Children of
Immigrants Reshaping America
TOWSON, Md. (By Alex Johnson and Maria Menounos, NBC
News)
October
15, 2008 —
Booming ‘second generation’ becoming the
mainstream, research suggests. The
future of America is being forged at
Dumbarton Middle School.
With students from 37 countries,
Dumbarton, a magnet school in Towson,
Md., near Baltimore, reflects how the
United States is rapidly being
transformed into a polyglot,
multicultural society — not by
immigrants, but by their children.
Figures from the U.S. Census Bureau
paint a clear picture: By as early as
2023, more than half of all children
will be members of what are now minority
groups, an evolution fueled
significantly by a baby boom among
recent immigrants. By 2050, they will
make up more than 60 percent of all
American children.
By 2050, the number of Americans of
Hispanic origin will double to comprise
a third of the American population. The
Asian population is projected to nearly
triple, to 9.2 percent of the
population. And as those populations
mingle, the number of people who
identify themselves as being of two or
more races will more than triple.
The result will be a United States in
which the so-called white majority will,
for the first time, be in the minority.
In the process, the children of new
immigrants “will not only reshape
American racial and ethnic relations but
define the character of American social,
cultural, and political life,”
researchers at Harvard University and
City University of New York write in
“Inheriting the City,” a landmark study
of the children of first-generation
immigrants to the United States.
Crossing, assimilating
differences
Research suggests that the children of
immigrants face special challenges and
opportunities that prepare them to
succeed in American society. In the
homes of immigrant parents, it is the
children who cross cultural and
linguistic barriers, breaking them down
while absorbing the best of both worlds.
In a study of children of recent
immigrants in Southern California and
South Florida, Ruben Rumbaut, a
sociology professor at the University of
California-Irvine, and Alejandros Portes,
d irector of the Center for Migration
and Development at Princeton University,
found that the so-called second
generation was better equipped than ever
to overcome historical hurdles like
racism, economic disadvantage and
language assimilation.
At only 17, Oz Contreras of Siler City,
N.C., has been learned to navigate the
adult world at the same time he goes to
class and plays soccer at
Jordan-Matthews High School.
“My dad has actually never talked to any
person for bills,” said Oz, whose
Mexican immigrant parents do not speak
English. “It’s always been me.”
As a result, Oz has had to grow up more
quickly than many of his peers. “We’re
more, like, independent, and my parents
are there to motivate us but can’t
actually help us,” he said.
Paul Cuadros, Oz’s
coach, said many of his players are
caught in the middle — trying to respect
their parents’ roots while growing up
American in Siler City, where the
immigrant population has grown by 80
percent in just 10 years.
“To be able to live in both worlds and
function in them and have an identity in
both of them is really important,”
Cuadros said.
Children of immigrants grasp the
ring
While “some kids have problems” with the
duality, Cuadros said, others thrive,
mirroring the experience of
second-generation children elsewhere.
“By and large, despite their diversity
of class and national origins, members
of the new second generation in South
Florida and Southern California are
doing well: performing better
academically than their native-parentage
peers, graduating from high school and
going on to college (where many are
still enrolled), speaking accentless
English, working hard at their first
jobs, taking steps toward independent
entrepreneurship, and beginning to form
families of their own,” they write in
“Immigrant America: A New Portrait.”
Across the board, the second generation
is seizing that opportunity:
In the Ivy League, 41 percent of all
black freshmen are from African and
Caribbean families, who make up only 13
percent of the overall black population,
researchers at Princeton University and
the University of Pennsylvania found.
Among second-generation Hispanics,
education is a priority, according to a
nationwide study by the Public Policy
Institute of California. Only 10 percent
of second-generation adults have not
graduated from high school, it found,
compared with 38 percent of their
first-generation parents. That is better
than the population as whole, according
to the U.S. Education Department, which
said 14 percent of all American adults
do not have high school diplomas.
While Hispanic immigrants as a whole
vote less often than the overall
population, the proportion of voters
among second-generation Hispanics is
rising rapidly, according to a 10-year
study of immigrant achievement in
California by researchers at the
University of Southern California. By
2030, “all other things being equal, the
overall share who are active voters
would be expected to be substantially
above the current level,” indicating a
sharp increase in the “influence of the
Latino population in the political
process,” the researchers predicted.
‘Increasingly ... the
mainstream’
In “Inheriting the City,” Philip
Kasinits of CUNY and three colleagues
argue that children of recent immigrants
have a unique opportunity to blend
traditional and “Americanized” ways,
“keeping some elements and discarding
others as they go along.”
“This biculturalism in no way prevents
their joining the ‘mainstream,’” they
found. “Indeed, in their cultural,
economic, and social activities, the
children of immigrants increasingly are
the mainstream.”
Portes — himself an immigrant from Cuba
— acknowledged that “some people may
lament” America’s evolution into a
blended society. But the success of the
second generation could kick-start
America's flagging influence in an
ever-globalizing world, he said in an
interview with NBC News .
“There is no nation that more reflects
the globe, the population of the world,
than the United States,” he said. “I
think it is a source of strength and
cultural vigor.”
At Dumbarton Middle School, Principal
Nancy Fink said all parents, native and
immigrant, should welcome the
transformation.
Referring to columnist Thomas L.
Friedman’s contention that a globalized
society flattens economic and cultural
differences, Fink said: “Parents are
very aware that their children will be
living in a flat world. So the more
experiences they have with children who
are different than them, the better.”
