Learning a New Land: Immigrant Students in American Society

by Suarez-Orozco, Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco, Irina Todorova

One child in five in America is the child of immigrants, and their numbers increase each year. Very few will return to the country they barely remember. Who are they, and what America do they know?

Based on an extraordinary interdisciplinary study that followed 400 newly arrived children from the Caribbean, China, Central America, and Mexico for five years, this book provides a compelling account of the lives, dreams, and frustrations of these youngest immigrants. Richly told portraits of high and low achievers are packed with unexpected ironies. When they arrive, most children are full of optimism and a respect for education. But poor neighborhoods and dull--often dangerous--schools can corrode hopes. The vast majority learn English--but it is the English of video games and the neighborhood, not that of standardized tests.

For some of these children, those heading off to college, America promises to be a land of dreams. These lucky ones have often benefited from caring mentors, supportive teachers, or savvy parents. For others, the first five years are marked by disappointments, frustrations, and disenchantment. How can we explain their varied academic journeys?

The children of immigrants, here to stay, are the future--and how they adapt will determine the nature of America in the twenty-first century.

Genres: Education, Immigration, Nonfiction, Teaching, Grad School

440 pages, Paperback

First published February 28, 2008

Reviews

[Diz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book explores the challenges that immigrant students face in the American school system. The first half of the book provides details on the research that was conducted for this book. This section is a bit dry. The second half of the book relates case studies of individual students. This section provides both successful and unsuccessful students. It's quite sad to read about the students who were not able to succeed.

[Becka Ramaglia · Rating 4 out of 5]

While some of the statistical aspects were a bit dry to read, I really appreciated this study done over a vast time, in many states in the US.
This book touches on the variety of immigrants and their struggles with separation, integration, and how the children fair in schools with English as a second language.
The gist is America as the great melting pot needs to adjust how we assess and teach with the increase of immigration!

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Based on a longitudinal research study, this book illustrates a variety of experiences of immigrant children and families. It was enjoyable to read and I learned a lot.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the ethnographies themselves were very interesting, I would have liked to see the student voice incorporated throughout the text rather than isolated in the second portion of the book. Although clearly well researched (a 5-year, multidimensional study with an unfathomably large number of data sources), there were some errors in the charts and the early part of the book read like a textbook. Also, the rationale for including the ethnographic descriptions of the four school sites, while interesting, did not seem to be clearly justified by the authors. I also did not understand why the slow and precipitous decliners were lumped together into one chapter when these students made up over 50% of the total sample. The improvers and high achievers, who made up much smaller portions of the overall sample, each received their own chapter. As someone who is studying what can be done to improve education for those who are neglected, I would have enjoyed seeing a little more information about the lowest students.

[Sarah F · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read a lot of books this first year of grad school, but this is easily my favorite read. This book is the result of a comprehensive landmark five-year study following approximately 400 immigrant students in several parts of the country. The amount of data collected is simply astounding, with everything from students language proficiency scores throughout the study; their opinions towards schooling, immigration, their parents, their hopes and fears; parents opinions about the changes their children were going through and their own hopes and dreams for their children; teachers views on their students; school demographics. Four schools were profiled in detail - down to the cleanliness of the bathrooms. The students were broken down into sections - declining achievers, low achievers, improvers, high achievers - with each chapter containing at least four in-depth portraits of students who fit into each category.

I cannot imagine how you could read this book and not look at the world differently afterward.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author gave a great deal of statistical information in this book, but only chose two regions of the country to draw from and only 5 immigrant groups. The author left out African communities and did not go into much detail on Eastern Europeans, so in my opinion the data was skewed. The overview of the chosen immigrant groups was well detailed and followed. I would recommend this book to analyse the needs of those communities. However, I would not consider this a good overview of immigrant children in general.

[Edgar]

I started reading this book for my honors thesis on undocumented immigrant youth. There is not a lot of work done on the lives of undocumented youth, and this book has extensive research on the lives of Mexican, Chinese, and Haitian immigrant youth. Most of the immigrnt youth did not choose to migrate, so it's important to understand how they become socialized into American society.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent book for those interested in wanting to know the experiences of second language learners in the United States. The book does a good job of balancing one of the most relevant issues in 21st century education with the experiences of the students, teachers, and parents. A moving book that is a must-read for all teachers and alike.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting study of immigrant youth in San Fran and Boston. We made a visual graph of the students studied and it was interesting to view the correlations between students and their success in school (family status, school environment, English language ability, etc.).

[Kevin Hartzog · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book that describes what new immigrant students have to deal with in education in the USA

[Erendira]

LC3746 .S83 2008

[Jeff La Marca]

non-fiction,special education

[DR. TRINCHERO]

I am about one chapter into this book. I found the first chapter interesting and informative. I just haven't felt like reading it lately, so I am behind.

[Kim]

Only made it halfway through. Lost my momentum and was hard to recover.

Great, clear writing style for academic material. Impeccable research.