How Community Matters for the After-school Life of Immigrant Children

April 24, 2001

: Structural Constraints and Resources in Inner City Neighborhoods

On April 24, 2001, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace International Migration Policy Program hosted Min Zhou, Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of California and author of several publications related to Asian-Americans, immigrant children, and urban sociology. Zhou presented preliminary findings from a study she and her colleagues conducted on how social structures in immigrant communities affect the educational development of children. The study, called "How Community Matters for Immigrant Children: Structural Resources and Constraints in Inner-City Neighborhoods," focused on three immigrant enclaves in Los Angeles, California. Demetri Papademetriou, co-director of the International Migration Policy Program, acted as moderator.

Demetri Papademetriou introduced the speaker. Min Zhou is professor of sociology at UCLA, and is currently completing an Office of Educational Research & Improvement (OERI) Fellowship at the Department of Education.

Zhou explained that the study focused on the social structures affecting immigrant children and after-school activities. The ethnic organizational density in communities shapes the after-school life of immigrant children. Many school children spend three hours a day, between the hours of 3:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m., at home alone or on the streets. 8 to 12 million children in the United States are unsupervised between these hours. Statistically, these children are more likely than others to earn poor grades, turn to crime, and drop out of school. However, less than 20 percent of the demand for after-school programs is met by publicly funded programs, and even less in inner-city areas.

The situation is even more daunting in immigrant families, since many immigrant parents must work multiple jobs or shifts. Immigrant neighborhoods are often plagued by problems affiliated with poverty. Also, many immigrant parents depend on their children for negotiating the host environment. Zhou told a story about an immigrant boy who told his non-English speaking parents during a parent-teacher conference that the teacher was giving him a vacation for his excellent schoolwork when in fact the teacher was suspending him. This creates an obstacle for effective parent-teacher communication.

There have been several studies looking at how to organize after-school time constructively, but little attention has been paid to how the neighborhood environment affects children. Zhou focused on this relationship and asked three main research questions:

1. "What types of social structures exist in immigrant neighborhoods, and how and why may they vary by national origin?
2. How do neighborhood-based social structures interact with one another and with national origins to contribute to social capital formation and community building?
3. What types of social relations (with peers, parents, coethnics, neighbors, and local leaders, etc.) do different neighborhood social structures foster, and how may these social relations serve as social capital to affect children's belief in education, their occupational aspiration, and their sense of direction and purpose?"

The study comprised of field work in Los Angeles' Chinatown, Koreatown, and Pico-Union/Westlake District (a Mexican/Central American area). Zhou and her colleagues conducted pre-arranged interviews with 82 teenagers and 30 adults with teenage children and random interviews with 45 teenagers and 60 adults of different professions and types of families. They also carried out non-intrusive field observation, such as watching interaction at street corners and in non-profit organization activities, and participant observations, such as working as volunteers in after-school programs.

Zhou referred to three theories she used as a basis for the research: "Modes of Incorporation," "Social Capital," and "Institutional Completeness."

All three neighborhoods are dominated by people of ethnic or racial minorities with low incomes who are foreign-born. Most adults never completed high school. Whites comprise only 10 percent or less in each enclave.

Zhou found that each neighborhood has a commercial core, and different organizations are located around it. In Chinatown and Koreatown, neighborhood-based organizations and business are generally co-ethnic, meaning that they employ mostly members of their own ethnicity. Also, the owners of businesses are usually Chinese or Korean. In Pico-Union, organizations and businesses are smaller and tend to be less co-ethnic, and the owners may not be from that area and may not be Hispanic.

Non-profit organizations serving youth exist in all three neighborhoods and are mostly inclusive and open to members of several ethnicities. Chinatown and Koreatown have more for-profit organizations than Pico-Union, and they tend to be heavily co-ethnic and exclusive. Zhou noted that the availability of educationally-oriented for-profit organizations is very important to strengthening a constructive neighborhood environment for children.

The ability of the immigrant community to bring back its middle-class alumni also affects the local environment for children. If former residents of the neighborhood who left and climbed the economic ladder into the middle class return to the area, they strengthen the community. However, if they leave and do not return, the area declines. Zhou offered Korean churches as an example of a way to attract former residents and keep them involved. Many middle class Koreans attend church in Koreatown, and their children interact with the Korean children who live in the neighborhood. Unfortunately, in Pico-Union, the poor Latino residents have less interaction with the middle class. Former residents return for a number of reasons, but if the community does not offer services for them they will not come back, and that often signals decline for the community.

Education is an important value in each immigrant community Zhou studied. However, Asian immigrant children have better access to information about how to advance one's education than Latino children. For example, Asian children are more likely to know what SAT score is necessary to get into what universities and what types of activities are important to have on a resume. While there is a desire for education, it must be reinforced through the community structure.

Questions, Answers, Comments

• Papademetriou asked how we can help the people in Pico-Union. Zhou said it is important to promote businesses geared toward education, such as subsidizing them, giving them favorable loans, and educating local ethnic entrepreneurs. She noted that there is no motivation to assist non-co-ethnics.
• An audience member asked about the legal status of people in Pico-Union and how that may affect their education aspirations. Zhou said that many of Pico-Union's residents are undocumented and agreed that it is a major problem. For example, they would have to pay out-of-state tuition, which most could never pay. She added that most Asian-American children do not have to contribute to the family income; they may work, but it is to earn pocket money. However, many of the Latino immigrant children work to supplement the family's income or to send money home. They are just trying to survive. In surveys, the number one priority of Asian-American children was to get an education and become independent. Latino children's number one priority was the family.
• An audience member raised another question about legal status. Zhou said that many Chinese immigrants in New York are undocumented but own their own businesses. They find "alegal" means of ownership, often by using the names and particulars of legally-resident family members.

Summary by Kerry Boyd, Junior Fellow in the International Migration Policy Program