Second Generation Immigrant Minorities

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Portes, Alejandro, and Rubén G. Rumbaut. Legacies: The story of the immigrant second generation. University of California Pr, 2001.

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Legacies The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation

ALEJANDRO PORTES

RUBEN G. RUMBAUT

Alejandro Portes and Ruben Rumbaut , "T~~ New Americans" and " Not Everyone is Chosen, tn Legacies, 2001, University of Califo~nia Press, pp .17-22, 44-69. Permission to reprint granted hy the publisher.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

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RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION

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Chapter 3

NOT EVERYONE IS CHOSEN

Segmented Assimilation and Its Determinants

Since most immigrants' children are now in school and not yet in the

labour force, it is essential that the school careers and future job possibili-

ties of these children be understood.

- Herbert J . Gans, •Second Generation Decline," p. 183

When you see someone go downtown and get a good job, if they be

Puerto Rican, you see them fix up their hair and put some contact lens in

their eyes. Then they fit in. And they do itl .. . Look at all the people in

that building, they all turn-overs. They people who want to be white.

Man, if you call them in Spanish it wind up a problem.

-Phillipe I. Bourgois, In Search of Respect, p. 170

This c.:hapter presents the theoretical perspectives that have developed in the course of our study and that guide the analysis of data in the fol- lowing chapters. The story of how a foreign minority comes to terms with its new social surroundings and is eventually absorbed into the mainstream of the host society is the cloth from which numerous socio- logical and economic theories have been fashioned .1 For the most part, this story has been told in optimistic tones and with an emphasis on the eventual integration of the newcomers. In other words, increasing con- tact over time is expected to end in the gradual merging of foreigners and natives, and the speed of the process depends on how close descen - da nrs of immigrants come tO resemble the mainstream population.

For this reason, the notion of assimilation became the master concept in both social theory and public discourse to designate the expected path to be followed hy foreign groups in America. The concept conveys a factual prediction about the final outcome of the encounters between foreign minorities and the native majority and, simultaneously, an asser-

44

NOT EVERYONE IS CHOSEN 45

tion of a socially desirable goaJ.2 More than half a century ago, sociol- ogists Lloyd Warner and Leo Srole introduced their study of an Ameri- can city as "part of the magnificent story of the adjustment of ethnic groups to American life" and went on to predict that "oncoming gener- ations of new ethnics will ... climb to the same heights . "3 In reality, the process is neither as simple nor as inevitable. To begin with, both the immigrant population and the host society are heterogeneous. Immi- grants, even those of the same nationality, are frequently divided by social class, the timing of their arrival, and their generation. American society is not homogeneous either. Depending on the timing of their arrival and context of reception, immigrants can find themselves con- fronting diametrically different situations, and hence the course of their assimilation can lead to a number of different outcomes.

There are groups among today's second generation that are slated for a smooth transition into the mainstream and for whom ethnicity will soon be a matter of personal choice. They, like descendants of earlier Europeans, will identify with their ancestry on occasion and when con- venient. There are others for whom their ethnicity will be a source of strength and who will muscle their way up, socially and economically, on the basis of their own communities' networks and resources. There are still others whose ethnicity will be neither a matter of choice nor a source of progress but a mark of subordination. These children are at risk of joining the masses of the dispossessed, compounding the spec- tacle of inequality and despair in America's inner cities. The prospect that members of today's second generation will join those at the bottom of society-a new rainbow underclass-has more than a purely aca- demic interest, for it can affect the life chances of millions of Americans and the quality of life in the cities and communities where they concen- trate.

Hence, while assimilation may still represent the master concept in the study of today's immigrants, the process is subject to too many con- tingencies and affected by too many variables to render the image of a relatively uniform and straightforward path credible. Instead, the pres- . cnt second generation is better defined as undergoing a process of seg- mented assimilation where outcomes vary across immigrant minorities and where rapid integration and acceptance into the American main- stream represent just one possible alternative. Why this is so is a com- plex story depending on a number of factors, among which four can be considered decisive: 1) the history of the immigrant first generation; z.) the pace of acculturation among parents and children and its bearing

46 NOT EVERYONE IS CHOSEN

on normative integration; 3) the barriers, cultural and economic, con- fronted by second-generation youth in their quest for successful adapta- tion; and 4) the family and community resources for confronting these barriers. This chapter provides a theoretical description of each of these factors and their expected consequences as a way of fleshing out the

concept of segmented assimilation and paving the way for the analysis of its diverse aspects in later chapters.

How Immigrants Are Received: Modes of Incorporation and Their Consequences

It stands to reason that the adaptation of second-generation youths is conditioned by what happens to their parents and that the latter's eco-

nomic performance and social status are likely to vary. In contrast to

journalistic and political characterizations of immigrants as a uniform

population, every schobrly analysis of the subject begins by emphasiz- ing their great diversity. 4 Today's immigrants differ along three funda- mental dimensions: r) their individual features, including their age, education, occupational skills, wealth, and knowledge of English; i) the social environment that receives them, including the policies of the host government, the attitudes of the native population, and the presence and

size of a co-ethnic community; and 3) their family structure. The skills that immigrants bring along in the form of education, job

experience, and language knowledge are referred to as their human cap- ital and play a decisive role in their economic adaptation. The economic attainment of immigrants does not entirely depend on human capital, however, because its utilization is contingent on the context in which they are incorporated. Yet, by and large, educated immigrants are in a much better competitive position and are more likely to succeed occu- pationally and economically in their new environment. The same is true of those with extensive occupational experience. 5

On arrival, however, immigrant workers and entrepreneurs do not confront American society as a level playing field where only their edu- cation and work experience count. Instead, a number of contextual fac- tors shape the way in which they can put their skills to use. The policies of the receiving government represent the first such factor confronting newcomers. Although a continuum of possible governmental responses exists, the basic oprions are exclusion, passive acceptance, or active encouragement. When enforced, exclusion precludes immigration or forces immigrants into a wholly underground and disadvantaged exist-

NOT EVERYONE IS CHOSEN 47

ence. The second alternative is defined by the act of granting immigrants legal access to the country without any additional effort on the part of authorities to facilitate their adaptation. This neutral stance places new- comers under the protection of the law but does not grant them any special concessions to compensate for their unfamiliarity with their new environment. Most economically motivated immigration to the United States in recent years has taken place under this alternative. A third gov- ernmental option occurs when authorities take active steps to encour- age a particular inflow or facilitate its resettlement. At various times during the last century, the U.S. government was directly involved in the recruitment of different categories of foreign workers and professionals deemed to be in short supply. During the last 30 years or so, active gov- ernmental support and assistance has been granted only to selected refugee flows, arriving mostly in the aftermath of communist takeovers <luring the cold war. 6 Government support is important because it gives newcomers access to an array of resources that do not exist for other immigrants. This edge provides refugees who have high levels of human capital with a chance for rapid upward mobility. It also improves the economic condition of those from modest backgrounds by providing job apprenticeships and direct economic assistance.

The second contextual factor is the host society and its reception of newcomers. A well-established sociological principle holds that the more similar new minorities are in terms of physical appearance, class background, language, and religion to society's mainstream, the more favorable their reception and the more rapid their integration. For this reason, educated immigrants from northwestern Europe face little diffi- culty in gaining access to U.S. middle- and upper-class circles and are readily able to deploy their educational and work skills to their advan- tage.7 Though race is in appearance a personal trait, in reality it inheres in the values and prejudices of the culture so that individuals with the same physical appearance can be treated very differently depending on the social context in which they find themselves.

In America, race is a paramount criterion of social acceptance that can overwhelm the influence of class background, religion, or language. Regardless of their class origin or knowledge of English, nonwhite immigrants face greater obstacles in gaining access to the white middle- class mainstream and may receive lower returns for their education and work experience. A racial gradient continues to exist in U.S. culture so that the darker a person's skin is, the greater is the social distance from dominant groups and the more difficult it is to make his or her personal qualifications count.s This social context and its differential evaluation

48 NOT EVERYONE IS CHOSEN

of newcomers account, for example, for the generally favorable recep- tion accorded to Irish immigrants in northeastern U.S. cities and the much greater barriers faced by Haitian immigrants in the same areas, despite the fact that many Haitians are legal immigrants and many Irish are actually undocumented.9

The immigrant community's own compatriots represent the third and most immediate context of reception. In some cases, no such com- muniry exists, and newcomers must confront the challenges of adapta- tion by themselves. More common, however, is the arrival of immi- grants into places where a community of their conationals already exists. Such communities can cushion the impact of a foreign culture and provide assistance for finding jobs. Help with immediate living needs, such as housing, places to shop, and schools for the children, also flow through these co-ethnic networks. 10

This regulariry in the process of adaptation conceals, however, sig- nificant differences among the ethnic communities that immigrants join. While all such communities help their own, they do so within the limits of their own information and resources. For purposes of future socio- economic mobility, the central difference is whether the co-ethnic group is mainly composed of working-class persons or contains a significant professional and entrepreneurial clement. For newcomers in working- class communities, the natural thing to do is to follow the path of ear- lier arrivals into the host labor market. The help that ethnic communi- ties can offer for securing employment in these situations is constrained by the kind of jobs held by their more established members. In this fash- ion, immigrants with considerable human capital can be channeled to below-average occupations as a function of the co-ethnic context that they encounter and the "help" that its members can provide.11

On the contrary, immigrants fortunate enough to join more advan- taged ethnic communities can translate their education and occupa- tional skills into economic returns, even when still unfamiliar with the new language and culture. The main feature of this situation-where a substantial number of conationals holds professional occupations or are independent entrepreneurs-is that the support of ethnic networks does not come at the cost of accepting a working-class lifestyle or outlook. Instead, these networks open a whole range of possibilities-from employment in the outside labor market to jobs within the ethnic com- munity-that make full use of the immigrants' potentiaJ. 12

Jointly, these three levels of reception-governmental, societal, and communal-<:omprise the mode of incorporation of a particular immi-

NOT EVERYONE 15 CHOSEN 49

grant group. These modes condition the extent to which immigrant human capital can be brought into play to promote successful economic and social adaptation . No matter how motivated and ambitious immi- grants are , their future prospects will be dim if government officials per- secute them, natives consistently discriminate against them, and their own community has only minimum resources to offer.

A third dimension of importance for second-generation adaptation is , the composition of the immigrant family, in particular the extent to " which it includes both biological parents. Immigrant family composi- tion varies significantly across nationalities, reflecting both different cul- tures and social structures in sending countries and patterns of arrival in the United States. Different modes of incorporation, in particular rhe outlook of authorities and strength of co-ethnic communities, can affect family composition by facilitating family reunification and reinforcing cultural norms. In turn, family contexts can be expected to affect vari- ous second-generation outcomes, even after taking parental human cap- ital and modes of incorporation into account.

Summarizing this discussion, Table 3. r presents a profile of the human capital, modes of incorporation, and family contexts of several of the largest immigrant groups arriving in the United States during the last two decades . These are also the groups best represented in our study, so these profiles provide a set of preliminary expectations con- cerning parental adaptation and subsequent second-generation out- comes. Specifically, we expect parental human capital, in the fo rm of education and occupational skills, to positively affect their own socio- economic attainment. In turn, achieved parental status and family com- position will affect the pace and character of second-generation accul- turation and subsequent adaptation outcomes. Modes of incorporation are expected to significantly affect the socioeconomic attainment of first-generation parents and to influence their family structure. The importance of these contextual variables may even extend beyond the first generation to directly affect second-generation outcomes. This is one of the main questions to be examined in the following chapters.

Acculturation and Role Reversal

In the family of Jose Marfa Arguelles, a 40-year old Nicaraguan immi- grant in Miami, power has drifted steadily away from him and his wife and toward their two teenage sons. Jose Marfa does not speak English and has only a high school education. His and his wife's lack of per-

50 NOT EVERYONE IS CHOSEN

TABLE3.1 IMMIGRANT NATIONALITIES AND THEIR MODES OF INCORPORATION, 1990

Nationality Size Status Characteristics!

Median College Poverty Family

Median Graduates Rate Income Age (%)3 (%)4 ($)4

Mexican 4,298,014 29.9 3.5 29 .7 21,585

Filipino 912,674 38.8 43.0 5.9 47,794

Cuhan 736,971 49.0 15.6 14.7 32,007

Chinese People's Republic 529,837 40.5 30.9 15.7 34,225 Taiwan 244,102 33.2 62.2 16.7 45,325 Hong Kong 147,131 30.3 46.8 12.7 49,618

Kore~n 568,397 34.9 34.4 15.6 33,406

Vietnamese 543,262 30.3 16.0 25.5 30,496

Dominican 34 7,858 33.6 7.5 30.0 l 9,694

Jamaican 334, 140 35.7 14.9 12. 1 34,338

Colombian 286,124 35.3 15.5 15.3 30,342

Haitian 225,393 34.6 11.8 21.7 25,556

Laotian 171,577 27.0 5. 1 40.3 19,671

Nicaraguan 168,659 30.0 14.6 24.4 24,416

Cambodian 118,833 29.0 5.5 38.4 19,043

'll. 5. Hureau of the Census, Tiu~ foreign-Oorn Populatio n of th e United Stfltn (Washington, D .C. : \J.S. Dcpartmcn1 of Commerce, J 993 ).

2Typnlogy hased on p~sr stu dies of individua l nationalities. ·'Persons 25 years of age or over. 'Ann11' I figur.s ( ! 9R 9i. 'Children under l8 residing wi1h bo1b biological pnrenrs. "Percent of houschold!'i hcAdcd hy women w ith no husband present .

manent immigration papers means that they have been dependent on a string of odd menial jobs, like dishwashing and house cleaning, for sur- vival. However, they have remained in the United States long enough for their children to grow up and learn the language. At r9, Pepe Arguelles already holds a waiter's job at a good restaurant and drives a better car than his parents. His younger hrorher, Luis, has heen drifting toward a local gang dealing drugs, but the money that he brings home helps pay

NOT EVERYONE IS CHOSEN 51

Family Structure Mode of lncorporationl

Both Parents Female Present Head Co-ethnic

(% )5 (%)6 Govemmental7 SocietalB Cornmuniry9

73 14 Hostile Prejudiced Working class, concentrated

78 15 Neutral Neutral to Professional, dispersed prejudiced

72 16 Favorable to Neutral to Entrepreneurial, hostile prejudiced concentrated

87 8 81 10 Neutral Prejudiced Professional/entrepreneurial, 84 10 concentrated

87 11 Neutral Prejudiced Entrepreneu ria I, concentrated

73 15 Favorable Prejudiced Entrepreneurial/working class, concentrated

47 41 Neutral Prejudiced Working class, concentrated

53 35 Neutral Prejudiced Professional/working class, dispersed

65 21 Hostile to Prejudiced Professional/working class, neutral dispersed

.56 28 Hostile Prejudiced Working class, concentrated

81 12 Favorahle Prejudiced Poor, concentrated

66 21 Hostile Prejudiced Professional/working class, concentrated

71 24 Favorable Prejudiced Poor, concentrated 'favornbJe reception accorded m groups composed of legal rcfugc:cs and asylccs ; neutral reccpcion to

groups of legal immigrancs; hostile reception ro groups suspected to harbor large numbers of unauthorized immigranrs or bting involved in the drug trade, becoming rargcts of deportation hy U.S. immigrnnt authorities .

llPrejudiced reception accorded to nonwhite immigrants and to those wirh perceived involvcmcnr in chc drug rrnde; neutrol to groups defined as mostly white.

9Concentratcd tchn ic communities are rhos:e that have large and highly vls1ble concenrration in at least one metropolitan ar<:a.

the rent and meet other urgent needs when his father is out of a job. Jose

Maria feels powerless to discipline Luis or guide the future of their sons.

"It's too late to send them back to Nicaragua," he says. "Here, they

know English and know their way around far better than us ... all that

their mother and I can do is pray."13

One of the most poignant aspects of immigrants' adaptation to a new

society is that children can become, in a very real sense, their parents'

TABLE 3 .2 TYPES OF ACCULTURATION ACROSS GENERATIONS

Children's Parents' Learning Learning Children's Parents'

of English of English Insertion Insertion and and into into

American American Ethnic Ethnic Customs Customs Community Community Type Expected Outcomes

+ + Consonant Joint search for integration into accultura tiun American mainstream; rapid shift to

English monolingualism among children

+ + Consonant resistance Isolation within the ethnic community; to acculturation likely to return to home country

+ + Dissonant Rupture of family ties and children's acculturation (!) abandonment of ethnic community;

limited bilingualism or English monolingualism among children

+ Dissonant Loss of parental authority and of parental acculturation (!!) languages; role reversal and

intergenerational conflict

+ + + + Selective Preservation of parental authority; little or acculturation no intergenerational conflict; fluent

bilingualism among children

SOL'RCE: Adapccd from Alejandro Portes and Rub<n G. Rumbaut, lmmigranl America, a Portrait, 2d ed. (Berkeler University o( California Press, 1996), p. 242.

NOT EVERYONE IS CHOSEN 53

parents.' This role reversal occurs when children's acculturation has moved ~o far a-head-of their parents' that key family decisions become dependent on the children's knowledge. Because they speak the lan- guage and know the culture better, second-generation youths are often able to define the situation for themselves, prematurely freeing them- selves from parental control.

Role reversal was a familiar event among offspring of working-class European immigrants at the beginning of the twentieth century, and it was often seen as part of the normal process of assimilation to Amer- ica. Children of Italian, Russian, and Polish laborers raced past their parents to take jobs in the expanding industrial economy of the time, set themselves up in husiness, or claw their way into the corporate world.1 4 Today, second-generation Latins and Asians are repeating the story but with an important twist. For reasons that we will see in detail later on, the social and economic contexr that allowed their European predecessors to move up and out of their families exists no more. In its place, a number of novel barriers to successful adaptation have emerged, making role reversal a warning sign of possible d_ownward assimilation. Freed from parental control at a premature age, the options available to second-generation youths can be different and , sometimes more dangerous than those available to children of Euro- · peans earlier in the century.

Role reversal, like modes of incorporation, is not a uniform process. Instead, systematic differences exist among immigrant families and communities. It is possible to think of these differences as a continuum ranging from situations where parental authority is preserved to those where it is thoroughly undermined by generational gaps in accultura- tion. The process of acculturation is the first step toward assimilation, as both immigrant parents and children learn the new language and nor- mative lifestyles. Yet the rates at which they do so and the extent to which this learning combines with retention of the home culture varies, with significant consequences for second-generation adaptation.15 Table 3.2 presents a typology of possible situations depending on the accul- turative gaps across generations and the children's insertion in the eth- nic community.

Three of the outcomes portrayed in this figure are especially impor- tant. Dissonant acculturation takes place when children's learning of the English language and American ways and simultaneous loss of the

54 NOT EVERYONE IS CHOSEN

immigrant culture outstrip their parents'. This is the situation leading to role reversal, especially when parents lack other means to maneuver in the host society without help from their children. Consona_rg accul- turation is the opposite situation, where the learning process and grad- ual abandonment of the home language and culture occur at roughly the same pace across generations. This situation is most common when immigrant parents possess enough human capital to accompany the cul- tural evolution of their children and monitor it. Finally, selective accul- turation takes place when the learning process of both generations is embedded in a co-ethnic community of sufficient size and institutional diversity to slow down the cultural shift and promote partial retention of the parents' home language and norms. This third option is associ - ated with a relative lack of intergenerational conflict, the presence of many co-ethnics among children's friends, and the achievement of full bilingualism in the second generation.16

Dissonant acculturation does not necessarily lead to downward assimilation, but it undercuts parental authority and places children at risk. Consonant acculturation does not guarantee success because par- ents' and children's striving for acceptance into the American main- stream may be blocked by discrimination. Still, consonant acculturation lays the basis for parental guidance and mutual intergenerational sup- port in confronting external challenges. Lastly, selective acculturation offers the most solid basis for preservation of parental authority along with the strongest bulwark against effects of external discrimination. This happens because individuals and families do not face the strains of acculturation alone but rather within the framework of their own com- munities. This situation slows down the process while placing the acqui- sition of new cultural knowledge and language within a supportive con- text.

Types of acculturation do not occur in a vacuum but are conditioned by the variables discussed previously, namely parental socioeconomic achievement, family composition, and modes of incorporation. When parents have greater resources-in the form of higher education, eco- nomic status, intact families, or the support of strong co-ethnic com- munities-intergenerational acculturation tends to shift toward the con- sonant or selective modes. Parent-child conflict is reduced, and children are less prone to feel embarrassed by their parents' ways. On the other hand, parents whose educational and economic resources are modest, and especially those. who are socially isolated, are more likely to expe- rience d issonant acculturation and role reversal.

NOT EVERYONE IS CHOSEN 55

Where They Grow Up: Challenges to Second-Generation Adaptation

To a greater extent than at the beginning of the twentieth century, second-generation youths confront today a pluralistic, fragmented envi- ronment that simultaneously offers a wealth of opportunities and major dangers to successful adaptation.17 In this situation, the central question is not whether the second generation will assimilate to U.S. society but to what segment of that society it will assimilate. In the present histori- cal context, there are three major challenges to educational attainment and future career success by children of immigrants. The first is the per- sistence of racial discrimination, the second is the bifurcation of the U.S. labor market and its growing inequality, and the third is the consolida- tion of a marginalized population in the inner city. 18

Race

One of the key features that children inherit from their parents is their race. Just as the mode of incorporation of adult immigrants is defined by how the native majority typify them racially, so is the second generation affected by inheriting the same physical features as their parents. Defined by contemporary standards, the majority of today's second gen- eration arc nonwhite, comprising children of Asian immigrants; of blacks from the West Indies and Africa; and of blacks, mulattos, and mestizos from Latin America. The minority of white immigrants also come from Latin America and, in declining numbers, from Europe and Canada.19 Although it is true that Irish, Italian, Polish, and other early immigrants were originally defined as separate races and subjected to extensive discrimination, their phenotypical similarity with members of the mainstream American population eventually asserted itself. Once second-generation youths learned unaccented English, adopted Ameri- can patterns of behavior and dress, and climbed a few rungs in the social ladder, they became by and large indistinguishable from the rest of the population. From that point on, the question was not whether they could melt into the mainstream population but whether they were will- ing to abandon their ethnic niches or would persist in remaining attached to them.

To the contrary, children of Asian, black, mulatto, and mestizo immi- grants cannot so easily reduce their ethnicity to the level of a voluntary decision. Their enduring physical differences from whites and the equally persistent practice of discrimination based on those differences,

56 NOT EVERYON E IS CHOSEN

especially against black persons, throws a barrier in the path of occupa- tional mobility and social acceptance. Immigrant children's perceptions of discrimination in American society, their ethnic identities and self- esteem, their aspirations, and their patterns of school behavior are affected accordingly.20

Labor Markets

A second major barrier is the deindustrialization and progressive inequality in the U.S. labor market. As the prime industrial power of its time, the United States generated a vast demand for industrial labor during the first three decades of the twentieth century. Indeed, this was the reason why European immigrants first and southern black migrants second were recruited and came in such vast numbers to northern U.S. cities.21 The availability of industrial jobs and the existence of a ladder of occupations within industrial employment created the possibility of gradual upward mobility for the European second generation without the need for an advanced education. This continuing labor demand was behind the rise of stable working-class communities in northeastern and Midwestern cities where supervisory and other preferred industrial jobs afforded a reasonable living standard for European ethnics.22

The depression and its aftermath reduced industrial demand and led to high levels of unemployment. The crisis was short lived, however, as a combination of governmental pump-priming under the New Deal and renewed demand for manufactured goods during World War II reopened the industrial labor market, creating new opportunities for second- and third-generation workers. Their gradual mobility into the higher tiers of blue-collar employment and then into the white-collar middle class fur- nished the core empirical basis for theories of assimilation, which was conceived as a gradual and straightforward process.23

Beginning in the 1960s and accelerating thereafter, the structure of the U.S. labor market started to change under the twin influences of technological innovation and foreign competition in industrial goods. The advent of Japan as a major industrial competitor took American companies by surprise, accustomed as they were to lacking any real for- eign rivals in the post-World War II era. As two prominent students of American deindustrialization have concluded: "What caused the profit squeeze was mainly the sudden emergence of heightened interna- tional competition-a competition to which U.S. business leaders were initially blind. In the manufacturing sector a trickle of imports turned

NOT EVERYONE IS CHOSEN 57

into a torrent. The value of manufactured imports relative to domestic production skyrocketed-from less than r 4 percent in 1969 to nearly triple that, 3 8 percent only ten years later. "24

Caught in this bind, many companies resorted to the "spatial fix" of moving productive facilities abroad to reduce labor costs.is Technolog- ical innovations made the process easier by lowering transportation bar- riers and making possible instant communication between corporate headquarters and production plants located overseas. The garment industry represents a prime example of this process of restructuring. While fashion design and marketing strategies remained centralized in the companies' American headquarters, actual production migrated, for the most part, to industrial zones in less developed nations.26

Industrial restructuring and corporate downsizing brought about the gradual disappearance of the jobs that had provided the basis for the eco- nomic ascent of the European second generation. Between 1950 and 1996, American manufacturing employment plummeted from over one- third of the labor force to less than 15 percent. The slack was taken by service employment, which skyrocketed from 12 percent to close to one- third of all workers. Service employment is, however, bifurcated between menial and casual low-wage jobs commonly associated with personal services and the rapid growth of occupations requiring advanced techni- cal and professional skills. These highly paid service jobs are generated by knowledge-based industries linked to new information technologies as well as complex tasks associated with the command and control func- tions of a restructured capitalist economy.27

The growth of employment in these two polarized service sectors is one of the factors that has stalled the gradual trend toward economic equality in the United States and then reversed it during the last decades of the twentieth'century. Between 1960 and 1990, the income of the top decile of American families increased in constant (1986) dollars from $40,789 to $68,996. In contrast, the income of the bottom decile barely budged, from $6,J09 to $8,637. The income of the bottom half of fam- ilies, which in r960 represented about 50 percent of what those in the top decile earned, declined by almost 10 percent relative to this wealth- iest group in the following 30 years.28

These and related figures contradict the euphoric impression prompted by the economic expansion of the late r99os that " everybody is getting rich. "29 Indeed, the economic expansion has benefited large sectors of the American population, but these are the sectors linked, directly or indirectly, to the new information technologies and having

58 NOT EVERYONE IS CHOSEN

the requisite educational credentials, skills, and capital to take part in them. At the other extreme, many Americans have been left behind. The

median household net worth climbed IO percent during the 1990s to about $80,000. However, almost half of households (44 percent) did not reach $25,000, and exactly a third had annual incomes below this figure. More than half of American families (57 percent ) did not own any equities at all, causing them to fall further behind in terms of eco- nomic power.JO

From the point of view of new entrants into the labor force, includ- ing children of immigrants, these structural changes mean the end of the old industrial ladder of unskilled, semiskilled, skilled , and supervisory occupations and the advent of growing labor market bifurcation. In this changed market, high demand exists at the low end for unskilled and menial service workers and at the high end for professionals and techni- cians, with diminishing opportunities for well-paid employment in between. Adult immigrants, especially those with low levels of educa- tion, confront this new "hourglass" labor market by crowding into low- wage service jobs.JI On the other hand, their children, imbued with

American-style status consciousness and consumption aspirations, are generally not satisfied with the same roles . As Gans notes: "If these young people arc offered immigrant jobs, there are some good reasons why they might turn them down. They come to the world of work with American standards, and may not even be familiar with the old country conditions . ... Nor do they have the long-range goals that persuaded their parents to work long hours at low wages . . . . From their perspec- tive, immigrant jobs are demeaning."32

Increasing labor market inequality implies that to succeed socially and economically, children of immigrants today must cross, in the span

. of a few years, the educational gap that took descendants of Europeans

several generations to bridge. They cannot simply improve on their par- ents' typically modest skills but must sharply increase them by gaining access to an advanced education. This, plus the cultivation of the req- uisite networks, is required to reach into the upper half of the hour- glass-that is, to obtain professional-level occupations yielding high incomes and making possible a middle-class lifestyle. For this reason, the educational goals and academic achievement of today's second gen- eration acquire a singular importance.

For children of professional immigrants and successful entrepre- neurs, the journey toward the heights of the American labor market may

not be so difficult because their parents have already gained access to

NOT EVERYONE IS CHOSEN 59

the needed resources to finance an advanced education or because their co-ethnics control economic niches where profitable business oppor- tunities are still open. These children can afford to adopt a more relaxed stance toward their future . For offspring of working-class immigrants- by far the majority among many nationalities-the task of bridging the gap from their parents' modest starting position to their own aspira- tions is daunting. This barrier, superimposed on the second generation's general reticence to accept "immigrant" jobs, prompts concern about the future of these children and their chances for successful adapta- tion.33 Key questions for our empirical analysis are the extent to which modest parental resources and unfavorable contexts of incorporation translate into lower educational asp irations and poorer achievement and the factors that can reverse these trends among the least privileged. ,

Countercultures

The third external challenge confronting children of immigrants is that the social context they encounter in American schools and neighbor- hoods may promote a set of undesirable outcomes such as dropping out of school, joining youth gangs, or participating in the drug subculture. This alternative path has been labeled downward assimilation because the learning of new cultural patterns and entry into American social cir- cles does not lead in these cases to upward mobility but to exactly the opposite. The emergence of an adversarial outlook and deviant lifestyles in American inner cities is partially linked to the transformation of the labor market that did away with the ladder of blue-collar jobs facilitat- ing the upward mobility of earlier children of immigrants. The first vic- tims of this transformation were not members of today's second genera- tion but the children and grandchildren of their predecessors-southern blacks, Mexicans, and Puerto Ricans-brought to fill the lahor needs of the American industrial economy during and after World War J.34

As descendants of these earlier waves reached working age, they con- fronted a situation of diminished industrial opportunities and blocked economic mobility. The disappearance of jobs in industry, coupled with racial discrimination, kept second- and third-generation offspring of : " colored" minorities bottled up in the inner city while simultaneously preventing them from taking advantage of emerging opportunities in the new postindustrial economy. The result was the rise of what Wac- quant and Wilson have called the " hyperghetto"-veritable human warehouses where the disappearance of work and the everyday reality

60 NOT EVERYONE IS CHOSEN

of marginalization led directly to a web of social pathologies.JS Prolif- eration of female teenage pregnancy, high involvement of youngsters in crime, and the disappearance of work habits and discipline are common traits in these areas.

Contemplating the dismal landscape of Liberty City, the main ghetto area of Miami, a prominent black leader of the local Urban League remarked:

Incorporating blacks into mainscream institutions or programs can't do any- thing today about what's going on in Liberty City ... . We have allowed people to develop a prescription for survival which creates a kind of char- acter thac is in the long run suicidal. So to say to the guy who has never seen anyone go to work, who's never had a steady job, who has never seen an adult male bring a paycheck home; to say to him "you're unemployed, there- fore we arc going to give you a training program" docs not even begin to understand what has happened to him, to his everyday experience, to his life.36

A crucial consequence of social and economic marginalization is the emergence of a measure of solidarity in opposition to external discrimi- nation, based on the central notion that the plight of the minority is due to the hostility of mainstream institutions. Among the young, this form of minority solidarity translates into a denigration of schools and their staffs as instruments of racial oppression and of education itself as inca- pable of bettering their situation.37 In her study of Mexican-origin stu- dents in a California high school, Matute-Bianchi highlights the opposi- tional stance toward school authorities of second- and third-generation Chicanos and cholos and their low levels of academic achievement. According to Matute-Bianchi, these children are caught in a forced- choice dilemma in which doing well in school is perceived as "acting white" and hence being disloyal to one's group.JS

Suarez-Orozco, an anthropologist who has studied the same ethnic group, refers to this process as "learning not to learn."39 Since group solidarity is based precisely on the view that mainstream institutions are discriminatory and block minorities' progress, instances of individual success through the same institutions undermine the common bond. The quote at the start of this chapter, drawn from Bourgois's study of Puerto Rican youths in the Bronx, exemplifies this orientation. Though correct historically, this oppositional ideology ends up reinforcing the very blockage of opportunities that it denounces. In the language of the ghetto, those wanting to escape by doing well in school are "wannabes" and are derided accordingly;40

NOT EVERYONE IS CHOSEN 61

Recently arrived immigrants confront these features of life in Ameri- can cities as a fait accompli conditioning their own and their children's chances for success. Because of their poverty, many immigrants settle in close proximity to urban ghetto areas. In this environment, they and their families are often exposed to norms of behavior inimical to upward mobility as well as to an adversarial stance that justifies these behaviors. For second-generation youths, the clash of expectations is particularly poignant when the messages that education does not pay and that discrimination prevents people of color from ever succeeding are conveyed by native peers of the same race or ethnic origin.

In Miami, Stepick and Fernandez-Kelly and Schauffler portray the plight of Haitian American students caught between their parents' dream of a professional career and the realities of the schools that they must attend. In Miami inner-city schools, Haitian youths are often ridiculed because of their obedience to school staff, and some have been physically attacked. To survive in this environment, they must adopt the same tough aggressive stance of the ghetto and, along with it, a com- mon rejection of their parents' expectations. Although some Haitian students (exemplified by Aristide Maillol in Chapter r) manage to sur- vive and advance under these harsh conditions, others assimilate. In this case, assimilation is not to the middle-class mainstream but downward to the attitudes and norms of the inner city:41

Children of black West Indian immigrants in New York face a simi- lar plight. Mary Waters remarks on the gap across generations that fol- lows from this cultural encounter:

The first generation tends to believe that, while racism exists in the United States, it can be overcome or circumvented through hard work .... The sec- ond generation experiences racism and discrimination constantly and devel- ops perceptions of the overwhelming influence of race on their lives .... The boys adopt black American culture, wearing flattops, baggy pants, and cer- tain types of jewelry. While parents tell their children to strive for upward mobility, and to work harder ... the American-identified teens think the rewards for doing so will be very slim. 42

Some parents become so distraught at what they see as the permis- siveness of American culture and the specific threat posed by the ghetto that they send their children back home to be educated in the care of grandparents or other kin. The experience of Luis Hernandez Bueno in Chapter 1 is thus not an isolated incident. Private schools have actually sprung up in the Dominican Republic, Belize, and other countries of emigration to reeducate these "refugees" from American streets.43 As

62 NOT EVERYONE IS CHOSEN

we will see when we review parental outlooks in Chapter 5, the rise of these schools attests to the resolve of many adult immigrants who become willing to part with their children to protect them from what they see as the looming threat of gangs, drugs, and other forms of down- ward assimilation.

Segmented assimilation emerges from the different ways in which

second-generation youths approach these challenges and the resources that they bring to the encounter. Figure 3. 1 presents a theoretical model of the process by relating parental factors, including modes of incorpo- ration, family contexts, and intergenerational acculturation, to the ways in which children of immigrants confront these barriers. The expecta- tion is that typical assimilation outcomes for children in these varying situations will flow naturally from the interaction between external challenges, family and community resources, and patterns of accultura- tion. We use this model as a broad framework to guide our analysis in

later chapters and as a point of reference for key empirical results.

Confronting the Challenge: Immigrant Social Capital

Parental Status, Family Structure, and Gender

Most parents want the best for their children, have high aspirations for their future, and invest extraordinary resources in chem. This is espe- cially true of immigrants, who commonly see fulfillment of their ambi- tions not in their own achievement but in those of their offspring. Yet not all families possess the means to promote educational success and ward off the threats posed by discrimination, narrowing labor market options, and street culture.

Resources necessary to do so are of two kinds: those that provide access to economic goods and job opportunities and those that reinforce parental normative controls. Parents with higher levels of human capi- tal are in a better position to support their children's adaptation for two reasons: First, they have greater information about opportunities and pitfalls in the surrounding environment; second, they can earn higher incomes giving them access to strategic goods. A home in the suburbs, a private school education, or a trip to the home country to reinforce fam- ily ties are all expensive propositions not within the reach of the average family. Those able to afford them can confront the challenges of second- generation adaptation with a measure of equanimity.

Figure 3.1 The Process of Segmented Assimilation : A Model

Firsc Generacion

Background factors

Intergenerational Patterns

Parental Dissonant ~ human ~ acculturation

capital ~

Modes of ~ Consonant incorporation/ acculturation

l'amily / Selecnve scructure acculturation

~

~

I Racial Discrimination Confronted direccly and withour support

Confronted directly with family support

Filtered chrough ethnic networks and confronted with family and community support

Second Generation

External Obstacles

Bifurcated Labor Markets Met with individual resources alone

Met with parental guidance and family resources

Met with parental guidance backe d by family and community resources

Inner-City Subcultures No countervailing message to adversarial attitudes and lifestyles

Countervailing message based on family aspirations

Countervailing message based on family aspirations and community networks

Expected Outcumes

Downward assimilation

Mostly upward assimilation; blocked at times by discrimination

Upward assimilation combined with biculturalism

64 NOT EVERYONE IS CHOSEN

In addition to human capital, the character of the family itself plays a significant role. Children growing up in families with both biological parents have access to both greater economic resources and greater adult attention and guidance. Hence, immigrant groups that combine high levels of human capital with high proportions of nondisrupted fam- ilies make available to their children an extraordinary set of resources, where family assets support parental guidance. This is backed, in turn, by the more extended networks that two adults make possible.44

Gender enters the picture in an important way because of the differ- ent roles that boys and girls occupy during adolescence and the different ways in which they are socialized. As a general rule, females tend to be more under the influence of their parents because of the less autono- mous and more protective character of their upbringing. In traditional immigrant families, boys are encouraged to excel in various outside pur- suits, while girls are reared to be mothers and homemakers.45 Even in less traditional homes, teenage girls are more likely to conform to parental expectations and to experience the challenges of the external environment differently than their male siblings.46 We expect these gen- der differences to affect important adaptation outcomes such as lan- guage acculturation, aspirations, and academic achievement. Because of the different roles that adolescent boys and girls are expected to play in American society, we can also anticipate significant gender effects on various dimensions of psychosocial adaptation, including self-esteem.

The Immigrant Community

Yet immigrant parents' human capital, family composition, and gender socialization do not exhaust the range of forces molding types of accul- turation and subsequent outcomes. The outside environment-in par- ticular, the co-ethnic community-supplies the other main determinant. This is shown in Figure 3. 1, where selective acculturation is portrayed as contingent on the existence of supportive networks. The varying character of co-ethnic communities determines the level of social capital available to immigrant families.47 Social capital, grounded on ethnic networks, provides a key resource in confronting obstacles to successful adaptation. First, it increases economic opportunities for immigrant parents, giving them a better chance to put to use whatever skills they brought from their home country and sometimes providing additional entrepreneurial training.48 Second, strong ethnic communities com- monly enforce norms against divorce and marital disruption, thus help-

NOT EVERYONE IS CHOSEN 65

ing preserve intact families. Third, the same networks directly reinforce parental authority.

Social capital depends less on the relative economic or occupational success of immigrants than on the density of ties among them. It makes little difference whether fellow nationals are highly educated and wealthy if they feel no obligation toward one another. It does not mat- ter either that many doctors and business owners come from the same country when they are geographically dispersed or otherwise unreach- able. On the other hand, modest but tightly knit communities can be a valuable resource, as their ties support parental control and parents' aspirations for their young. Among immigrants of limited means, this ' function of social capital is vital.

Consider the two situations portrayed in Figure 3.1. In a foreign land, parental normative control can wane quickly when confronted with the sustained challenges of new lifestyles; media-driven consump- tion aspirations, and native peer influences. For isolated families, the situation can easily devolve into a pattern of dissonant acculturation and role reversal. Panel A in Figure 3.:z. depicts this situation where a lack of ties or "structural holes" 49 deprive parents of this crucial resource. On the contrary, when parental expectations are reinforced by others in the community, the probability of selective acculturation is enhanced. In this situation, pare.nts can support each other's efforts in guiding their youths, creating a far m_ore formidable barrier against prec mature consumerism and the lure of the streets. This is the situation portrayed in panel B of Figure 3 .:z.. In well-integrated communities where children have internalized the goals of success through educa-

. tional achievement, the threat of downward assimilation effectively dis- appears.SO

Modes of incorporation of different immigrant groups clearly play a role in the types of ethnic communities that they create. In particular, the governmental reception accorded to different nationalities con- ditions the chances for the rise of cohesive ethnic networks. Groups that have benefited from a favorable reception and resettlement assistance appear more likely to develop such ties than those subject to systematic persecution. The following contrasting histories of former Nicaraguan professionals in Miami and former Vietnamese farmers and fishermen in New Orleans provide a preliminary illustration of these differences.

In their study of the Nicaraguan refugee community in southern Florida, Fernandez-Kelly and Schauffler report the presence of a number of professionals who came to escape political persecution at home but

66 NOT EVERYONE IS CHOSEN

Figure 3 . 2. Types of Rel~tionships in Dense versu s Dis persed Immigrant Communities

/1ts1dc Commimity Relations O uts ide Relatio11 s

Parents

A. Student ~~~=::±J!<$.iil!ln _ ___ ~:__~ {Fr ie nds )

Friends, peers Peers

~ Other parents

B. )tudent ~~:==~~-~~Ll..._.{ Fri ends )

friends , peers Peers

v O t her parents

~ Srndent's soc ial ties

\_____) Social tie s between members of student's netw ork

Stru ctural hol es (no t ies)

SO UR CE : Adapted fr om Alej andro Pones , " Children of Immi grants: Se gmented Ass imilation and Its Determinants ," in The Ec onomic Sociology of Im m igration (New Yo rk : Ru ssel l Sage Found at io n, 199 5), i. 6 1.

were denied asylum by U.S . immigration authorities. Lacking legal per- manent residence, they were shunted to the margins of the labor mar- ket, forced to work either in manual jobs or as informal service provid- ers for a fraction of the income of legal professionals.SI A trained chemist back in Nicaragua summarized his situation as follows : "We came with high hopes , escaping the Sandinistas, thinking this was the land of opportunity .. . but we were stopped in our tracks . We haven' t been able to legalize our situation . Every so often, we get these notices saying we'll be thrown out of the country. As a result, we haven't been able to move ahead .... I work for an hourly wage without benefits,

NOT EVERYONE IS CHOSEN 67

although I perform the duties of a professional for a pharmaceutical company. They know they can abuse my condition because I can't go anywhere; no one will hire me!"52

His and his wife's high levels of human capital did not count for much because of an unfavorable context of reception. Left to fend for themselves in Miami, they had to move to an impoverished area of the city and send their two children to schools attended mostly by inner-city minority youths. Conflict was rampant, and academic standards were low. Even more distressing, the older son had forgotten most of his Spanish and could not speak English fluently. At 17, he had no aspira- tions beyond high school and no job prospects beyond menial service work.

In their study of the Vietnamese community of New Orleans, Zhou and Bankston note that most of its members are former farmers and fishermen with very little education. Lacking any economic means, the Vietnamese have been forced to cluster in the poorest area of a poor city, where their neighbors are mostly impoverished native minorities. Based on the human capital profile of these refugees and the external challenges that they confront, prospects for successful adaptation look dim. The situation is counterbalanced, however, by the high levels of social capital within the community. As refugees from communism, the Vietnamese were beneficiaries of generous government resettlement assistance that helped them reconstitute families and build close com- munity ties.53

Only 7 percent of Vietnamese families in this area are headed by a single parent, as compared with I 8 percent of local white families and 5 5 percent of African American families. The majority of Vietnamese families are not only headed by two parents but are also extended, including married children, unmarried grown children, and grandpar- ents. Youngsters are taught that the family always comes first. These norms are supported externally because close ties link Vietnamese fam- ilies around places of residence, work, and church. The local Cathol'ic church serves as the focal point of community events and provides a powerful symbolic means of reasserting common values: "The Viet- namese have come to believe that education is the chief means to achieve this goal and they have adjusted their cultural patterns to orient the younger generation toward educational and occupational attainment . . . . 'Because the norms of individual families stem from the ethnic com- munity and are supported by it, the behavior expected by parents and by others around the children are essentially the same." s4

Figure 3.3 Determinants of Immigrant Adaptation across Generations

[Parental human capiral }1---~-----~

l Modes of incorporation }1---1--~----+----------~--------~---------~ [ Family composition }1---1---+------+----<-~-------+-~--------+-~---------t~

l Gender }~-+-~~~~~+--+--+-~~~~~-+--+~~~~~~--+---+-~~~~~~~-+--+--~

First-generation socioeconomic

achievement

Language learning and types of

acculturation

Second-generation ethnic-racial

identities

Psychosocial outcomes: educarional expectations

and self-esteem

Academic achievement and school graduation

) lL-_ _ __ 1-'-++_'-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-~_-_1~_-=I+±:-+1:· ~--=~--:~-=...-.::'...~ ..,. I

NOT EVERYONE I S CHOSEN 69

These contrasting histories modify the picture concerning the role of human capital and parental socioeconomic achievement in the pros- pects of the second generation. High human capital in the first genera- tion can be expected to play a powerful role, but even immigrants of modest endowments can successfully overcome challenges to their chil- dren's mobility when they can count on strong families and communi- , ties supporting their efforts. Groups that have not had to cope with offi- cial persecution and have, on the contrary, benefited from a favorable reception are usually in a better position to restructure themselves along solidary lines and to provide each other with the requisite support. Con- textual as well as individual factors can hence be expected to guide the adaptation of the first generation and its transmission of privilege or dis- advantage to the second.

Conclusion

In the following chapters, we apply these ideas to the analysis of results from our student and parental samples. The analytic framework pre- sented in Table 3.2 and Figures 3. 1 and 3.2 systematizes the illustrative materials presented in Chapter r and our theoretical interpretation of existing research in this area. We do not intend these models to function as an exhaustive set of hypotheses to be tested against the data but as ideal types guiding the empirical analysis and being, in turn, susceptible to refinement. The overall logic of this theoretical approach is of a cumulative process where immigrant backgrounds and contexts of reception influence early adaptation outcomes that, in turn, condition subsequent ones. This approach is graphically portrayed in Figure 3. 3. The figure also summarizes the analytic program for the following chapters: It begins with parental socioeconomic achievement, attitudes, and aspirations and culminates with the most important outcome for second-generation youths-their educational attainments.

While an analysis of survey data is necessarily oriented toward indi- vidual variables, we try not to lose sight of contextual effects arising from the communities in which these children grow up and the schools that they attend. Similarly, while statistical analysis must perforce emphasize averages, we make use of the extensive qualitative material gathered by the CILS to illustrate these trends as well as their excep- tions. Exceptional cases and individual variations are important to remind us of the tentative character of theoretical models and the pres- ence in real life of multiple alternative paths.