Immigration and labor integration discussed at economic conference

ELLENSBURG — The pattern followed by current immigrants to the United States is similar to previous periods of higher immigration. Both employees and employers must adapt to the integration of immigrants in the workplace. These were among the conclusions of speakers discussing immigration and its impact on Washington’s workplace at the annual Economic Outlook Conference Monday at Central Washington University in Ellensburg.

Santiago Perez, associate professor at the University of California, Davis, discussed the research he has conducted on past and present immigration. A panel of educators and industry experts spoke about the challenges workers and employers face, and what’s happening to help both adapt. The panel included Claudia Wright, CWU associate professor of sociology; Roslyn Moes, CWU international student advisor; and Jon DeVaney, president of the Washington Tree Fruit Association.

Perez said what he called mass migration to the U.S. occurred in two periods: from about the 1850s to the early 1920s, and then from the early 1970s to the present. Migrants make up about the same percentage of the U.S. population as they did in the first era of mass migration, about 13% to 15%.

First-generation immigrants, then and now, were and will be less likely to catch up economically than people born in the U.S., he said.

“The main difference between then and now is that the starting point in the past will be very different than in the present. Today, the starting point for first-generation migrants will be lower than in the past,” he said.

However, the children of immigrants are following a similar trajectory as second-generation Americans in the past.

“The children of immigrants are really lagging behind the children born in the United States,” he said.

The ethnic makeup of immigrants has changed, and so has their entry level into the economy, he said.

“And perhaps surprisingly, despite all these changes in migration policy, country of origin and even the starting point of the first generation, the catch-up (of the second generation) is actually very similar between the past and the present,” says Perez. said.

Moreover, research shows that second-generation Americans do better in the U.S. than in almost any other country, he said.

Current immigrants, whether they are here short-term or long-term, face a series of rules that sometimes limit their ability to get ahead, the panelists said. Wright cited cases where an immigrant brings a spouse.

“Someone gets a visa to work in the United States, and (the husband) is given a reason to come, but he can’t work,” she said.

People also have the misconception that immigrants, especially from Latin America, are poor and uneducated, she said. But even immigrants without formal education or training have skills; she cited the case of a friend who has impressive cooking skills.

DeVaney said that, at least in the case of the tree fruit industry, the idea of ​​immigrants taking over jobs that would otherwise be filled by people already here is not true. Apple, cherry and pear growers should work with Washington Employment Security and see if they can recruit locally before hiring internationally.

“What we found last year is that there were 37,500 jobs advertised through the WorkSource system that growers otherwise thought they wouldn’t be able to fill, and we had 19 referrals in total,” he said.

About 64% of farm workers come from Latin America, he said, most of them from Mexico. That has led to what he called an “equivalency fallacy,” where people assume that most Latin American immigrants are farm workers.

“A lot of Latinos sometimes have a hard time looking for another job because there is a perception of who that community is. It’s not a job, it’s an identity,” he said.

Immigrants also face language barriers no matter where they come from, although students who come to CWU must demonstrate proficiency in the English language before being accepted, Moes said. But when it comes to training or entering the workforce, a second level of skill is often required.

“There is also a working language. What is a resume?’ Must be sad.

DeVaney said people sometimes assume that everyone from a given country has had similar experiences and thinks about them roughly the same way — but that’s not necessarily true.

Different cultural experiences sometimes lead to misunderstandings, he said. He cited the situation in the tree fruit sector during the COVID-19 pandemic, where employees expected more information about colleagues than employers were legally allowed to share.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at [email protected].