Education, Upward Mobility and loss of Identity

“The New Second Generation: Segmented Assimilation and Its Variants” by Portes and Zhou was an enjoyable read because a lot of the conclusions the authors reached through observation of specific communities were some of the same I had reached in my own life experiences. With the example of “Valleyside” High School (a made up name used to protect individuals interviewed) it was particularly interesting that the Punjabi students excelled academically in spite of the racism they faced, unlike in the previous example with Mexicans in “Field” High School. Punjabis disregarded opposition from the white majority and instead dedicated themselves to education, in a way, to prove themselves academically. It was interesting that a portion of the Mexicans, “Chicanos”, disregarded education because to them academics was something for the white majority and to dedicate themselves to school would be equivalent to losing their culture.  In my opinion, this notion is quite false and I’m not too sure why it is a popular idea to Chicanos. As stated in the example of Valleyside, Punjabi kids were told by their parents to do well in school but still retain their culture and roots, and to not give in to “American” social pressures of dating and the like. It seems the Punjabi students prove it is possible to achieve upward mobility though education without a complete loss of identity in America. To me, it seems like an excuse to pair “whiteness” with academics in the case of the “Chicanos” as they are called in Field HS. My parents act in the same way the Punjabi parents do: they emphasize education because they are subjected to less well-paying jobs because of their lack of college degrees (which was a point made in the article, the huge gap between first immigrants and their offspring’s employment possibilities) but they still don’t want me to lose sight of the past, of the history of the family, and the culture and traditions that are only capable of being threatened if ignored in vigorous pursuit of an American dream.