I thought an interesting concept raised in the readings for this week was the impact education has on the assimilation process of second-generation immigrants as well the influence it has on immigrants forming an identity for themselves. In the Butterfield piece, which examines the racial and ethnic identities of West Indians, school is where second generation West Indians first learned what their “blackness” meant. In the Lopez article, she regards education as both the “biggest individual challenge” facing second generation immigrants as they grow up and the “most institutional sorting mechanism” in determining their life trajectories.
In her documentation of West Indian second generation immigrants, Butterfield discovered that their racial identities lead to discrimination and limit their possibilities. For instance, West Indian accents led some teachers to believe they were uneducated and gave the teachers incentive to hold them back a grade. One West Indian man recalled being the only one to raise his hand in class when a teacher asked a question a number of times and getting ignored each time. Moreover, in parent teacher conferences this same teacher called out the student on not participating enough. School was where these second generation immigrants were singled out for speaking and dressing funny and ultimately where they realized that they were different.
Amidst her other points regarding education for second generation Dominicans in her article, Lopez delves into the limitations they face as a result of school districting. Districting for these children forces them to go to schools that are not considered to be good schools, in fact they are quite the contrary. These schools are negative environments with the majority of the student population uninterested in receiving a good education. Furthermore, underpaid teachers and lack of resources can further contribute to the downward spiral second generation immigrants may face when they go to these schools.
For better or worse, the education environment these second generation immigrants are entered into have a significant influence in shaping an identity for them. To avoid some of the limitations and discrimination their children may face in public schools, West Indian parents may look to private school as a costly alternative or specialized high schools. Yet even this is not a suitable cure for some West Indian students as the majority white student population in private schools and the few West Indian students in specialized high schools emphasize their apparent differences even further. Districting can be very problematic in that it can have a huge contribution in the assimilation path many second generation immigrants may end up taking. In most instances, poor regional high schools may doom an immigrant child to downward assimilation.
