Immigrant Children: Introducing the Issue

Immigrant Children: Introducing the Issue Immigrant Children: Introducing the Issue Marta Tienda and Ron Haskins arge numbers of immigrant aging society that will require unprecedented children are experiencing seri- social expenditures for health and retirement ous problems with education, benefits for seniors. Third, large numbers of physical and mental health, these youth now live in communities where poverty, and assimilation into few foreign-born residents have previously LAmerican society. The purpose of this volume settled. That more than 5 million youth now is to examine the well-being of these children reside in households of mixed legal status, and what might be done to improve their where one or both parents are unauthor- educational attainment, health status, social ized to live and work in the United States, and cognitive development, and long-term heightens still further the uncertainty about prospects for economic mobility. the futures of immigrant children.3 Although nearly three-fourths of children who live The well-being of immigrant children is with undocumented parents are citizens by especially important to the nation because birth, their status as dependents of unauthor- they are the fastest-growing segment of the ized residents thwarts integration prospects U.S. population. In 2008, nearly one in four during their crucial formative years.4 Even youth aged seventeen and under lived with having certifiably legal status is not enough to an immigrant parent, up from 15 percent in guarantee children’s access to social programs 1990.1 Among children younger than nine, if parents lack information about child ben- those with immigrant parents have accounted efits and entitlements, as well as the savvy to for virtually all of the net growth since 1990.2 navigate complex bureaucracies. What these demographic trends portend for the future of immigrant children, however, In this volume, we use the term immigrant is highly uncertain for several reasons. First, youth to refer to children from birth to age whether they achieve social integration and seventeen who have at least one foreign-born economic mobility depends on the degree of parent. Because an immigrant child’s birth- access they have to quality education from place—that is, whether inside or outside the preschool through college. Second, these United States—is associated with different young immigrants are coming of age in an rights and responsibilities and also determines Marta Tienda is the Maurice P. During ’22 Professor in Demographic Studies and a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University. Ron Haskins is a senior editor of The Future of Children, a senior fellow in economic studies and co-director of the Center on Children and Families at the Brookings Institution, and a senior consultant at the Annie E. Casey Foundation. VOL. 21 / NO. 1 / SPRING 2011 3 Marta Tienda and Ron Haskins eligibility for some social programs, to the to seventeen living in families that speak extent possible contributors to the volume a language other than English rose from 9 distinguish between youth who are foreign- percent in 1979 to 21 percent in 2008. Of born (designated the first generation) and these youth in non-English-language house- those who were born in the United States to holds, who represent 5 percent of all school- immigrant parents (the second generation). aged youth in the United States, nearly one U.S.-born children whose parents also were in four speaks English with difficulty.8 Youth born in the United States make up the third reared in homes where English is not spoken generation.5 lag behind native youth in reading and math achievement, especially if their parents have The Problem little education. We underscore that it is the Contemporary immigrant youth are far more combination of poor parental schooling and diverse by national origin, socioeconomic not using English at home that is associated status, and settlement patterns than earlier waves of immigrants, and their growing with poor scholastic outcomes for immigrant 9 numbers coincide with a period of high socio- minority youth. economic inequality.6 Recent economic and social trends provide cause for concern. On most social indicators, children with immi- Recent economic and social grant parents fare worse than their native- trends provide cause for born counterparts. For example, compared with their third-generation age counterparts, concern. On most social immigrant youth are more likely to live in indicators, children with poverty, forgo needed medical care, drop out of high school, and experience behavioral immigrant parents fare 7 problems. At the same time, however, immi- worse than their native-born grant youth are more likely than natives to reside with two parents, a family arrangement counterparts. generally associated with better outcomes for youth than is residing with a single parent. The benefits of this protective family arrange- Historically immigrants have used schools ment, however, are weakened for immigrant not only to acquire the skills and knowledge youth whose parents are not proficient in needed for successful integration into U.S. English, are not authorized to live and work society, but also, paradoxically, to achieve in the United States, and have only limited ethnic recognition. Even as the children of earnings capacity. German, Italian, and Russian immigrants learned English and adopted American The academic progress of the large majority norms decades ago, their parents rallied of immigrant youth residing in households whose members speak a language other around foreign-language instruction and 10 than English lags behind that of children bilingualism as a symbol of national identity. whose parents were born in the United Although contemporary immigrants largely States. According to the U.S. Department hail from Latin America and Asia rather of Education, the share of children aged five than from Europe, similar scenes play out 4 THE FUTURE OF CHILDREN Immigrant Children: Introducing the Issue today in disputes between parents and school of English and their home language, home administrators about whether schools are language loss is virtually complete by the third responsible for maintenance of home lan- generation, even in cities such as Los Angeles guages and in the enactment of public laws where the density of foreign-born populations that declare English the nation’s official lan- permits bilingualism to proliferate in public guage. A crucial difference, however, is that venues.13 What is not debatable is the respon- the educational requirements for successful sibility of public schools to teach English so economic integration are higher now than in that immigrant youth can succeed in school. the past, when basic literacy and numeracy Pragmatically, that responsibility requires often provided entry to secure jobs that paid effective teaching of academic subjects in a family wage. Today, failure to master En- English so that students master increasingly glish in the early grades undermines scholas- complex concepts and vocabulary. tic achievement, educational attainment, and, ultimately, economic mobility.11 Researchers disagree about whether it is more effective to teach English to non- Although researchers and policy analysts English speakers through bilingual instruc- agree that the educational attainment of tion or English immersion. Indeed, in the immigrants rises between the first and the debate over the better means to reach the second generation, they are divided over end—academic achievement—the means whether educational gains plateau or per- sometimes becomes an end in itself. In their haps even decline for the third generation article in this volume, Margarita Calderón, and beyond.12 The debate over that question Robert Slavin, and Marta Sánchez assert remains largely academic because method- that the pedagogical strategy is less conse- ological and data problems prevent a defini- quential than the quality of instruction, but tive adjudication. Nor do studies of multiple this message has been slow to reach schools generations of immigrants provide an answer, and districts mired in bureaucratic regula- because the experiences of immigrants dur- tions for serving immigrant youth. Contro- ing the 1960s and 1970s do not reflect the versies about pedagogy aside, evidence is diverse social and economic circumstances incontrovertible that children who begin faced by contemporary immigrant youth. kindergarten with limited proficiency in Although Mexicans are the nation’s largest spoken English fall behind native speakers in immigrant group and the subject of many both reading and math proficiency; more- studies, their experiences cannot be general- over, early achievement gaps widen through ized to all recent immigrant groups, even primary school and carry over to middle those from Latin America. school and beyond.14 Sociologist Min Zhao claims, and we agree, that English mastery Controversy about the most effective way is the single most important prerequisite for to teach children whose first language is not academic success and socioeconomic assimi- English is anything but academic. Ideologi- lation of immigrant children.15 cal and political debates about preserving home languages notwithstanding, both the Analyses of the Early Childhood Longitu- contemporary and historical records show dinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998–99 that regardless of whether immigrant youths (ECLS–K), show that the reading skills of are instructed

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