Cynthia Feliciano

Educational Selectivity in U.S. Immigration: How Do Immigrants Compare to Those Left Behind?

Current immigration research has revealed little about how immigrants compare to those who do not migrate. Although most scholars agree that migrants are not random samples of their home countries’ populations, the direction and degree of educational selectivity is not fully understood. This study of 32 U.S. immigrant groups found that although nearly all immigrants are more educated than those who remain in their home countries, immigrants vary substantially in their degree of selectivity, depending upon the origin country and the timing of migration. Uncovering patterns of immigrant selectivity reveals the fallacy in attributing immigrants’ characteristics to national groups as a whole and may help explain socioeconomic differences among immigrant groups in the United States.

Gendered Paths: Educational and Occupational Expectations and Outcomes Among Adult Children of Immigrants

Abstract This article examines young adults’ educational and occupational trajectories over a ten-year period using panel data from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study in California. While many of the young men and women in the study are on straightforward paths to socio-economic success, others are falling well short of their goals and imagined futures. Males begin with lower educational and occupational expectations than females in junior high school, and are also less likely to translate high expectations into realities in early adulthood. While some occupational choices remain traditionally gendered, females are more likely than males to aspire to and to attain the highest status occupations, even those that are male-dominated. Early educational expectations are important predictors of subsequent success for both males and females. But determinants of outcomes differ significantly for men and women, showing how paths are segmented not only by class and ethnicity, but also by gender.

Will the new second generation experience ‘downward assimilation’? Segmented assimilation re-assessed

Research on the “new second generation” in the United States has been deeply influenced by the hypothesis of “segmented assimilation”, which contends that the children of immigrants are at risk of downward mobility into a “new rainbow underclass”. This article seeks to assess that assertion, focusing on the experience of Mexicans, the overwhelmingly largest of today’s second-generation groups, and a population of predominantly working- or lower-class origins. The empirical component of this article rests on analysis of a combined sample of the 1996–2001 Current Population Survey.

The Benefits of Biculturalism: Exposure to Immigrant Culture and Dropping out of School among Asian and Latino Youths

Objective. This study examines how retaining an immigrant culture affects school dropout rates among Vietnamese, Koreans, Chinese, Filipinos, Japanese, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans. Methods. I use 1990 Census data to analyze how language use, household language, and presence of immigrants in the household affect dropping out of school. Results. Overall, I found that these measures have similar effects on these diverse groups: bilingual students are less likely to drop out than English‐only speakers, students in bilingual households are less likely to drop out than those in English‐dominant or English‐limited households, and students in immigrant households are less likely to drop out than those in nonimmigrant households. Conclusions. These findings suggest that those who enjoy the greatest educational success are not those who have abandoned their ethnic cultures and are most acculturated. Rather, bicultural youths who can draw resources from both the immigrant community and mainstream society are best situated to enjoy educational success.

Education and Ethnic Identity Formation among Children of Latin American and Caribbean Immigrants

While some scholars argue that ethnic identities influence educational achievement, few studies have examined whether education influences ethnic identity formation. This study uses a longitudinal survey to examine changes in ethnic identities from adolescence to adulthood among children of Latin American and Caribbean immigrants and how educational attainments, and other life experiences, relate to those changes. Contrary to assimilation frameworks suggesting that incorporation into mainstream higher education institutions should lead to greater identification as American or with U.S.-created racial/panethnic categories, such as Latino or black, these findings show that the most educated adult respondents identified with both their countries of origin and the United States, regardless of how they identified as adolescents. This study suggests that educational institutions are important contexts in which racial and ethnic identities are formed.

Assimilation or enduring racial boundaries? Generational differences in intermarriage among Asians and Latinos in the United States

Abstract Are post-1965 Asian and Latino immigrant groups’ assimilation patterns more similar to those of turn-of-the-century European immigrants or African Americans? This study uses intermarriage data as an indicator of assimilation, viewed broadly as the breaking down of group boundaries. Using data from the 1994 to 1998 Current Population Survey (CPS), I find that while first generation Asians, Latinos, and Europeans have similar intermarriage rates, third generation Europeans intermarried much more than third generation Asians or Latinos. Europeans also made much greater gains in intermarriage from the second generation to the third. However, all groups intermarry at much higher rates than African Americans. These findings, which are not explained by age, group size, ethnic solidarity, or education, suggest that the patterns and pace of marital assimilation are quite different for contemporary immigrant groups than for past Europeans or African Americans. I argue that the intermediate nature of the Asian and Latino assimilation patterns reflects these groups’ in-between space on a continuum of ascription, with African Americans, as the most racialized group in the United States, at one end, and descendants of European immigrants at the other.

The Female Educational Advantage among Adolescent Children of Immigrants.

The female advantage in educational achievement is especially puzzling in the case of children of immigrants because it departs from the pattern in most immigrants’ home countries. Using data from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS), this study explores the female advantage in grades and expectations among adolescents and finds that the advantage is limited to youth from lower socioeconomic status immigrant families. In addition, gender disparities stem from educational trajectories in place earlier than eighth grade and are shaped by factors both at home and at school. Compared with girls, boys spend less time on homework and more time watching television, have more negative perceptions of school personnel and more negative peer experiences at school, and are more focused on family relationships, perhaps to the detriment of school relationships. These gendered experiences in families and schools early in life contribute to later educational disparities among children of immigrants.

Internet Daters' Body Type Preferences: Race-Ethnic and Gender Differences

Employing a United States sample of 5,810 Yahoo heterosexual internet dating profiles, this study finds race–ethnicity and gender influence body type preferences for dates, with men and whites significantly more likely than women and non-whites to have such preferences. White males are more likely than non-white men to prefer to date thin and toned women, while African-American and Latino men are significantly more likely than white men to prefer female dates with thick or large bodies. Compatible with previous research showing non-whites have greater body satisfaction and are less influenced by mainstream media than whites, our findings suggest Latinos and African Americans negotiate dominant white idealizations of thin female bodies with their own cultures’ greater acceptance of larger body types.

Shades of Race How Phenotype and Observer Characteristics Shape Racial Classification

Although race-based discrimination and stereotyping can only occur if people place others into racial categories, our understanding of this process, particularly in contexts where observers categorize others based solely on appearance, is limited. Using a unique data set drawn from observers’ assessments of photos posted by White, Black, Latino, and multiracial online daters, this study examines how phenotype and observer characteristics influence racial categorization and cases of divergence between self-identities and others’ classifications. I find that despite the growth in the multiracial population, observers tend to place individuals into monoracial categories, including Latino. Skin color is the primary marker used to categorize others by race, with light skin associated with Whiteness, medium skin with Latinidad, and, most strongly, dark skin with Blackness. Among daters who self-identify as Black along with other racial categories, those with dark skin are overwhelmingly placed solely into a Black category. These findings hold across observers, but the proportion of photos placed into different racial categories differs by observers’ gender and race. Thus, estimates of inequality may vary depending not only on how race is assessed but also on who classifiers are. I argue that patterns of racial categorization reveal how the U.S. racial structure has moved beyond binary divisions into a system in which Latinos are seen as a racial group in-between Blacks and Whites, and a dark-skin rule defines Blacks’ racial options.

An Immigrant Paradox? Contextual Attainment and Intergenerational Educational Mobility:

Numerous studies have revealed a seemingly paradoxical pattern in which, despite cultural differences, unfamiliarity with the educational system, and possible language difficulties, children of immigrants outperform their peers with native-born parents in the U.S. educational system. We problematize the notion of an immigrant paradox in education by broadening our conceptualization of social class background, and introducing the concept of contextual attainment to capture the geographic and historical contexts in which education is completed. Analyzing nationally representative longitudinal survey data combined with international educational data, we show that, for immigrant parents, contextual attainments vary between and within countries of origin and often diverge from post-migration socioeconomic statuses. Parental contextual attainment helps explain why, net of standard family socioeconomic status measures, most groups of immigrants’ children complete more years of schooling than do White Americans with native-born parents. Moreover, considering parental contextual attainment leads to a rethinking of intergenerational educational mobility patterns for adults with immigrant parents. We argue that contextual attainment captures the noneconomic benefits of higher class background that help explain how intergenerational educational inequalities are reproduced.