Abstract
Immigration is a major part of American economic activity and the backbone on which our nation was built. While the last 250 years of our nation’s history have resulted in tremendous changes, one lasting feature has been a large flow of immigrants. My analysis examines the extent to which immigrants are able to succeed in one of the important indicators of the American Dream: home ownership. By comparing the experiences of native-born Americans to immigrants in the housing market in both 1910 and 2019, I am able to compare and contrast how immigrants and their English proficiency have affected home ownerships rates in the United States over more than a century. English proficiency and social integration are measured by whether English is spoken at home or not. The main results indicate that, all else equal, immigrants were more likely to own a home in 1910 compared to native-born Americans, but this result reversed by 2019, where home ownership among immigrants was below that of native-born Americans. In addition, in both 1910 and 2019, immigrants who did not speak English at home were substantially less likely to own their homes.