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I would say immigrants today have a tougher row to hoe than earlier arrivals. My forebears arrived from Ireland in the 1840s. After bouncing around eastern cities for a while, one of them served in the Union army in the Civil War, during which he did not fire a shot. As a result of this service, he was given several hundred acres of farmland on the frontier, to which the clan moved and started a new life using the same skills they had used in Ireland. And oh yeah they spoke English.

Immigrants nowadays have to learn a new language, oftentimes make the rural-to-urban transition, enter formal educational institutions, rent expensive apartments, buy a car, etc. all on top of assimilating into a new culture. It is definitely harder than it used to be, especially since population density in the US is much higher than ever and a smaller fraction of global growth is occurring here. I don't envy newer immigrants. That said, American immigration is still one of the best investments you can make in yourself and your descendants.

Working in newer immigrants' favor nowadays are the dramatically lower costs of transportation (my ancestors sold everything they had accumulated over centuries to get their boat tickets), the welfare state, and a more accurate (but still largely inaccurate) knowledge of American life due to the global media.

In short success is harder to achieve but the cost of failure is much lower.

I'm so glad to see you're back with a new video blog! I've lived abroad for 6 of the past 9 years, so it's really interesting to see how people experience living abroad in my native country.

Ilegal immigration has given legal immigrants like myself a bad name and made it much harder for us to make it in N America.

I thought you did a good job on this vlog, explaining Queens' immigrant diversity.

As you travel throughout the country, one thing I will wonder is how your race will affect how you are treated--in both positive and negative ways. In future blogs and vlogs, I personally would like to see you interview people of different races but living in the same area, and ask their opinion on how they view the place in which they live. I suspect that oftentimes the answers will be different for different races.

For instance, I am from the Bay Area in Northern California, but am now residing in Southern California. One thing I have noticed is how many Northeast Asians have expressed that they absolutely love it down here. On the contrary, many Southeast Asians--though they state it subtly and in a roundabout fashion--make it clear that they do not particularly like living here. In general, I've noticed that Southern California has a lot more racial ghettoization than Northern California, and that this leads members of some groups to make assumptions about individuals from both their and other groups. Since I was born and raised in a different environment, I find this aspect of the local culture very frustrating.

I recall when a British ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ reporter travelled across the United States to cover the most recent national elections--or the campaigning leading up to it, rather--and he blogged about his experiences. Several posters from the South graciously invited him to visit them at their homes (which is a little creepy from my standpoint, but it's a demonstration of welcome and friendliness nonetheless). Maybe I'm just cynical, but I do wonder whether they would have made those same offers if the photo at the top of the blog did not show a white man, but instead a man with darker skin.

So, I thought this was a great first vlog on this topic, and I like how you interviewed several immigrants, although all were Latinos (of different races, granted), as well as gave your own views as an immigrant yourself.

I think the immigrant experience depends a lot on the immigrant's educational background. The better educated, the easier it is to enter the American mainstream, both financially and culturally.

Based on my experience of living in the United States for over 15 years, it has become more difficult for "unskilled" laborers. This is because working class jobs in America have been gradually eroded to be low-paying with little benefits. All Americans, not just immigrants, are now living in a country were class mobility has been drastically reduced. The reasons behind this are complex and some would claim that immigration is partially to blame for this. But that's a political discussion for another day.

That being said, the United States still provides more opportunity to immigrants than most countries in the world.

I moved here in 1998. I speak the language, being English I speak it better than the locals, especially since a great many of those are Mexican and don't.

The hardest part was getting started with the credit rating industry. It's hard to do everything for cash even when you have the cash for everything you need to do. Eventually my old credit card company remembered I had been a customer for twelve years in the UK. All the rest was easy, for a software professional. The secret down side of immigration is that H1B, employment based, immigrants are abused by many companies who view them as cheap labor. So I went from being one of the best paid thirty odd year old engineers in the UK to one of the worst paid here.

The worst thing about being here is the health care, or lack of it. I work for a major corporation, so I am OK for now, but when I retire I will have terrible health care and probably won't live very long.

Twelve years on I may be a US citizen this year.

I disagree with SoloSilo who said "I would say immigrants today have a tougher row to hoe than earlier arrivals". Starting from scratch on the frontier was hardly a life of sitting out in the sun waiting for the crops to jump on the plate. Both now and then the main task is/was survival, whether that involved growing food or trying to get a driver's license to get to a job.

I'm an immigrant. Legal, white, college educated and I speak English so probably not typical. But I suspect that to the Native Americans we are ALL illegal immigrants, everyone who has settled here in the last 300 years. (With the exception of African Americans who hardly came voluntarily....) I'd love to hear the Native view on immigration, so why not visit a reservation where many of the original inhabitants of this vast nation often live lives of poverty with few opportunities?
Don't get me wrong - I love living here. I'm really glad I came, and I have no plans to ever go back to my land of origin on a permanent basis. But I find this whole immigration question more than a little ironic. I mean if you stole the country from the natives to start with, can you really complain about others trying to steal it from you now? What goes around comes around. Karma. I do understand that "That was then and This is now" but to the poster who wrote about his Irish ancestors being given land...? I wonder who was thrown off it so your ancestor could have it? The Frontier had inhabitants even back then - they just didn't count for much. They were pretty much treated like vermin.
On another related issue - if the US education system could produce the number of engineers, scientists and technologists it needs for industry, academia and R&D, then a whole swathe of (legal) immigration would cease. But as long as most young American people avoid the tough stuff (physics, math etc.) and pursue "Liberal Arts' degrees, then the US will continue to need to import skilled immigrants. For every student I hear about who wants to study serious science, I hear about 20 who want to become lawyers or make money on Wall Street.
At the other end of the scale, I don't see too many Caucasians out in the fields picking strawberries where I live in California - and historically Spanish was of course spoken here long before English arrived. It makes me smile when I hear that immigrants must speak English. Of course realistically they must, to advance. We need a common language and English it is and always will be. But we shouldn't forget history - the winners may write it, but the losers have longer memories. I myself cleaned houses for a few years when I first arrived. One enduring reason immigrants still do quite well here is because most of us WILL do just about anything. We are realists.
Immigration? It's been happening since our ancestors left the African Rift Valley. Europe is going through the same throes as the USA. People leave areas with endemic poverty and environmental decline, with burgeoning populations or political oppression (just like those Irish ancestors did), all trying to find opportunities. Most of us at both ends of the scale are just trying to survive. Nothing wrong with controlling immigration of course, we must, but don't ever lose sight of the fact that almost everyone in the US comes from pretty recent immigrant stock.
Go on Franz - take a trip to a Reservation!

#6. Chris. Yes, the whole credit rating thing is really hard. We were middle aged and had finished paying off a mortgage in the UK, we had perfect credit there, we thought we were respectable grown ups! Here, no one would do an international credit check so we didn't exist. It took a couple of years to claw back onto the credit ladder - still I imagine it's much tougher for non Anglos. Totally agree about the health care issues - and I'm fed up with explaining to Americans that contrary to what they hear on the news, the UK's NHS doesn't leave its old people dying in the gutter....

Hi Franz,

I have lived in St. Louis for last three years and in Texas for two years before that when I immigrated to the US. I would love to meet you and share my experience since I came from New Zealand. Are you coming to St. Louis?

Thanks,
Ravi

I agree that today's immigrants have a much more difficult time than earlier immigrants to the US. For starters, the process to become a legal immigrant is far more difficult nowadays and as a result, those who are unsuccessful at that attempt aren't left with many other options than to remain here illegally. Due to the large number of immigrants both legal and illegal, that piece of pie often referred to as 'The American Dream' is so much harder to achieve with so much competition, coupled with the fact that we live in a different time, where the focus has shifted from family to money and where the cost of living has more than tripled in recent years. It does help to be better educated, but sadly with all the diversity and education, racism is far from dead. Depending on where you are emigrating from, you may or may not be at a disadvantage. Many immigrants today are sterotyped as a result of past occurances and tend to be usally associated with cheap labour and low end jobs mostly which contribute to the distance between them and 'The American Dream'. With the economy in shambles and a bleak outlook at recovery, many americans are of the opinion that most immigrants contribute to the shortage of jobs, the poor state of healthcare and education system, and crime. I'm not saying that these weren't issues that earlier immigrants faced, but unfortunately it is more pronounced even with the assumption that we've made huge strides as a race.

Immigrants today need to take a long hard look at the prospects before committing themselves to moving to the USA.
Unless you have a very specialised in-demand skillset then the chances of finding work for you are minimal - and indeed if you do find any work it is likely to be "sweat-shop" labour. Call-centre, warehouse labouring, retail labouring or similar low-paid, high pressure and very unhealthy work. Add to this the exorbitant healthcare costs - no effective social security safety-net (without about 10 years of qualifying work) - the dangers of living in a drugs and gun infested society - I have to ask the question - why would any ordinary working person want to bring thermselves - let alone their family - into the US?

Very good start to your travel blog - loved your interviews and the photography! Corona was a great choice for your starting point, and I was happy you mentioned Elmhurst also! Looking forward to following along and hearing more about immigrants in America.

Hi Franz -
I really wish I would have known when you would be in the area....since I have been teaching in Corona for the past several years.
I would have loved to share some inside information with you as well as an 'outsider' looking into this immigrant community.
In fact, I was more than shocked when Maria was introduced as an AP for P.S. 19....what?! where?! Not the P.S. [Personal details removed by Moderator] -- since I have been teaching there all this time!
We have five assistant principals: [Personal details removed by Moderator]
I am sorry if you were misinformed == or maybe there was something else that should have been cleared up!
Thanks for your time -- and ENJOY your journey!

With high cost of living in the UK and restricted opportunities I thought the US was going to be a fruitful move and it has proved to be so. It helped that I had a lot of experience (10+ yrs) and two degrees so it wasn't long before I had earned and paid for my permanent residency for myself and family. Not cheap at $12000 though. I would have thought twice if I only had the opportunity to live in the East or West coasts initially because those are densely populated and you get less bang for the buck as Franz's video illustrates. I'm glad we chose Texas. Now I think Franz's blog would be more balanced if he looked further West and South than the older East coast.

Immigration is certainly a much more difficult task today, the main reason for it is because the US suffers from a broken immigration system and lacks the basic support system that many new arrivals need and had in the past...

Moving to any new country is hard, but after the adjustment period things get easier, this generation of immigrants are faced with the reality that the adjustment period in America today is much longer than those who came in the past.

Hi Franz,

Being a multimedia journalist myself I can't help noticing that you have some supporting crew behind. Probably it would be worth cutting some of the shots showing you walking with your camera from different angles. You are a handsome young guy but people would better see WHAT you film rather HOW you film this. What do you think?