Quick points on high-skilled immigrant assimilation

"They're going to ruin our culture" isn't a good argument against Talent Maxxing

Lauren Gilbert has a good post this week on US Immigrant Cultural Assimilation.

On the topics it covers, it’s quite thorough. I want to extend the argument to cover some additional points related to high-skilled immigrant assimilation¹.

From an economic perspective, it is clear that the US as a whole greatly benefits from high-skill immigration. Talent Maxxing helps the US economy. But immigration is about culture too, and the culture of immigrants have a lot of people worried.

To be clear at the start: I think “we will lose our culture” is a valid type of concern to have. It is not necessarily a sign of bigotry to be worried about losing what is distinctly American.

I lived in Kenya for four years. It is hard to live as an alien in another culture, where people don’t speak your language, share your values, reference the same culture, or celebrate the same holidays.

So I understand why people hesitate at the prospect of their country changing so quickly that it no longer feels like home.

We are lucky that - for the most part - high-skill immigration does not recreate the kind of cultural alienation people worry about².

Here is the tldr before I go into a bit more detail on each point below³.

If you are worried that Talent Maxxing will lead to too many people who…

• …don’t speak English → don’t be.

• …will not put America first → don’t be.

• …do not share commitment to American values → don’t be.

• …lead to less cultural homogeneity → some validity here.

• …are not white → I’m not sure I have much to say to you.

English

I haven’t found great data on English skills of high-skilled immigrants specifically, but it seems clear it’s quite high. Some back-of-the-envelope math with ChatGPT estimates 90%⁴.

Patriotism

Surprisingly, there isn’t tons of great data on how patriotic immigrants are. But indications are they are at least as patriotic, if not more, than native-born Americans.

American values

The Hamilton Society debate on high-skilled immigration opened with an argument from the anti-immigration side that immigration “threatens to destroy the foundation of this great nation by injecting massive quantities of alien subjectivities into the very constitution of the American polity.”

A few points here that I believe are worth mentioning:

• Half of tech unicorns are founded by immigrants. This is often trotted out as a economic argument, but it is also a cultural one. Skilled immigrants are often deeply capitalist and committed to innovation.

• There is selection bias in terms of the immigrants who come here. We get the most individualist, ambitious, and capitalist ones. People who love China’s social cohesion or Europe’s social safety net do not typically move to the US.

Cultural homogeneity

One opponent of immigration at the Hamilton Society debate pointed out that recently he has seen fewer Christmas lights and less trick-or-treating, and that this is a result of immigrants who do not celebrate American holidays. In fact, the market for Christmas lights seems to be bigger than ever, and the decline in trick-or-treating seems driven by a variety of factors that have little to do with immigration.

In general, I think we should be skeptical towards arguments of the form “something that I like is disappearing from the culture, and it must be because of the immigrants.”

But to take a more generous view of this argument: Immigration skeptics here are pointing to a sense that a certain kind of cultural cohesion gets lost when new people enter a society. Which is fair to some extent; there have been some studies that back this idea up.

To the extent you think cultural cohesion is extremely important, you might justifiably be worried about having too many immigrants in your neighborhood who don’t assimilate.

But it is also important to keep in mind that people had the same kinds of worries about cultural cohesion 130 years ago when it was southern European Catholics and Eastern European Jews who were immigrating to the US. Many of these groups have assimilated into the US to the extent that they aren’t even thought of as foreign anymore. Culture is malleable⁵.

Of course there is always…

…bad old-fashioned racism. Not everyone who is worried about culture is racist. But racists almost always do talk about culture.

The racist objection to high-skilled immigration is not one I will cover here.

Conclusion

Just to end this on a classic and hopeful image of the US as a melting pot. Talent Maxxing means getting the most talented people from to bring their ideas, music, food, and traditions here. And then to assimilate and to pursue their work and life in a distinctly American style: optimistic, capitalistic, bombastic, free, and individualistic.

The American values of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are powerful because they are universal.

1. I will certainly be less thorough than Lauren in doing so - partly because there isn’t as much data on some of these questions, and partly because I’m not as good a writer.

2. At the very least - many of these arguments apply to all immigrants.

3. Sound off in the comments if there are any I’m missing or mischaracterizing.

4. Using H=1B as a proxy:

~70–75% of H-1Bs are from India; ~10–15% from China.
(Source: USCIS H-1B Employer Data Hub)

Now combine with English proficiency by education level from U.S. Census Bureau ACS:

College-educated immigrants (ages 25–64):

• India-born: ~90–95% speak English “well” or “very well”

• China-born: ~65–75% speak English “well” or “very well”

• Overall college-educated foreign-born: ~80–85%

Weighting by H-1B country shares ⇒
Estimated H-1B English proficiency (“well/very well”): ~85–90%

5. You could rationally have a view that “American culture has been in flux for the past 150 years, but from now going forward it should be frozen.” This would be a slightly odd view to have.

And it’s also important to know that the children of immigrants assimilate much more than their parents.