In America, Where You're Born Is Correlated With How Far You'll Go In Life

In Slate Headlines, Correlation Is Causation.

I think the article's headline point is true for me in one odd way. I grew up in suburban Minneapolis, Minnesota, and by chance the school district where I grew up had mandatory foreign language instruction (German) for all elementary school pupils in grades four, five, and six. (One member of the district staff was a German refugee who came over to the United States after World War II. She set up German classes delivered over the Twin Cities educational TV station, now a PBS affiliate station, and at the appointed hour, television sets in elementary classrooms all over the school district were tuned to her instructional programs. I think the school district also made an effort to hire new elementary teachers who had had some German during their higher education.)

My German is nicht so gut, but this early exposure to foreign language study (few Americans begin study of a second language before secondary school) got me started in the process of understanding what it takes to learn another language. Our school district had the usual mix of French, Spanish, or more German in junior high (I continued with German, a heritage language in my family) and added Russian in senior high, which I took. So when I went into university and tried out the Chinese major program, I was sufficiently successful to keep going in that major subject. Quite a few of my classmates from my school district studied interesting languages like Arabic and ancient Nahuatl and linguistics while in university, and several aspired to become, and at least one became, foreign service officers. So in this simple manner a difference in the local schools in my town propelled the mobility to new places of many of the alumni.

Ah yes, the causation must run the other way: where you go in life has a huge impact on where you were born.

Where you're born has a large and statistically significant impact on where you grow up.