for the good in this country instead of the bad. Because if my parents could do it, why not me?

Proposition 187 had the same effect on Angelica Salas , the longtime head of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles and the daughter of Mexican immigrants. Her group is part of a coalition of nonprofits and faith groups called L.A. Welcomes Collective , which has helped to connect the migrants Abbott has kicked out of Texas with housing and relatives in the United States.

“They are the most patriotic individuals in our country because they’re always hoping that America’s ideals and purported values will happen in their lives,” Salas said of the immigrants she works with. “If it doesn’t, then they hope it happens in the lives of their children. And if it doesn’t for them? Then their grandchildren. Their tenacity to not give up is contagious. ”

That’s the spirit Americans need anew. Immigrants now, immigrants tomorrow, immigrants forever.

More to Read

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Gustavo Arellano is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, covering Southern California everything and a bunch of the West and beyond. He previously worked at OC Weekly, where he was an investigative reporter for 15 years and editor for six, wrote a column called ¡Ask a Mexican! and is the author of “Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America.” He’s the child of two Mexican immigrants, one of whom came to this country in the trunk of a Chevy.

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Essay on American Dream For Immigrants

Students are often asked to write an essay on American Dream For Immigrants in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on American Dream For Immigrants

The american dream: an overview.

The American Dream is a belief in the freedom that allows all citizens and most importantly, immigrants, to achieve their goals through hard work. It promises a better life with equal chances for everyone, regardless of their background.

Attraction for Immigrants

Many immigrants are drawn to America because of the American Dream. They believe it offers them a chance to make a better life for themselves and their families. They hope to find jobs, education, and opportunities they may not have in their home countries.

Challenges Faced by Immigrants

Despite the promise of the American Dream, immigrants often face many challenges. These include learning a new language, adapting to a different culture, and sometimes, dealing with discrimination. Yet, they continue to strive for a better life.

Success Stories

There are many success stories of immigrants achieving the American Dream. These stories inspire others and show that with hard work and determination, it’s possible to overcome challenges and achieve one’s goals.

250 Words Essay on American Dream For Immigrants

The american dream: a beacon for immigrants.

The American Dream is a powerful idea that has drawn many people to the United States for centuries. It’s an idea that says anyone can become successful if they work hard, regardless of where they come from. This is why so many immigrants see America as a land of opportunity.

What is the American Dream for Immigrants?

For immigrants, the American Dream often means a better life. It can mean escaping poverty or oppression in their home country. It can mean having the freedom to express themselves and their beliefs. Most importantly, it means having the chance to work hard and build a good life for themselves and their families.

Chasing the Dream

Immigrants come to America from all over the world, each with their own dreams and ambitions. Some want to start businesses, others want to pursue an education, and some just want a safe place to live. They believe that in America, they can achieve these dreams.

The Reality of the Dream

The reality of the American Dream is not always as simple as it seems. Immigrants often face challenges like language barriers, cultural differences, and discrimination. But despite these hurdles, many immigrants remain hopeful and work tirelessly to make their dreams come true.

The Dream Continues

The American Dream for immigrants is more than just an idea. It’s a promise of hope, opportunity, and freedom. It’s what makes America a melting pot of cultures and ideas. And even with the challenges they face, immigrants continue to chase this dream, adding to the rich tapestry of America’s diverse society.

500 Words Essay on American Dream For Immigrants

The idea of the american dream, immigrants and the american dream.

Immigrants are people who leave their home country to live in a new one. For many years, people from all over the world have been moving to America. They come with the hope of a better life. This is because they believe in the American Dream. They think that in America, they will have more chances to be successful and happy.

The Hardships Faced by Immigrants

Moving to a new country is not easy. Immigrants often face many problems. They might not speak English well, which can make it hard to find a job or make friends. They might also miss their families and homes. These problems can make it hard for them to reach their American Dream.

Success Stories of Immigrants

The importance of the american dream.

The American Dream is very important. It gives people hope and encourages them to work hard. Even though it can be hard to achieve, the dream of a better life is what keeps many immigrants going.

In conclusion, the American Dream is a powerful idea that attracts many immigrants to the United States. Despite the challenges they face, the hope for a better life motivates them to strive for success. The stories of immigrants who have achieved the American Dream inspire others to continue pursuing their dreams. This shows that the American Dream is not just a dream, but a reality that can be achieved with hard work and determination.

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Imigrants Challenges that Push Them to Seek The American Dream: The Joy Luck Club

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Through hard work, dreams can be transformed into reality. (Photo Credits Adele Fuzaylov)

Creative Writing

From a dream into a reality.

Adele Fuzaylov

“How did you sleep last night?” A man asked his wife. 

“Very well, actually. I dreamed of America.” She replied, her eyes bright with hope. Hope of a better and safer future for her daughter with whom she will soon move to a foreign land with promised opportunities. To her, a place where her life wasn’t endangered simply because she was a Jewish woman was a major part of her American Dream. 

During the late 1900s, the anti-semitic violence that took place in the Soviet Union forced many families to leave. America was a common destination as it was where anyone, regardless of their religion, could build their life anew – without being put at a disadvantage because of who they are. Or at least, that was what the American Dream suggested. For the women—along with all the other Soviet Jews—Judaism was a nationality; not a religion. While in the Soviet Union, it was a life-sentence on her passport. The burden of being born a Jew shadowed her family, causing them to face discrimination everywhere they went.

Thus, when on December 10th, 1990, the Soviet Jewry Vigil — a movement that involved daily campaigning to pressure the Soviet government to allow Jewish emigration — ended after twenty years. Nearly 182,000 Jews [left] the Soviet Union for Israel, and thousands more for the United States.   Fleeing a country that denied Jews the freedoms they deserved, the woman was desperate to live out her American Dream in the United States.

For her and for millions of others seeking refuge in the states, the idea represented by the phrase “the American Dream” was a life of security, opportunity and stability. Their definition was in line with that of America’s Founding Fathers, who defined the term as the belief that no matter one’s origin, they are capable of achieving life, liberty, happiness and security. However, since the late eighteenth century, the term has evolved to also include home ownership because the idea of freedom that comes with owning property gives a higher status to an American.

Upward progress is another aspect that is commonly associated with the American Dream; particularly, the hope that the future generation will live a better life and achieve greater success in realizing their American Dream. All this was what motivated the woman to leave everything behind, in hopes of providing her daughter with a more fulfilled life.

However, obtaining this American Dream was not an easy feat. In America, while the woman was no longer seen as an outcast because of her nationality, she was now dismissed by many because of her limited English vocabulary and strong accent. Once in the Soviet Union a dentist and her husband a military engineer, now, they were not those people. They were forced to leave all that behind in order to start over for the sake of their safety and that of their daughter, with just a few hundred dollars at their disposal.

The husband worked two jobs, sweeping the streets of Brooklyn as a janitor, while the woman worked tirelessly to get into New York University and obtain her medical degree, for a second time. Both worked relentlessly, day and night, earning minimum wage and learning English during any free time they had. When the women finally got accepted to NYU, they had to take out a substantial loan, praying that everything would work out and they would be able to pay it off. Moreover, the woman was by far the oldest student in her classes, causing her to be looked down upon because of her age.

While the American Dream promised fairness for all, the woman’s journey of obtaining the dream showed her that, at times, everything wasn’t exactly as the dream had promised. Nonetheless, she knew that to reach her American Dream, she had to sleep through a bit of an American Nightmare while contemplating whether this was the right decision, especially during those countless sleepless nights. 

As a result of years of hard work, the woman was successful in achieving her American Dream. She opened her own dental office, bought a house with her husband, and supported her daughter in any way she could. Her journey became proof of the fact that with determination and resilience, one is capable of achieving their American Dream. It will most certainly be difficult, but not impossible with the right attitude and intentions. 

Growing up as a first generation American, I witnessed firsthand the transformative power of the American Dream. That woman is my very own grandmother. Her story is a representation of how the American Dream can be reached because, despite being faced with numerous setbacks and challenges, through hard work she has built a better future for herself and her family. So, in this way, my grandparents achieved the quintessential American Dream: homeownership, financial stability and opportunities.

In contemporary America, the American Dream continues to face new challenges and opportunities. Economic inequality, social injustice, and systemic barriers hinder the realization of the American Dream for many, particularly marginalized individuals.

However, amidst these challenges, there are also signs of hope.

Almost two years ago, at the start of the war in Ukraine, our family friends immigrated to the United States in search of safety. Leaving everything behind, they came on parole and found jobs to support their family. Today, both of their children are thriving in school and already have big dreams for their future education in America. 

For my family, it began with my grandmother’s dream and the need to escape religious persecution; for the Ukrainian family it was the terrors of war.

For each and every family, the journey to the American Dream is unique and deeply personal, but it is the hope of a better tomorrow and hard work that brings them closer to it. For my grandmother, that hope continues to be that her daughter and grandchildren can go to bed and sleep well, knowing that they can achieve their American Dream. 

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Migrants in NYC fight for American dream amid struggle for stability

Roughly 100,000 migrants have come to NYC since last spring.

Michelle Andrea Gutierrez Ortiz says she is constantly looking for work across New York City as she awaits the ability to get a work permit.

From babysitting to cleaning to dog walking to volunteering, Gutierrez, who migrated to the U.S. from Colombia, moves from job to job looking for the security and stability she expected to find in America.

"Without valid documentation here in the United States … it is very difficult to be here in the United States," Gutierrez told ABC News in Spanish.

The 26-year-old is one of nearly 100,000 migrants that have come to New York City since last spring, some of whom have been sent from states along the U.S.-Mexico border.

In 2016, New York City officials declared itself a sanctuary city, offering support and services to undocumented immigrants. Texas officials have sent busloads of migrants from the border to Democrat-led cities in a move that New York Mayor Eric Adams has called a "political stunt" and "dehumanizing." Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the busing brings attention to the Biden administration's "open-border policies."

According to the mayor's office, 57,200 asylum-seekers are currently in the city's care.

For many, like Gutierrez, the United States was seen as a beacon of hope away from the problems back in their homeland. But life in the United States – the dream of stable jobs, stable housing, a stable economy – has not been what she had hoped for.

"We're not just talking about the shelter, we're not just talking about healthcare, we're talking about the entirety of the well-being of the individual and the family," said Murad Awawdeh, the executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition.

MORE: NYC struggling to keep up with demand of supporting asylum-seekers, Mayor Adams says

He continued, "Folks are traveling to the United States as a last-ditch effort and then trying to find safety for themselves, for their families, and to have an opportunity just to live."

Juan Carlos Ruiz, the pastor of the Lutheran Church of The Good Shepherd, works with Gutierrez and other migrants in his church.

He said he's seen firsthand the ways the migrant community lifts one-another up.

"In the beginning, people need help. But eventually, those who are here as migrants, they give back to their communities," Ruiz said.

Gutierrez volunteers at the local church, filling out asylum applications, sorting donated clothes and helping with the kitchen. She said she does it because those she helps remind her of herself.

"I'm the same as them, an immigrant," she said. "Just as I needed help at one time, they need it now. They don't have anything to eat, they don't have clothes to wear, they don't have a place to live, so it fills my heart a little to be able to help."

Learn more about the plight of Gutierrez and other migrants like her in this video .

Related Topics

• Immigration

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