How Immigration in America Changed During the 1970s and 1980s (Essay Sample)

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How immigration changed during the 1970s and 1980s
The period between 1970s and 1980s witnessed two major changes in immigration patterns. To begin with, this period witnessed an increase in the number of people who were migrating into the United States. The years preceding the 1970s had witnessed stable economic growth brought about by an economic model that had been applied after the Second World War. The primary goal of this economic model was to act as a springboard for wider economic growth (Borjas, 42). In developed countries, government enacted spending regulations aimed at sustaining mass production and sustained economic growth. On the other hand, governments in developing countries undertook large scale investment and spending with an aim of generating income and eliminating production bottlenecks. In doing so, they created internal demand that local private and public producers could satisfy.
This model of industrial growth founded on internal market development started declining in the early 1970s. In the course of the following years, the model was discarded in favor of a new one that was based on international trade. In industrialized nations, production became more capital intensive and markets became fragmented due to mass production. In order to ensure that their economies did not go into recession, developing countries eliminated bureaucracies and government owned companies were privatized. According to Borjas (43), the existing tariff barriers were done away with and this exposed the previously guarded markets to global competition. After some time, many countries that are traditional source of immigrants like Mexico could not compete in the global markets. Many people became increasingly poor and decided to migrate into other countries instead of waiting to die of poverty in their country. This explains why there was an increase in the number of people who were migrating into the United States during the 1970 and 1980s.
The second change in immigration patterns in the 1970s and 1980s was that there were new people who were migrating into the United States. Throughout the history of the United States, majority of immigrants originated from Latin American countries like México. However, this migration pattern changed during the 1970s and 1980s as many immigrants from Asian countries immigrated into the country. As noted earlier in the paper, the first factor that caused global changes in immigration patterns after the Second World War was adoption of a new economic model based on international trade (Borjas, 77). The recently ended war had negative effects on the economies of many cou...