Americas
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Streets of Gold: America's Untold Story of Immigrant Success
The 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, including:
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.
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, including:
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.
Editorial Reviews
"The book reflects an ongoing renaissance in the field of economic history fueled by technological advances - an increase in digitized records, new techniques to analyze them and the launch of platforms such as Ancestry - that are breathing new life into a range of long-standing questions about immigration. Abramitzky and Boustan are masters of this craft, and they creatively leverage the evolving data landscape to deepen our understanding of the past and present."―Washington Post
"Abramitzky and Boustan have made an immense contribution to our understanding the economic history of immigration and what it can teach us about upward mobility in the United States."―Foreign Policy
"This wonderful and highly readablebook provides the facts and sets the record straight about the hot-button issue of immigration and is a must-read for anyone who cares about this important issue. Immigrants benefit from coming to the US, but so does the country from the diversity, skills, and energy that they bring. Remarkably, most existing evidence suggests that native workers are not harmed by immigrants."―Daron Acemoglu, Institute Professor of Economics, MIT, and coauthor of Why Nations Fail and The Narrow Corridor
"In this fascinating book, Abramitzky and Boustan ingeniously employ the tools of data science to construct the first ‘big data' account of immigration in America. Combining rigorous statistical analysis with thoughtful narratives, they weave a compelling story about how millions of immigrant families achieved the American Dream over the last century and a half. The result is a set of timely and concrete insights that will help reshape the narrative about immigration and opportunity in the United States."―Raj Chetty, William A. Ackman Professor of Public Economics, Harvard University
"While Americans are intensely polarized about immigration, facts and history can help change minds. And Streets of Gold has the facts, millions and millions of them, about the amazing and often-surprising history of American immigration. It is a splendid testament to the power of big data to illuminate our past and what it means for the future."―Angus Deaton, Nobel laureate, economics, and coauthor of Deat...
"Abramitzky and Boustan have made an immense contribution to our understanding the economic history of immigration and what it can teach us about upward mobility in the United States."―Foreign Policy
"This wonderful and highly readablebook provides the facts and sets the record straight about the hot-button issue of immigration and is a must-read for anyone who cares about this important issue. Immigrants benefit from coming to the US, but so does the country from the diversity, skills, and energy that they bring. Remarkably, most existing evidence suggests that native workers are not harmed by immigrants."―Daron Acemoglu, Institute Professor of Economics, MIT, and coauthor of Why Nations Fail and The Narrow Corridor
"In this fascinating book, Abramitzky and Boustan ingeniously employ the tools of data science to construct the first ‘big data' account of immigration in America. Combining rigorous statistical analysis with thoughtful narratives, they weave a compelling story about how millions of immigrant families achieved the American Dream over the last century and a half. The result is a set of timely and concrete insights that will help reshape the narrative about immigration and opportunity in the United States."―Raj Chetty, William A. Ackman Professor of Public Economics, Harvard University
"While Americans are intensely polarized about immigration, facts and history can help change minds. And Streets of Gold has the facts, millions and millions of them, about the amazing and often-surprising history of American immigration. It is a splendid testament to the power of big data to illuminate our past and what it means for the future."―Angus Deaton, Nobel laureate, economics, and coauthor of Deat...
Readers Top Reviews
Todd
I've always been a little confused about how immigration impacts the US. The politicians blast their rhetoric but never support with data. This book does a good job of using data in an innovative way to look at the impact of immigration in US. It does this by basically using ancestry.com as well as the census as a giant database to crunch numbers on things like immigrant mobility, immigration impacting US jobs, and immigration impacting wages. From the data it seems immigrants do have good mobility, they don't impact US jobs, and they don't seem to impact wages. People may not agree but now we have some data to talk about as opposed to rhetoric. I feel immigration is a net positive for the country. We are primarily a nation of immigrants. If you look today, thankfully we have immigrants coming here to do many of tech jobs as the US is not producing enough STEM graduates (this is a big problem) and immigrants are doing many of the low paying service jobs that others won't do. I feel if we lost either of these streams, the US would be in a challenging situation. However, you feel about immigration, this is a good book to get into some of the data on the topic and get a foundation for the issue.
DisneyDenizen
My family immigrated to America when I was six years old. I was the youngest family member and assimilated completely, language and all. You would never know that I was an immigrant. This book is utterly fascinating, completely accessible, and extremely well written. Follow the facts to see the immigration myths shattered. We are all immigrants, after all, and newcomers continue to contribute while seeing their children climb to heights not possible in the old country. This is one of those amazing books that will leave you feeling smarter and certainly more knowledgeable about this important issue.
sp
I am not an economist, but this wonderful book is easy to read and understand. Lots of new ideas about the impact of immigration on our lives, like immigrants do not negatively affect economic factors such as wages, housing, etc. I really appreciated that the information in this book is backed by excellent research findings.
K Lynn
Well written and very informative. Not only enjoyed it, but learned a few things.
Greenie
I've always wondered why the children of immigrants seem to live the American Dream better than children of native born Americans. Streets of Gold tries answer this question. It uses a very clever array of never-before-available sources of "big data", like Ancestry.com, Census, and Tax Records to follow multiple generations of the same immigrant families. Not only is it fascinating for anyone with immigrant grandparents themselves, or those interested in immigration policy generally, but it's also just a great read! Stylish, important and thought-provoking. An enthusiast five stars!
