Alex, I love your work. I live in San Francisco and hale from Kentucky, with family still there; so I see the cultural divide up close and personal. And no issue is larger than immigration. Personally I doubt the narrative that our society is ending because of illegal immigration, yet I also doubt the narrative that it causes no harm, and all peoples have equal chance of advancing the US economically.
It would be nice to know the truth in an unbiased way.... and if i worked at a think tank on an issue like this, here is what I might consider:
Select a given year like 1910, and a give age range like 20-30. then use use census data and randomly select many thousands of people in that year of that age. now do the same for both legal and illegal immigrants of that time. (well I dont' know how many illegals are caught an documented at that time... so it might have to be legal immigrants. Then use one of these geneiology services
to try to track these orginating folks into the present day. Many will fail to track forward, and some will incorrectly map as you only have location and name to work with. And only the wealthy screw around putting their data into these databases. Still these biases should operate similarily over both populations.
Now one can really compare how things turn out 100 years later. I bet the answer lies somewhere in the middle. But wherever it lands, it would be a powerful way to see what the REAL consequenes are. Even congress today is making real choices about the future shape of our nation w/o really understanding what they are doing.... what the real consequenses are.
For me, I am in the middle. I dont' know what to expect. On the one hand culture and economic context does transfer strongly from generation to generation. On the other hand 100 years is a LONG time, and as you noted in the article here, after that time a person might not even really think of themselves in that light. For example I am ethnically more almost 70% German. but it has no bearing on me or my identity.
Anyway.... if such work were ever done, it would be an advancement for the nation. (and perhaps you know a professor somewhere who is not so ensconced in their echo chamber as to be willing to really look at where the data lead.)
Alex, I love your work. I live in San Francisco and hale from Kentucky, with family still there; so I see the cultural divide up close and personal. And no issue is larger than immigration. Personally I doubt the narrative that our society is ending because of illegal immigration, yet I also doubt the narrative that it causes no harm, and all peoples have equal chance of advancing the US economically.
It would be nice to know the truth in an unbiased way.... and if i worked at a think tank on an issue like this, here is what I might consider:
Select a given year like 1910, and a give age range like 20-30. then use use census data and randomly select many thousands of people in that year of that age. now do the same for both legal and illegal immigrants of that time. (well I dont' know how many illegals are caught an documented at that time... so it might have to be legal immigrants. Then use one of these geneiology services
to try to track these orginating folks into the present day. Many will fail to track forward, and some will incorrectly map as you only have location and name to work with. And only the wealthy screw around putting their data into these databases. Still these biases should operate similarily over both populations.
Now one can really compare how things turn out 100 years later. I bet the answer lies somewhere in the middle. But wherever it lands, it would be a powerful way to see what the REAL consequenes are. Even congress today is making real choices about the future shape of our nation w/o really understanding what they are doing.... what the real consequenses are.
For me, I am in the middle. I dont' know what to expect. On the one hand culture and economic context does transfer strongly from generation to generation. On the other hand 100 years is a LONG time, and as you noted in the article here, after that time a person might not even really think of themselves in that light. For example I am ethnically more almost 70% German. but it has no bearing on me or my identity.
Anyway.... if such work were ever done, it would be an advancement for the nation. (and perhaps you know a professor somewhere who is not so ensconced in their echo chamber as to be willing to really look at where the data lead.)
love your work.
--dan