Book Review: Unresolved Identities: Discourse, Ambivalence, and Urban Immigrant Students by Bic Ngo (original) (raw)
Related papers
2014
This dissertation explores how Latino immigrant youth make sense out of their educational experience, identity, and sense of belonging in an urban, public high school. This critical ethnography examines their social interactions. The youth live in a segregated neighborhood that is largely abandoned by policy-makers and recently impacted by massive school closures by the district. The youth, within the context of a community-school partnership, advocate for immigrant rights, march in solidarity with their teachers, and engage in organizing to transcend their immigration status and/or achievement status. The central question is: How do Latino immigrant youth in a community-school experience identity formation in relation to community belonging? Across a traveling field, I interviewed youth to deepen the understanding of their identity formation as they encounter the community-school partnership. The chapters of this dissertation reveal the multiple ways in which youth identity forms. The analysis here builds upon previous sociological studies of racial/ethnic identity and its interaction with student achievement and moves away from cultural-deficit models as explanations of racial/ethnic minority under-achievement. In addition, the analysis here highlights the positive social identities that emerge for students involved in the community-school programs. This is a key contribution as it emphasizes the role of community-school partnerships on social identity production. In this study youth position themselves as xii agents of social change. Youth interpret community as a set of social relations across spaces, e.g. a protest at the Board of Education headquarters and an act of civil disobedience in an intersection. This study asserts that youth from low-income communities can transcend the labels from their immigration or racial/ethnic status, or their perceived propensity for failure. By highlighting moments of youth organizing and their articulations of justice, it is evident they engage in critical thinking beyond what their achievement data reveals. The data lead us to consider how schools often fail to reward social identities and alternative pedagogic spaces-provided through communityschool partnerships-such as a protest or a service trip, but there exists cultural and symbolic value when asserting a particular social identity. The research offers insight into the disconnection between how institutional forces and policies situate youth and then abandon or intervene through false assumptions. I suggest we build on youth's knowledge and assets.
Educational Studies, 2017
This article sheds light on the educational trajectories of undocumented youth who engage in forms of organizing through a community-school partnership in an urban public school in Chicago. Drawing on data from an ethnographic study in an urban public high school, readers learn that undocumented youth gain a positive sense of identity and belonging to their school and community by participating in a community-based after-school program called The Dream Act Club. First, the article argues that undocumented youth participation in community organizing helps them make sense of their identity in relation to the larger community and societal context. Second, the article argues that social spaces like The Dream Act Club provide networks of support and what Levinson calls (2001) “intimate cultures,” enabling undocumented youth to accomplish two things (a) critique and dismantle negative stereotypes around the undocumented status that are perpetuated through the media and political figures on a larger scale, and through school-based personnel perceptions’ of undocumented youth on a local, school level; and, (b) critique larger immigration policies through community organizing ef- forts. By situating these powerful narratives of undocumented youth in the context of current issues in immigration policy, I (they/we) can write against the negative discourses that circulate in the national immigration debate in the United States about undocumented youth. These narratives enable us to consider the voices and needs of undocumented youth through their eyes. Their narratives challenge educators, researchers, and policy-makers to humanize the complicated identity formation processes in contentious political climates to better understand their social worlds and impoverished realities.
From Nation to Race: The Americanization of Immigrants in a High School of the 1990s
1996
An ethnographic study in an urban high school in California examines the ways in which immigrant students adapt in a community that is becoming increasingly multicultural. Individual biographies explored the shaping of self and each other for 10 female students and 5 teachers. Interviews and day to day observations were used to gain a picture of the school. The story of the high school is really the story of three seemingly different worlds, represented by recent immigrants (English-as-a-Second-Language students), the other students, and the faculty and administration. The division of the school community into these three groups is brought about by the marginalization and separation of immigrant students academically, the requirement that they become English-speaking and drop their native languages in order to participate in the academic and social life of the school, and the insistent pressure to find and take a place in the racial hierarchy of the United States. The grim reality is that those students who do not speak English well are tracked, separated, provided with inadequate instruction and instructional materials, and denied access to core content areas. There are no simple solutions to these obstacles. (SLD)
From nation to race : the Americanization of immigrants in the high school of the 1990s
1995
An ethnographic study in an urban high school in California examines the ways in which immigrant students adapt in a community that is becoming increasingly multicultural. Individual biographies explored the shaping of self and each other for 10 female students and 5 teachers. Interviews and day to day observations were used to gain a picture of the school. The story of the high school is really the story of three seemingly different worlds, represented by recent immigrants (English-as-a-Second-Language students), the other students, and the faculty and administration. The division of the school community into these three groups is brought about by the marginalization and separation of immigrant students academically, the requirement that they become English-speaking and drop their native languages in order to participate in the academic and social life of the school, and the insistent pressure to find and take a place in the racial hierarchy of the United States. The grim reality i...
Imaginary Community of the Mainstream Classroom: Adolescent Immigrants' Perspectives
The Urban Review, 2011
In this paper, I explore the perspectives of three adolescent Mexican English language Learners regarding their high school English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom experiences within an urban city in the southwestern part of the U.S. An additional purpose is to demonstrate how the three student participants did or did not invest their identities into the imagined communities of the mainstream program. The paper focuses on two major themes: (1) The ESL classroom provided a socially comfortable learning environment with little cognitively challenging material, and (2) The ESL class/program did not meet students' expectations for their future careers. Due to the students' disillusionment with the ESL program, despite its many strengths, they projected their hopes onto an imagined community of the mainstream program. This research can be of use to both teachers and researchers interested in understanding adolescent immigrants' perspectives on their ESL schooling experiences. Keywords ESL Á Students' perspectives Á Imagined communities Á Identity engagement Imaginary Community of the Mainstream Classroom: Adolescent Immigrants' Perspectives For many years, academic literature on adolescent immigrant students was scarce, with the majority of the research focusing on elementary immigrant students (Faltis and Coulter 2007; Gunderson 2007). This is understandable considering two-thirds of the immigrant population in school is at the elementary level (Callahan 2005).
Immigrant student identities: how Bakhtin and Hermans'' theories conceptualize their fluidity
Journal of Globalization Studies, 2016
This essay discusses how Bakhtin's conception of double-voicedness and cultural identities, along with Hermans's theories of I-positionality and subjectivities, helps frame researchers' characterization of immigrant students' complex and fluid identities. This age of globalization has increased the number and dimensions of positions anyone can assume. Immigrant identities, particularly students, can especially be conceptualized as dynamic and in flux, fluctuating between at least two cultural positions. Sometimes their transnational identities can be conceived as hybridized and dialogic between these cultural norms.
International Journal of Literacy, Culture, and Language Education
Identity is an issue that everyone struggles with on a daily basis while constantly changing, adapting, and becoming agents of the social spheres in which we participate. At large, a society and its social demands mold us into becoming agents of that society. Literacy and education are at the heart of this social molding, from within the family sphere to the larger social spheres. But how can one reformat all the sociocultural training he/she has received in order to adapt to a new social sphere and simply change, lose, and gain identity? These questions are significant to multicultural societies such as US and Canada, and even more prevalent with respect to immigrant populations. Using autoethnographical data and literature in this area, this paper discusses the issues of immigrant identity and literacy in twofold: a) the lack of attention to immigration and acculturation phenomena; b) the importance of understanding immigrant students’ experiences and the need for diversification ...
2018
Among the children of immigrants in the United States, the children of migrant farmworkers are at significant risk of not finishing high school. These children deal with challenging socioeconomic conditions specific to their migratory lifestyle and living situations, which negatively impact their schooling experience. Migrant families' cultural diversity plays a significant role in the adjustment and integration of migrant students in schools as they transition into a host educational community. Conflicts between migrant families and schools sometimes occur because of cultural differences regarding the characteristics of interpersonal relationships, standards of behavior, students' cultural identity, and the objectives of education. This qualitative study examines cultural aspects that Latino migrant students describe as part of their cultural identity, including their experiences as migrants and participants in Oregon Migrant Education Program. The aim is to illustrate the cultural elements that Latino migrant students consider when making academic or professional choices after high school.