Elderly and foreign born in the USA

August 31, 2009 7:45 AM

The lives of transplanted elders are largely untracked, unknown outside their ethnic or religious communities. “They never win spelling bees,” said Judith Treas, a sociology professor and demographer at the University of California, Irvine. “They do not join criminal gangs. And nobody worries about Americans losing jobs to Korean grandmothers.”

Older Immigrants, Invisible and With ‘Nobody to Talk To’ in the New York Times. Elderly immigrants, the US's fastest growing immigrant population [pdf], have been hit hard by the rough economic climate. Changes in welfare law in the mid-90s made it harder for immigrants to receive benefits. Long resisting the trend towards nursing homes, elderly immigrants have enrolled in greater numbers in recent years.
posted by Kattullus (8 comments total)

Wait, cheap immigrant labor is supposed to be propping up our eldercare system not collapsing it! Better get that fence up faster before the guys building it get ready to retire!
posted by Pollomacho at 7:52 AM on August 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

You mean the fence that people have been stealing to sell as scrap?
posted by Kattullus at 8:03 AM on August 31, 2009 [3 favorites]

I've wondered why the agreement to support elderly relatives, which is why they get approved to come here, is not legally enforceable.
posted by shoesietart at 9:16 AM on August 31, 2009

Yay fence stealers!
posted by Mister_A at 9:29 AM on August 31, 2009

So in addition to a messed up healthcare system, the US has a messed up immigration system.
posted by GuyZero at 9:44 AM on August 31, 2009

They do not join criminal gangs.

What th--those Gray Panthers lied to me!

if I hadn't already used the Hometown Buffet 10% discount card they sent to me, I'd tell 'em to stuff it.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:30 AM on August 31, 2009

The first link is a very sad read.
posted by of strange foe at 9:41 PM on August 31, 2009

of strange foe: The first link is a very sad read.

Yeah, you can say that again. In the rest of the world people have very set ideas about what the US is like. Quite a few friends of mine, fellow immigrants, have had very deep culture shocks here and ended up isolated for a good time, even though they had lived in other countries than their own and spoke very good English.

Though nothing to this level.
posted by Kattullus at 6:47 PM on September 1, 2009