A third motive for saving is the desire for home ownership or for
acquiring land. There is no doubt that to own a home of their own is
the desire of most immigrant families. Many of them come from
countries where the ownership of land carries with it a degree of
social prestige that is unknown in more highly developed communities
of the modern industrial civilization.
Representatives of the Bohemians, Lithuanians, Poles, and Italians
have all emphasized the fact that their people want to own their own
homes, and bend every energy toward this end, so that the whole family
often works in order that first payments may be made or later payments
kept up. The Croatians, Slovaks, Hungarians, and Slovenians are also
said to be buying houses, although, as they are newer groups, they
have not yet done so to the same extent as the other groups. The
Serbians, Rumanians, Bulgarians, and Russians in Chicago are, on the
other hand, said to be planning to return in large numbers to the old
homes in Europe, and hence are not interested in buying property in
this country. Their feeling for the land and their desire to own their
homes in the country in which they decide to settle is said to be as
strong as in the other groups.
The longing for home ownership was apparent in the family schedules we
obtained, and in studies of housing conditions[26] in certain
districts of Chicago we find additional evidence of the immigrants'
desire to own their own homes, and the way in which this desire leads
many to buy, even in the congested districts of the city. The
following table gives the number and the percentage of home owners in
eight selected districts. It will be noted that the percentage of
owners varied from eight in one of the most congested Italian
districts known as "Little Sicily," to twenty-four in the Lithuanian
district.
The strength of the desire for homes can also be measured by the
sacrifices which many of the families make to enable them to acquire
property. It means in some cases the sacrifice of the children's
education, the crowding of the home with lodgers, or the mother's
going out to work. In fact, immigrant leaders interviewed seem to
think that women's entrance into industry during the war was largely
due to the desire to own their own homes. After the title to the house
is acquired, it is often crowded with other tenants to help finish the
payments.