One of my students (a DREAMer) once asked me why the media so often portrayed immigrants from Latin America as poor and uneducated. Why does that happen? I am not sure, but I remember many years ago when I was at a conference, a young psychiatrist told me that he imagined that I was born at a hospital for indigent people. He was not necessarily saying this to be mean, we were having a conversation about stereotypes. He also told an African American woman in the group that he imagined that her parents had been on drugs. (by the way he was wrong on both counts).
The young DREAMer who asked me has completed college, is regularized and now has a professional job. Her family was middle class in Mexico, but the economic downturn they experienced in the mid 1990s (related to the government of Carlos Salinas Gortari) forced them to leave the country.
It is true that many of the people that come from Mexico do not have much education. That problem is totally related to the way education is set up in that country. It is extremely difficult to get past middle school in Mexico. Many towns do not have high schools. There is so much poverty that children have to stop studying and go to work to support their families.
Even so, once families arrive in the U.S., their children excel. In my college classes, the students who try the hardest and take their education most seriously are the immigrant students... Why is this? Because they bring a work ethic that is better than what we have here in the U.S.
Educational level has much to do with opportunity. Opportunity is related to how people see you. If your teachers think Mexicans are dumb, and you are Mexican, then watch out. There have been many studies conducted that show students act the way their teachers expect them to act.
Students of Mexican descent have had a particularly difficult time in school because at least in the south and in the west, there have been so many negative assumptions about "Mexican" people.... We are supposed to be passive, not very bright, gullible etc. Believe me, that isn't true at all....
p.s. I was born at a private Catholic hospital in Houston. My parents were not poor. I had an maternal uncle who had a masters degree. My mother and grandmothers were never maids. None of the men in my family were gardeners. My maternal grandfather was fluently bilingual (English and Spanish) and was a soldier in WWI and my father and all my uncles fought in WWII. Most of the family was middle class or working class, with one great grandfather on my father's side who was a millionaire before he lost most of it in the Great Depression. My mother's family has been in what is now the U.S. since the 1750s. The family name is Paredes.
Of the cousins I grew up with on my mother's side, 8 of the 9 cousins have at least bachelor's degrees. One is a lawyer, one is a physician, and one is college professor. The families who produced these educated people were not rich. They just worked hard and wanted their kids to go to school. So much for stereotypes about "Mexicans."
------------
Even so, once families arrive in the U.S., their children excel. In my college classes, the students who try the hardest and take their education most seriously are the immigrant students... Why is this? Because they bring a work ethic that is better than what we have here in the U.S.
Educational level has much to do with opportunity. Opportunity is related to how people see you. If your teachers think Mexicans are dumb, and you are Mexican, then watch out. There have been many studies conducted that show students act the way their teachers expect them to act.
Students of Mexican descent have had a particularly difficult time in school because at least in the south and in the west, there have been so many negative assumptions about "Mexican" people.... We are supposed to be passive, not very bright, gullible etc. Believe me, that isn't true at all....
p.s. I was born at a private Catholic hospital in Houston. My parents were not poor. I had an maternal uncle who had a masters degree. My mother and grandmothers were never maids. None of the men in my family were gardeners. My maternal grandfather was fluently bilingual (English and Spanish) and was a soldier in WWI and my father and all my uncles fought in WWII. Most of the family was middle class or working class, with one great grandfather on my father's side who was a millionaire before he lost most of it in the Great Depression. My mother's family has been in what is now the U.S. since the 1750s. The family name is Paredes.
Of the cousins I grew up with on my mother's side, 8 of the 9 cousins have at least bachelor's degrees. One is a lawyer, one is a physician, and one is college professor. The families who produced these educated people were not rich. They just worked hard and wanted their kids to go to school. So much for stereotypes about "Mexicans."
------------
Immigrantes de alto nivel educativo
- Isaías Alvarado/isaias.alvarado@laopinion.com |
- 2010-10-06
- La Opinión
El estudio destaca la tenacidad de los inmigrantes, especialmente los que tienen estudios universitarios. LA OPINION
Fruto de su trabajo incansable en distintos sectores, dos de sus hijos no sólo terminaron la carrera de ingeniería civil en aquel país, sino que vinieron a Los Ángeles a continuar sus estudios de maestría en una universidad privada.
"Me siento orgulloso de ello y de poder compartir sus vidas", afirma Pinzón, quien actualmente se dedica al negocio de las ventas en el Sur de California. "También tengo una hija que es estudiante de arquitectura en el Colegio de la Ciudad Long Beach", dice.
---
No comments:
Post a Comment