Mobility and the children of Langley Park's immigrant families

Journal of Negro Education, The, Winter 2003 by Hanna, William J

The prevailing language of an area poses a difficult dilemma. There are obvious positives to living in an area with shared language and other cultural elements. But being exposed to the English "mainstream" may have the benefit of enhanced language acquisition and school success. With earlier generations of immigrants, the positives became sequential: establish place roots in a familiar cultural environment, and then move into greater diversity. Can or will Hispanic immigrants follow in the footsteps of the former residents of Chinatowns? The changed economy may make such footstep-following difficult.

Family support. Most Langley Park parents are not well-educated, not having completed a secondary education. Indeed, their education in the country of origin often consists of a few years of rural schooling, often during a time of national turmoil when school sessions were inconsistently held. That explains the illiteracy, which characterizes perhaps a thousand adults in the neighborhood. Educational help from such parents, especially when they are struggling to make a living and perhaps to stay in the country, is quite limited. Indeed, the family is stressed due to low income, fear of immigration authorities, and in many other ways. In Langley Park, some parents consider it a family success if a child completes middle school, which is many years beyond the norm for the older generation.

The family's comparative value of schooling is also a factor. Cammarota (2002) writes:

Without an increase in state support and a general improvement in wages, immigrant children will continue to work for the family's survival instead of devoting this time and energy to studying or saving for college and ascending into the middle class. (p. 3)

The after-school and evening hours Langley Park's teenagers spend earning money at low-level jobs reflect priorities; and of course, they impact educational advancement (e.g., LaVoo & Lopez, 2002).

The parents of Langley Park's families often are not involved in the life of their children's schools. Typically, they only infrequently visit teachers and counselors or attend Parent-Teacher Association meetings. Several factors may be influencing their noninvolvement, such as long hours of employment, socialization to deference to school officials, and a more generalized distance between them and the past as well as present governments that are not seen as being on their side. Suarez-Orozco and Suarez-Orozco (2001) comment, "In many cultural settings, there is a somewhat rigid social boundary separating the realm of school from the realm of home" (p. 149). Whatever the reason for lack of involvement, a poor home-school attachment may lead to a greater ease of moving away from the school.

Economic circumstances. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics (2001c), "In 2000, young adults living in families with incomes in the lowest 20 percent of all family incomes were six times as likely as their peers from families in the top 20 percent of the income distribution to drop out of high school" (see also U.S. General Accounting Office [U.S. GAO], 2002). Analyses of census data reveal that the lower the family income, the higher the rate of residential mobility. About two-thirds of Langley Park workers are employed in "service" or "construction, extraction, or maintenance" occupations. The median household income in 1999 (for the 4,584 households surveyed by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2002) was $37,939 (Maryland = $52,868). The median family income was $36,018 (Maryland = $61,876); for individuals, it was $12,733 (Maryland = $25,614). One in five children (Maryland = 1:10) was considered to be below the poverty line. The proportion of students eligible for free or reduced cost meals at the four elementary schools is 81.4% at Adelphi, 76.9% at Cherokee Lane, 75.1% at Cool Spring, and 88.3% at Langley Park McCormick (Maryland State Department of Education [MSDE], 2002a). The statewide figure is 36.7%.