Streets of Gold: America's Untold Story of Immigrant Success

by Ran Abramitzky, Leah Boustan, Leah Platt Boustan

Forbes, Best Business Books of 2022 Behavioral Scientist, Notable Books of 2022The facts, not the fiction, of America’s immigration experience Immigration is one of the most fraught, and possibly most misunderstood, topics in American social discourse—yet, in most cases, the things we believe about immigration are based largely on myth, not facts. Using the tools of modern data analysis and ten years of pioneering research, new evidence is provided about the past and present of the American Dream, debunking myths fostered by political opportunism and sentimentalized in family histories, and draw counterintuitive conclusions,

Upward Mobility: Children of immigrants from nearly every country, especially those of poor immigrants, do better economically than children of U.S.-born residents – a pattern that has held for more than a century. Rapid Assimilation: Immigrants accused of lack of assimilation (such as Mexicans today and the Irish in the past) actually assimilate fastest. Improved Economy: Immigration changes the economy in unexpected positive ways and staves off the economic decline that is the consequence of an aging population. Helps U.S. Born: Closing the door to immigrants harms the economic prospects of the U.S.-born—the people politicians are trying to protect. Using powerful story-telling and unprecedented research employing big data and algorithms, Abramitzky and Boustan are like dedicated family genealogists but millions of times over. They provide a new take on American history with surprising results, especially how comparable the “golden era” of immigration is to today, and why many current policy proposals are so misguided.

Genres: History, Economics, Nonfiction, Politics, Sociology, American History, Audiobook

260 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 31, 2022

Reviews

[Jason Furman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A superb example of original social science and its translation for a broader audience. In recent years Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan have produced path-breaking research on immigration by linking large datasets including Ancestry.com, the Census, tax records and more to understand the ways in which immigration patterns have changed--and more often stayed the same--over the last century and a half. In this book they put that research in a broader context in several respects: a history of immigration, how they came to do their research, how it fits in with other research, and most importantly lots and lots of stories (including bits of their own) that make the patterns in their data more vivid and resonant.

The three most important set of findings they convey are: (1) the myth of rags-to-riches and how both in earlier generations and today immigrants themselves generally did not climb the ladder particularly quickly; (2) the mobility of immigrant children which is also similar across generations and remarkable--if your parents are at the 25th percentile you tend to rise to the 40th to 65th percentile depending on where you come from; and (3) how the pattern of assimilation today and in the past is relatively similar, as measures by adopting American names, moving out of ethnic enclaves, and marrying out of one's ethnic group.

There is a lot more nuance in all of those accounts, including some differences over time, in terms of where you came from and the like. Also some interesting findings like a big part of why immigrant children are upwardly mobile is not education but instead that they tend to move to areas with high mobility as opposed to Americans who tend to stay in the same place. Also, of course, immigrant parents "underperform" economically, like the doctors who can't practice in the United States, something that goes away with their children.

Abramitzky and Boustan also review the evidence on the effect of immigrants on native born Americans, arguing that a range of evidence from historical (looking what happened when immigration was dramatically restricted starting in the 1920s) to a variety of other episodes (Bracero ending in 1964, the border wall, the Mariel Boatlift, etc.) to argue that there is little effect on wages of Americans. I've generally found this evidence reasonably compelling but I am still not 100% convinced by it. I wish the authors had discussed a little bit more of macroeconomic research and theory on how immigration can increase productivity growth, the labor force, help reduce fiscal strains, and more--much of which might actually matter more for wages in the long-run than any of the shorter-run effects the studies they cite are covering.

The authors enthusiasm for immigration--which I share--leads them to a blind spot about how to advance it politically. Their last chapter proposes "A Second Grand Bargain" which argues that Americans generally support immigration and that to get more of it politicians just need to do a better job describing its benefits, particularly its benefits over the longer term. Having worked on these issues (and put out reports from the Obama White House making many of the points this book makes about how great immigration is for the economy) I'm skeptical that this is remotely close to sufficient.

The authors also overstate public support for *expanding* immigration. They cite a Gallup poll that 75 percent of Americans agree that "on the whole" immigration is "a good thing." This, however, is probably not the relevant question--Gallup also asks "should immigration be kept at its present level, increased, or decreased" and a plurality of Americans have answered decreased in every survey from 1965 to the present. The fact that Democratic politicians nationally and regionally often take steps to limit immigration and get politically skittish around the issue should also tell you something, either about the views of the public as a whole or the intensity by some parts of the public.

Ultimately to politically advance immigration we will need more books and arguments like this--to win over minds--but also a better understanding of what people don't like about immigration, some of which is probably not merely confusion but different values, a higher discount rate, etc.--and figure out a grand bargain that addresses or assuages those concerns.

[Mathew Madsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I came to America because I heard the streets were paved with gold. When I got here, I found out three things: First, the streets weren’t paved with gold; second, they weren’t paved at all; and third, I was expected to pave them." — Unknown Italian immigrant

Streets of Gold is about American immigration. The authors provide a some historical and political context of immigration in the United States and offer novel data-driven evidence to debunk some common myths surrounding the issue. Rather than relying on anecdotes or small point-in-time studies of immigrant outcomes, all of the findings are based on some really fantastic work to algorithmically link genealogical and census records, creating a large panel dataset of immigrants and their posterity.

Many myths about immigration tell a story that while immigration was a good thing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, now we either don't need immigration or it is no longer beneficial. Nothing could be farther from the truth! The authors show that today's immigrants are just as economically successful, socioeconomically mobile, and quick to assimilate in American culture as immigrants in the past.

For all it's value, Streets of Gold isn't perfect. Abramitzky and Boustan are clearly advocates of more and better immigration in the United States, but they generally do a pretty good job of letting their data do the talking for them. However, there were a few places where they stray too far into advocacy and put forward some pretty weak arguments (along with some distasteful stereotypes of their own about those who may not share their view of the virtues of immigration).

For example, in trying to dispel the myth that immigrants are dangerous or violent, they argue that we shouldn't be concerned about crime committed by immigrants because they perpetrate crimes at rates no higher than native born Americans. Fine. But even in that case, bringing more people into the country and maintaining a similar rate means more crime in aggregate, which is a valid concern. Especially if those additional crimes are concentrated in particular communities. After all, there is no reasonable recourse to removing natural born citizens who perpetrate crimes from the country, but there is for illegal or not-yet-naturalized immigrants who do so. Further, if someone is already concerned with the existing rate of crime in the US, then saying "Don't worry, it won't get any worse with more immigration!" likely isn't a satisfying response. Is this a sufficient reason to severely restrict immigration? No I don't think so, but you can make a good argument that immigration is beneficial on net without just waiving away real concerns people may have.

Ultimately though, Streets of Gold provides rigorous quantitative evidence for both of the views that make up my own personal philosophy on immigration:
1. The United States is the greatest country in the world; Americans are incredible and we need more of them! (i.e., immigration is good for the US)
2. Immigration is the best and most successful anti-poverty program ever implemented. (i.e., immigration is good for immigrants)

Those views dovetail nicely with how the authors summarize their core message: "as a society, we need to design our immigration policy at the level of generations; the immigrants of today are the Americans of tomorrow." Hopefully we can implement policies that ensure the Americans of tomorrow are still welcome to come and pave their streets with gold.

[Misael Galdámez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a pleasure to read economic historians who know how to write. This book tackles the question of immigration from an empirical economic perspective, but it is by no means overly technical. It tackles questions about the economic performance of immigrants, their children, their integration into the US, and questions around the “cost” of immigration to the native-born. In sum, immigrants are a net positive and integrate relatively quickly. The children of immigrants rise to achieve much greater economic and social success.

Also lol @ the dude calling this propaganda. This book proves (in some ways) that the American dream is real. Isn’t that worth celebrating?

[David]

immigrants, we get the job done!

[Morgan Sandner · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a research paper turned book
The second half is definitely structured differently with less of an explanation of how they got the information and more dissemination however they also use JD Vance's Hillbilly Elegy as a cited source to explain that you are more likely not to rise above your familial station if you stayed put, if you move to places that pay better you're more likely to make more money.

[Veronica Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

[audiobook & physical copy] one of my favorite for school reads.

[Avi Moorthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting historical approach to immigration

[Eileen Seitz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found Streets of Gold: America's Untold Story of Immigrant Success informative, interesting and data driven. I recommend this book highly.

Streets of Gold follows immigrants through census data over time and compares the two peaks of mass immigration to the US; the first peak which was from 1880 - 1920, and the second one starting in 1980 and still ongoing today.

The authors use the power of data to discover the truth about immigration in an effort to move beyond the existing immigration myths, nostalgia, and misconceptions.

Here are a few take aways:

The true ascent for immigrant families happens in the next generation. It has always taken time for immigrants to find their footing, and it is often their children who really thrive and rise. The children of immigrants from nearly every country, especially children of poor immigrants achieve incredible success and are more upwardly mobile than the children of US-born residents.

New comers today are just as quick to move up the economic ladder as in the past.

The pace of cultural assimilation is very similar in the past and present with refugees assimilating faster than other immigrants. Today's immigrants are integrating into American culture, economy and society just as surely as immigrants did during the period of the first mass immigration to the US between 1880 - 1920. Immigrants, both today and in the past, make tremendous efforts to join American society. Just as immigrants adopt American customs and practices, so too do immigrants reshape American culture, expanding the American palate and soundscape, fashion, and the arts, creating a form of cultural fusion...all contributing to our collective happiness.

Immigrant success does not come at the expense or harm of the US-born.

Immigrants promote a growing economy.

The story that emerges when the data set speaks is one of economic prosperity and cultural integration. In one generations time, we find it hard to tell apart the children of immigrants from the children of the US-born.

Streets of Gold points out the potential contributions that immigrants and their children will make to the US economy in the future. Immigrants today help the US economy grow through contributions to science, engineering, innovation, and culture. They often fill roles that have few available US-workers either in the highly educated positions (tech & science) or in work that requires very little education such as picking crops by hand, washing dishes, landscaping, and taking care of the elderly.

Immigrants also contribute to the economy as consumers and as taxpayers.

Additionally, the authors look at the important role immigration plays in contributing to US population growth, which is all the more critical now than ever, given declines in both fertility and demographic stagnation. Immigrants will help support an aging US population as baby boomers retire.

Be warned however, many anti-immigration politicians are taking a short term perspective - as candidates focus on the next election cycle often do - and use fear & scare tactics - immigrants bring crime, and weaken American culture. Anti-immigration politicians rely heavily on messages about crime and drugs. In reality, immigrants are less likely than the US-born to be arrested and incarcerated for all manner of offense (they don't want to go to jail or be deported).

Final takeaway - Immigration is good for America, and immigrants and their children ultimately are Americans of tomorrow...both then and now.

I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did. :)

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure this is going to convince anyone who hasn't already chosen a side. I don't think the (seemingly well-supported) idea that immigrants advance more rapidly from the 25th wealth percentile to significantly higher percentiles that native-born Americans is going to convince any immigration skeptics, and I'm not sure it should. If immigrants move to cities with more opportunity and are willing to live and work in worse conditions, in order to give their children access to better opportunities, that kind of makes life more of a rat race for everyone else in that city, doesn't it? I also don't think that the arguments about assimilation are going to convince that many people. As a person who has interacted with a lot of immigrant teenagers, I definitely feel that Abramitzky are safe in their assumption that most recent immigrants are assimilating just as quickly as immigrants between 1965-2000 did, even if some percentage of the new ones are undocumented. Using Anglicized names as a proxy for assimilation was a clever and interesting way to go about this, along with the more standard intermarriage and English-speaking measures. However, the people most skeptical of immigration are going to focus on the negative stories and are uninterested in all the ways that immigrants assimilate, like the Latinos who live in the Rio Grande Valley and voted for Trump in 2020.

But as economists, Abramitzky, et. al seem like they're so committed to the free market that they're unwilling to argue that hard for immigration as a social good, and they're obsessed with how it's great for the economy because immigrants are willing to suffer more than native-born Americans. I'm all for way, way more immigration than we have, but rather than letting the lords of capital control it, I'd prefer a guest worker program where immigrants get somewhat lower wages but are guaranteed better working conditions, healthcare, education, and other rights. Less suffering, please.

[Nikolai · Rating 4 out of 5]

A superb book refuting anti-immigration narratives by comparing immigrants from a century ago with today's immigrants. Abramitzky and Boustan show, that today's immigrants are as likely to succeed and assimilate as fast as (primarily European) immigrants from a century ago. The book also illustrates the immense success of second-generation immigrants, who are data-wise outperforming non-immigrant kids and climb the social ladder fast. Not always a fan of the author's reading style, but definitely a must-read.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well-researched, narratively compelling read, but the authors' positionalities as a white(-passing?) Israeli immigrant and a descendant of white immigrants mean that important context is left out, often in order to accommodate their strong agenda. That is to say, that I agree with their agenda (legal immigration slots should be expanded), but some of their conclusions are a bit of a stretch from the data. As with all nonfiction, I would have preferred this book as a long-form article to avoid the page-filling repetition. I did appreciate that this book was the first in a while that was so thought-provoking I was compelled to take notes (although this is more a factor of specific criticisms than anything else).

This book was assigned as my cohort common read in public policy school. In class discussion, we spoke about how African American history was largely left out of this book. This book contends that America is a "nation of immigrants", and so its conclusions are relevant to all of us. But because slaves were not included in 1800s data, the authors concluded that no conclusions could be drawn about how slaves and their descendants fared. My classmates pointed out that the Civil Rights movements of the 1960s paved the way for the 1965 immigration reforms that led to the "immigration U" that is perhaps the most lasting image from this book.

Similarly, the authors speak of "assimilation" without recognizing the American Indian perspective(s). They claim that immigrants assimilated at the same speed in the past and today, without regard for the forced boarding schools that the US government established to "kill the Indian and save the man". I thought about Robin Wall Kimmerer's perspective that the Europeans were the immigrants who failed to assimilate to indigenous values and culture.

My classmates and I found this assignment amusing because its conclusions are our lived experience. Who knew that immigrants don't contribute to crime in their adopted neighborhoods, that they assimilate readily into American culture but retain pride in their heritage, that parents may start from a low socioeconomic status but their children rise quickly? To us, these conclusions seemed basic and almost not worth arguing. But I still see the vital importance of work like this: American citizens and residents must understand the history of immigration in this country to understand present-day politics and their place within it.

One of the biggest omissions in this research is that the authors did not mention what happens to immigrant families in subsequent generations, after the first generation and their children. It seems the "US-born" rise socioeconomically less quickly than their immigrant counterparts, but why? Can we disaggregate by race? Are there ceiling effects at work?

I was also uncomfortable that a main thrust of the authors' argument was that we need immigrants to do the low-paid, unprotected labor that US-born workers refuse to do. It seems that the authors' argument would be less strong if US workers successfully unionized.

They also did not mention any limit on immigration. They praise Biden and Democratic presidents for being relatively open to immigration, while not acknowledging the egregious human rights violations that have still occurred under Democratic governments. The book may have been published too early to reflect on how Democratic mayors in New York are struggling with overwhelming influxes in immigrants. The authors argue that if only we can reshape the narrative to firmly state that America is a nation of immigrants (again leaving out the facts of indigeneity and forced immigration), we can once again welcome immigrants on our shores. But successful platforms must go hand in hand with successful policy implementation, and the authors do not acknowledge that there is still much work to be done in creating programs for distributing immigrant resettlement across all of America (not just the major ports).

The most interesting conclusion in this book to me is that controlling for factors like socioeconomic status, country of origin, and education, geography (ie, living in cities with more opportunities) determines how quickly immigrants rise in the socioeconomic ladder. This effect goes against the idea that immigrants push their children to study harder. However, other conclusions in the book (for example, that East Asian immigrants have the most social mobility, or that daughters have more social mobility than sons) makes me want to explore the data with an intersectional lens. What's the sample size per country? Do outliers affect the averages reported in the book? Anyways, I think there is a greater rural-urban narrative to explore here.

Speaking of East Asians, I found it strange that the authors tended to group countries of origin by race instead of other measures like OECD (a proxy for the level of development of a country). Or at the very least, why did they group all Asians together instead of disaggregating into South, Southeast, and East Asians, and Pacific Islanders? Failing to disaggregate these groups only serves to feed the model minority myth, in which all Asian are perceived to have easy success in America.

The authors used percentiles to justify their conclusion that immigrants rise up to middle class within one generation. However, percentiles are relative, not absolute. Similar to "curved" grading in academic courses, we don't know from the percentile statistic alone whether immigrants are truly leaving poverty, or whether America just has a high number of people below the poverty line. Other conclusions like "under-placement" of educated immigrant parents are a bit theoretical and not strongly substantiated.

Finally, I found the authors' claims about assimilation, especially their analysis of English learning, to be questionable. So, so many of my friends have accents but are fluent in English. Why are these authors using accent as a measure of fluency? Accent can be regional and not correlated with fluency. To pretend otherwise is Anglo-centric and frankly racist. They never explain why higher prior educational attainment would help someone learn English better or faster. I don't buy that, cognitively speaking.

As for assimilation more broadly, there’s a tradeoff between economic prosperity and community for immigrants. I think it's dangerous for the authors to argue unequivocally that assimilation is good; that's a color-blind argument, that less observable difference is self-evidently a good thing. An immigrant may achieve a high socioeconomic status, thus achieving the "American Dream", but if they must assimilate in order to do so, if they must choose Anglo-sounding names for their children, what do they lose in return? What community supports do they lose? After entering a prestigious four-year university, many of my friends expressed that they hadn't realized their privilege in growing up in majority-minority communities, feeling comfortable being themselves, until they came to a institution where they suddenly had to explain themselves. The authors claim that America is culturally open because we're better at being multicultural than Italy or Greece, but they haven't mentioned (or even considered, I bet) historically multicultural societies like Singapore or ancient Persia. In being so quick to refute the claims of anti-immigrant politicians, they don't stop to consider whether the foundations of those politicians' arguments are even sound. Can we redefine what it means to be American? Who, exactly, do we want immigrants to assimilate to?

Overall, reads like a course on immigration taught by a white professor that is useful to zero in on the issue of immigration in American politics, and fun to discuss and debate. I think it's a creative use of a big data set and an interesting demonstration of economic history studies.

[Brent Moulton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book uses “big data” such as linked Census and IRS data to draw a comprehensive picture of immigrants and their children from the late 19th century to present. With these data, the authors are able to debunk a number of myths about immigrants. For example, one myth is that immigrants in the past entered a “melting pot” where ethnic differences dissolved, whereas recent immigrants hold onto their distinctive cultural identities. The data presented in this book show that assimilation occurs at about the same rate among recent immigrants as it did in past generations.

Overall, the authors present a pretty rosy picture of immigration, with the children of poor immigrants reaching the middle of the income distribution. Crime is much less common among immigrants than among the US-born population, and immigrant success does not harm the US born.

The authors’ rosy view puts them at odds with some other writers (I’m thinking specifically of David Leonhardt’s book, Ours Was the Shining Future). I would love to see a discussion of why these authors interpret the data so differently.

Much of this book consists of vignettes of various immigrant families whose stories illustrate the trends that have been identified in the larger data. It makes for a very interesting and readable book.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A non-fiction book that attempts to take an unbiased view of immigration in America, and bases its conclusions on facts it drew from Ancestry.com and other data. It did seem remarkably unpolitical for such a touchy subject.

At first Ancestry.com sent them a "cease and desist" letter because they wrote a bot to pull data from Ancestry.com to try to trace immigrants and their children. After a month the bot had pulled hundreds of thousands of data records and Ancestry.com assumed it was someone trying to steal their data and republish it as their own. Once the authors told them their strategy, Ancestry.com was enthused and actually started helping them out.

Anyway, this book goes over myths and beliefs about immigration and tries to evaluate them with data they pulled from Ancestry.com and other sources (the book appears very well researched). According to their analysis, immigrants do not depress the economy or cause more crime, and other myths debunked.

The most convincing and illustrative finding to me was that over ALL countries of origin, the 2nd generation does much better economically than their parents, and contributes to our society in meaningful ways. No matter if from Latin America, Asia, Europe, or elsewhere, the children of immigrants generally thrive in our country as much (or sometimes more) than native-born U.S. residents.

[Rebecca Hartley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Abramitzky and Boustan write in such a way that the overwhelming questions about immigration (immigration policy, impact of immigrants on the economy and communities, etc) become understandable. Though there is enough data and research in here to fill a textbook, it reads more like not-boring documentary.

They tackled myths about immigrants taking American jobs, increasing crime rates, being a burden on the American economy and welfare system, and more. I think this last paragraph sums up their findings beautifully - “…that immigrants contribute to our economy through science, innovation, and vital services; that the children of immigrants from nearly every poor country move up to the middle in the next generation; that immigrants are just as keen to become Americans now as in the past; and that America is a country that embraces this diversity and lets in new ideas.”

As a daughter of a first generation immigrant, it was also incredibly interesting to see that their findings about assimilation and moving up the economic ladder for future generations in immigrant families have been true for my experience as well.

Great read & highly recommend!

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed the audio version of this book read by Rachel Botchan. A great case for the positives of immigration in all of its waves. This book is steeped in research, statistics, and data that was painstakingly gathered by the authors. I learned about college educated immigrants who are immediately upwardly mobile. I learned about children of immigrants who surpass their parents greatly and are very successful in our society as well as assimilate rapidly. There was a wonderful chapter in the book about how rich America is because of all the different people who live here. Examples: The choices of ethnic food and fusions cannot be beat here! It is also the same case with all the different kinds of music available to us as well as new music being developed all the time! The book ends strong with the image of the Statue of Liberty still being a positive symbol!

[Graeme Newell · Rating 4 out of 5]

A delightfully enlightening book that methodically takes on all the tropes about immigration. The authors conducted exhaustive research following thousands of immigrant families through multiple generations. Next, they compared them to immigrants from the past.

It was fascinating to learn which of the good and bad stereotypes about immigration are actually true.

[christine ✩]

Cool stuff - particularly interesting as the daughter of East Asian immigrants reading this for a college class lol - I wonder what Hartley really has to say about this

[Julia · Rating 3 out of 5]

The takeaways: upward mobility for immigrant happens at about the same pace now as it did in the first wave of mass migration, and this mostly means children, rather than immigrants themselves, rising the ladder, are interesting. Definitely written for a popular audience, so light on the details of the economics.

[Greg Halvorson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wildly inaccurate political propaganda.

[Lukas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding read that is hard to put down. The authors—leading experts in the economics of migration—tell the story of immigrant success in the US over the past two centuries. Along the way, they debunk popular myths by drawing on the research of themselves and their colleagues.

1. Immigrants rarely achieved a fast rise from rags to riches. It typically took decades for immigrants to rise up the economic ladder.
2. Immigrant children, however, experience rapid upward mobility. Their mobility is faster than that of children of US-born parents with similar incomes. Immigrant kids’ high mobility was true over a century ago, when immigration was mainly European, and is true today.
3. The high mobility of immigrants’ children is mostly due to the places that their parents choose to migrate to (e.g., cities of high economic mobility). Another factor that plays a role is that typically, immigrants are not adequately compensated for their skills, e.g., because they don’t speak perfect English or because their formal education is not fully recognized in the US labor market. The children of those immigrants are often more “assimilated” while benefiting from skills and values transmitted from their parents, increasing their mobility.
4. Immigrant assimilation was fast both then and today.
5. While some local workers may suffer from added competition through immigration, workers as a whole greatly benefit. That is mainly because immigrants make critical contributions to innovation and entrepreneurship in the US, creating additional jobs.
6. Restrictive immigration policies often fail to deliver on their goals (e.g., “securing the border” leads more undocumented immigrants to remain in the US permanently, rather than spending the off-season time in their countries of origin) but barring pathways to citizenship for people who came to the US as undocumented children seems like a particularly harmful policy failure.

[Rachel Childers · Rating 3 out of 5]

A brief overview of the history and economics of American immigration, focused on the authors' research using census data to study immigrant outcomes and assimilation, interspersed with brief illustrative vignettes describing stories of individual immigrants.

The policy upshot, that immigrant economic mobility is modest but higher than that of natives and little different now than in the immigration wave a century ago, and that fiscal impact of immigration is positive but on a generation-long scale, along with the rehash of the economic literature showing generally neutral to positive impact on native economic outcomes, is well taken but unlikely to persuade people who feel strongly about the issue. For those already favorably disposed, the mix of anecdotes and family stories with systematic research on the topics of those stories might be ideally targeted to someone looking to put their own family immigrant history in a broader context.

[John Stein · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the book, but wish that the authors would have presented the actual data behind their research. They explain their methods well, but the blithely make statements like “there are no differences between time period x and y” and “the data show xyz” without showing the data. Not to be too geeky, but these are red flags for fudged data. I like their conclusions, but am left with a lot of questions. It is written for a general audience, but assumes the readers are innumerate…. Which makes me wonder…

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Abramitzky and Boustan make a compelling case that many of the common narratives about immigration are not supported by facts and that new stories need to be told. Technology has allowed them to gather long-term, wide-ranging data in massive amounts never available before and see what picture that data paints. Their main conclusions, in their own words:

We will provide evidence that will revise myths about immigration in three major ways. First, the nostalgic view of immigrants in the past moving quickly from rags to riches does not fit the facts. Second, newcomers today are just as quick to move up the economic ladder as in the past, and immigrants now are integrating into American culture just as surely as immigrants did back then. And finally, immigrant success does not come at the expense of US-born workers.

Their writing is clear, readable, and engaging, sharing their data point-by-point in compelling narratives, making strong and convincing arguments. Immigration is good for the U.S., and they make policy suggestions based on their conclusions. Perhaps most important is sharing new narratives about the topic of immigration, ones based not on assumptions and "common sense," but the large pools of data these authors have collected.

More from the introduction:

The very power of such large datasets is that we do not need to rely on the recollections of a small number of immigrants who left diaries or memoirs, and we do not need to wonder whether a particular story is typical or an exception.

Indeed, when we turn to the big data, we find that many of Americans' widely held beliefs about immigrant success do not stand up to scrutiny. . . .

We will provide evidence that will revise myths about immigration in three major ways. First, the nostalgic view of immigrants in the past moving quickly from rags to riches does not fit the facts. Second, newcomers today are just as quick to move up the economic ladder as in the past, and immigrants now are integrating into American culture just as surely as immigrants did back then. And finally, immigrant success does not come at the expense of US-born workers. . . .

The true ascent for immigrant families happens in the next generation. We find in the data that the children of immigrants from nearly every country, especially children of poor immigrants, are more upwardly mobile than the children of US-born residents. The children of immigrants from El Salvador are as likely to be economically successful nowadays as were the children of immigrants from Great Britain 150 years ago. . . .

All in all, we find a common immigrant story of strong economic mobility in both the past and the present. This shared immigrant experience is all the more remarkable given the dramatic changes in immigration policy over time. . . . The American Dream is just as real for immigrants from Asia and Latin America now as it was for immigrants from Italy and Russia one hundred years ago. . . .

The data shows that current immigrants do not assimilate into US society any more slowly than past immigrants. Both in the past and today, immigrants make tremendous efforts to join American society. . . .

When we look to the evidence--either for past or the present--we do not find that immigrants steal the last slice from a fixed pie. Rather, immigrants help the economy grow, contributing to science, innovation, and culture. . . .

The data conveys a clear message: immigration is good for America, and immigrants and their children ultimately become Americans, both then and now.

[Peter A · Rating 4 out of 5]

This data-driven book about immigration to the United States may appeal to thoughtful people across the political spectrum. The book’s messages are simple, backed up by data from over 100 years of immigration (p181).
• Immigrants contribute to our economy through science, technology, and vital services (think of farming and elder care).
o In general, immigrants to not take away jobs from the US born citizens.
• Children of immigrants from every nearly poor country move up to the middle in the next generation
• Immigrants are just as keen to become Americans now as in the past.
• America is a country that embraces this diversity and lets in new ideas.

The book stresses, repeatedly, that any immigration policy must take a generational approach. However, politicians often have a very short-term horizon perspective.

Most Americans favor immigration for the many reasons noted above, but also because many are the second generation of immigrants.

For each point the book makes, the authors go to great lengths to discuss the data, often comparing the US in the 1900s and American today.

Their approach, though, has, as they state, something that all sides of the debate (once the rhetorical heat subsides) could support.
• For progressives, “See, immigrant groups contribute to the country.”
• For conservatives, “America works! Andy can make here.”
• For libertarians, who praise the search for opportunity and the resulting mobility.

Yet, the current polarization focuses on differences
• Anti-immigrants stoke myths of more crime (the authors debunk that), stealing jobs (myth), not wanting or even able to blend in (myth)
• Pro-immigrants talk about different issues, like economy and family.

One interesting issue the authors raise is the fallacy of focusing only on well-educated immigrants. While they can help increase the innovative workforce, perhaps create new industries, our needs also reach to the unskilled workers to keep our economy going.

The book contains many interesting individual cases to illustrate points.

Basing a book on the data and explaining the data and analysis approaches taken is a strength. For some readers, it can also be a weakness. While the writing is clear and logical, after the strong opening section of each chapter, I had trouble focusing on the data and analysis.

This should be required reading for politicians and all of those in public office. Our collective future is partly in the hands of the people coming to our country. The book's message is immigrants strengthen us.

FB. A clear, compelling case for immigration, based on over 100 years of data, that debunks many concerns about immigration and argues that immigration policy needs to look at generational trends to set policy, not the election cycle. Each chapter starts with a clear thesis, which is supported in the subsequent data analysis (which some will like).

[Pete · Rating 5 out of 5]

Streets of Gold : America’s Untold Story of Immigrant Success (2022) by Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan looks at US immigration through a lens of data. Abramitzky is a Professor of Economics at Stanford and Boustan is a Professor of Industrial Relations at Princeton. Abramitzky is himself an immigrant.

Everyone has stories about immigration, what is different with Streets of Gold is that the authors got masses of data. They got this data by using computers to scrape information from Ancestry.com. Again using computers they have combined it with data from the US Social Security program, the IRS and birth certificate files. This has lead to them being able to see trends in how immigration has gone in the US over time. It’s a great demonstration of how ‘big data’ can now be used to examine subjects like immigration. Somewhat ironically in the book the authors use stories of families to help bring their discoveries from data to life. But it’s to make a readable book and they back up the stories using their data.

Streets of Gold looks at how the data show that those who came with very little to the US rarely become wealthy. But the book describes how their children do become wealthy. There is also a history of how immigration changed in the US from huge numbers of people until the 1920s and then staying low until the 1970s when it started to rise again. They also use data to show how immigrants assimilate into the US in the past and how they continue to assimilate today. Abramitzky and Boustan also show how immigration to the US has not harmed US born people either. This is again using data. Immigration is not a zero sum game. Today a persons wealth and earning capacity is driven to a huge degree by where they are born, immigration allows people to go to higher wage countries, earn more there and pay taxes.

The book is inadvertently an anti-woke book. The book shows with data that the US is not structurally racist. The US attracts millions of people from around the world every year. The figures in chapter 5 (Figure 7A and 7B) show how the children of immigrants from all over the world succeed in the US, regardless of race. America is, in the words of Dr Martin Luther King Jr, a place where people are judged by the content of their character.

Streets of Gold is a gem of a book. It shows how immigration helps America and how America is not a structurally racist society. Abramitzky and Boustan have used their data very well and intersperse the data with well chosen stories of immigrants and how they fare in the US.

[Boaz Maor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Immigration has been a super-hot topic for at least a decade now. It attracts tremendous amount of emotion, though sadly most people’s views are not supported by data.

This is where this book adds a lot of value. It provides deep analysis on the correlation between immigration and some of the most important factors such as impact on wages of Americans, crime and dependence on public services. It even analyses public sentiment in politics and impact on cultural development in areas such as cuisine, music and art.

Two areas I find lacking in the book and can benefit from more attention: immigration intent and the impact of large waves of immigration.

The topic of immigration reasons and immigrant intent is touched upon very briefly - too briefly in my opinion. The book touches briefly on the difference between asylum seekers versus work seekers and differentiates between low skilled and high skilled workers (in both groups). It also touches very briefly on perceptions related to interest and ability to assimilate in the American society.

But, I think there is another dimension that requires deeper analysis and that is polo I Al and/or social interest to change the country immigrants move into. I have a suspicion - though it is anecdotal and I would have loved to see more data-driven analysis to prove or disprove it - that there are groups of migrants who arrive in a county - the U.S. for example - with an explicit objective to change it. Those groups understandably cause much more social unrest and generate negative feedback against from locals. Anarchists and communists were small such groups in the past, fundamentalists religious groups are some of the present.

A second dimension not explored enough is the difference between a steady trickle of immigrations versus massive waves - especially when those waves are somewhat homogeneous from a specific place. The latter makes it harder / less likely / slower for immigrants to assimilate into society, which like the previous points generates more negative views towards them and potentially makes more undesired social impact. Again, those are hypothesis not conclusions and I wish the book went deeper into exploring them.

[Jackie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan's "Streets of Gold" is a straightforward analysis of immigrant success in America, supported by big-data research. The authors used census data and used programming to mine Ancestry.com for large data sets to inform answers to important historical questions. These questions include how successful immigrants are financially, how successful their children are, how quickly they assimilate, how they impact the economic fortunes of native-born Americans around them, and if there is any difference in the Ellis Island wave of immigrants versus the wave of immigration of the past few decades.

The authors find that immigrants were and still are successful, especially if they arrive as kids, and that the children of immigrants are quite successful, often more successful than those born in America. And they find that these paths to success are just as statistically significant for the old immigrants as for the recent immigrants. And that refugees tend to do even better than those who come under normal circumstances.

The book is short, the ideas are clear, and the evidence is solid. I love the way this book uses important and cutting-edge methodological approaches. We need more economists writing works of history. There are many important historical discoveries still waiting for historians with good programming skills to make them. Or, perhaps, AI will be making all the historical discoveries soon.

Critiques:
--It's difficult to engage with evidence from Big Data in prose. Too much of the findings end up sounding like an abstract or a summary, and it's not easy to delve into the details. The best way to present the details of this kind of research is in charts and in graphs. The book has far too few charts and graphs.
--I would have liked some more honest consideration of the range of immigrant success from different countries of origin. The authors acknowledge that these disparities exist, but then try to paper them over in the text. I realize that the authors enjoy going into detail when their evidence matches their liberal narrative, but I would have found their research more believable if they were willing to engage in more detail with their findings that might be more in conflict with their ideology from the outset.

[Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Economics enters the big data age.

It's good to be back reading about economic policy as opposed to the economics of sports and other frivolous nonsense. I've been rabidly pro-immigration since my mission days, and this book is the most comprehensive book I've read about the subject. Actually, this is the only book I've read dedicated to immigration.

Abramitzky and Boustan link up old census data with ancestry.com data to assess whether immigrants contribute to American society. The only variable they use to measure well-being was incomes. That's all that was available to them that went back that far.

The strongest takeaways: everything about immigration is constant throughout American history, except whom we let in; when immigrants were mostly European, it was open borders; now that it's not, immigration laws are more restrictive. Everything else, from the percentage of people in this country who are foreign-born, to immigrants making less than Americans but their kids making, to the immigrants most feared to be unable to assimilate actually assimilating the fastest (Irish of yesterday, Mexicans today).

The only disagreement I have with this book is that I would still call the USA a melting pot, instead of a "salad bowl" or any other analogy. The forces of assimilation in the US are stronger than, say Canada.

Also, their observation that Mexicans adopt American names and speak English faster than anyone else doesn't fit with my experience. On my mission in New York City, there were English classes for Chinese and Koreans but none for Spanish speakers. And most Mexicans had Spanish names. Maybe they weren't born here.

Finally, they've demonstrated that every time we turned the spigot off on immigration it did not increase low-income wages because it forced businesses to turn to automation instead of raising wages due to a lower labor supply. But then that would mean stopping immigration isn't that bad, because we can substitute technology for immigrants. They should've addressed that.

Overall, this puts to rest a lot of fearmongering myths about immigration.

[Jon · Rating 2 out of 5]

For the first 75% of the book, I was confident this would be a four or five star book. But the last 25% is atrocious, leaving me questioning everything I read.

I came to this book as a person curious and confused about immigration. I was pro-immigration for most of my life but recently haven't been as sure. This book was recommended in Noah Smith's blog Noahpinion, so I thought it would be a good book to ground me.

The first 75% is dissecting various studies about immigration. It's interesting and challenging, at least without the remaining 25%. The final bit of the book is suppose to be more of this, but it becomes a real mask-off moment.

The author starts crediting immigrants as the core of music and food. Trump is always to blame but Obama, who deported more illegal immigrants than Trump on average per year, is merely credited with the DREAMERS. The author worries about immigration restrictions causing the US to lose important scientists to Palestine. The author believes its good that immigrants work farm jobs that don't pay a living wage. It's also good when those immigrants assimilate or leave, whichever they prefer. Additionally, as the author uses studies in this portion of the book, they start contradicting some of the other studies in the prior portion.

It just gets WEIRD! The only explanation I can think of is that the author's bias is that "the immigrant is always right." This doesn't help resolve any of my confusion around immigration. It did leave me with two conclusions.

1. Anti-immigration sentiment will ultimately win out over the next couple decades.

2. Many in academia are going to be increasingly shocked by this result.

Source of Obama vs Trump deportations: https://ohss.dhs.gov/topics/immigrati...

[Bookworm · Rating 3 out of 5]

I came across the book via an interview with the authors. It gave a bit of a savior note, asking whether immigrants would save the country, but all the same it got me interested in the book. Immigrants are of course an integral part of the country's history, a melting pot of people who come for a variety of reasons, some good and some not. I was curious what the authors could add to it.

The book is a fairly technical and dry recounting of immigrants who come, how they have changed, how they fare once they get here, how they got here (either through the known legal channels or are undocumented), the demographics, the historical/political/society context, etc. As noted, it tends to be rather dry and academic, like it was yet another thesis that someone decided should be a book.

I don't think this book is going to change any minds. Anyone pro-immigration isn't going to find anything that will likely affect their feelings and vice versa. Overall this is probably a good academic resource for research and is probably a good update to older research but I'm not sure if it's a great starting point if they're looking to learn more about immigrants and immigration.

Could see this book pop up in college-level classes that have to do with immigration, sociology, etc. For a layperson this might not be the best source to read and I'd personally would have just stuck to interviews with one or both authors to get the gist. All the same, if you're interested it's not a bad library borrow unless you need it for a paper or research.