Census:
A study finds that 25% of Californians are foreign-born, the largest figure in
the nation.State
Leads as Home to Immigrants
Census:
A study finds that 25% of Californians are foreign-born, the largest figure in
the nation.
WASHINGTON
Nationwide,
10% of the population was foreign-born in 1997, a total of 25.8 million people,
the largest number in U.S. history. In California, there were 8 million
foreign-born residents in 1997, the most recent year for which detailed data are
available.
The share of
foreign-born residents was the highest since 1930, the end of an era of
large-scale immigration. During the first decades of the 20th century, waves of
immigrants poured into the nation's cities. While the numbers of Italians,
Germans and Poles swelled the populations in the Northeast, more recent
immigrants--from Mexico, the Philippines and China--are gravitating heavily to
regions such as California and Texas.
The metropolitan area
encompassing Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties is home to almost 20% of
the immigrants, the largest concentration in the nation, the Census found. The
total was 4.8 million, or 31% of the region's residents, in 1997.
And most of those are
relative newcomers, said Joseph Costanzo, the Census Bureau analyst who
co-authored the report. About 65% of the Los Angeles area's foreign-born have
come to the United States since 1979.
Following the Los
Angeles region as hubs for immigration are the New York metropolitan area,
Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, and Chicago.
"America has
revived one of its greatest traditions: that of being a nation of
immigrants," said Frank Sharry, executive director of the National
Immigration Forum, a pro-immigration organization. "In the same way that
immigrants played a vital role in helping America emerge this century as the
world's lone superpower, immigration will play an equally vital role in powering
America into the 21st century."
In one of the most
detailed portraits yet of the nation's immigrant population, the Census revealed
that foreign-born residents--half of whom are from Latin America and a quarter
of whom come from Asian countries--are, on average, more likely to work and more
likely to be poor than native-born Americans.
Within the broad
figures lies a wealth of detail that underscores the diversity of these
newcomers:
* About 36% of
Asian-born residents who work are employed as managers or professionals--a
higher percentage than for native-born American (30%) and much higher than
immigrants from Latin America (11%).
* Two-thirds of
families with a member born in Latin America (and 74% of those from Mexico) have
children at home, compared to 48% of households where all members are
native-born.
* Asian-born residents
had the highest rate of U.S. citizenship of any foreign-born group, with 44%
having become naturalized American citizens. By contrast, 24% of residents born
in Latin America--and only 15% of those from Mexico--had become citizens by
1997.
* Education levels
vary widely among immigrants: 71% of people from Africa and 63% from Asia
attended college, compared with 48% from Europe and 22% from Latin America.
Among the U.S. born population, 49% attended college.
California's
pace-setting role as home to the foreign-born reflects the immigrants' lands of
origin and a key trend in their settlement patterns: Many of the foreign-born
tend to cluster in or near the points of entry for immigrants to the United
States, said Costanzo, who prepared the report with Census Bureau analyst Dianne
Schmidley. Large numbers of Asians immigrated to San Francisco and Los Angeles,
people from Mexico moved to Los Angeles; and people from the Caribbean moved to
New York and Miami, Costanzo said.
The Census completed
this year is likely to show that the foreign-born documented in 1997 are
following a time-honored tradition and beginning to disperse geographically.
"Anecdotal evidence so far suggests they are following the migration
pattern of natives, and moving to less traditional urban areas than in the
past," Costanzo said. For example, there are local versions of Silicon
Valley all over the United States and they are attracting high-tech workers from
Asia, he said.
Such patterns may be
accelerated by Congress's passage this week of a measure that would allow as
many as 195,000 skilled foreign workers to enter the United States annually for
the next three years, to fill critical labor shortages in the nation's booming
high-tech industries.
Sharry cautioned that
in highlighting the contrasts between the pay and education levels of the native
and foreign-born, the Census Report is providing a snapshot that will change
over time. Studies of Latino immigrants suggest that in as little as a single
generation, key indicators of economic well-being, such as homeownership rates,
begin to match the levels of native-born Americans. "These are useful
snapshots," Sharry said. "But social mobility is part of the American
immigrant experience."
Experts also noted
that California's role as a magnet for immigrants is not new. Demographer Hans
Johnson said the high proportion of California residents born in other countries
is the normal demographic pattern for the state.
"People don't
realize that California has always had a greater percentage of its population
[who are] foreign-born than the rest of the country," said Johnson, an
analyst with the Public Policy Institute in San Francisco, a nonprofit group
that studies state issues.
In 1900, 25% to 30% of
the state's population was foreign-born, he said. The period from the 1950s to
the 1970s, when immigration and the proportion of foreign-born residents was
relatively low, was unusual, "an anomaly by California standards,"
Johnson said. Now the state's foreign-born population has returned to the
percentages of the past, part of a long-term demographic trend, he said.
* * *
Born on Foreign Soil
Country of origin for
U.S. foreign-born population:
* * *
Mexico:
7,017,000
Phillippines:
1,132,000
China: 1,107,000
Cuba: 913,000
Vietnam: 770,000
India: 748,000
Soviet Union: 734,000
Dominican Rep.:
632,000
El Salvador: 607,000
Britain: 606,000
Korea: 591,000
Germany: 578,000
Canada: 542,000
Source: U.S. Census
Bureau, 1997