In his New York Times column Nicholas Kristof writes a lovely tribute to his father and his father’s immigrant experience:
One of the things I’m grateful for this Thanksgiving is the warm welcome that America extended to a man born 100 years ago in what is now Ukraine.
Wladyslaw Krzysztofowicz was born into an Armenian family in a dangerous region; you might think of it as the Honduras of its day. During World War II, some family members were murdered by the Nazis; afterward, some survivors were killed by the Soviet “liberators.â€
Wladyslaw escaped by swimming across the Danube River from Romania to Yugoslavia, was almost executed, made his way to France — and began to dream of coming to America.
My father, for that’s who he was, explored illegal options, including a fake marriage with a U.S. citizen, but in the end the First Presbyterian Church in Portland, Ore., sponsored him — even though he was Catholic, spoke no English and originated in a Communist country that was then our enemy.
There were many reasons not to take him: The sponsors had to pay his transportation to America, cover his expenses and find him a job that didn’t require English (he initially worked as a logger). They did all this with tremendous generosity; I’m still trying to pay it forward.
So in 1952, my father was on the deck of the ship Marseille as it approached New York Harbor. A white-haired Boston woman tried to chat with him, but my dad couldn’t understand her.
He’s nostalgic for that time, nearly 70 years ago. So am I.
The marginal productivity of labor was rising, had been increasing for more than a century, and would continue to increase for another 20 years. In the period following World War II the U. S. economy was the only intact industrial economy. We imported very little. Those factors meant that anyone willing to work could earn a decent living and would be able to do so for his entire working life.
Immigrants as a percentage of the population were about 5%. Now they’re about 15%. Wages for those without a command of English or saleable skills have been declining for a quarter century. We have substantial global competition now which means that with just supply and demand factors it’s unlikely that the wages of the unskilled will keep pace. We have erected an impressive edifice of social services that made assumptions about the U. S. that were correct in 1952 but are completely unrealistic for today. Total government spending at all levels as a percentage of GDP was around 17% and half of that was defense spending. Now it’s around 36%, only 5% of which is defense spending.
Times have changed. We can’t go back there again and it’s futile even to try. We would not want to make the changes that would be necessary. Rather than thinking about what immigration was in 1952 or in 1900 or in 1883 we should be crafting immigration policy suitable for 2018 and the conditions that prevail here now.
