The American journey

About this book

The purpose of my two studies is to expand on the work of past scholars on the field of immigration by examining the psychological and educational adaptations of recently-arrived immigrant children from China, Haiti, and Mexico. The first article examines the ethnic identity adaptations of these recently-arrived immigrant children. Overall, three main types of ethnic identity categories emerged: country of origin (e.g., Chinese), hyphenated (e.g., Chinese American), and pan-ethnic (e.g., Asian or Asian American). These three ethnic identities were examined to assess their relationships with various social and structural variables like age, gender, SES, and school environment. As a whole, only gender, annual household income, and parental educational level were significantly associated with different ethnic identity changes. Analyzed separately by ethnic group, Chinese students' ethnic identity adaptations were influenced by caretaker's educational level, Haitian and Mexican students by gender. The second article investigates the role of school and peer composition and peer attitude and support for academic attainment on the school experiences of immigrant children from China, Haiti, and Mexico. Overall, the study revealed that after controlling for national origin, gender, parental education level, length of US residence, school poverty rate, and percentage of white students in the student body, only percentage of students of same racial background within the student body was found to be a meaningful predictor of educational outcome, measured by grade point average. The effect of peer attitude and peer support on academic achievement, after controlling for background variables, were found to be negligible.