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Generation in an Age of Diversity Michigan State University March 1999
About the Author: Rubén Rumbaut Rubén G. Rumbaut is Professor of Sociology at Michigan State University. He is also Senior Research Associate at MSU's Institute for Public Policy and Social Research and at the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies of the University of California, San Diego. Born in Havana, Cuba, he earned his Ph.D. at Brandeis University in 1978 and taught at the University of California, San Diego, and San Diego State University. He currently serves as consulting editor of the American Journal of Sociology and the American Sociologist; as Founding Chair of the Section on International Migration of the American Sociological Association, as well as of MSU's Population Research Group; and as a member of research committees on immigration issues of the National Academy of Sciences and the Social Science Research Council. Since 1991 he helped direct the largest U.S. research project to date on children of immigrants: a panel study of over 5,200 second-generation youth in the San Diego and Miami metropolitan areas. Dr. Rumbaut has published widely on Asian and Latin American immigrants in the United States, particularly on refugees from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. An earlier essay, "The Americans: Latin American and Caribbean Peoples in the United States," accompanied the 1993 PBS-TV series "Americas," for which he served as a principal advisor. He is the co-editor of California's Immigrant Children: Theory, Research, and Implications for Educational Policy and of a volume of essays, Origins and Destinies: Immigration, Race, and Ethnicity in America.
SUGGESTED CITATION Rumbaut, Rubén G. (Dr.) "Transformations: The Post-Immigrant Generation in an Age of Diversity," JSRI Research Report #30, The Julian Samora Research Institute, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, 1999.
This paper was originally presented at the "American Diversity: Past, Present, and Future" annual meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society in Philadelphia in 1998. Dr. Rumbaut acknowledges the support provided to the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS) by research grants from the Andrew W. Mellon, Russell Sage, Spencer, and National Science Foundations. The CILS Project was conducted in Southern California and South Florida from 1991-1997. Special acknowledgement is made to Reynolds Farley and Rebecca Hanson of the Russell Sage Foundation for their assistance in the preparation of the data for this report. Table Of Contents
In at least one sense, the so-called "American century" is ending much as it began: the United States has become a nation of immigrants and is again being profoundly transformed. Central to that transformation are the modes of incorporation of today's immigrants - and more consequentially still, of their offspring. Immigrant children and U.S.-born children of immigrants - the fastest-growing segment of the United States' child population - accounted for 15% of all American children in 1990, including about 60% of all Hispanic children and an overwhelming 90% of all Asian-American children (Zhou, 1997); today, based on analysis of the 1997 Current Population Survey1, they number 13.7 million, or nearly 20% of all American children. The last census counted 2 million foreign-born children under 18, and another 6 million U.S.-born children under 18 living with immigrant parents (Oropesa and Landale, 1997). Between 1990 and 1997, the immigrant population increased from 20 to 27 million, with the number of their children growing commensurately. By 1997, there were 3 million foreign-born children and nearly 11 million U.S.-born children under 18 with at least one foreign-born parent. The sheer magnitude of this demographic transformation is impressive. The United States' "immigrant stock" today numbers about 55 million people - persons who are either immigrants (26.8 million) or U.S.-born children of immigrants (27.8 million). That figure - one-fifth of the national total - does not include 2.8 million others who were born, as were their parents, in Puerto Rico or other U.S. territories, nor the number residing in Puerto Rico and other territories. If today's "immigrant stock" formed a country, it would rank in the top 10% in the world in population size - about twice the size of Canada and roughly the size of the United Kingdom, France, or Italy. Immigrant families are heavily concentrated in areas of settlement. One-third resides in California and another third in Florida, Texas, and the New York-New Jersey region, with still denser concentrations within key metropolitan areas in those states (Raumbaut, 1994a; Farley, 1996). In Los Angeles County, an astounding 62% of the area's 9.5 million people are of immigrant stock, as are 54% of the populations of New York and Orange County, 43% of the population of San Diego, and 72% of the population of Miami (Highest count rate in the U.S.). Of the 27 million foreign-born, 60% arrived between 1980 and 1997, and an overwhelming 90% immigrated to the U.S. since 1960. Of those post-1960 "new immigrants," 52% came from the Caribbean and Latin America, including 28% from Mexico alone. Another 29% came from Asia and the Middle East; the Filipinos, Chinese, and Indochinese account for 15% of the total, or as much as all of those born in Europe and Canada combined. This "new immigration" is of very recent vintage. For the record, the 1965 changes in United States' immigration law did not usher in these new flows, as is often claimed. While the 1965 Act opened the door to previously excluded Asian and African immigration, it had nothing to do with the predominant flows from the Americas - in fact, the law actually sought to restrict the flows from the Western Hemisphere for the first time - or with the huge refugee resettlement programs that were a legacy of the Indochina War specifically, and of the Cold War generally. Immigration is mostly the province of the young. Of more than 24 million immigrants who arrived since 1960, 80% arrived 34 years old or younger. Only 10% immigrated after the age of 40. Nearly half of the post-1960 immigrants are Hispanic, and one-fourth are Asian. Of the 28 million who form the U.S.-born "second generation," or those with at least one foreign-born parent, about 56% are children under 18 or young adults - mostly the offspring of the new immigrants from Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. About a third, however, are over 55 - born before World War II to European parents who immigrated earlier this century. Of the U.S.-born second generation, almost half of those born since 1960 claim Hispanic ethnicity, compared to only 15% of those born between 1930-1959 and 5% of those born before 1930. The increasing size and concentration of this emerging population, added to its diverse origins, makes its evolution extraordinarily important. While the rapid growth of U.S. immigration over the last three decades has led to mushrooming body of research and intensified public debate over their impact on American society, little noticed has been paid to the fact that a new generation of Americans raised in immigrant families has been coming of age. Over time, its members will decisively shape the character, successes, and failures of their ethnic communities (Portes, 1996; Portes and Rumbaut, 1996). Hence, the long-term effects of contemporary immigration will hinge more on the trajectories of these youths than the fate of their parents. Children of today's immigrants - a post-immigrant generation oriented not to their parents' pasts, but to their own American futures - are here to stay. They represent the most consequential and lasting legacy of the U.S.'s new mass immigration. The Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS) Since 1991, the CILS (the largest study of its kind to date in the U.S.2) has followed the progress of teenagers representing 77 nationalities in two key areas of U.S. (Appendix A): immigrant settlement - Southern California and South Florida. The original 1992 survey interviewed a sample of over 5,000 students enrolled in the eighth and ninth grades in the San Diego and the Dade and Broward County Unified School Districts; over 200 others were enrolled in private bilingual schools in the Miami area. The sample was drawn from the junior high grades, when dropping out is rare, to avoid the potential bias of differential dropout rates between ethnic groups at the senior high level. Eligible students were U.S.-born with at least one foreign-born parent, or were themselves foreign-born and had immigrated before age 12.  The resulting sample is balanced between males and females, and between foreign-born and U.S.-born children of immigrants (Rumbaut, 1994b). Three years later, a second survey of the same group was conducted. This follow-up, which re-interviewed 82% of the original sample, sought to ascertain changes in their family situation, school achievement, educational and occupational aspirations, language use and preferences, ethnic identities, discriminatory experiences and expectations, and psychosocial adjustment. By this time the youths, who were originally interviewed as 14-15 years old, had reached the final year of high school. The Sample: Immigrants and their Types The principal nationalities represented in the San Diego sample were Mexican, Filipino, Vietnamese, Laotian, Cambodian, other Asians, and Latin Americans. The smaller groups of Asians were mostly Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Indian. In the South Florida sample, the groups consisted of Cubans, Haitians, Jamaicans, Colombians, Nicaraguans, Dominicans, and others from Latin America and the Caribbean. They represent the principal types of immigrants in contemporary America - immigrant laborers, professionals, entrepreneurs, and refugees with sharply contrasting origins and migration histories. Mexicans constitute the largest immigrant population in the U.S. - in fact, they form part of the largest, longest, and most sustained labor migration in the contemporary world - and San Diego, situated along the Mexican border, has been a major settlement area. Since the 1960's, Filipinos have formed the second largest immigrant population in the country and are the largest Asian-origin immigrant nationality in California and the nation. Many arrived as professionals nurses, most conspicuously, and through military connections, particularly the U.S. Navy. The 1990 census showed Filipino immigrants have the lowest poverty rate of any sizable ethnic group in the U.S. Cubans form the third largest post-1960 immigrant group, diversifying from the huge waves of political exiles in the early 1960's, to the "freedom flights" of 1965-73, the Mariel boatlift of 1980, and the balseros of the 1990's. Over half-a-million Cubans are concentrated in South Florida, building one of the country's most visible ethnic enclaves in Miami, dubbed "Havana USA." Since the end of the Indochina War in 1975, refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos have formed the largest U.S. refugee population. The latest Current Population Surveys show the Vietnamese are the country's fifth largest foreign-born population, following Mexicans, Filipinos, Cubans, and the Chinese (including those from China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan). The 1990 Census found the highest poverty and welfare dependency rates in the country among Laotians and Cambodians, many survivors of the "killing fields." Hatians and Jamaicans, who are concentrated in New York and South Florida, are among the top recent immigrant groups, in terms of size, and form the two largest groups of "black" immigrants whose children's negative experiences have underscored the salience of racial prejudice and discrimination in American life (Stepick, 1997; Waters, 1996). Remarkably, although the 27 million immigrants in the U.S. in 1997 came from over 150 different countries, about 40% came from only four - Mexico, the Philippines, Cuba, and Vietnam. Children of those immigrants made up 60% of our survey. Immigrants are anything but a homogeneous lot. Only a small proportion of Mexican and Indochinese fathers and mothers have college degrees, well below the 1990 U.S. norm of 20%. By contrast, 41% of Filipino mothers have college degrees. The contrast is made even sharper by looking at the proportion of parents with less than a high school education. Most of the recently-arrived foreign-born children from Mexico, Haiti, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia have fathers and mothers who never completed secondary-level schooling. Rates of labor force participation vary widely by nationality, too. Indochinese have low labor force participation rates, perhaps an effect indicative of their eligibility for and use of public assistance (with the exception of the elite "first wave" of 1975 Vietnamese refugees), whereas most of the other groups have labor force participation rates exceeding national norms. Cubans, Jamaicans, Filipinos, and "Other" Asians are most likely to have one or both parents working as professionals.  Home ownership is another telling indicator of socioeconomic
advancement and spatial stability. Slightly more than half of
those sampled lived in family-owned homes in 1992; three years
later that proportion had edged up to 62%. But there is a huge
gap between ethnic groups, ranging from a low of 4% among Hmong
families from Laos to over 80% of the Filipinos. However, the quality of parent-child relationships varies significantly. Growing up in immigrant families is often marked by linguistic and acculturative gaps that exacerbate intergenerational conflicts, cause children to feel embarrassed about their parents as they try to fit in with native peers, or lead to role reversals as children assume adult roles prematurely by dint of circumstance. There are sharp inter-group differences in the degree of conflict and cohesiveness, with Latin Americans reporting higher family cohesiveness and Haitians the highest degree of parent-child conflict. A perennial controversy in public debates on immigration concerns bilingual education and perceived threats to English as the common, national language. A popular initiative on California's June 1998 primary, called "English for the Children," would eliminate the state's bilingual programs and require all public school instruction be conducted in English.
Over 90% of these children report speaking a language other than English at home. But 73% of them preferred to speak English instead of their parents' native tongue. By the second study, the proportion who preferred English swelled to 88%. Even among the most mother-tongue-retentive group (Mexican-origin youth living in a Spanish-named city on the Mexican border with a large Spanish-speaking immigrant population and a wide range of Spanish-language radio and TV stations) the force of linguistic assimilation was incontrovertible. Nearly a third of Mexico-born children preferred English in 1992 but, by the second survey in 1995, that proportion had doubled doubled. While 53% of the U.S.-born Mexican-Americans in San Diego initially preferred English, that proportion jumped to 79% three years later.  Even more decisively, among Cuban-origin youth in Miami, 95% of both the foreign-born and the native-born preferred English, regardless of whether they attended public or private schools. A main reason for this rapid language shift in use and preference has to do with their increasing fluency in English. Respondents were asked to evaluate their ability to speak, understand, read, and write in both English and their native tongue. Over three-fourths of those surveyed spoke English "very well" compared to only about a third who reported an equivalent level of fluency in the non-English language. Even among the foreign-born, those speaking English very well surpassed, (69% to 41%) those who spoke the foreign language just as well. And the differences in reading fluency are sharper still. Those who read English "very well" tripled the proportion of those who read a non-English language very well. It is difficult for these children to maintain a sound level of literacy their Non-English Languages, and particularly so in languages with different alphabets and rules of syntax and grammar, such as many of the Asian languages. Furthermore, therse skills are nearly impossible to achieve and maintain in the absence of schools that teach them and provides an opportunity for practice. Consequently, the bilingualism of these children becomes increasingly uneven and unstable. The data vividly underscores the rapidity with which English triumphs and foreign languages atrophy - even in a city like San Diego with the busiest international border crossing in the world, or in Miami, the metropolitan area with the nation's highest percentage of foreign-born. The second generation is not only strongly encouraged to speak, read, and write English fluently, but prefers it overwhelmingly over their parents' native tongue. These results occurred while the youths still resided in parents' home where the non-English mother tongue retains primacy. Once they leave the parental fold, particularly when living outside dense immigrant enclaves, the degree of English language dominance and non-English language atrophy accelerates. This pattern of rapid linguistic assimilation is constant across nationalities and socioeconomic levels. It suggests that, over time, the use of and fluency in foreign languages will inevitably decline results providing information which directly rebut nativist alarms about the perpetuation of foreign-language enclaves in immigrant communities. The findings suggest the linguistic outcomes for the third generation - the grandchildren of the present wave of immigrants - will be no different: they may learn a few foreign words and phrases as a quaint vestige of their ancestry, but they will most likely grow up speaking English. It is for this reason that the United States has been called a "language graveyard." Seen in this light, initiatives like "English for the Children" seem superfluous. English is alive and well among the new second generation. While public debate over English remains contentious, what is being rapidly eliminated is these children's ability to maintain fluency in the language of their immigrant parents, a significant loss of scarce and valuable bilingual resources. As others have observed, the rise of "global cities" in the international economy has triggered a growing need for bilingual professionals and managers. Among American cities, New York and Los Angeles are prime examples of global cities where fluency in a number of languages is much in demand. Other cities, like Miami, have become administrative and marketing centers for Latin American trade. Business leaders there have complained about the dearth of fluent Spanish bilinguals among the children of Latin immigrants - and a recent University of Miami study argues that young Hispanics are leaving school with such insufficient Spanish-language skills that Miami's position as an international marketplace is at risk (Fradd, 1996). Although many children of Cuban and Latin American immigrants retain some language skills, their Spanish is not fluent enough to conduct business transactions. In both surveys, four main types of ethnic identities were apparent: a plain "American" identity; a hyphenated-American identity; a national-origin identity (e.g., Filipino, Cuban, Jamaican); and a pan-ethnic minority group identity (e.g., Hispanic, Chicano, Asian, Black). The way adolescents see themselves is significant.  Self-identities and ethnic loyalties often influence behavior and outlook independent of the families' status or the types of schools they attend. They may also be a bellwether of potential long-term political alignments. In 1992, 27% of the sample identified by national origin; the largest proportion, 41%, chose a hyphenated-American identification; 11% identified as plain "American" and 17% selected pan-ethnic minority identities. Whether they were U.S.-born made a great deal of difference in the type of identity selected: the foreign-born were four times more likely to identify by national origin than others. Conversely, the U.S.-born were more likely to identify themselves as American or hyphenated-American than were the foreign-born. Those findings suggested a familiar assimilative trend between generations (Rumbaut, 1994b, for an anaylysis of T1 outcomes). But the results of the 1995 survey, conducted after the passage of Proposition 187 in California, turned conventional expectations on their head. The San Diego and Miami stories diverge here. In Southern California, the biggest gain, in terms of self-definition, was the foreign nationality identity, chosen by 32% in 1992 and by 48% in 1995. This shift occurred most notably among the Mexican and Filipino (the two largest immigrant groups in the U.S.). As an apparent backlash in a period of growing anti-immigrant sentiment and at times overt immigrant bashing. Pan-ethnic identities in Southern California remained at 16% in 1995, but that figure conceals a steep decline among Mexican-origin youth in "Hispanic" and "Chicano" self-identities and a sharp upswing in the proportion of youths identifying themselves as "Asian" or "Asian American." The rapid decline of the self-identities of plain "American," to below 2%, and hyphenated-American, dropping from 43% to 30%, points to the growth of a reactive ethnic consciousness among the San Diego youth. In South Florida, the biggest gains were in pan-ethnic identities such as "Hispanic" and "Black," doubling from 17% to 38%, mainly among Latin Americans and Jamaicans. The percent identified by national origin remained unchanged; plain "American" identities dropped sharply from 19% to less than 4%, and hyphenated-American identities fell to 30%. Haitians were the sole and interesting exception in Florida. The proportion selecting a denationalized pan-ethnic identity decreased while those identified as "Haitian" and "Haitian-American" increased notably - responses given after the Fall 1994 U.S. invasion of Haiti when the interests of the United States government for once coincided with those of Haitian émigrés. Change has not been toward assimilative mainstream identities among these youths (only 13% of whom self-report racially as "White"), but rather toward a more proudly militant or nationalistic affirmation of the immigrant identity for a few key groups, and toward pan-ethnic minority group identities for almost all others. These youth apperar increasingly aware of the ethnic and racial categories into which they are persistently classified by mainstream society (see the bottom panel of Table 4).3 In both cases, the results point to the rise of a "reactive ethnicity" (Portes and Rumbaut, 1996) and a growing identification with U.S. minority groups that may portend potentially significant political alignments and commitments in later years. In California, for instance, immigrant-bashing may provoke long-term opposition to politicians and political parties so perceived by children of immigrants in a state that will shortly become the first "majority minority" state in the country. Already there have been unprecedented increases in the number of immigrants applying for naturalization and voter registration - some of the consequences have been notable and unexpected. In 1996, in Orange County, a Hispanic newcomer was elected over a long-term Republican incumbent in one of the nation's most conservative congressional districts. To what extent such outcomes may be extrapolated from present trends remains an open question. Discrimination and Views of the U.S. Growing ethnic awareness among the children of immigrants in the survey is evident in their experiences and expectations of racial and ethnic discrimination. Reports of discrimination increased from 54% to 62% between surveys. Virtually every group reported more experiences of rejection or unfair treatment. Such experiences are associated with higher incidences of depressive symptoms and the development of a more pessimistic outlook about the chances of reducing discriminatory treatment through higher educational achievement. Still, it is important to underscore that, despite growing awareness of the realities of American racism and intolerance, almost two-thirds of the youth in the sample continued to affirm a confident belief in the promise of equal opportunity through educational achievement. Even more tellingly, 60% of these youths agreed that "there is no better country to live in than the United States." That endorsement grew to 72% three years later despite the growing anti-immigrant mood in the country. Children of immigrants are ambitious. When they were in the eighth and ninth grades, 67% aspired to advanced degrees and another 24% would be dissatisfied with less than a college degree. Three years later, these proportions remained the same. In 1992, 42% "realistically" expected to earn advanced degrees and another 37% would not be satisfied with less than a college degree. The proportion of those who believed they would not acheive a college degree dropped from 21% in 1992 to 18% in 1995. Given their modest family origins and material resources, their aspirations and expectations may be disproportionate with what they may achieve.
But ambition and a sense of purpose clearly matter. The research literature shows that high expectations are necessary for subsequent achievement. While most of these youths aim high, the least ambitious expectations are exhibited by the Mexicans, Cambodians, and Laotians. Thus there are major differences in aspirations by family socioeconomic status, and this gap remains over time. Children from better off families have predictably higher and more secure plans for the future. Even more ambitious are their parents. Asked what their parents' expectations were for their educational futures, the students said their parents had higher aspirations. For many immigrants, that is precisely the purpose of bringing their children here. In 1995, while 44% of the students expected to attain an advanced degree, 65% of their parents did; and while 18% of the children expected to stop short of a college degree, only 7% of the parents held such low expectations. It is important to note that such parental expectations are significantly correlated with the students' school performance.4 In contrast to the perceived parental pressure to achieve are the plans of the students' close friends - and here again, the peer groups in which they are embedded vary, in part, by socioeconomic status. The sharpest contrast is between the Jamaicans, Filipinos, and other Asians, most of whose friends intended to attend 4-year institutions, and Mexican students, only a quarter of whom had friends planning to attend 4-year colleges and about 8% of whom reported most of their close friends had already dropped out. These social circles are a powerful influence in reinforcing or undercutting their aspirations as well as their confidence. Still, the children of immigrants almost universally value the importance of a good education. Out of a variety of choices, 90% ranked a good education as "very important," more than any other value, and another 85% deemed becoming an expert in one's field "very important."5 The majority of these children invest a substantial amount of time on daily homework. Although wide variations are seen among the different groups, about 80% of the sample spent more than an hour each day on homework, and over 40% spent over two hours daily, well above the national average of less than an hour a day. Rumbaut, 1995, 1997a). Asian-origin groups invested the most time on homework, while the Latin Americans invested the least. A key question raised by this study was whether the achievements
exhibited by these children matched, exceeded, or fell below
the average for the respective school districts overall - and
hence, how they compared to children of non-immigrants. A major
finding is that, in both school districts on both coasts, a significantly
greater proportion of students district-wide drop out of school
than do the youth from immigrant families. The CILS dropout rates were also noticeably lower than the district-wide rates for predominantly native non-Hispanic White high school students (13.6% in Miami-Dade, and 10.5% in San Diego). Lower dropout rates for children of immigrants were seen for both genders and every racial-ethnic category. In Miami-Dade, the highest dropout rate in the district was found among non-Hispanic black students (20.2%), but the rate among Haitian, Jamaican and other West Indian children was only 7.5%. In San Diego, the highest dropout rate was 8.7% for "Hispanic" students, but even that rate was noticeably lower than the 26.5% norm for all Hispanics and slightly lower than the rate for non-Hispanic Whites. Finally, the lowest dropout rates on both coasts were those of Asian-origin students, and again the rates were lower for those with immigrant parents. These findings, from two of the nation's largest school districts most affected by mass immigration, are remarkably consistent and, in general, undercut public concerns raised about an expanded multiethnic underclass in the new second generation.  Another key measure of school performance, academic grade point averages (GPAs), can be examined comparatively with data from San Diego. The results show that, at every grade level, the children of immigrants outperformed the district norms, although the gap narrowed over time and grade level. Only 29% of all ninth graders had GPAs above 3.0, compared to 44% of the ninth graders from immigrant families. While 36% of ninth graders had GPAs under 2.0, only 18% of the children of immigrants performed as poorly. Those differentials declined over time by grade level so that the advantage, by twelfth grade, was reduced to a few percentage points in favor of the children of immigrants-a narrowing due primarily to the fact that a greater proportion of students district-wide drop out than do youth from immigrant families. These results are striking, and raise yet another question: How can they be accounted for? We can address this question by examining the effect of variables measured in the 1992 survey, when these young people were in junior high, upon selected school outcomes by the end of senior high in 1995-96. Predictors of Ambition and Achievement There are large differences in educational outcomes by national origin - results which portend a significant ethnic segmentation as they make their transition into the adult labor force. The Chinese finished high school with the highest GPAs and the lowest dropout rates, as well as ambitious educational goals matching those of other Asian-origin, high-status immigrant groups, especially those from India, Japan, and Korea. Exhibiting above average performance were the Vietnamese and the Filipinos, followed by the Laotians, and Cambodians. The latter two groups also exhibited the lowest educational expectations; they have the highest poverty rates in the U.S., although they have also received substantial government assistance. Jamaicans and other West Indians had lower GPAs, yet those Afro-Caribbean groups still reported above-average ambitions. Overall, the poorest performance was registered by Latin American youth, with the lowest GPAs found among the Dominicans, and, unexpectedly, the highest dropout rates among Cubans in Miami public schools, followed by Mexican-origin youth in San Diego. The dropout rate for Cubans (10.1%, though still lower than the district average for non-Hispanic Whites) was particularly surprising given seemingly paradoxical fact that: they are a highly assimilated group with a History of longer U.S. residence than most "new" immigrants, have experienced less discrimination than others in the survey, and uniquely formed a majority group in a dense and diversified immigrant enclave (half of the well over 1 million U.S. Cubans are concentrated in the Miami metropolitan area alone). Among the Latin Americans, Mexican, Dominican, and Central American children showed the lowest educational expectations, while Cubans and South Americans were the most ambitious in their expressed educational aspirations. While gender makes only a small difference in terms of dropping out or leaving the school district, it strongly affects grades and ambitions, with females exhibiting a superior performance compared to male students, as well as having a significant edge in educational expectations. The Family - Resources and Vulnerabilities Children from intact families, with both natural parents present at home, clearly do better than children raised in stepfamilies or single-parent homes. This is even more pronounced in families with lower levels of parent-child conflict. The greater the family stability, both structurally and emotionally, the greater the educational achievement and aspirations. Youths whose parents were college graduates and had higher status occupations achieved higher grades were more likely to remain in school and to have higher aspirations. Youths whose parents were college graduates and had higher status occupations achieved higher grades were more likely to remain in school and to have higher aspirations than those whose parents had less education, low-wage jobs, or were not in the labor force. Similar patterns were evident for other indicators of socioeconomic status, such as home ownership and neighborhood poverty rates. It is not surprising that a more cohesive, stable, and socioeconomically resourceful home environment leads to higher educational achievement. Fluent Bilingualism, Work Discipline, and Future Goals Students who had been classified as LEP (Limited English Proficient) by the schools in 1992 remained associated with lower academic achievement and more modest aspirations in 1995. More noteworthy, however, was the finding that FEP (Fluent English Proficient) students achieved higher GPAs and lower dropout rates than both LEP and English-only students, reinforcing previous research findings on the positive link of fluent bilingualism with cognitive achievement (Rumbaut and Ima, 1995; Portes and Schauffler, 1996).  Students who had dedicated more hours to school work in junior high did significantly better in educational achievement three years later - a clear illustration of the positive, long-term effects of disciplined work habits and school engagement. Conversely, students spending many hours in front of the television by age 14 were more prone to perform poorly in subsequent years. Educational and occupational goals and values in early adolescence are closely associated with school and better educational performance. The higher the parents' achievement expectations, as perceived by their children, the higher the students' GPAs and ambitions, and the lower the dropout rates. Taken together, these results show that, even among student from low socioeconomic backgrounds, work discipline and a clear sense of future goals pay off in achievement dividends. Peer Groups, Self-Esteem, an Pan-Ethnic Self Identities More significant still was the influence of peers. The worst outcomes in all the main outcome measures in 1995 were associated with having close friends who had dropped out or had no plans for college while, conversely, the best outcomes were attained by students whose circle of friends consisted largely of college-bound peers. Finally, the lower the youths' self-esteem score in 1992, the worse their school performance and the lower their ambitions three years later. Pan-ethnic self-identities selected in junior high were linked, three years later, with lower GPAs, somewhat higher dropout rates, and lower aspirations (but not with lower self-esteem or higher depression scores). No such effects were observed for any other type of ethnic self-identities. That supports earlier analyses suggesting that a defensive development in the adolescent years of "oppositional" or "adversarial" identities, while protective of self-esteem, may disparage doing well in school as "acting White" and a betrayal of ethnic loyalty, with counterproductive consequences for educational achievement (Gibson and Ogbu, 1991; Portes, 1996; Rumbaut and Cornelius, 1995).  In short, these results shed additional light on the challenges that children of immigrants confront. In some respects, the patterns are quite similar to what one expects to find among non-immigrant, non-minority youth. In others, they show that these children of immigrants, overwhelmingly from Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean, and exhibiting wide variations among national origin groups in their vulnerabilities and resources, face complex circumstances that significantly add to the developmental stressors of adolescence. Despite these added challenges - or perhaps, more provocatively, because of them - the emerging picture is one of noteworthy achievement and resilient ambition. Whether that can be sustained as they make their entry into
the working world of a restructured U.S. economy, form new families,
and seek to carve out a meaningful place in the society of which
they are the newest members, remain, as yet, unanswered questions. 1 To obtain more reliable (if more conservative) estimates of the immigrant stock population of the U.S., the March 1997 Current Population Survey data file was augmented by unduplicated cases from the March 1996 CPS (U.S. Bureau of the Census, Annual Demographic Files). For this analysis, "first generation" refers to the foreign-born population, and "second generation" to U.S.-born persons with at least one foreign-born parent. This definition does not include (1) U.S. citizens who were born, as were their parents, in Puerto Rico or other U.S. territories, and who are thus not immigrants or children of immigrants; or (2) persons born abroad to parents who are U.S. citizens. 2 The CILS project has been supported by research grants from the Andrew W. Mellon, Russell Sage, Spencer, and National Science Foundations to the principal investigators, Alejandro Portes and Rubén G. Rumbaut. The field director for the South Florida surveys was Lisandro Pérez. For published results to date of the CILS baseline survey, see Fernández-Kelly and Schauffler, 1994; Pérez, 1994; Portes, 1995, 1996; Portes and Hao, in press; Portes and MacLeod, 1996; Portes and Rumbaut, 1996; Portes and Schauffler, 1996; Rumbaut, 1994b, 1995, 1997a, 1997b. 3 The CILS survey asked the youth to report their "race" according to a fixed response format, which included a "multiracial" option as well as "other" (in which case they were asked to specify). Fewer than half adhered to the standard categoreis of White (13%), Black (7%), and Asian (26%), while another 12% chose "multiracial." But about half of the Cubans and other Latin Americans, and a fourth of the Mexicans, specified "Hispanic" as their race, while about half of the Mexicans and a fourth of the Filipinos listed their nationality as their race - underscoring the socially constructed character of these perceptions. 4 Koa and Tienda (1995), using the National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS:88) data set with a sample of about 25,000 8th graders, found that the children of immigrants had higher educational aspirations than the children of native-born parents; tellingly, moreover, immigrant parents held higher aspirations for their children than did their own children, whereas native-born parents had Lower aspirations for their children than did their own children. In this connection, it is worth noting two phenomena that are most probably interrelated: (1) divorced parents have lower expectations for their children's acedemic achievement than do non-divorced parents (cf. Thomson, Alexander, and Entwisle, 1988); and (2) with some significant exceptions (such as the Domincans, Jamaicans, and Haitians), children of immigrants are generally more likely to live in intact familes than are the children of the native-born, with divorce rates assimilation to native norms and increasing form the first to the second and third generations (cf. Jensen and Chitose, 1994; Landale and Oropesa , 1995; Rumbaut, 1994a, 1997a, 1997b). 5 These value preferences stand in stark contrast to those of entering college freshmen in U.S. colleges in 1997. The annual UCLA nationwide poll, taken at the start of the Fall 1997 semester, found that 75% of freshmen schose being "very well off financially" as an essential goal, while only 41% chose "developing a meaningful philosophy of life"-value preferences which have switched places over the past three decades. In 1968, the survey results were the exact opposite, with only 41% of entering freshmen selecting material affluence as an essential goal and 83% citing the importance of developing a meaningful philosophy of life. See Bronner (1998). Bronner, E. 1998. "College Freshmen Aiming for High Marks in Income." New York Times (Jan. 12) Fernández-Kelly, M.P., and R. Schauffler. 1994. "Divided Fates: Immigrant Children in a Restructured U.S. Economy." International Migration Review 28, 4: 662-89. Farley, R. 1996. The New American Reality: Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We Are Going. N.Y.: Russell Sage Foundation. Fradd, S.H. 1996. The Economic Impact of Spanish-Language Proficiency in Metropolitan Miami. Miami: School of Education, University of Miami. Grenier, G., and L. Pérez. 1996. "Miami Spice: The Ethnic Cauldron Simmers." In Origins and Destinies: Immigration, Race, and Ethnicity in America, edited by S. Pedraza and R. G. Rumbaut, pp. 360-72. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth. Jensen, L., and Y. Chitose. 1994. "Today's Second Generation: Evidence from the 1990 Census." International Migration Review 28, 4: 714-35. Kao, G. and M. Tienda. 1995. "Optimism and Achievement: The Educational Performance of Immigrant Youth." Social Science Quarterly 76: 1-19. Landale, N.S., and R.S. Oropesa. 1995. "Immigrant Children and the Children of Immigrants: Inter- and Intra-Ethnic Group Differences in the United States." Population Research Group (PRG) Research Paper 95-2. East Lansing, Mich.: Institute for Public Policy and Social Research, Michigan State University. Mears, T. 1997. "Miami Hispanics Losing Their Spanish." Boston Globe (Oct. 5). Navarro, M. 1996. "Bilingual Parents Dismayed by English's Pull on Children." New York Times (Aug. 31). Oropesa, R.S., and N.S. Landale. 1997. "In Search of the New Second Generation: Alternative Strategies for Identifying Second Generation Children and Understanding Their Acquisition of English." Sociological Perspectives 40, 3: 427-55. Pérez, L. 1994. "The Households of Children of Immigrants in South Florida: An Exploratory Study of Extended Family Arrangements." International Migration Review 28, 4: 736-47. Portes, ed. 1996. The New Second Generation. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. ________ and L. Hao. [In press]. "E Pluribus Unum: Bilingualism and Language Loss in the Second Generation." Sociology of Education. ________ and D. MacLeod. 1996. "Educational Progress of Children of Immigrants: The Roles of Class, Ethnicity, and School Context." Sociology of Education 69: 255-75. ________ and R.G. Rumbaut. 1996. Immigrant America: A Portrait. 2nd edition. Berkeley: University of California Press. ________ and R. Schauffler. 1996. "Language Acquisition and Loss Among Children of Immigrants." In Origins and Destinies: Immigration, Race, and Ethnicity in America, edited by S. Pedraza and R. G. Rumbaut, pp. 432-43. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth. ________ A. 1995. "Children of Immigrants: Segmented Assimilation and Its Determinants." In The Economic Sociology of Immigration: Essays on Networks, Ethnicity, and Entrepreneurship, edited by A. Portes, pp. 248-79. N.Y.: Russell Sage Foundation. ________ and A. Stepick. 1993. City on the Edge: The Transformation of Miami. Berkeley: University of California Press. Rumbaut, R.G. 1991. "The Agony of Exile: A Study of Indochinese Refugee Adults and Children." In Refugee Children: Theory, Research, and Services,edited by F. L. Ahearn, Jr., and J. L. Athey, pp. 53-91. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ________. 1994a. "Origins and Destinies: Immigration to the United States Since World War II." Sociological Forum 9, 4: 583-621. ________. 1994b. "The Crucible Within: Ethnic Identity, Self-Esteem, and Segmented Assimilation Among Children of Immigrants." International Migration Review 28, 4: 748-94. ________. 1995. "The New Californians: Comparative Research Findings on the Educational Progress of Immigrant Children." In California's Immigrant Children: Theory, Research, and Implications for Educational Policy, edited by R.G. Rumbaut and W. Cornelius, pp. 17-70. La Jolla: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego. ________. 1996. "A Legacy of War: Refugees from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia." In Origins and Destinies: Immigration, Race, and Ethnicity in America, edited by S. Pedraza and R.G. Rumbaut, pp. 315-333. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth. ________. 1997a. "Ties That Bind: Immigration and Immigrant
Families in the United States." In Immigration and the Family:
Research and Policy on U.S. Immigrants, edited by A. Booth, A.
C. Crouter, and N. S. Landale, pp. 3-46. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates. ________ and W. Cornelius, eds. 1995. California's Immigrant Children: Theory, Research, and Implications for Educational Policy. La Jolla: Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego. Rumbaut and K. Ima. 1988. The Adaptation of Southeast Asian Refugee Youth: A Comparative Study. Washington, DC: U.S. Office of Refugee Resetlement. Stepick, A. 1997. Pride Against Prejudice: Haitians in the U.S. Boston: Allyn and Bacon Publishers. Thompson, M.S., K.L. Alexander, and D.R. Entwisle. 1988. "Household Composition, parental Expectations, and School Achievement." Social Forces 67: 424-51. Waters, M. 1996. "Ethnic and Racial Identities of Second-Generation Black Immigrants in New York City." In The New Second Generation, edited by A. Portes, pp. 171-96. N.Y.: Russell Sage Foundation. Zhou, M. 1997. "Growing Up American: The Challenge Confronting Immigrant Children and Children of Immigrants." Annual Review of Sociology 23: 63-95. ________ and C. L. Bankston III. 1998. Growing Up American: How Vietnamese Children Adapt to Life in the United States. N.Y.: Russell Sage Foundation. |
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