Downward Path Illustrates Concern About Immigrants’ Children

by ShanikaGunaratna | April 18, 2009 at 12:35 pm

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While poor immigrant families have found economic success in the past, many analysts say today’s generation faces steeper hurdles, especially because good jobs now require more education. The children of those with the least education — most notably Mexicans and Central Americans — are considered especially at risk.

Citing high dropout and incarceration rates, some scholars warn that a sizeable minority of these groups could join the domestic poor in a burgeoning underclass.

For so many immigrants, the point of uprooting their lives and moving to the US is to create a better life for their children. This is why, in my mind, immigrant parents seem so brave: that they are more concerned with the happiness of their children, and their children's children, than in their own comfort.

This article condenses many of the recent studies on the success of immigrant children from multiple backgrounds: Indian, Filipino, Chinese, Mexican, Korean, Nigerian, Russian, Central American, and so on. It highlights the vast chasms that exist between different groups of immigrants and illuminates a major concern: the slow progress of Mexican American and Central American immigrant children.