“Breaking Through,” Series on Children of Immigrants, Featured in Education Week

Today, Education Week featured my series on the children of immigrants in California. “Breaking Through” tells the stories of a number of naturalized immigrant children who are fighting for social ascension against a number of barriers. The stories are based in Los Angeles and the farm-worker city of Delano in the San Joaquin Valley. The series focuses on how the children of immigrants climb the social ladder and includes an interactive graphic detailing the factors influencing social mobility, according to educational theorists Alejandro Portes and Ruben G. Rumbaut.

• Watch the introduction to the series, featuring 15-year old Yesenia Zamarripas (LAUSD) and 16 year-old Omar Viramontes (Delano, Calif.)
• Read “Breaking Through: the Children of Immigrants in California and Social Mobility” - an overview of the impediments to social ascension for children in California during a time of economic turmoil.
• Watch and Listen to “Humble Roots, High Aspirations” - the story of a farm worker family in Delano and how struggle has become a motivational force.
• Watch “Pushing the Barriers” - the story of 15 year-old Yesenia Zamarripas, a student with Mexican, Spanish-speaking parents struggling to find extra support in the LAUSD.
• Interact with a graphic detailing Portes and Rumbaut’s “Factors Affecting Social Mobility.”
• Read the facts and figures about the LAUSD, the Delano Unified School District and California State.

Tags: children, Education, English, high school, Immigrant, Immigration, Language, Los Angeles, School