Resiliency and Success

Migrant Children in the U.S.

Encarnacion Garza, Enrique T. Trueba, Pedro Reyes

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317252894
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Sociología

This book elucidates the amazing life journeys of academically successful migrant students. Offering vivid case studies of successful students, this book helps teachers, education students, and researchers understand the factors that lead to success by minority language children. The authors develop the lessons of student success stories into recommendations for schools and for educational policy. Readers gain from this book the stories of real students, the challenges they faced, and the means by which students and schools may overcome language and cultural barriers to educational success.

I
THE IMMIGRATION EXPERIENCE AND RESILIENCY OF MEXICAN FAMILIES IN THE UNITED STATES

OVER THE LAST DECADE, ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE United States has been that of immigration. Thousand of immigrants have settled in the U.S. and have brought in their families or developed new families. According to scholars,

immigration is the driving force behind a significant transformation of American society. In 1945, just fifty years ago, the U.S. population was 87% White, 10% Black and 2.5% Hispanic and .5% Asian. In the year 2050, the projection of the demographics of the U.S. will be 52.8% White, 13.6% Black, 24.5% Hispanic, 8.2% Asian. (Suárez-Orozco, 1998a, b, p. 6)

The impact caused by immigrant populations in our society and schools begins to be understood. Immigration has emerged as an important topic of global concern. Since 1965, the United States has formally admitted over twenty million new immigrants. The vast majority of new immigrants to the United States are non-English speaking people of color coming from the Afro-Caribbean basin, Asia, and Latin America. Moreover, new research has suggested that there are 2–4 million “undocumented” immigrants living in the United States; an estimated 200,000–400,000 undocumented immigrants enter the United States every year. Thus, immigrant children are the fastest growing sector of the U.S. child population.

This tremendous growth has significant implications for schools and society. Thus, this chapter explores in detail the issues and challenges associated with immigrants in the United States. Specifically, we analyze the context of migration to the United States. We review some of the challenges they face, and speculate on the factors that define the experiences of immigrants and how they survive in a world that is foreign to them. Finally, we explain why a significant number of immigrants succeed in spite of the obstacles they face in the United States. We focus primarily on immigrants of Mexican descent.

The Context of Mexican Immigration

The problems faced by Mexicans in what is today the United States did not start with the tens of thousands who came to do unskilled labor in the late 1800s. Certainly, many Mexicans were living in the Southwest prior to the annexation of Mexican territory by the Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty of 1848, but many more have come since. The economic opportunities of North America have attracted Mexicans in search of employment in increasing numbers since the beginning of the 20th century. The U.S. Census of 1900 estimated that there were 103,393 Mexican immigrants. By 1910, there were 221,915; by 1920, 486,418, and by December 31, 1926, the official count was 890,746 (Gamio, 1930/1971).

Scholars have emphasized the significance of Mexican immigration in the entire immigration patterns of the last three decades. The rising numbers of legal and unauthorized immigrants and political refugees represent a pattern that is changing the texture of American democracy, the ethnic and racial composition of U.S. cities, and popular culture. The Mexican-origin population has grown at a steady and fast pace since 1980. Part of this growth is understandable because of the higher fertility rates of Mexicans (35–40% higher than those of Anglos) and the total number of children in Mexican families. Without immigration, in 1990 the total Mexican-origin population (the sum of the Mexican-born population and U.S. natives of Mexican parentage) would have been about 14% of its current size. This increase is clearly the primary result of immigration (González Baker, Bean, Escobar Latapí & Weintraub, 1998). The steady stream of immigrants from Mexico, along with other Latino immigrants, has become the single largest continental proportion (nearly 38%) of legal immigrants and an estimated 80% of undocumented immigrants.

All factors indicate that this flow of Mexican immigrants will continue at a rapid pace. Foreign-born persons of Mexican origin in 1980 constituted 15% of all legal immigrants; in 1990, 20.7%; in 1994–1995, 28.4%. The increase of the Mexican population in the United States between 1960 and 1996 is as follows: 1960, 1.7 million (1% of the total U.S. population); 1970, 4.5 million (2.2%); 1980, 8.7 million (3.9%); 1990, 13.3 million (5.4%); 1995, 17 million (6.6%); and 1996, 18 million (6.7%).

It is significant that the 6.8 million Mexicans born in Mexico and living in the United States constitute 38.2% of the total Mexican population and 25.8% of all the foreign born persons. Furthermore, between 1980 and 1996, 1.8 million became naturalized citizens (González Baker et al., 1998). In 1996, 12.4% of the total Mexican population in the U.S. was foreign born, and in 1996 alone 851,803 persons from Mexico became naturalized citizens of the United States. The number of estimated undocumented Mexicans in the United States in 1995 was 2.1 million (González Baker et al.).

Sixty percent of Mexican immigrants live in California. As has been recognized, a person’s educational level seems to predict economic level and employment. The highest rates of poverty are found among the populations with the least education—Mexicans, Salvadorians, Guatemalans, and Dominicans. New immigrant children face many difficult problems in their adaptation (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1996). What has prompted this immigration to the United States?

At least three important economic factors influence immigration. According to Enrique Dussel Peters (2000), Mexico’s principal strategy to improve its economy has been control of the inflation rate and the fiscal deficit, as well as import liberalization and the attraction of foreign investments. Accordingly, these changes are supposed to stimulate incentives for economic restructuring. Second, the Banco de México pursued orthodox and restrictive monetary and credit policies to achieve the main objectives of the strategy. The nominal exchange rate was used as an anchor to control inflation, which resulted in a depreciation of the exchange rate. Third, México approved the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement on January 1, 1994. Accordingly, this strategy brought inflation and the fiscal deficit under control until 1994, and the country attracted massive foreign investment. However, the economy has not been able to integrate its growing population into formal employment. In fact, the Mexican economy not only has failed to integrate the growing economically active population but also has massively expelled labor power from several activities. Dussel Peters (2000) indicated that “employment growth [during 1988–1994] has been far below the levels achieved before 1982.” In sum, this strategy resulted in an increasing social, economic, and regional polarization, because only a few branches and export-oriented sectors have been able to benefit from these policies.

Neither employment nor real wages in Mexico are the only causes of immigration to the United States, it is at least possible to say that there is a vast potential of labor power in Mexico that is willing to work and desperate enough to join the informal labor market and to cross the border to the United States. The increasing gap in GDP between Mexico and the United States since the 1980s seems to sharpen this tendency. (p. 71)

On the other side, the economic demand for Mexican workers along with the economic needs of Mexican families have jointly resulted in the increase of Mexican immigrants. The shift from agricultural (often seasonal) jobs to urban, more stable employment (a pattern in previous decades when U.S. employers closed unionized plants and opened up new ones) gave Mexican-immigrant supervisors the responsibility of hiring and firing portions of the workforce. This increased the numbers of kin and countrymen in the plants. The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) legalized many of the undocumented immigrants and permitted them to bring their families. This migration, then, has produced significant stressors.

Immigration Stressors

In the United States, most Latino families live in urban centers (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1990). The first challenge for them is survival. Although most enter legally, many stay past their legal time period in order to work and to support their families. Those without proper documentation live in constant fear of discovery and are ready victims for exploitation (Smolowe, 1997).

The immigrant who comes to the United States from a rural village or small town in Mexico or Latin America is often completely overwhelmed by the contrasts found in modem U.S. cities. In many Latino communities, the cultural worldview of the church, the society, and the school are all one and the same. The major institutions are in agreement about who you are and how you are to live your life. This is changing in the larger Latin American cities, to the dismay of many Latinos.

The process of leaving their familiar homeland, family, and friends is often a traumatic experience occasioned by economic or political necessity and dreams of a better life. Crossing the border without documentation can be dangerous and expensive. Many have been robbed, raped, beaten, and left for dead in their effort to cross to the United States. Many Central Americans come to the United States traumatized by war and suspicious of all government officials. Some estimate that one out of every three who cross the border illegally is caught and sent back.

The acculturation process involves acquisition of language and the predominant values and behaviors of the host society. This process is also a source of distress. The importance of the home language for the psychological survival of Mexican immigrants cannot be overemphasized. Their ability to retain a measure of self-identity and personal integrity, to communicate and to pass on to the next generation their values and lifestyle, depends on their ability to retain the home language. The native languages, cultures, religions, art, values, lifestyle, family organization, children’s socialization patterns, and worldview constitute the survival kit for many immigrants. It is through language and communication that immigrants stay connected to their home country and ancestors (Delgado-Gaitan & Trueba, 1991; Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1994; Trueba, 1999; Trueba, Cheng & Ima, 1993; Trueba, Jacobs & Kirton, 1990; Trueba, Rodríguez, Zou & Cintrón, 1993, Trueba & Zou, 1994).

Immigrants often see the worse parts of American society: the slums, the back alleys, the inhumane living conditions of farm workers, the backbreaking jobs that no one else wants. The immigrant experience of America is often one that is without mercy, without justice, without compassion. With time, some may see a different picture of the United States. They can see that there is also a lot that is good in the United States, and that their experience of the shadow side of our society is one-sided. This is best expressed by immigrants who have been in the United States for many years and who have been able to make a living and support a family. There is a sense of thankfulness for a chance to make a better life than was possible in their homeland.

Also, immigrants experience significant prejudice attached to their race and ethnicity. They are forced to become experts in psychological and economic survival by adapting to a new life style and acquiring second and third languages. America’s obsession with race and ethnicity feeds the obvious anxiety about the increasing waves of immigrants of color, especially Asians and Latinos. Thus, race and ethnicity continue to be at the center of public discourse and political debate. McLaren (1995) described how the American “predatory culture” configures public discourse and modern life in order to pursue the exploitation of less technologically developed individuals:

In our hyper-fragmented and predatory postmodern culture, democracy is secured through the power to control consciousness and semioticize and discipline bodies by mapping and manipulating sounds, images and information and forcing identity to take refuge in the forms of subjectivity increasingly experienced as isolated and separate from larger social contexts. (p. 117)

Race and ethnicity will determine a person’s relative status and chances for success. Race and ethnicity can predict residential information, and residence can predict educational achievement, income, dropout rates and suspension rates, size of family, mortality trends, incarceration, tendencies to violence, and use of welfare. The American banking policies, justice system, investment policies, and even the distribution of resources and liabilities (from the location of banks, grocery stores, movie theaters to that of waste disposal, prisons, and nuclear sites) use that information to make decisions. As Ladson-Billings and Tate (1995) have emphasized, social class and gender considerations alone “are not powerful enough to explain all the difference (or variance) in school experience and performance” and consequently “race continues to be a significant factor in determining inequity in the United States” (p. 48–49). Then, schools become the only vehicle to achieve mobility in the social and economic strata. What challenges do immigrant children face in American schools?

School Performance of Mexican Children

By the year 2030, White students will constitute about 30% of the total public school enrollment and Latino students will represent the largest group, 44% of the total enrollment (Valencia, 1991). Other school demographic projections suggest that the White school-age population will decrease in the United States, while the Latino school-age population will continue to increase. Latino children (5–17 years of age) numbered 6 million in 1982 (9% of the national youth population); by 2020 they will increase to 19 million (25%). The Latino school-age population will triple in 28 years (Valencia). Foreign-born persons of Mexican origin in 1980 represented 15% of the U.S. population; in 1990, 20.7%; and in 1995, 28.7% (González Baker et al., 1998). This trend, often called the “brownization” of North America, has raised fears in some that the new immigrants, now at the bottom of the economic ladder, may remain unassimilated in enduring pockets of poverty.

Much of the future of these immigrants depends on schools, and according to some researchers (Orfield & Eaton, 1996), schools are not ready to handle this problem. According to the Harvard Project on Desegregation (Orfield, Bachmeier, James & Eitle, 1997), between 1970 and 1994 Latino school enrollment has increased significantly in California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Arizona, New Mexico, and New Jersey. Additionally, the isolation of Latinos has increased.

According to C. Suárez-Orozco and M. Suárez-Orozco (1995a, 1995b), and Suárez-Orozco (1998a, 1998b), immigrants must face at the same time problems of stress, housing, and racism. M. Suárez-Orozco and Suárez-Orozco (1995b) explained as follows:

The obvious difficulties that most migrants face include language inadequacies, a general unfamiliarity with the customs and expectations of the new country, limited economic opportunities, poor housing conditions, discrimination, and what psychologists term the “stresses of acculturation”….Despite these obstacles, many migrants often consider their lot as having improved from what it was in their country of origin. Because of a perception of relative improvement, many migrants may fail to internalize the negative attitudes of the host country toward them, maintaining their country of origin as a point of reference. (p. 325)

Indeed, immigrants hold their belief of improvement by visiting their villages of origin and displaying some wealth conspicuously (showing new trucks, good clothes, and spending money). The Suárez-Orozcos (1995b) have suggested that immigrants do not see their new life in terms of the ideals of the majority society but in terms of the “old culture,” thus holding to a “dual frame of reference” (p. 325).

Parents’ naïve notions about the politics of employment, organization, and politics in schools; their perception of societal demands for cultural homogenization; and the acceptance of an inferior status are not shared by their children. Their children feel an ethical responsibility to react and fight back. Much of what happens in gang struggles and street violence is related to marginalization (Vigil, 1989, 1997).

Many Mexican families reflect in their new lives a change not only from one country to another, but also from a rural to an urban setting. The added dimension in the United States is that in order to acquire the necessary sociopolitical knowledge of appropriate conduct in urban settings, immigrants must first acquire communicative skills in a second language. Unfortunately, Mexican immigrants are forced to take jobs that are physically exhausting and leave them little time to acquire communicative skills in English. Consequently, children (as soon as they learn some English) must play adult roles in making momentous decisions for their parents. Mexican immigrant children who are socialized in a new linguistic and cultural environment without help in the development of second-language skills and cognitive abilities required for high school achievement. As the popular song goes, “el gringo terco a sacarnos y nosotros a volver [the gringo is stubborn to get us out and we are stubborn to return].”

Narratives of academic achievement often represent a surprising success where failure was expected. It seems that the retention of the home language and the acquisition of the second language, if accompanied by high literacy levels in both English and Spanish, constitute a powerful factor affecting the successful adaptation of Mexican immigrants and their understanding of the complex U.S. social, economic, and political systems. Their ability to handle text related to those systems for the family (contracts, government documents, bank d...