Page 107 - 2021-bfw-aufses-alr-1e

The essence of knowledge work is building on others’ ideas, and having fewer creative 5
people from different backgrounds in the United States undermined the entire enterprise.
I asked Professor Moser what she considered the most important lesson from the 1920s
immigration experience. “Don’t keep people out based on ethnicity,” she said. “They did it to
preserve the ethnic character of the country, but the different perspectives and approaches Austan Goolsbee
of immigrants were actually quite important.”
Because knowledge builds on itself and scientists train the next generation, she said, 20
“the damage that restricted immigration had on American science lasted a very long time.”
That keeping foreign ideas out makes domestic workers worse off is a lesson we should
not forget. Making outsiders feel unwelcome, blocking asylum seekers or putting their
children in cages may succeed in reducing the flow of immigration to the United States. But
the American economy will suffer.
2019

Austan Goolsbee, “Sharp Cuts in Immigration Threaten U.S. Economy and Innovation,” The New York Times , October 11, 2019. Copyright © 2019 by
The New York Times. All rights reserved. Used under license.

questions

1. Why does Austan Goolsbee believe falling immigration numbers represent “the scariest
economic news we have seen in some time” (para. 4)?
2. According to Goolsbee, what do immigration rates have to do with stabilizing and vitalizing

an aging demographic?

3. What lessons does Goolsbee believe can be learned from the restrictive immigration laws of
the 1920s?

4. Why do higher numbers of immigrants make “workers born in the United States more
successful” (para. 12)?
5. Why did quotas on immigration in the 1920s fail to protect American scientists and inventors,

according to research Goolsbee cites? Why do you think this is likely to be or not to be the
case roughly 100 years later?
Connections
Making Connections
Making
1. Both Machado, the daughter of immigrants, and Lam, an immigrant himself, draw on

personal experience to develop their position on the accessibility of the American Dream
to immigrants. How do their arguments compare?
2. To what extent do the graphs depicting American attitudes toward immigrants’

contributions and assimilation support the argument that Preston makes?

3. Taken together, what points about the U.S. immigration policy in the 1920s and the early
twenty-first century do Zeitz, Preston, and Goolsbee emphasize? How does each author
address the relevance of earlier laws in conversations about immigration today?

4. Although their approaches are very different, both Bendib and Goolsbee focus on
the economics of immigration. What is the central difference in their beliefs about the
availability of the American Dream to immigrants today?

Immigration and the American Dream CONVERSATION
87
Copyright © 2021 by Bedford, Freeman & Worth High School Publishers. Uncorrected proofs have been used in this sample chapter.
Distributed by by Bedford, Freeman & Worth High School Publishers. Strictly for use with its products. Not for redistribution.

AufsesALR1e_24889_ch05_002_097.indd 87 5/4/2020 3:58:24 PM