Are Mexican immigrants less tidy than others?

The debate continues on Twitter about whether Hispanic immigrants tend to litter more.

On a related issue, General Social Survey interviewers rated the homes of respondents in terms of cleanliness from 'very clean' (1) to 'dirty' (5).  I calculated the means for those born in the US and those who were not (sample size = 7,062). The mean for native-borns is 1.96, the mean for immigrants is 1.86, so immigrants are not messier, they're cleaner.

What if we look by ethnic group and immigrant status? Let's limit the analysis to groups with at least 100 respondents. I'll put immigrant means in parentheses.

Mean unclean house score

Blacks 2.17  (2.02)
Mexican  2.00 (2.05)
Irish  1.98 (1.60)
Scottish  1.95 (1.89)
German  1.88 (1.68)
English/Welsh  1.84 (1.68)
Polish  1.84 (1.55)
Italian  1.77 (1.89)

Immigrants tend to be cleaner than native-borns. Mexican and Italian immigrants are the exceptions with slightly higher means than their American-born counterparts. On the question of Mexican immigrants, their score is only surpassed by blacks.

UPDATE: As I indicated, the debate actually focuses on Hispanics, not just Mexicans. The mean for all Hispanic immigrants is 1.90. For native-born Latinos, it's 2.03--a mean that is very close to that of Mex-Ams, and is only surpassed by blacks.

Who's more likely to sex and labor traffic--Americans or immigrants?

Recently, I posted on which races are most likely to engage in sex trafficking.  What about immigrants? Compared to Americans, are they more likely to be criminals of this type?

They sure are. Immigrants are 14% of people living in America, but they are 33% of convicted sex traffickers. That's three times the rate of native-borns. Even more striking, immigrants are 69% of those who enslave workers. That's almost 14 times the rate of Americans.

Sex and labor trafficking: work that Americans are unwilling to do.

Data: Educated immigrants ain't impressive

In a recent tweet, Ann Coulter claimed that H-1B visa holders are not highly skilled like President Trump says but are simply slave labor.

While I can't use GSS data to identify this group of workers, let's look at the vocabulary test scores of immigrants with at least 16 years of total education. I won't call it IQ scores since English is a second language for most immigrants, but I will argue that an immigrant's English vocabulary says something meaningful about him.

Here are the mean vocabulary scores by decade (N = 725):

Mean vocabulary (using an IQ scale)

1970s  109.5
1980s    98.7
1990s  100.9
2000s    97.6
2010s  100.7

We can see that while educated immigrants in the 1970s had good vocabularies, they dropped to the average white score by the 80s, and it has remained in that area since.

This pattern is similar to what we have seen with immigrants in general, and Americans admitted to college or graduate school: mean scores were quite good in the 1970s, but the US then got more egalitarian and lowered standards. Now we take anyone into the country or into the university.  This shows that our elites no longer put a premium on quality, but really care about giving goodies (American citizenship, access to universities) to any schmuck who shows up. 

UPDATE: If we divide the educated immigrants from this past decade by race, the mean scores are: white 104.5, black 99.5, other 96.6.

Data: Do immigrants make America dirtier?

Pacific Life pulled its ads from Fox News after Tucker Carlson said immigrants make America dirtier. In my experience, black and Hispanic communities tend to be dirtier than white neighborhoods (although I lived in a clean middle-class, predominantly black neighborhood), but is this the case for immigrants? 

I don't have data for neighborhoods, but General Social Survey interviewers rated people's homes during interviews. Ratings ranged from very clean (1) to dirty (5).  The mean for people born in the country is 1.93; for immigrants, it's 1.86. So immigrants' homes are slightly cleaner.

Tucker might have had a white/immigrant comparison in mind. The white mean is 1.88 -- a number similar to immigrants.

Let's look at a dirtiness ranking among selected ethnic groups in the US:

Mean household dirtiness (N = 3,657)

Black  2.17
American Indian  2.17
Mexican  2.04
Irish  1.91
Swedish  1.91
Chinese  1.90
Filipino  1.90
India  1.90
German  1.87
Polish  1.85
English/Welsh  1.85
Puerto Rican  1.82
Italian  1.73
Russian  1.71
Greek  1.65

Blacks, American Indians, and to a lesser extent, Mexican Americans have the highest dirtiness ratings which is consistent with my experience of neighborhoods.  Greeks are the cleanest.  It seems to me that cleanliness is a measure of conscientiousness. Jews seem conscientious, so let's look at religion, too, and see if the numbers match my thinking.

Buddhist  2.13
None  2.10
Protestant  1.91
Catholic  1.84
Hindu  1.84
Muslim  1.76
Jews  1.68

Jews come in the cleanest. Buddhists and people with no religion are the dirtiest.  Religious people do tend to be more conscientious.  Keep in mind the differences are not large.  The gap between Greeks and blacks/American Indians is only one-half of a standard deviation.

It's possible that people differ somewhat in terms of indoor and outdoor behavior.  I'm messy in my house but freak out if I drop a gum wrapper in a public place.

Are immigrants superior to Americans?

David Brooks in a NYT's piece claims that immigrants are superior to Americans--they "outhustle" us. Is this true?

The General Social Survey (GSS) asks non-retired participants about their work status. Let's use full-time employment status as our measure of "hustlers." According to the data, 61.3% of white and 53.4% of black Americans work full-time. For immigrants of all races, it's 56.3%.

Where exactly is the mind-blowing hustle Brooks is referring to? I think Brooks is doing what liberals often do: take a black reality that's troubling and then pretend it's whites who have the problem. For example, private gun ownership is portrayed as scary, and images of white rednecks are drummed up, but progressives are actually afraid of blacks having firearms.

People like Brooks have an instinctive dislike of ordinary whites because this group is seen as actually being capable of organized nastiness, while brown people are not. He is wrong about this. I'm no historian, but I do seem to remember something about whites not doing very well in Haiti around 1791.  

Immigrants are liberalizing the country

Conservative immigration enthusiasts point to the supposed social conservatism of immigrants. Using varous sources of data, I have shown that Hispanics are the weakest kind of social conservatives. They vote two-to-one for pro-abortion candidates all the time, and according to Pew data, they are more in favor of gay marriage than whites and blacks. 

This kind of analysis typically focuses on Hispanics since they are the largest group of immigrants, but what about the most elite groups? They enjoy power of another sort. Here are the percentages of people who want abortion to be legal for any reason for the five immigration groups with the most prestigious jobs (according to the GSS):   

Percent of immigrants in favor of abortion for any reason

1. Indian 51.4
2. Chinese 49.3
3. Russian (non-Jewish) 78.6
4. Jewish 69.1
5. English 64.7

Forty percent of native-born American favor abortion for any reason. All of the elite immigrant groups are significantly more pro-abortion. The fact is that immigrants are liberalizing the country, not making it more traditional.

Immigrant unhappiness--again

In a recent post on unhappiness on immigration, I was told that I should have assessed how happy immigrants would have been if they had remained in their home countries (and that I lied because I didn't do that). I guess since I'm religious, readers assume I have access to God or something because He's probably the only one that can answer that question.

Bound as I am to the mortal sphere, I put together a table that lists the numbers from the earlier post in the left column, and the percent of those in the home country who are "not very happy," or "not all all happy" (as opposed to very or quite happy). These data are from the World Values Survey.  You can see that some countries were not asked the question that their counterparts in America were asked.

In 7 of the 11 eleven countries, a higher percentage of immigrants are unhappy than folks back home. In only 4 of 11 countries are people happier here.

Of course, these immigrants might actually have been more miserable had they remained home, so let's get it out there that I'm a liar in this post too.

Immigrants are more likely to be unhappy

Leaving your family, friends, and way of life to come to America is bound to take its toll on you. Imagine living the rest of your life in, say, Japan. You'd be a fish out of water for a very long time.

The General Social Survey for many years has asked respondents how happy they are. Answer-choices include "very happy," "pretty happy," and "not too happy." While only 11.6% of native-born Americans report that they are not too happy, 16.9% of immigrants feel that way. That's a statistically significant difference. And it varies by country of origin:


Percent of immigrants in America who are not happy (N = 31,869)

Puerto Rico 29.2
Africa 28.9
West Indian 28.6
Spain 24.6
Arab 21.1
France 19.0
Italy 17.8
Mexico 17.2
China 16.4
Japan 16.3
Scotland 16.0
Russia 14.7
England/Wales 12.9
Poland 12.3
India 10.6
Philippines 10.2
Ireland 10.0
Germany 7.7

Groups differ a great deal. Germans and Irish immigrants are just as happy as native-born Americans, but Puerto Ricans and Africans are 2 1/2 times as likely to suffer from unhappiness. People who are educated and speak English do better.  

Immigrants lose more than familiar customs and proximity to loved ones over here. At Secular Right, Heather MacDonald recently described how African immigrants are mistreated by native-born blacks, and I know that some Mexican Americans do the same thing to immigrants from Latin America.

People argue that immigration might not be particularly good for Americans, but it's good for the immigrants. Says who? For an extra buck, you make yourself miserable? You cut your children off from relatives back home? You exchange one mess for another, and lose your way of life in the meantime. Think twice about it, folks.

Mexican Americans are the least liberal Hispanics: I shown in previous posts that immigrants tilt the country left. In particular, I have focused on Mexicans since they are the largest group. Other Hispanics are often lumped in with Mexicans, but they might very well have different politics. Cuban Americans are known for their Republican voting, for example.

The General Social Survey asked 9,613 people their if they had Hispanic origins, and their political views (ranging from "extremely liberal" (1) to "extremely conservative" (7)). Here are the means subtracted from 7 so that higher scores show greater liberalism:


Mean liberalism score

Mexicans 2.89
Puerto Ricans 3.19
Cubans 3.18
Dominicans 3.40
Central Americans 3.22
South Americans 3.26

All other Hispanics are worse than Mexicans. Even Cubans are farther to the left. It might be the case that the only reason why they vote Republican is over the issue of Cuba. They fit in with general pattern of liberalism among immigrants. Their numbers are also consistent with the high liberalism scores of other Caribbean people (i.e., Puerto Ricans, Dominicans).

Central and South Americans are also more liberal than Mexicans. According to GSS data, there simply are no conservative Hispanic groups. (The closest thing perhaps is Filipinos).

Hispanics are another example of how Catholicism in America does not move people right. Priests pray for the end of abortion, but parishioners want social programs.

(This is off-topic, but it occurred to me while attending mass yesterday that I felt like I was trapped in a 1976 Up With People concert.)

Immigrants and white-collar crime: Steve Sailer has a new piece on his adventures as a juror in a case of an immigrant short-changing the State of California a lot of money in used car sales taxes. His experience suggests that white-collar crime might be common among immigrants since many of them bring to the U.S. a distrust of non-family, and loyalties are limited to relatives.

So, what does the General Social Survey say about this? Almost 2,500 people were asked if it is wrong to cheat on your taxes. Here are the answers by whether or not you were born in the United States:


Percent agreeing about cheating on taxes

Immigrants
It's not wrong 2.6
It's a bit wrong 9.5
It's wrong 56.6
It's seriously wrong 31.2

Those born here
It's not wrong 4.2
It's a bit wrong 11.4
It's wrong 53.3
It's seriously wrong 31.0

No differences here. Now, attitudes are not behavior, and it is possible that immigrants don't trust survey people (like they don't supposedly trust other strangers) and are more likely to give the "correct" response, but we can say, at the very least, that they know how they're supposed to answer.

Immigrants from all over the world beat Americans of Mexican ancestry in an English vocabulary contest: Using General Social Survey data, I list below the mean IQs for ethnic groups born in the United States, and in parentheses I list mean intelligence for immigrants (legal and illegal). I limited my analysis to categories having at least 20 cases, so some estimates are missing:


Mean IQ for native-born Americans (immigrants in parentheses)

Jewish 109.7 (95.1)
Lithuanian 106.9
Austrian 106.5 (90.4)
Russian 106.5 (91.0)
Chinese 105.7 (86.3)
English 103.9 (112.5)
Danish 103.7
Scottish 103.4 (102.1)
Hungarian 103.2
Yugoslav 103.1
Norwegian 102.7
Swiss 102.6
Swedish 102.2
Japanese 102.2
Czech 101.7
Finnish 101.4
Greek 101.3
Irish 101.1 (103.6)
Polish 101.1 (95.5)
Italian 100.9 (90.6)
French 100.1 (103.1)
German 100.0 (98.9)

USA 99.3 (92.1)

Portuguese 98.8
Filipino (95.8)
Indian (95.6)
French Canadian 99.1 (93.5)
Dutch 97.2
Spain 96.8 (95.3)
Arabic (95.1)
American Indian 92.7
African 91.6 (90.0)
Puerto Rican 91.1 (81.6)
Mexican 90.3 (83.3)

First, readers may wonder why native-born blacks don't have IQs closer to 85. This measure of IQ is based on a ten question vocabulary test, and the black-white is not as large for verbal ability. This kind of test does not validly measure the IQ of immigrants whose first langauge is not English, but it can serve as an indicator of the ease with which immigrants can assimilate into American society.

Among native-born whites, IQ tends to rise to the north, with a number of exceptions. The IQs of countries like Russia are boosted by the Jewish component, but even without Jews, the number are still quite high. Japanese and especially Chinese are high, but there are not enough native-born Filipinos to estimate their mean. Other mixed or non-white groups are at the bottom. Both Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans born here have lower scores than blacks, probably due to all the Spanish being spoken in their environments.

As for potential assimilation and success in American society, Europeans from English-speaking countries are at the top, but Europeans in general have vocabularies well beyond that of Americans of Mexican ancestry. In fact, immigrants from just about every country beat Mexican Americans in an English vocabulary contest.

Are immigrants crazier than the rest of us? Cho Seung-Hui was clearly not right in the head. Is this a common problem among immigrants? Mentally troubled people might escape the messes they've made at home by moving to another country. Or maybe stress from living in an alien culture might send some over the edge.

General Social Survey participants were asked if they have ever suffered from a mental illness. This is the share who said "yes":


Percent having had mental illness

Native-born 7.5
Immigrants 4.5


Keep in mind that the immigrant sample is only 89 people, but these results indicate a comparatively healthy immigrant population. Immigrants, at least those from distant lands, have to be pretty high-functioning to navigate the challenges of a new life. If I find data on the children of immigrants, I'll post the results.

Mexican immigrants are the most anti-Semitic: Surveys show that most Jews are immigration enthusiasts. Critics argue that America is importing a lot of people who are tilting the country in an anti-Semitic direction. But not all immigrant groups are equal. Let's see what light the General Social Survey can shed on this question. People were asked how much they liked Israel with answers ranging from 0 for "like very much" to 9 for "dislike very much." It's not the perfect measure of anti-Semitism, but it's the best I could find with an adequate sample size. Here are the mean scores for immigrants from each country (or region):


Anti-Israel mean score

Mexico 4.55
Africa 4.45
Germany 4.25
China 3.87
Italy 3.87

All Immigrants 3.84

Puerto Rico 3.84
England/Wales 3.58
Spain 3.06


As some people have suggested, Mexicans are anti-Israel, as are Africans. The sample sizes for many countries are too small to list estimates, but Europe, even Eastern Europe, is generally pro-Israel. (Eastern Europeans are probably pro-Israel because many immigrants are Jewish). Japanese and Indian immigrants are anti-Israel, as is the small sample of Arabs. There is a correlation between being a white immigrant and being pro-Israel: white immigrants average 3.73; blacks, 4.20; and others, 3.90.

GSS data cast doubt on the idea that immigrants will shift our values right: Will Mexican immigrants bring a more Catholic tinge to politics? General Social Survey respondents were asked if they approved of abortions for any reason. Below is the percent difference between groups:


Percent difference in approving of abortion for any reason

Mexican Immigrant--All Americans, -17.2%
American-born of Mexican ancestry--Total American-born (ages 26+), -10.1%
American-born of Mexican ancestry--Total American-born (<25), -2.9%

Indeed, Mexicans immigrate with views less favorable to abortion than the average American, but in subsequent generations and among younger Mexican Americans, the gap closes. From these data, America shapes the moral values of immigrant families more than the reverse. These data also say poppycock to neocons who argue that Latinos will move the country in a traditional direction.