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California's Changing Faces: New Immigrant Survival Strategies and State Policy

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California's Changing Faces: New Immigrant Survival Strategies and State Policy DOCUMENT RESUME ED 369 871 UD 029 875 AUTHOR Smith, Michael Peter; Tarallo, Bernadette TITLE California's Changing Faces: New Immigrant Survival Strategies and State Policy. A Policy Research Program Report. INSTITUTION California Univ., Berkeley. California Policy Seminar. PUB DATE 93 NOTE 195p. AVAILABLE FROM California Policy Seminar, University of California, 2020 Milvia Street, Suite 412, Berkeley, CA 94704 ($20; quantity price negotiable). PUB TYPE Reports Evaluative/Feasibility (142) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC08 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Adjustment (to Environment); Asian Americans; Bilingual Education Programs; Bilingual Teachers; Chinese Americans; *Economic Factors; Ethnic Groups; Ethnography; *Immigrants; Interviews; *Labor Market; Laotians; Life Events; *Low Income Groups; Mexican Americans; *Public Policy; Vietnamese People IDENTIFIERS *California; El Salvador; Mien People ABSTRACT The social practices described and analyzed in this report are based on a 2-year ethnographic study conducted in San Francisco and Sacramento (California) in neighborhoods that are home to five new immigrant groups:(1) Mexicans,(2) Chinese, (3) Vietnamese,(4) Mien (Lao), and (5) undocumented refugees from El Salvador. Interviews with more than two dozen state and local officials and 170 ethnographic interviews identified state and local policies and the realities of immigrants' lives. The stories told by the diverse new immigrants reveal subtle differences in each group's adaptation to the new economic realities that make low-paying jobs harder to find and require that increasing numbers of women work. Among the many policy recommendations is a proposal for the reform of bilingual education programs. Universal access to bilingual education and monitoring and evaluation of existing programs are necessary to ensure that both children and adults have opportunities tolearn English without wasting public resources. Other recommendations concern health care, workplace reforms, and flexible social support programs. (Contains 37 references.) (SLD) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *****************************************************************V***** FIAT L lix A Publication of& PSreportCaliforniaPolicy Seminar 1 THE CALIFORNIA POLICY SEMMAR IS A JOINT PROGRAM OF THE UNIVERSFIT OF CAI1FORNIA AND STATE GOVERNMENT CALIFORNIA'S CHANGING FACES New immigrant Survival Strategies and State Policy Michael Peter Smith and Bernadette Tarallo U.11 DIPARTMENT Of EDUCATION Oft. ot Educaborfol Rablierch and Imprommront EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION c't PMIE,S'ON TO REPRODUCE THI`; CENTER (Erna AA1LRI4 L HIAS BIEN GRANTED BY KThts document has beenfPrOduCed SS ratemo0 from fr.* 12111/sOn of Ortglirretafton ongintmrs9 ) h ci Pknor chsrves haw 0114M made fo 'mom,* reproduction maid y vtic, P0O%I$oft,iot oontons Wausau, mit:loci, The views And opinions msm do nOI MCIIVIMy roormlionl officIal Of RI 13041h0ts of policy vipressed in this report are TO Tc4F, those of the author(s) And do not ;NFORMATQN CENTER ERIC. necescarily represent the California Policy Seminar or the Regents attn. University a California, A Policy Research Program Report 21110 PAM SMELL !WM 412 SIRKEI.EY, CA 44704 OM M24514 WYAYAILABLE CALIFORNIA'S CHANGING FACES New Immigrant Survival Strategies and State Policy Michael Peter Smith and Bernadette Tara llo Department of Applied Behavioral Sciences University of California, Davis California Policy Sepik lar University of California 1993 3 Copyright © 1993 by the Regents of the University of California All rights reserved California Policy Seminar 2020 Milvia Street, Suite 412 Berkeley, CA 94704 (510) 642-5514 FAX: (510) 642-8793 4 About the California Policy Seminar The California Policy Seminar, which funded this study, is a joint program of the University of California and state government that applies university research expertise to state policy concerns. The Seminar sponsors research, conferences, seminars, and publications pertaining to public policy issues in California. The research on which this report was based was commissioned by the Seminar's Policy Research Program. The views and opinions expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the California Policy Seminar or the Regents of the University of California. About the Authors Michael Peter Smith, a political scientist, is a professor of community studies and development, and Bernadette Tarallo, a sociologist, is a lecturer and research associate in the Department of Applied Behavioral Sciences, University of California, Davis. Authors' Acknowledgments This work could not have been completed without the contributions of our multicultural research team. We are especially indebted to Professor Emeritus George Kagiwada, founding chair of Asian-American Studies at UC Davis, for his creative contribution to the design and execution of this research, for coordinating our fieldwork among Chinese, Vietnamese, and Mien respondents, and for his coauthorship of earlier writings based on the study's qualitative data, upon which we drew in analyzing the settlement experiences of Vietnamese and new Chinese immigrants. Thanks are due as well to sociologist Mary Romero, now a professor at the University of Oregon, for her contibutions to the research design and recruitment and training of fieldworkers while she was a postdoctoral President's Fellow at Davis. In addition, we gratefully acknowledge the talent, dedication, and care of our fieldwork team in conducting, translating, and transcribing the ethnographic interviews, and helping us analyze the qualitative data: Luz Perez-Prado, a doctoral candidate in the political economy of development (London School of Economics and Political Science), for her work on the Mexican ethnographies; Cecilia Menjivar, a doctoral candidate in sociology (Davis) at the time of the study, for her work with the Salvadorans; Minh Nguyen and Phuong Thai, undergraduate students in sociology (Davis), for their work on the Vietnamese ethnographies; Jianjun Chen, a graduate student in political science (Davis), and Kathy Xing, a graduate student in business administration (Sacramento State University), for their work on the Chinese ethnographies; and Saeng Saechao, a former GAIN worker among the Mien and current student of criminology (Sacramento State University), for his work on the Mien ethnographies. We also wish to thank five other Davis student research assistants for interviewing, translating, or transcribing: Nhung Le (sociology), Kam Wan (Asian-American studies), Francisco Moran (viticulture), Linh Huynh (agricultural economics), and Daryl Lee (computer science), for transcription and bibliographic work. Thanks also go to graduate student Cindy Chu (sociology), for her work in recruiting Chinese interviewers and advice about the cultural appropriateness of our interview schedule. Our final thanks go to Thuan Nguyen, at the Refugee and Immigration Programs Bureau of the state Department of Social Services, for her help in updating the Appendix. Contents Executive Summary vii Chapter 1 Introduction 1 The Context 1 The Study 2 Methods 4 Structuring the Stories of Diversity 5 Chapter 2 Contemporary Mexican Migration: The Increasing Significance of Gender 7 Becoming Transnational 9 Thrice Migrant: Edit's Story 11 Border less Youth: Norma's Emergent Transnational Identity 14 Work and Family Transformation 17 Work, Mobility and the Renegotiation of Family Life: Maria's Story 18 Workplace Discrimination, Interethnic Conflict, and the Language Trap: Rosa's Story 23 The Increasing Significance of Gender: Implications for State Policy 32 Chapter 3 State Violence and Survival: Voices of Salvadoran Refugees 35 The Weakening of Salvadoran Social Networks in San Francisco 37 The Limits of Kinship and Neighborhood Ties: Alicia 38 Politics, Work, and Displacement: José 43 Political Polarization and Social Support: The Oppositional Network 49 Becoming Oppositional: Sandra 49 Finding Sanctuary: Armando's Sim), 54 From Little Stories to Big Stories: State Policies for Unacknowledged Refugees ..59 Chapter 4 The Two Migrations from Vietnam: Voices of Difference 63 First- and Second-Wave Vietnamese Resettlement Experiences 63 Finding Employment and Using Social Services: Patterns of Difference 65 Between Two Worlds: Huu's Story 70 The Contradictions of Self-Sufficiency: Nhan's Story 78 The Changing Social Relations of Family Life 85 Combatting Intraethnic Violence 88 Understanding "Difference": Formulating State Policy for Vietnamese Refugees .90 Chapter 5 The Iu-Mien Migration to California: A Compressed Transition to Modernity 95 Iu-Mien Traditions 96 The Secret War in Laos and the Production of Mien Refugees 98 The Mien of Sacramento 103 The Unemployed Mien 104 Backgrounds and Camp Experiences 104 Work and Social Service Use As Survival Strategies 106 Family Transformations and Generational Conflict 110 The Working Mien: Similarities and Differences 113 The Time Travelers 117 Kao 117 Saeng 118 Seng 120 The Previously Urbanized Working Mien 121 Learning from Difference: Effective State Policies for Mien Refugees 123 Chapter 6 The New Chinese Immigration: A Wasted Brain Drain? 127 National Origins of the Chinese Immigrants 128 Work and Social Service Use in Sacramento 130 Changing Family Relations 141 Immigrants Helping Immigrants: Wong and Lin 145 Cultivating Immigrant Talent: Matching Work and Skills 154 Chapter 7
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