An Immigrant's Story

I finished up the Welcoming Economies Global Network conference in Philadelphia with dinner at Sang Kee Peking Duck House.  The owner, Michael Chow, treated us to a feast, and while we ate, he told us his story.

He was born in Hong Kong and enjoyed the career he was making for himself as an engineer.  But, “I wanted freedom. I wanted this,” he said, pointing at the ground he stood on.

So in1980, he left for Philadelphia where an uncle was already living.  He quickly found that his professional life was over.  “My degree was no good, I couldn’t speak English, couldn’t get a license.”

His uncle told him he had two choices: manufacturing or washing dishes at a restaurant.  He rejected the former out of hand, but busboy work did not appeal to him.  Perhaps he could cook.

Only one problem:  “I didn’t know how to cook.” 

In Hong Kong, his grandfather had advised him that if he were to turn to cooking, he should just cook duck.  “It’s pretty easy,” Mr. Chow said, “and it’s simple to start. You just need one oven and one table, no help.”

He practiced and practiced until he thought he had a good product.  Still, he thought like an engineer, so he decided to do a test run first.  He bought ten ducks from Long Island (“I don’t get them from there anymore, it got too expensive and the ducks all moved to Pennsylvania”).  He then went to a friend who had started his own restaurant and asked him to rent him space on his front counter so that he could sell the ducks as take out.  The friend agreed; the ten ducks flew off the table.

Now Mr. Chow was ready to open his own business.  Only one problem: “I didn’t know how to run a business.”  Oh, and:  “I couldn’t find a building.”

He continued to sell ducks to go and did other work while he searched.  Finally, he found a 300 square foot deli in a dicey location on the far end of Philadelphia’s Chinatown.  The owners were asking $18,000.  Mr. Chow had $5,000.

When he made his offer, the sellers laughed him out of the room.  He left to continue his search.  But a few hours later they called him: $8,000.  Mr. Chow still had only $5,000.

“They said to me, ‘well, if we’re going to give it to you for $5,000, we’re going to have to take out the fryer and some of the other equipment.’” Mr. Chow agreed.  Now he had a place, but no money.

He left the studio apartment he was renting and for the next six months lived in the restaurant. Eventually he bought what he needed and opened for business.  He brought on a partner to run the front of the house while he cooked.

People really liked his ducks.  They liked them so much that eventually he had the means to expand his menu to cater to the Koreans, Vietnamese, and other Asians who had moved into the area, not to mention the native-born population that loved his Peking Duck.

Mr. Chow expanded the building, then added a second level, then expanded the whole thing again.  Over the course of 36 years, he added five other locations.

“My grandfather gave me very good advice,” Mr. Chow said.

You Can’t Throw Facts at Fear

I was conversing with a person here at the Welcoming Economies Global Network conference who said that you can’t throw facts at fear.  You may have all the statistics in the world – immigrants founded 40% of Fortune 500 companies, immigrants commit crimes and are incarcerated at a much lower rate than the general population – but it won’t matter if your audience is convinced that immigrants are job-stealing law breakers. 

Facts matter, but we know from social science that the best way to persuade someone is through personal experience.  When you meet an immigrant or refugee, when you are able to talk with them and learn about them, that’s when you can start to believe, as another conference attendee said, that immigration is the most glorious part of America.

Take Joseph.  I met him at breakfast on the first day of the conference. He is from Liberia, but he had to flee the country in the midst of a civil war that claimed the lives of friends and family. He was resettled in Houston, became a citizen of the United States, and later moved to Pennsylvania where he now works in healthcare and is a passionate advocate for refugees and immigrants in the Philadelphia region.

He loves America, he said.  “In Liberia, I didn’t bother to vote.  The incumbent always won.  Here, I know my vote counts, I know it can make a difference. And I was able to study, I was able to get a job.”

Joseph lamented that some are resentful of the initial assistance that is granted to refugees.  “America made a small investment in me, and I have repaid it many times over...now I tell other refugees, ‘this country welcomes us, we have to try to give back.’”

Joseph is a visceral example of just how glorious America really is when we welcome people who are persecuted simply for wanting life and liberty.  We have to remember to go beyond the facts and figures and tell the stories of these New Americans, and celebrate how together we are writing the next chapter of the unlikely tale that first began 240 years ago.

New Americans, New Opportunities

Recently, Robert J. Samuelson of the Washington Post argued that our conversation about immigration is misguided: we spend all our energy focused on the approximately 11 million undocumented when we should really focus on the estimated 31 million immigrants who are here legally and the roughly 1 million who gain legal entry every year.

In large part, I think the fact that we don’t talk about these immigrants very much is a testament to America’s singular ability to assimilate the immigrant into the fabric of the country.  It’s something we take for granted and should be proud of. 

And we do pay attention to legal immigrants. As just one example, Samuelson ignores the myriad efforts across the Midwest to harness the energy of documented foreign born individuals.  In my own city of St. Louis, a host of organizations ranging from the Mosaic Project to the St. Louis Language Immersion Schools to the St. Louis International Institute (whose CEO was lauded in a report from the White House) deliver services that focus on helping these New Americans to become rooted in the community.

Now, there is definitely an upside to building immigration policy on the standard Samuelson advocates, namely the high prioritization of skilled workers. Samuelson suggests that this focus:

“...would promote assimilation (because skilled workers have an easier time integrating into the workforce and society), increase economic growth (because skilled workers have higher “value added” than unskilled labor) and reduce poverty (because many unskilled immigrants have incomes below the government’s poverty line).”

But there is a reason the Statue of Liberty doesn’t ask that she be sent highly skilled people yearning to be PhDs.

We have known more success in every sphere than any nation in history, and a large component of that success comes from the way we have opened our arms to anyone – anyone – who wanted to make a better life for themselves and their children. From Alexander Hamilton, a foreigner who arrived in the U.S. only through the charity of others, to Dr. Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa, who came illegally and destitute to America from Mexico and is now one of the most renowned brain surgeons in the world, our history is bursting with examples of immigrants whom no one would have called a good bet.  And yet they have prospered and contributed enormously to the United States.

LISTEN TO THE NPR NEWS INTERVIEW WITH DR. ALFREDO QUIÑONES-HINOJOSA ON “TELL ME MORE”

A more prosaic but nevertheless driving reason to allow family preferences and factors other than skills for immigrating legally to the United States is population growth.  Our population is rapidly aging. Combined with a below-replacement birth rate, you have the makings of a Japan-style black hole for economic activity. We need people who will work, pay taxes, and fund entitlements that aging Americans will need to stay out of poverty.  Given this reality, our immigration policy cannot afford to be so selective.



And then there’s the fact that immigration has made us more prosperous. As Samuelson himself notes, by one estimate, immigrants (including their entrepreneurial activity) have increased the size of the U.S. economy by 11 percent, or about $2 trillion.  That’s a lot of money to leave on the table.

On one point Samuelson and I are in complete agreement. He said that, “If we cannot maneuver immigration to our advantage, it will almost certainly work to our disadvantage.”  That’s true. If we allow the politics of fear to cut us off from the source of our exceptionalism, if we decide that only those who are “worthy” or come from a certain region of the world should have access to the American Dream, it will not only be to our disadvantage, but to our extreme detriment.