If you ask immigrants who've lived in the U.S. ~10 years or so about the pros/cons of it, though, you get much more mixed answers. Some are still uniformly positive about how much better the U.S. is than where they came from, but many aren't.
And sometimes it just seems sort of incomparable. My mom grew up in a rural village of about 30 families in Greece in the 1950s that had no electricity, running water, TVs, etc. She objectively realizes it was a "deprived" childhood by modern standards, but she doesn't subjectively remember it being bad at all. It's just what life was like: you got water from the well, and it was fine, because that's what everyone does, and there was no sense that you were a poor person for not having running water, because nobody had running water, not in your village or in the neighboring villages. And subjectively she even thinks some things were better, like the community and social support you get from a close-knit group of 30 families who all know each other / bake bread at the community oven together / etc. I doubt she would go back to that lifestyle today given the choice, but she doesn't have an "omg that sucked, I'm so glad I'm now in the U.S. in a suburban home" view of it either.
Phillip Greenspun talks about some of this stuff in one of his posts -- the one where he figures billionaires could create human happiness by building Mexican style villages in the US. (Cost effective, at only $27,000 per capita!)
The key idea: we in the US are wealthy materially, but impoverished in community and human contact.
>The key idea: we in the US are wealthy materially, but impoverished in community and human contact.
Amen.
I grew up in a subsidized development. Tiny houses (850-1000sqft) by the standards then (1978), never mind today. Everyone knew everyone else on the block. Everyone's kids played with everyone else's kids. When someone built a pool, or a deck, or sided their house all sorts of neighbors went over to bring food for a picnic and to help out.
A few years ago I moved towards Boston and lived in a gated apartment community that originally was supposed to be sold as condos. Most of the new tenants were those ditching their homes in the economic downturn, but still a lot of parked M3s, M5s, 911s and even a Ferrari 430.
I took a walk every day. When passing someone else I would say hi and not even be acknowledged. When someone's dog was loose and I went to leasing to reunite him with the owner, they seemed to be BOTHERED that someone interacted with their dog. When I attempted to introduce myself to the neighbors with a fresh batch of brownies, only 1 of 4 neighbors answered the door. 360 units, all filled, and no one can be bothered to interact.
When someone moved in they had knocked on doors to see if there was a vacuum they could borrow. I was the only person that answered the door, and I certainly loaned him my vac. Ended up being the only neighbor I ended up getting to know.
I ended up moving into the city later on. Nice place, and it's a building. At least with the forced running into people in the halls people say hello, but no one will hold a door for you. Oh well, at least everyone's dog is friendly and likes to say hello.
Friends who come over to visit notice the same thing. And when I go their tenements, every one of their neighbors I encounter is friendly. I'm honestly curious what psychological/sociological phenomenons cause this.
> If you ask immigrants who've lived in the U.S. ~10 years or so about the pros/cons of it, though, you get much more mixed answers. Some are still uniformly positive about how much better the U.S. is than where they came from, but many aren't.
Then why are they still here?
When someone says that things are better somewhere else, I always ask why they're not at that somewhere else. Almost all the time, it turns out that whatever it is that they're complaining about is less important to them than something that they get where they currently are. Often they're embarrassed by what that says about their priorities.
Often inertia: moving internationally takes a lot of effort, and often money, and is disruptive to careers/schooling/etc. But a decent number of immigrants to the U.S. do leave again later. There's a particularly large number of Chinese immigrants who've returned to China in the past 10 years.
And in any case, not being "uniformly positive" doesn't require being uniformly negative. They may consider the U.S., overall, a better place to live, while on the whole still giving it very mixed scores.
That's true for immigrants that came to the U.S. for economical reasons, but don't forget the refugees that fled their country because of war or seeking political asylum.
I talk to a lot of them through my job, and almost all of them would prefer to return to their country if it were safe to do so. That is one reason you see so many Chinese going back.
> And in any case, not being "uniformly positive" doesn't require being uniformly negative. They may consider the U.S., overall, a better place to live, while on the whole still giving it very mixed scores.
I never suggested otherwise. In fact, I actually wrote the equivalent. "Almost all the time, it turns out that whatever it is that they're complaining about is less important to them than something that they get where they currently are. Often they're embarrassed by what that says about their priorities."
> But a decent number of immigrants to the U.S. do leave again later. There's a particularly large number of Chinese immigrants who've returned to China in the past 10 years.
In other words, they see the US as making it possible for them to get ahead enough so that they can live in China the way that they'd like.
I've no doubt that being rich in China is more appealing to many than upper middle class in the US.
Once you've got all your essential needs covered I'll bet relative social status is more important to happiness than material goods. I believe surveys have shown that people would prefer to make $50K in a world where everyone makes $25K than $100K in a world where everyone makes $200K.
In most of the world, "middle class" means that you have a cushy job and don't have to do any housework-- a maid is assumed. It also means that you have enough financial security that, while you may have to work, you can work and move from one industry to another pretty much at your leisure.
Being "middle class" is better in the Third World, but the comparison isn't fair because only 1-5% is called middle class over there, while 50% are considered middle class here. So that's actually a comparison of what we would consider upper-middle class in their societies against the upper working class in ours. No one who has to put off a vacation because he only gets 2 weeks annually would be considered middle class, except in the US, where we indulge in the fictional equation of "median" with "middle class".
What you're talking about (I think) is the fact that a lot of people come to America expecting to be middle class, which implies a certain level of comfort. When they join the upper tier of the working class that is called "middle class" here, they're upset because of their dashed expectations.
Being poor in America sucks but it kicks the pants off being poor in the Third World, at least in material terms. However, the poor in the US are almost always miserable (due to lack of advancement, a culture that equates poverty with failure, and boredom) whereas the poor in the Third World are not always miserable.
And sometimes it just seems sort of incomparable. My mom grew up in a rural village of about 30 families in Greece in the 1950s that had no electricity, running water, TVs, etc. She objectively realizes it was a "deprived" childhood by modern standards, but she doesn't subjectively remember it being bad at all. It's just what life was like: you got water from the well, and it was fine, because that's what everyone does, and there was no sense that you were a poor person for not having running water, because nobody had running water, not in your village or in the neighboring villages. And subjectively she even thinks some things were better, like the community and social support you get from a close-knit group of 30 families who all know each other / bake bread at the community oven together / etc. I doubt she would go back to that lifestyle today given the choice, but she doesn't have an "omg that sucked, I'm so glad I'm now in the U.S. in a suburban home" view of it either.