Before then, Eastern European Jews moved up through business, especially the garment, fur, shoe and retail trades. Most Jewish children left school with an eighth-grade education at best. They left as soon as they were old enough to get working papers. There were jobs. The stakes are higher now.
Education is much more important.
Without a high school degree, you can't get a job. Even a college degree doesn't necessarily get you a good job. There's much more pressure now. But the image they created of the past, she writes, matters in the present because it sets up expectations about what new immigrants can and should do. Expectations about how quickly immigrant children should learn English provide much of the kindling for the current dispute over bilingual education and English immersion.