Asian Americans in Class

Asian Americans in Class

CHARTING THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP AMONG

KOREAN AMERICAN YOUTH

Jamie Lew

FOREWORD BY JEAN ANYON

Teachers College, Columbia University

New York and London
 To Maya

Published by Teachers College Press, 1234 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10027

Copyright © 2006 by Teachers College, Columbia University

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, or any information
storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher.

Portions of the book are reprinted or adapted from “The ‘Other’ Story of Model Minori-
ties: Korean American High School Dropouts in an Urban Context,” by J. Lew, 2004,
Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 35(3), pp. 297–311. Copyright 2004 by the
American Anthropological Association. Reprinted or adapted with permission.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lew, Jamie.
Asian Americans in class : charting the achievement gap among Korean
American youth / Jamie Lew; foreword by Jean Anyon.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-8077-4694-0 (cloth alk. paper) — ISBN 0-8077-4693-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Korean Americans—Education—United States. 2. Children of Immigrants—
Education—United States. 3. Academic Achievement—United States. I. Title.

LC3501.K6L49 2006
371.82995'7073—dc22 2005046747

ISBN-13: ISBN-10:
978-0-8077-4693-6 (paper) 0-8077-4693-2 (paper)
978-0-8077-4694-3 (cloth) 0-8077-4694-0 (cloth)

Printed on acid-free paper

Manufactured in the United States of America

13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
 Contents

Foreword by Jean Anyon vii

Acknowledgments ix

1. Matters of Class, Race, Ethnicity, and Schools:

A Structural Analysis of Asian American Achievement 1

Post-1965 Asian Americans: Changing Demographics 1

Co-Ethnic Networks, Social Capital, and Class 6
School Context: Significance of Institutional Resources 7
Becoming American: Salience of Class, Race, and
Ethnicity 10
Asian Americans as a Model Minority:
Revisiting the Stereotype 13
Post-1965 Korean Americans: Nationwide and
in New York City 14
Research Sites and Methods 16
Organization of the Book 20

PART I
Growing Up with Immigrant Parents: Parental Strategies
and Co-Ethnic Networks 23

2. Magnet High’s Korean American Students:

Parental and Co-Ethnic Support 27

Parental Expectations: Education as a Long-Term

Investment 27
Parental Strategies: Class, Social Capital, and Schooling
Resources 32
Role of the Korean Church: Reinforcing Values of Education,
Language, and Ethnic Ties 33
Schooling Information and Support 38

v
vi Contents

3. Korean American High School Dropouts: Alone and Isolated 45

Parental Expectations: Limitations of Co-Ethnic Support 45

Parental Strategies: Relying on Public Schools 50
Long-Term Investment in Education Versus Short-Term
Income from Work: Reproduction of Social
and Economic Inequality 55

PART II
Gaining Schooling Resources and Institutional Support:
Peer Networks, Social Capital, and Identities 61

4. Magnet High’s Korean American Students:

Advancing Educational Opportunities 65

Academic High School Context: (Re)constructing

Second-Generation Peer Networks 65
Accessing Schooling and Institutional Resources Through
Second-Generation Peer Networks 71
Role of Second-Generation Peer Networks in Negotiating
Parental Expectations and Identities 76
Becoming American: Class, Race, and Ethnicity 78
Education as a Racial Strategy 83

5. Korean American High School Dropouts:

Overcoming Institutional Barriers 86

Poor, Isolated Urban High Schools: Limited Schooling

and Guidance Support 86
Institutional Barriers to Accessing Schooling and
Institutional Resources 89
Second-Generation Peer Networks: Resisting Failing Schools
Through an Alternate Route 96
Becoming the “Other” Korean: Class, Race, and Ethnicity 98

6. Conclusion: Lessons from Korean American Communities 105

Implications for Education Policy 106

Salience of Race, Ethnicity, and Class 109
Future Research 111

References 113
Index 123
About the Author 133
 Foreword

Stereotypically, Asian Americans are the model minority group, a standard

by which other minorities are measured, and typically found wanting. Many
people assume that Asian American students are uniquely prepared for rig-
orous academics by a homogeneous Asian culture and are therefore uni-
formly educationally triumphant, supported throughout by parents who
have worked their way from immigrant poverty to economic comfort.
Jamie Lew’s book powerfully interrupts these traditional beliefs. She
points out, for example, that many Asian American families in the United
States are poor: They are almost twice as likely as White families to live in
poverty; almost one in four Asian American families earned less than $25,000
in 2000. In New York City, where Lew’s research is based, approximately
24% of Asian American children lived in poverty in 2003.
The research at the heart of this myth-challenging book is a qualitative
study of Korean high school students and their peer networks, families, and
schools. Lew’s study reveals that significant support in these areas is crucial
to student success. She found that Asian American students’ academic achieve-
ment is not just a matter of cultural attitudes and hard work, although these
may be important. Rather, educational achievement has crucial determinants
in what money and social capital can buy.
The middle-class students Lew studied were afforded private tutoring
by their parents, attended well-resourced schools, and had access to Korean
American peers who could supply information about applying to college. The
working-class students, on the other hand, lived in families forced by lack of
jobs and income to move from place to place; the children attended poorly
resourced schools; and they had friendship networks whose participants did
not have information about higher education. Lew reports that a good many
of these working-class students became alienated from school and ultimately
dropped out. Most entered the minimum-wage workforce.
This story of differential access by social class parallels the tale research
tells about other U.S. youth. As I discovered years ago, the resources avail-
able to White students differed dramatically according to the social class
context in which the schools I studied were embedded. While more affluent
Whites attended schools with myriad materials and opportunities to excel,
schools attended by working-class Whites offered a rote, pencil and paper
curriculum with little creativity, rigor, or meaning to the students (Anyon,
1980, 1981). We also know that low-income (working-class) Black and

vii
viii Foreword

Latino youth most often attend schools that do not have the resources to
support high achievement (see Anyon, 1997, and Natriello & Pallas, 1990,
among others). And the peer networks to which low-income Black and Latino
youth have access typically do not provide support for college-going or edu-
cational achievement (Stanton-Salazar, 2001).
Lew also highlights the salience of race and uncovers discrimination
against the students. She examines how race intersects with class, and the
ways in which this process affects academic achievement among Asian
American students. The outcome of her research I accentuate here is the
corroboration she provides of the power of social class and race to play a
determining role in educational outcomes. Like other poor minority children
and youth, Asian American students typically need the finances and social
support that middle-class status provides in order to succeed educationally.
This finding is powerful evidence that we must look beyond the classroom
for ways to improve the education and life chances of poor students.
We must look, I believe, at the public policies that make monetary and
social support possible for some education systems and families, and nearly
impossible for others. I have argued at length that public policies (like those
that keep the minimum wage at poverty levels and keep public transit from
connecting urban areas and job-rich suburbs), inequitable tax laws, and racial
discrimination in hiring and housing maintain both familial and institutional
poverty in U.S. cities and low-income suburbs, where most poor students live
(Anyon, 2005). These and other public policies deprive low-income schools
and families—especially those who are not White—of the finances and social
resources they need to support sustained educational achievement.
Jamie Lew’s book is an important resource, not only in the effort to
overturn an unfortunate stereotype but in the effort to demonstrate that
children of the working poor cannot be expected to excel without the nur-
turing that buttresses the achievement of the more affluent.
—Jean Anyon
The Graduate Center, CUNY

REFERENCES

Anyon, J. (1980). Social class and the hidden curriculum of work. Journal of Edu-
cation, 162, 67–92.
Anyon, J. (1981). Social class and school knowledge. Curriculum Inquiry, 11, 3–42.
Anyon, J. (1997). Ghetto schooling: A political economy of urban educational re-
form. New York: Teachers College Press.
Anyon, J. (2005). Radical possibilities: Public policy, urban education, and a new
social movement. New York: Routledge.
Natriello, G., & Pallas, A. (1990). Schooling disadvantaged children: Racing against
catastrophe. New York: Teachers College Press.
Stanton-Salazar, R. (2001). Manufacturing hope and despair: The school and kin
support networks of U.S.-Mexican youth. New York: Teachers College Press.
 Acknowledgments

Throughout the years of writing this book, I have benefited from more people
than I can possibly acknowledge. I would like to begin by thanking the Insti-
tute on Ethnicity, Culture, and the Modern Experience and the Joseph C.
Cornwall Center for Metropolitan Studies at Rutgers University–Newark for
helping fund this research. I owe special thanks to Clem Price and Charles
Russell, whose leadership at the Institute has provided invaluable guidance
to me and other junior faculty at Rutgers. I am grateful to all of my colleagues
at Rutgers, with special thanks to Alan Sadovnik who has been a mentor
and constant source of encouragement and support. I am also deeply indebted
to my students at Rutgers, who continue to challenge and inspire me.
I have benefited greatly from friends and colleagues who have read parts
of this book in various forms and given me support: They include Jean Anyon,
Sherri-Ann Butterfield, Lin Goodwin, Phil Kasinitz, Rosamond King, Stacey
J. Lee, Vivian Louie, Pedro Noguera, Kimberly A. Scott, and Ricardo Stanton-
Salazar. As a graduate student, I was fortunate enough to receive counsel
from advisors who made my research at the Magnet High School possible.
Special thanks to Gita Steiner-Khamsi, Celia Genishi, Gary Natriello, and
Gary Okihiro, who provided invaluable insight and friendship throughout
my years at Teachers College, Columbia University. I would also like to thank
Dr. Nash and Becky Baek for their belief in the project and for supporting
the research during my years at Magnet High.
Having worked in the Asian American community in New York City
for many years, I am deeply moved and inspired by the work of the many
human service and advocacy organizations as well as the community leaders,
parents, and children who strive for equal opportunities in their daily lives.
I am especially grateful to Won Kang and Songyun Kang, who provided
insight and guidance during my research with the high school dropouts. I
am indebted to Won for his keen observation of and commitment to the
youths and their family. I am genuinely grateful to Songyun for being an
advocate of this project and for encouraging me to write a book about Korean
American youths in order to give voice to those who have yet to be heard.
To that end, I will forever be indebted to the high school students who trusted

ix
x Acknowledgments

me and shared their experiences, stories, and lives with me. Without them,
this book would not have been possible.
During the last months of writing this book, I was fortunate enough to
be invited to the Asian Pacific American Institute at NYU as a visiting scholar.
I am deeply grateful to John Kuo Wei Tchen and all of the staff at APA for
including me in their community of scholars, and for allowing me to finish
my book. I am continually inspired by their work in and commitment to Asian
American studies and communities.
I wholeheartedly thank my editor, Brian Ellerbeck, and his team at
Teachers College Press, whose intelligence, patience, and commitment to this
book have been invaluable. Special thanks to Adee Braun for her insightful
and timely support.
It is impossible to even imagine writing this book without my parents,
whose strength and vision have provided the foundation for my dreams. They
have taught me and my brother to believe in ourselves and to be true to our
hearts. This book is a product of their teaching and counsel. My brother,
Johnny Lew, has never ceased to amaze me with his patience, kindness, and
intelligence. I am grateful for his endless support and friendship.
Finally, I owe my deepest gratitude to my husband and best friend, Larry
Lerner, who has given me the courage to conceive, write, and finish this book.
As my personal editor, he has presided over all stages of this book: research,
writing, editing. Throughout the years, he spent countless hours helping me
with the manuscript and encouraged me to continue when I wanted to give
up. In the last months of completing the final manuscript, we have been graced
with another beginning—the birth of our daughter, Maya, and it is to her I
dedicate this book. As I look into her eyes, I have never been so clear as to
why I needed to write this book.

C H A P T E R 1

Matters of Class, Race, Ethnicity,

and Schools: A Structural Analysis
of Asian American Achievement

POST-1965 ASIAN AMERICANS:

CHANGING DEMOGRAPHICS

Since the mid- to late 1960s, a significant number of U.S. immigrants have
come from countries in Africa, Asia, Central and Latin America, and the West
Indies. In 2000, the foreign-stock population (the foreign-born and their U.S.-
born and -raised children) reached nearly 55.9 million, or one-fifth of the
total U.S. population (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2001). Unlike the earlier
waves of immigrants at the turn of the 20th century, post-1960s immigrants
have come mostly from non-European countries; more than 50% of all U.S.
immigrants in recent decades have been from Latin America and more than
25% from Asia (Suárez-Orozco, 2001).
Nowhere is this shift in U.S. immigration reflected more starkly than in
the changing demographics of children of immigrants. Children of immigrants
are indeed the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. child population; one out
of every five children age 18 and under are the children of an immigrant
(Urban Institute, 2000). Immigrants and their children are predominantly
settling in urban areas, with California and New York taking the lead. It is
estimated that half of California’s children have an immigrant parent, while
31% of New York’s children fall into this same category (Ruiz-de-Valasco
& Fix, 2000; Urban Institute, 2000).
This rapid growth in the number of the children of immigrants over the
last few decades has raised important questions about their adaptation to
and impact on American society. Among the many U.S. institutions grap-
pling with this issue, public urban schools, in particular, have undergone
dramatic transformation. While some children of immigrants are achieving
in school and acquiring economic mobility, others are performing below their
native-born peers and reproducing the plight of the poor minority underclass.
The structural and cultural factors that determine such trajectories among
children of immigrants are critical and timely issues facing our schools and

1
2 Asian Americans in Class

the nation (Portes & Rumbaut, 1996, 2001; Ruiz-de-Valasco & Fix, 2000;
Suárez-Orozco, 2001; Suárez-Orozco & Suárez-Orozco, 2001).
Among children of immigrants, Asian Americans represent one of the
fastest-growing student populations in U.S. schools. It is estimated that ap-
proximately 2.6 million Asian American children are enrolled in the nation’s
nursery, kindergarten, elementary, and high schools, accounting for 5% of
the total student enrollment (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1999). This is a
marked increase from 1972, when Asian American school-age children ac-
counted for a mere 1%. Much of this increase is attributed to recent immi-
gration patterns; 88% of all school-age Asian American children have a
foreign-born parent, compared with 65% of Hispanic children and 20% of
all U.S. children. Moreover, a significant percentage of Asian American chil-
dren live in urban areas and attend city public schools: according to the 2000
census, a remarkable 96% of Asian immigrants live in metropolitan areas,
with 45% of them residing in central cities; in New York City, approximately
90% of all school-age Asian American children are enrolled in public elemen-
tary and high schools (Asian American Federation of New York, 2001).
Accompanying this influx of Asian American children has been notable
attention paid to their academic achievement and educational success. Asian
American children, in the aggregate, are more likely than Whites, Blacks, or
Hispanics to have higher GPAs, math SAT scores, and college-graduation
rates (Hsia, 1988; Kao & Tienda, 1998; Sue & Okazaki, 1990). Touted as
“whiz kids” and labeled as a “model minority,” Asian American children
have captured headlines in the mainstream media, represented as the Ameri-
can Dream fulfilled.
The significant number of academically achieving Asian American stu-
dents notwithstanding, these aggregate data fail to distinguish important
variability within and among Asian American communities—differences such
as ethnicity, language, class, generation, and immigration history to name a
few (S. Lee, 2004; S. J. Lee, 1996; Lew, 2004, in press; Louie, 2004). More-
over, the aggregate data do not reveal the increasing number of Asian Ameri-
can children who are failing and dropping out of school (Lew, 2003a, 2004).
For instance, among 513,000 Asian American high school students in the
nation, an estimated 25,000 dropped out of high school. This represents a
dropout rate of 4.8% for Asian Americans, the highest rate since 1995 (U.S.
Bureau of the Census, 1999). That is, studies show that along with the in-
creasing rate of high-achieving Asian American students, there is also a grow-
ing high school dropout, reflecting a widening achievement gap within the
Asian American student population.
Take the case of New York City public schools: while Asian Americans
account for approximately 13% of the city’s high school students, they make
up a disproportionately large percentage of students in the city’s most elite
magnet high schools—48% at Stuyvesant, 46% at Bronx Science, and 39%
Matters of Class, Race, Ethnicity, and Schools 3

at Brooklyn Tech (Division of Assessment and Accountability, 2000, 2002).

However, the dropout rate for Asian American high school students in New
York City between 1997 and 2002 has steadily risen from 8% in 1997 to
9% in 1998, 10% in 1999, 11.1% in 2000, and 12.2% in 2002.
These statistics reveal an important trajectory of Asian American stu-
dents’ school achievement and social mobility. However, since the data on
Asian American academic achievement is rarely broken down to account for
class difference, researchers often overlook this all-important structural fac-
tor and how it affects school performance. When we carefully examine the
increasing class bifurcation within Asian American communities, however,
the widening achievement gap is less surprising.
While many Asian American families have seen economic success, many
others are poor. In 1998, 1.4 million Asian Americans (about 13%) and
15.8 million non-Hispanic Whites (about 8%) were poor. About 18% of
Asian Americans under the age of 18 were poor, compared to 11% of non-
Hispanic White children (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1999). Although ap-
proximately 33% of Asian American families reported an annual income of
$75,000 or more (versus 20% for non-Hispanic White families), 21% made
less than $25,000 a year (versus 19% for non-Hispanic Whites). Further-
more, Asian American families were almost twice as likely as non-Hispanic
White families to live in poverty (11% versus 6%). Among the Asian Ameri-
can families in poverty, 8% were two-parent households, while 29% were
headed by single women (non-Hispanic White families were at 4% and 21%,
respectively) (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1999).
The poverty rate of Asian American children, particularly those in urban
areas such as New York City, is equally daunting. It is estimated that nearly
one in four Asian American children in New York City live in poverty—that
is, roughly 24% came from households falling below $17,063 in annual in-
come for a family of four. This surpasses the poverty level of non-Hispanic
White children in the city (16%), that of all U.S. children (17%), and that of
Asian American children nationwide (14%) (Asian American Federation of
New York, 2003; U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1999).
Despite the changing demographics, achievement gap, and class vari-
ance among them, Asian Americans are nevertheless seen as a homogeneous
group, a model minority that is uniformly excelling in school and achieving
economic mobility. Explanations for this status have historically focused on
a cultural argument emphasizing “Asian” values of education, the work ethic,
and nuclear families (De Vos, 1973, 1980; Mordkowitz & Ginsberg, 1987;
Sung, 1987). While this cultural dimension is undoubtedly significant, the
model minority and cultural arguments miss crucial aspects of Asian Ameri-
can students’ experiences. First, homogenizing Asian Americans essentializes
them, implying they have a fixed “ethnic” experience that accounts for their
success. Second, the model minority discourse ignores important historical
4 Asian Americans in Class

and social contexts for framing Asian American experience. Third, the por-
trayal of Asian Americans as model minorities has historically been used as
a wedge between minorities by implying that if Asians can make it, then all
minority groups should be able to achieve academically, as long as they
uphold the values of education, hard work, and a nuclear family that Asians
supposedly prize. This focus on individualism and meritocracy inherent in
the model minority discourse buoys the culture-of-poverty argument that runs
in tandem with it. As such, model minority discourse ignores critical struc-
tural factors such as class, race, gender, and schooling resources that serve
to contextualize Asian American students’ academic performance, while ig-
noring those children who are living in poverty, failing or dropping out of
high school, and facing downward mobility (Fong & Shinagawa, 2000; Hune
& Chan, 2000; Hurh & Kim, 1984; Kiang & Kaplan, 1994; Lee, 1996; Lew,
2003a, 2004, in press; Louie, 2004; Pang & Cheng, 1998; Park, Lee, &
Goodwin, 2003; Weinberg, 1997).
In order to address the limitations of the cultural argument, researchers
have focused on important structural factors such as immigration history,
economic context, and opportunity structure to explain Asian American
achievement. For instance, it has been argued that selective migration of post-
1965 immigrants—namely, those entering under professional status—favored
those who are coming with a higher education level and from higher socio-
economic backgrounds. That is, Asian American children’s educational suc-
cess can be largely attributed to those who are coming from Asian families
who were middle-class professionals in their country of origin (Barringer,
Gardner, & Levin, 1993; Hirschman & Wong, 1986). Researchers have also
underscored ethnic economies and networks as important means for Asian
Americans to achieve social mobility. Although ethnic economies have been
historically formed as a result of racial and social barriers, as well as lack of
access to the primary-sector-market economy, researchers argue that this
avenue allows Asian immigrants to gain important economic and social re-
sources for first- and second-generation immigrants (Hirschman & Wong,
1986; Light & Bonacich, 1988; Portes & Rumbaut, 1996, 2001). While high-
lighting the structural and economic conditions into which the immigrant
groups become situated, Portes and colleagues note the significance of strong
co-ethnic networks and ethnic economies, which help promote social mo-
bility for immigrants and their children. Particularly for those residing in
poor and isolated urban communities, strong social capital in the form of
entrepreneurship, local churches, and co-ethnic networks provides impor-
tant economic and social resources for first-generation immigrants and their
second-generation children. It is argued, therefore, that post-1965 Asian
immigrants and their children are able to achieve in school and gain eco-
nomic opportunities as a result of their ethnic economy and ties to immi-
Matters of Class, Race, Ethnicity, and Schools 5

grant networks (Portes & Rumbaut, 1996, 2001; Portes & Zhou, 1993;
Rumbaut & Cornelius, 1995; Zhou & Bankston, 1996, 1998).
The significance of these studies notwithstanding, there are still glaring
gaps in research on Asian American children and education. For instance,
although earlier studies emphasize immigration history and economic con-
texts to situate the contemporary Asian American experience, there is still
little understanding of how variability of class among Asian American com-
munities may impact their educational outcome. For instance, how does class
variability within the ethnic economy impact second-generation outcome,
particularly for those children attending high schools in urban context? How
do Asian immigrant parents, from varying socioeconomic backgrounds, adopt
different educational strategies for their children?
In addition, there is limited understanding of those Asian American stu-
dents who are failing or dropping out of high school and thus facing down-
ward mobility. How do class variability and network orientation impact
academic achievement among Asian American students? For those who are
failing or dropping out of high school, how do these structural factors, for
instance, impact their academic aspirations and achievement differently from
those students who are achieving in schools? Moreover, there are inadequate
explanations of the racial incorporation of Asian Americans in general, and
of how they may negotiate their racial and ethnic identities in different social
and economic contexts.
One of the more glaring gaps is how school context and educational
resources impact the academic achievement of Asian American students. How
does school as an institution limit and advance their educational opportuni-
ties? In different schooling contexts, how do Asian American students from
varying socioeconomic backgrounds learn to cross cultural and linguistic
borders between immigrant homes and mainstream schools as a way to ac-
cess important institutional and educational resources? As active agents, how
do Asian American children themselves learn to adapt to or resist their ties
to immigrant parents’ ethnic networks, while negotiating relationships with
key agents in mainstream institutions such as school? Overall, there is dearth
of research that critically examines how structural factors of class, race, and
school context may impact academic aspirations and achievement of Asian
American students. This book is an attempt to address some of these impor-
tant and timely questions.
In order to explore these questions in depth, this research is based on
a case study of one of the fastest-growing post-1965 Asian ethnic groups
—Korean Americans. Drawing from interviews over a 3-year period with
72 Korean American youths in New York City urban schools, this research
compares and contrasts the experiences of two groups of second-generation
Korean American students: (1) 42 students attending an elite magnet high
6 Asian Americans in Class

school and (2) 30 high school dropouts attending a community-based GED

program (General Educational Development test for a high school equiva-
lency diploma). By comparing these two groups of Korean American stu-
dents, the research shows how Korean students’ academic achievement and
aspirations are fundamentally based on critical structural factors of class,
race, and schooling resources.

CO-ETHNIC NETWORKS, SOCIAL CAPITAL, AND CLASS

This research supports earlier studies that emphasize the significance of co-
ethnic networks and social capital among Asian American families (Gans,
1992; Hirschman et al., 1999; Kasinitz et al., 2004; Light & Bonacich, 1988;
Portes & Rumbaut, 1996, 2001; Rumbaut & Cornelius, 1995; Zhou &
Bankston, 1996, 1998). The findings illustrate how the academically achieving
Korean students at a magnet high school, compared to Korean high school
dropouts, are more likely to gain important educational information and re-
sources from their co-ethnic network. However, the findings also show the
importance of the variability of class and network orientation within the co-
ethnic communities and who benefits more from such enclaves (Kasinitz,
Mollenkopf, & Waters, 2004; Kwong, 1996; Lee, 2004; Lew, 2004, in press;
Sanders & Nee, 1987). Although Korean Americans have been homoge-
neously touted for their entrepreneurial success and middle-class status, this
study points to the socioeconomic variability within co-ethnic networks and
examines how the difference in social-class backgrounds and network ori-
entation impact educational strategies employed by the two groups. For in-
stance, this study shows that while most of the parents of the academically
achieving students at the magnet high school are middle-class entrepreneurs,
most of the parents of the high school dropouts are working-class employ-
ees of co-ethnic entrepreneurs and do not own their own businesses. A greater
percentage of Korean high school dropouts, compared to the magnet high
school students, come from single-parent households, which further limits
their family income. Moreover, the dropouts were more likely to live in and
attend schools in isolated poor neighborhoods.
The class distinction and neighborhood incorporation become particu-
larly significant when examining the ways in which members of co-ethnic
networks access and accumulate social capital. For instance, how educational
information and potential resources from co-ethnic networks actually become
accessed and utilized by the members integrally depends on members’ socio-
economic backgrounds, status position within the networks, and access to
institutional resources both in and outside co-ethnic networks. In other words,
one can not effectively analyze the schooling aspirations and achievement
of second-generation Korean and other Asian American youths without tak-
Matters of Class, Race, Ethnicity, and Schools 7

ing into account key structural and institutional factors, such as their par-
ents’ socioeconomic backgrounds and educational level, the advantages and
limitations of ethnic networks, and the students’ access to institutional re-
sources in schools.
While accounting for the benefits of co-ethnic networks for immigrant
communities, it is also important to note that the process of gaining access
to and accumulating social capital is far from neutral, but instead is strati-
fied by class, race, and gender (Bourdieu, 1977; Lareau, 1987, 2003; Lin,
1990, 2000; Noguera, 2003; Saegert, Thompson, & Warren, 2001; Stanton-
Salazar, 1997, 2001). If social capital is conceived as resources embedded in
social networks used for purposive action, then different networks will ac-
cumulate and provide different sets of resources in accordance with the social
and economic status of individuals within those networks. That is, human
capital and social capital are integrally related: the education level, occupa-
tional status, and socioeconomic backgrounds of the individuals bear directly
on the strength of the network. It follows, then, that middle-class White
parents have a far greater advantage in gaining access to social capital than
do poor minority parents, especially minority single mothers (Lareau, 1987;
Saegert et al., 2001; Stanton-Salazar, 1997, 2001). The structures in place
for the former allow their children to access gatekeepers who can provide
important school and professional resources. On the other hand, poor mi-
nority students living and attending schools in isolated low-income commu-
nities are at a particular disadvantage in gaining access to these important
institutional gatekeepers. In fact, the latter are often literally cut off from
capital, networks, and institutional resources that are needed for gaining
jobs, college admission, and opportunities for moving into the mainstream
economy (Anyon, 1997; Massey & Denton, 1993; Noguera, 2003; Orfield
& Eaton, 1996).

SCHOOL CONTEXT:
SIGNIFICANCE OF INSTITUTIONAL RESOURCES

Numerous studies have shown that gaining social capital in school—that is,
forming relations with guidance counselors, teachers, and other community
gatekeepers who are integrally connected to institutional resources—is piv-
otal for academic achievement and social mobility (Croninger & Lee, 2001;
Fine, 1991; Natriello, McDill, & Pallas, 1990; Stanton-Salazar, 2001). In
his research on kinship and network ties among Mexican American youths
in California, Stanton-Salazar (2001) argues that social capital is valuable
insofar as members in a network have access to institutional agents—those
aforementioned gatekeepers who are able to provide minority and immigrant
children with access to resources and opportunities in mainstream institutions.
8 Asian Americans in Class

This study supports Stanton-Salazar’s findings, noting the significance of

institutional agents for Korean American students, including teachers, coun-
selors, clergy, community leaders, college-going youth in the community,
school peers, as well as members in the children’s kinship networks who can
provide information about school programs, college admission, and career
decision making.
The findings also illustrate that although immigrant parents may be able
to provide strong co-ethnic networks that are extremely important for their
children, they are rarely in a position to act as institutional agents themselves
because of their limited English skills and knowledge of the U.S. education
system. How the Korean parents in different social and economic contexts
negotiate and resist these limitations is part of the more subtle and significant
findings in this research. For instance, in order to mitigate their limitations
regarding the English language and knowledge of the U.S. education system,
the Korean parents of students at magnet high school were more likely to hire
private tutors and counselors who could act as institutional agents for their
children. The magnet high school parents readily enrolled their children in
private, tuition-based, after-school academies as a way to provide them with
additional schooling and college counseling. These academies, called hagwon,
mostly located in Korean ethnic enclaves, provide tutorials on school subjects
and standardized exams, as well as bilingual college counselors. It is through
these agents, who are often bilingual and have schooling experiences in U.S.
colleges and work experiences in the mainstream economy, that many of the
immigrant parents at the magnet high schools were able to provide a means
for their children to receive concrete schooling and career information, accom-
modate for limited bilingual resources available at the school, and provide an
important institutional and linguistic bridge between themselves and their
American-born and -raised children. In contrast, the low-income Korean high
school dropouts rarely attended hagwon, since their parents could not afford
the tuition. Instead, most of them had to work after school to compensate for
their limited family income. Consequently, their parents predominantly relied
on their children’s public schools for educational and counseling support;
however, the Korean high school dropouts in this study attended urban schools
with limited educational and bilingual resources for effectively assisting
them in school. Furthermore, the dropout students, as a result of economic,
neighborhood, and school factors, readily changed residence and high schools
throughout their young adulthood. This high mobility and school transfer rate
decreased the likelihood of accumulating social capital while increasing the
chances of alienation from and dropping out of high school.
This book reminds educators how children of immigrants, particularly
those who are poor and racial minorities, need to learn how to move outside
the parameter of their immigrant parents and families in order to access re-
sources and opportunities in mainstream institutions such as schools (Phelan,
Matters of Class, Race, Ethnicity, and Schools 9

Davidson, & Yu, 1993; Stanton-Salazar & Dornbusch, 1995). However, this
process of crossing institutional borders between home and school proves
difficult for many minority and immigrant children (Bourdieu & Passeron,
1977; Boykin, 1986; Gee, 1989; Neisser, 1986). Phelan and her associates
(1993) describe several different kinds of barriers to crossing such institu-
tional borders: sociocultural, socioeconomic, linguistic, and structural bar-
riers. They note that these barriers, based on power relations, carry the
potential to induce in minority students experiences of anxiety, depression,
and fear that inhibit them from performing school tasks. They argue that
these barriers further hinder their social development, including their ability
to establish supportive relationships with teachers, peers, and other institu-
tional agents who can help them navigate through schooling and cross insti-
tutional boundaries.
It is important to note that while much attention has been placed on the
benefits of co-ethnic networks of first-generation parents and their role in
providing educational resources for their children, there has been little under-
standing of what role, if any, the second-generation Asian children play in
accessing institutional agents and accumulating social capital for themselves,
particularly in school context (Lew, 2003b). Who are the institutional agents
found in school and ethnic communities, and how do these agents help the
students cross institutional and linguistic borders between home and schools?
How do second-generation children as active agents adapt to and resist their
parental immigrant networks? How do the students construct their own peer
networks in communities and schools to compensate for the limitations of
their immigrant parents, while accumulating institutional resources that they
specifically need in schools?
As this research demonstrates, neither the high- nor low-achieving
Korean American students regularly turned to their first-generation immi-
grant parents for schooling or college guidance, given the latter’s limited
English language skills and knowledge of the U.S. education system. Ulti-
mately, both groups of second-generation Korean American students built
peer networks at school to compensate for their immigrant parents’ limita-
tions, but the resources embedded in each of their networks differed greatly.
The magnet high students drew on their networks to build a pool of institu-
tional resources who could help them with schooling, the college applica-
tion process, and future career opportunities in the mainstream economy.
Meanwhile, the high school dropouts had limited access to gatekeepers in
and outside of their poor-quality inner-city schools. Rather, they were far
more likely to navigate through schooling alone and isolated, using their
networks instead to access low-wage jobs within the ethnic enclave or to
pursue other nonacademic options, such as enlisting in the army.
Moreover, the students’ widely disparate schooling contexts provided
them with equally disparate educational resources. For instance, the Korean
10 Asian Americans in Class

American students at the magnet high school attended an academic high

school revolving around a college-preparatory program populated predomi-
nantly by middle-class White and Asian students with access to institutional
agents such as teachers and counselors who could provide important educa-
tional resources. On the other hand, the Korean high school dropouts at-
tended neighborhood urban schools with high poverty and dropout rates
populated predominantly by working-class poor minorities and recent im-
migrant students with limited access to institutional agents in school. That
is, most of the high school dropouts were concentrated in high-poverty urban
schools troubled by a shortage of teachers, counselors, and instructional
resources capable of accommodating the growing number of minority and
limited–English proficient (LEP) students. In such different schooling con-
texts, the two groups of Korean American students adopted different edu-
cational and racial strategies to adapt to, negotiate, and resist their given
opportunity structure.
By highlighting the actual processes and practices available to students,
this study identifies the important institutional characteristics and key actors
critical to building social capital. And by looking at how second-generation
youths from varied socioeconomic backgrounds and schooling contexts ac-
cess and accumulate social capital, this research highlights the significance
of peer networks and gatekeepers, who can provide access to mainstream
institutional resources advancing academic achievement.
The findings reveal how middle-class parents and their children at the
magnet high school, compared to working-class parents of high school drop-
outs, are more likely to overcome schooling and language limitations while
advancing educational opportunities. This book illustrates how Asian fami-
lies’ class position and network orientation may affect the nature and qual-
ity of their children’s education, and how the cumulative effects of social,
economic, and cultural resources to overcome limited schooling resources
are deeply implicated in the reproduction of social inequalities.

BECOMING AMERICAN: SALIENCE OF CLASS,

RACE, AND ETHNICITY

If schools and class matter for Asian American children, so does race. After
all, for minorities who emigrate to the United States, it is impossible to sepa-
rate becoming “American” from the historical construction of Whiteness and
the invisible norm associated with being “White.” Because Africans, Asians,
Latin Americans, and Native Americans have been historically placed in
opposition to the ideal of “Whiteness” and have signified what “Whiteness”
is not, some argue that the long historical exclusion of racial minorities and
racialized ethnic groups from Whiteness must be critically examined in order
Matters of Class, Race, Ethnicity, and Schools 11

to better understand the experiences of today’s immigrants (Kibria, 2002;

Okihiro, 1994; Omi & Winant, 1986).
The salience of race and ethnicity is well illustrated in studies of “sym-
bolic” ethnicity and how roles of ethnicity take on different meanings for
Whites and racial minorities. Studies show that White European ethnic groups
are privileged in adopting a “symbolic ethnicity”—ethnic identification that
is voluntary and subjective in character, with individuals able to claim as-
pects of their ethnic heritage and ancestry at their own discretion (Alba, 1990;
Gans, 1979; Waters, 1990). In her research on White European ethnic groups
(third generation and later), Waters (1990) found that her subjects exercised
the option to symbolically express their ethnic affiliations how and when it
best suited them, depending on the context.
However, racial minorities do not always enjoy this option. For instance,
Black Americans are tagged with a racial label that obfuscates their ethnic
identities, whether their older or more recent ancestries stem from parts of
Africa, Central and South America, or the West Indies. Therefore, by being
labeled “Black,” they do not readily exercise an option to express their
ethnicity (Butterfield, 2004; Foner, 1985; Waters, 1994, 1999).
Asian Americans are also subject to racial categorization that is ascriptive
rather than voluntary—a process that is based on power relations of self and
“other” (Espiritu, 1994; Tuan, 1998). As Espiritu (1994) explains, racial
categorization is a “process whereby a more powerful group seeks to domi-
nate another, and in so doing, imposes upon these people racial categorical
identity that is defined by reference to their inherent difference from or infe-
riority to the dominant group” (p. 251). For instance, in her study of middle-
class Asian Americans (of the third and later generations), Tuan (1998) found
that her subjects were seen as perpetually foreigners and non-Americans, with
Whiteness being the invisible norm for being identified as “American.”
Ogbu’s (1987) research on race and school achievement points out the
importance of students’ cultural frame of reference and their interpretation
of economic, social, and political barriers. He notes that for some African
American students, a low school performance is a form of adaptation to their
limited social and economic opportunity in adult life. Ogbu argues that as a
way to develop survival strategies to endure barriers such as inferior school-
ing, job ceilings, and racial discrimination, involuntary immigrants, such as
African Americans, learned to form an oppositional cultural frame of refer-
ence and oppositional social identity to dominant white society. The survival
strategies become a collective struggle, referred to as a fictive kinship, en-
couraging behaviors that are not conducive to school and academic success
(see, e.g., Fordham & Ogbu, 1986; Gibson & Ogbu, 1991; Matute-Bianchi,
1986; Ogbu, 1987; Suárez-Orozco & Suárez-Orozco, 1995, 2001). Histori-
cally, a number of studies have found that minority groups define their iden-
tity vis-à-vis the dominant groups, with minority identity being based on an
12 Asian Americans in Class

oppositional cultural frame of reference (Castle & Kushner, 1981; De Vos,

1980; Ogbu, 1987; Spicer & Thompson, 1972).
Expanding on Ogbu’s theory, studies on post-1965 immigrants have been
complicating the dichotomy of voluntary and involuntary groups. For instance,
studies show that children of Black immigrants who are living in poor, iso-
lated communities, without the protections of strong co-ethnic networks, are
also likely to adopt an oppositional cultural frame of reference that may not
be conducive to schooling success. However, what is glaringly absent from this
literature is how Asian American children who are poor, low-achieving, and
dropping out of high school may be negotiating their racial and ethnic iden-
tities, and how this process may be similar to and different from other racial
groups’ experiences. Moreover, we have less understanding, in general, of
how the process of racial and ethnic identity construction may change ac-
cording to different social and economic contexts.
For instance, some crucial questions remain unanswered: How do Asian
American children from varied socioeconomic backgrounds and schooling
contexts negotiate their race and ethnic identities, and to what extent does
this process affect their academic achievement? More specifically, in the
context of a Black-and-White racial discourse, how are working-class Asian
American students who attend poor-quality urban schools populated mostly
by poor minorities negotiating their racial and ethnic identities, and how does
this process compare to those of middle-class Asian American students at-
tending elite urban schools populated mostly by middle-class Whites and
Asians? Looked at from another angle, how do Asian Americans, as a racial
minority, negotiate being labeled a model minority on the one hand (which
aligns them with Whiteness and “American” values) and forever foreign and
non-American on the other?
By drawing an integral relationship between class and race, this research
illustrates the complex processes by which students negotiate multiple and
hybrid identities. Despite the fluidity of race and ethnic identities among
Korean American students, however, both groups of students nevertheless face
racism, often labeled foreigners and marginalized as non-Americans. However,
given their different economic, community, and schooling contexts, the two
groups of Korean American students adapt to racial marginalization differently.
Embedded in strong and supportive networks at home and in school,
Korean students at the magnet high school were better protected from the
stratifying forces of racism and poverty. In addition, they learned to use
education as a strategy to withstand racial discrimination, firmly believing
that because of their status as a racial minority, they had to work even harder
in school to gain opportunities. The Korean high school dropouts, on the
other hand, disassociated from Whiteness and aligned their experiences with
those of their mostly low-income, racial minority peers—Asians, Blacks, and
Hispanics. Moreover, the high school dropouts distinguished themselves from
Matters of Class, Race, Ethnicity, and Schools 13

the “wealthy” and “studious” Koreans and other Asians, whose attributes
of “success” they associated with Whiteness. As a form of resistance and
adaptation to the limited opportunities both in and outside of their commu-
nities, the dropouts adopted an oppositional cultural frame of reference and
rejected schools as an effective means of achieving economic mobility. This
study pays particular attention to the varied ways in which the two groups
of Korean American youths interpret their different opportunity structures
and systemic racism, and how these structural factors intersect with their
cultural outlook on schooling aspirations and achievement.

ASIAN AMERICANS AS A MODEL MINORITY:

REVISITING THE STEREOTYPE

Asian American students are far from a homogeneous group: They actively
adapt, negotiate, and resist changing structural forces to create and re-create
their cultures. Although both groups of Korean American students and their
parents believed that education was important and wanted their children to
do well, their ability to translate such aspirations into concrete school achieve-
ment varied widely and depended on important structural factors. In short,
race, class, and schools do matter for Asian American children. This book
examines how they matter—as they pertain to academic aspirations and
achievement among Asian American children in an urban context.
We would do well to remember how the model minority discourse has
historically been used as a wedge between minorities, particularly in light of
the federal mandate of the No Child Left Behind Act and high-stakes test-
ing, both of which emphasize test scores and mere outcomes. During the
1960s, many on the left looked askance at what was the precursor to this
cultural explanation for Asian achievement. In vogue at the time was the
“culture-of-poverty” argument used to explain the failures of certain U.S.
minorities, especially African Americans. By attributing the social problems
and poverty of American Blacks to their “unstable family structure” and
“culture of poverty,” researchers and policy makers blamed the Black com-
munity alone for its place in society (Glazer & Moynihan, 1963)—ignoring
structural factors and stressing individualism and meritocracy. Not surpris-
ingly, the left responded by asserting that this culture-of-poverty argument
oversimplified a more complex predicament and was tantamount to blam-
ing the victims for their socioeconomic woes. In time, however, this argu-
ment was nonetheless flipped and applied to Asian American achievement.
As Woo (2000) explains that culture of poverty ideas would “resurface in
a new form, namely, through an inverted discourse that premised achieve-
ment on an enabling cultural repertoire of values associated with Asian
Americans as ‘model minorities’” (p. 194). So, as the argument was used
14 Asian Americans in Class

to chastise Blacks and elevate Asian Americans, the wedge was put in place
to play minorities off against one another, reproducing and sustaining the
ideology of individualism and meritocracy while ignoring fundamental struc-
tural issues. As Woo (2000) points out, “Where issues of social inequality in
matters of race and ethnicity are concerned, Asian Americans occupy a criti-
cal place in our thinking about ethnic politics. They are not only a common
empirical reference point for evaluating relative progress and achievement
among different groups but an ideological one as well” (p. 194).
But the image of Asian Americans as a model minority persists, not least
because it is upheld by many as an entirely positive representation. Unfortu-
nately, it also conceals disparities among Asian American children and de-
emphasizes the important structural barriers faced by poor and minority
children. In the end, the model minority discourse attributes academic suc-
cess and failure to individual merit and cultural orientation, while neglect-
ing the important institutional resources that all children need in order to
achieve academically. What is needed is a more nuanced analysis taking into
account the changing and complex relationship between cultural and struc-
tural factors, which can better explain varied schooling experiences among
Asian American children. In this book, I examine some of the key cultural
and structural factors that help contextualize Asian American educational
experiences—pre- and post-immigration patterns, race and ethnic relations,
socioeconomic backgrounds, and schooling contexts—using Korean Ameri-
cans in New York City as a case study to elaborate further.

POST-1965 KOREAN AMERICANS:

NATIONWIDE AND IN NEW YORK CITY

Over the last few decades, Asian Americans have been one of the fastest-
growing populations in the United States. During the 1940s, some 250,000
Asian Americans lived in the United States, a mere 1% of the population
(Hing, 1993). By 1990, that number had risen to 7.3 million, with more than
13 different ethnic populations falling into the Asian category (U.S. Bureau
of the Census, 1993). According to the 2000 census, the Asian population
had increased to 11.9 million, or 4.2% of the total U.S. population (U.S.
Bureau of the Census, 2001).
The Immigration Reform Act of 1965 ushered in a new era for Asians
seeking admission into the United States, and with its occupational prefer-
ence system and family reunification provisions, it initially favored and at-
tracted a significant number of middle-class professionals from Asia—many
of whom are the parents of the academically achieving Asian American chil-
dren in U.S. schools today. Since then, Asian American communities have
become more diverse in terms of class and occupational status. Yet we know
Matters of Class, Race, Ethnicity, and Schools 15

very little of Asian American children who are coming from working-class
immigrant parents.
In the case of Korean American communities, their changing demograph-
ics could be explained, in part, by the changing migration pattern. Accord-
ing to Kim (1981), initially the majority of the post-1965 Korean Americans
were college-educated, urban, middle-class professionals in Korea. And by
and large, they were young; more than 90% who entered between 1966 and
1975 were under the age of thirty-nine (p. 25). In addition, a disproportion-
ate number (nearly half) were Christians (Kwon, Kim, & Warner, 2001).
However, Korean American communities are also becoming more diver-
sified in class, education level, and professional status. According to Light and
Bonacich (1988), between 1966 and 1977, a significant number of Korean
immigrants entered the United States under the professional status and family
reunification quota. But as more relatives emigrated to the States and became
citizens, Koreans took further advantage of family reunification and kinship
preferences: This latter category accounted for 66% of all Korean immigrants
in 1967; by 1981, it had increased to 92% (Light & Bonacich, 1988). As the
number of Korean immigrants coming under family reunification increased,
the education level of Korean immigrants decreased: According to Hurh and
Kim (1984), between 1965 and 1969, 44% of Korean Americans had com-
pleted four or more years of college; that number shrank to 31.7% between
1970 and 1974, and to 25.7% between 1975 and 1980 (see also Lee, 2004).
Furthermore, as more Korean immigrants arrived under family reunifi-
cation and kinship-based chain migration, many settled in certain cities be-
cause their family and kin already resided there (Kim, 1981; Light & Bonacich,
1988; Min, 1995, 1996; Portes & Rumbaut, 1996, 2001). Moreover, Korean
Americans exhibit less ethnic and linguistic diversity than other Asian ethnic
groups; unlike the Chinese and South Asians, for instance, whose populations
come from various countries and regions and speak multiple languages and
dialects, Korean Americans consist predominantly of one ethnic group, mostly
from South Korea, speaking one language (Min, 1995, 1996). Such shared
language, ethnicity, and immigration history among the post-1965 Korean
Americans help explain how Korean American communities have been able
to form strong ethnic enclaves and network ties throughout the United States.
By 2000, Korean Americans were one of the largest and fastest-growing
populations among post-1965 Asian ethnic groups (U.S. Bureau of the Census,
2002). In 1990, there were approximately 800,000 Koreans in the United States;
by 2000, the Korean population had increased to approximately 1.2 million.
In addition, among those in the 1990 statistic, more than 600,000 were for-
eign-born—meaning that because of the recent influx, a majority of Korean
Americans today are either first or second generation (Chan, 1991; Takaki,
1989). Moreover, by the mid-1990s, a majority of foreign-born Korean
Americans lived in urban areas, with Los Angeles and New York City
16 Asian Americans in Class

containing the two largest Korean Americans populations (National Asso-

ciation of Korean American Service and Education Consortium, 1998).
In New York City, an overwhelming 80% Korean Americans are foreign-
born and Korean Americans are the third-largest Asian ethnic group, at ap-
proximately 91,000, with over 70% concentrated in Queens, followed by
14% in Manhattan. In light of this, it is no surprise that nearly 40% of the
Korean Americans in New York City are labeled as LEP (speaking English
“not well” or “not at all”). This percentage indicates greater language bar-
riers faced by Koreans than by adult New Yorkers overall, of whom only
13% are labeled as LEP (Asian American Federation of New York, 2002).
In addition, Korean Americans in New York City have a median house-
hold income of $37,094, below both the Asian American average of $41,119
and overall city average of $38,293. That said, Korean Americans in New
York City were less likely to be in poverty than the total city population:
Approximately 17% (15,002) of Koreans in New York City lived below
the poverty line, compared with 21% overall. Meanwhile, 14% (2,532) of
Korean children lived in poverty, compared with 24% of all Asian Ameri-
can children and 30% of the city’s children overall (Asian American Federa-
tion of New York, 2002).

RESEARCH SITES AND METHODS

As mentioned earlier, this study is based on in-depth interviews with a total

of 72 Korean American youths attending urban high schools in New York
City: 42 Korean students attended one of the elite magnet high schools, which
I call Magnet High, or MH; 30 Korean high school dropouts attended a GED
preparatory program at a nonprofit organization, which I call Youth Com-
munity Center, or YCC. My informants included both second-generation
children born and raised in the United States, with at least one Korean-born
parent, and 1.5-generation children born in Korea but raised in the United
States since at least age 10, with at least one Korean-born parent. For the
purpose of this research, I define both groups as second-generation. The stu-
dents’ ages ranged from 14 to 20. All names of schools, organizations, and
students are pseudonyms.
In addition to the interviews, the study also draws on a background
survey, document analysis, and observation. The survey was used to gather
information about students’ backgrounds: place of birth (and, if born in
Korea, their length of residence in the United States), place of residence, age,
gender, names of high schools attended, grade level completed, bilingual skill,
affiliation with the Korean ethnic community, parents’ level of education and
occupation, and eligibility for the reduced-cost or free lunch programs (see
accompanying table).
Matters of Class, Race, Ethnicity, and Schools 17

Students’ Background

Share of Respondents (%)

Magnet
High GED Total
Male 36 60 48
Female 64 40 52
1.5 generation 38 40 39
2nd generation 62 60 61
Single-parent household 12 40 26
Eligible for free or reduced-price
lunch 36 80 58
Mother graduated from college 60 30 45
Father graduated from college 64 30 47
Lives in Queens 79 90 85
Has at least one parent working
in ethnic economy 60 80 70
Has at least one parent who
owns his or her own
business 53 13 33
Has at least one parent
working for a co-ethnic
entrepreneur 7 67 37
(N = 42) (N = 30) (N = 72)

An overwhelming 85% of the Korean American students interviewed

lived in Queens, the borough with the largest Korean American population:
broken down further, 79% of the students at MH resided in Queens, as did
90% of the high school dropouts at YCC. Although the majority of students
lived in Queens, the two groups came from different backgrounds. The MH
students came from higher socioeconomic backgrounds and a greater num-
ber of two-parent households. For instance, 36% of the students at MH were
eligible for reduced-cost or free lunch, compared to 80% of the high school
dropouts at YCC. Moreover, 12% of MH students came from single-parent
households (usually headed by mothers, and restricted to a single source of
income), compared to 40% of the high school dropouts at YCC. An addi-
tional 10% of the dropouts lived with distant relatives and/or friends.
18 Asian Americans in Class

Education level was high among MH parents; approximately 60% of

the mothers and 64% of the fathers had graduated from college. In addi-
tion, 20% of the mothers and 22% of the fathers held graduate degrees.
Among the dropout parents, approximately 30% of the mothers and 30%
of the fathers had graduated from college. None of the dropout parents had
graduate degrees.
Occupationally, an overwhelming 70% of the parents in both groups
worked in the ethnic economy: the breakdown was 60% of the MH parents
and 80% of the dropout parents. However, class disparity between the two
groups of parents become more evident when assessing their occupational
status within the ethnic economy. Viewed from a different angle, although
60% of the students at MH had at least one parent working in the ethnic
economy, 53% of them owned their own businesses, while only 7% worked
for co-ethnic entrepreneurs. On the other hand, 80% of the high school drop-
outs had at least one parent working in the ethnic economy; only 13% of
them ran their own business, while 67% worked for co-ethnic entrepreneurs.
Furthermore, the occupational status of those parents who did not work in
the ethnic economy also varied: While a majority of the parents at MH
worked in professional occupations, such as law, medicine, or education, the
majority of the parents at YCC worked in sales, the service economy, and
civil service jobs.
It is important to point out that class variance existed within each group:
Some of the Korean American students at MH came from working-class
families, while some of the high school dropouts at YCC came from middle-
class families. However, in the aggregate, the two groups of Korean American
students clearly represented different socioeconomic backgrounds and were
divided along class lines. Given the students’ eligibility for the free or reduced-
price lunch program, as well as the parents’ level of education and occupa-
tional status, I refer to the Korean American students at MH as coming mostly
from middle-class families and the high school dropouts at YCC as coming
mostly from working-class families.

Magnet High School (MH)

As a competitive elite high school in New York City, MH prides itself on

student academic achievement paralleled by few public high schools. Accord-
ing to the annual school report (New York City Board of Assessment, 2003),
approximately 2,700 students were enrolled, and since entrance to the school
is based on a competitive standardized exam, students commute to the school
from all five of New York City’s boroughs. Almost half of the students were
Asian (46.5%), while 37% were White, 9.1% Hispanic, and 7.4% Black.
Only about 1% consisted of recent immigrants to the United States (those
who had immigrated within the last 3 years).
Matters of Class, Race, Ethnicity, and Schools 19

Approximately 99% of the students graduated and pursued a 4-year

college education. An overwhelming 97% graduated with a Regents Diploma,
2.2% with a local diploma, and less than 1% with a GED diploma. Students’
average SAT scores were 626 verbal and 671 math (scores on each segment
of this test range from 200 to 800), compared to the average of 443 verbal
and 472 math for New York City schools. Meanwhile, students’ academic
performance correlated to their socioeconomic backgrounds. From 2001 to
2003, the percentage of MH students eligible for the reduced-price or free
lunch program was 19.5 (2001), 19.3 (2002), and 25.2 (2003); by compari-
son, schools citywide averaged 48.4 (2001), 51.3 (2002), and 54.0 (2003).
Approximately 97% of the teachers were fully licensed and permanently
assigned to the school. Teachers with a master’s degree or higher totaled
84.9% (2002) and 90.5 % (2003). In addition to the qualified teaching staff,
the school has college guidance counselors who meet with students during
their junior year in preparation for the college application process. Based on
a rigorous college-preparatory curriculum, the school offers Advanced Place-
ment (AP) courses in humanities, social science, and natural science.

Youth Community Center (YCC)

The Youth Community Center is a nonprofit community-based organiza-

tion in Queens. Although the organization provides social service programs
to diverse racial and ethnic communities, it primarily serves Korean Ameri-
cans in Queens. Its education and outreach programs provide students and
adults with counseling, tutoring, classes on the Test of English as a Foreign
Language (TOEFL), English-as-a-second-language (ESL) classes, and prepa-
ratory classes for the General Educational Development (GED) exam.
All of the Korean students in the GED program had officially dropped
out of their respective neighborhood public high schools in New York City
and had been referred to the program by teachers, counselors, parents, com-
munity members, and peers. The Korean high school dropouts in the GED
program came from various public high schools in New York City, most of
which had a record of low student academic performance and high school
dropout rates, as well as a disproportionate number of poor minority stu-
dents and recent immigrants. Since the students came from numerous schools,
it is difficult to give detailed information and statistics for all of them. How-
ever, as a point of reference, I will cite statistics from one particular urban
high school in Queens, New York, since it was the one most commonly at-
tended by the Korean American high school dropouts.
According to the annual school report (New York City Board of As-
sessment, 2003), the school had approximately 2,400 students, most whom
lived in Queens. Almost half were Hispanic (45.4%), while 25.6% were
Asian, 22.4% Black, and 6.6% White. Approximately 18%—compared with
20 Asian Americans in Class

10% of high school students citywide—were recent U.S. immigrants (those

who had immigrated within the last 3 years). Among these recent immigrants,
20% were from Korea, 20% from Ecuador, and 40% from China.
Academically, the students struggled: 42.3% had graduated on time, 34.8%
were still enrolled, and 22.8% had dropped out. Only 26.5% of the students
graduated with a Regents Diploma, 73.5% with a local diploma, and less than
1% with a GED diploma. Students’ average SAT scores were 419 verbal and
460 math (scores on each segment of this test range from 200 to 800), com-
pared to the average of 443 verbal and 472 math for New York City schools.
Meanwhile, a disproportionate number of students were eligible for the reduced-
price or free lunch program, which reveals their low socioeconomic back-
grounds. Between 2001 and 2003, the percentage of eligible students steadily
rose from 47.7 (2001), to 60.4 (2002), to 70.3 (2003); the citywide average
was 48.4 (2001), 51.3 (2002), and 54.0 (2003). Teacher qualifications were
not quite on par with the magnet high school: Approximately 90% of the teach-
ers were fully licensed and permanently assigned to the school; the percentage
of teachers with a master’s degree or higher was 77.2% (2002) and 78.6%
(2003).

ORGANIZATION OF THE BOOK

Part I examines the educational strategies employed by Korean immigrant

parents. Divided into Chapter 2 (Korean American students at the magnet
high school) and Chapter 3 (Korean American high school dropouts), this
part demonstrates how different social and economic contexts affect the two
groups of Korean parents, leading them to adopt divergent educational strat-
egies for their children. On the surface, the two groups of parents have much
in common, including limited English skills and knowledge of the U.S. edu-
cation system, as well as strong aspirations for their children to excel in school
and gain opportunities that they were not afforded as immigrants. However,
the two groups differed greatly in their socioeconomic backgrounds, pre- and
post-immigrant status, ties to co-ethnic networks, and access to schooling
resources—all key structural factors that placed the parents of the Magnet
High students at a greater advantage in providing their children with eco-
nomic support and schooling resources.
Part II examines educational strategies adopted by the second-generation
Korean American students in the school context. Divided into Chapter 4
(Korean American students at the magnet high school) and Chapter 5 (Korean
American high school dropouts), this part shows how the institutional char-
acter of the schools themselves promotes or hinders the students’ access to key
gatekeepers such as teachers and counselors, individuals who could provide
important schooling resources that many of the students could not obtain from
Matters of Class, Race, Ethnicity, and Schools 21

their immigrant parents. By placing Korean students’ experiences in two dif-

ferent schooling contexts, these chapters illustrate the disparate institutional
barriers that each group faces as well as the different racial and educational
strategies they adopt in order to resist and overcome these barriers.
For many children of Asian immigrants, school and home represent two
disparate realities with very different cultural codes and discourses. How the
students traverse these institutional boundaries is influenced by many struc-
tural and cultural factors, including socioeconomic backgrounds, co-ethnic
networks, neighborhood incorporation, school resources, and race and eth-
nic relations among them. The findings show that these factors intersect most
poignantly in the workings of second-generation youth networks and peer
relations in schools and communities. As active agents rather than mere
passive recipients, both groups of students negotiate and resist their oppor-
tunity structure by constructing youth networks and using them to gain the
institutional support they need in a mainstream institution such as school.
However, since they come from different economic, community, and school-
ing contexts, they find different information and resources embedded in their
respective peer networks. Ultimately, the process is far from neutral; instead,
it is deeply divided along class and racial lines.
Chapter 6 outlines education policy recommendations based on the find-
ings of this research. It underscores the significance of class, race, and school
resources as they bear on academic achievement among Asian American stu-
dents, at the same time challenging the Asian American stereotype as a model
minority and the culture-of-poverty argument that deemphasize the struc-
tural resources that all children need. Clearly, the influx of children of post-
1965 immigrants and their concentrated settlement in metropolitan areas pose
a new set of challenges for our urban schools. Education policy should re-
flect this changing demographic in order to better serve these students, who
are increasingly diverse in language, ethnicity, immigration history, and socio-
economic background.

P A R T I

Growing Up with Immigrant Parents:

Parental Strategies and
Co-Ethnic Networks

Academic achievement among Asian American children has been most com-
monly attributed to the beliefs, attitudes, and values of their Asian parents.
While culture certainly plays a role here, this argument homogenizes Asian
American families and children, ignoring crucial variation within communi-
ties and, in so doing, essentializing this population by constructing a group
with fixed “Asian” experience and identities. Lost in this reductionistic por-
trayal is a crucial issue: Asian American parents in different social and eco-
nomic contexts adopt different strategies to educate their children, and these
patterns affect their children’s academic achievement.
What is needed is a more nuanced analysis taking into account struc-
tural factors, the relationship between culture and structural issues, and how
cultures change amid structural shifts. Not surprisingly, when we critically
examine how structural forces—such as class, co-ethnic networks, and school-
ing resources—affect parental strategies among Asian American families, we
begin to see a different, more complex picture.
When we initially compare the experiences of both groups of Korean
American parents, we see many similarities. Each values education, and each
wants to send their children to college to provide them more opportunities
than they had as first-generation immigrants. Furthermore, because of their
confinement to an ethnic economy comprising small family businesses and
because of their limited English language skills and knowledge of the U.S.
education system, both groups were handicapped in providing their children
with direct schooling assistance. In fact, they were at a marked disadvantage
compared with native-born, White, middle-class parents, who can often help
with their children’s homework and engage teachers about their children’s
schooling.
A closer look at the Korean parents, however, reveals key structural dif-
ferences between the two groups. The Korean American parents at MH were
more likely to have been college-educated professionals in Korea. Although a
majority in both groups worked in the ethnic economy, the MH parents were

23
24 Asian Americans in Class

more likely to be businesses owners and middle class, unlike the bulk of the
working-class parents or parents of high school dropouts, who usually worked
for co-ethnic entrepreneurs. Moreover, the MH parents were less likely to be
single parents relying on only one source of income.
Consequently, the MH parents had greater access to social capital for
assisting their children in school. By being embedded in strong co-ethnic
networks, such as those found in Korean churches, the MH parents were
better able to reinforce the value of education in their children, gain impor-
tant information on schooling, and navigate the school system. Equally im-
portant, this group also could translate their shared values and information
into school achievement for their children, usually by hiring private bilin-
gual tutors and college counselors as well as by sending their children to
private, tuition-based after-school academies in Korean ethnic enclaves. By
doing so, they compensated for their limited English skills and the scant bi-
lingual assistance available at their children’s school. In providing such struc-
tural resources, the MH Korean American parents supported their children
in using education as a long-term investment—a family goal that would move
their children away from the ethnic economy and toward career opportuni-
ties in the mainstream economy.
The Korean parents of high school dropouts, on the other hand, faced
numerous structural barriers to accumulating social capital and, therefore,
to supporting their children in school. One such barrier was their long work-
ing hours, which translated into less parental supervision and guidance at
home—this was especially the case for single parents in the group. Another
barrier was their income, which curtailed their ability to hire private tutors
and counselors or to send their children to after-school academies; instead,
they relied solely on inadequate neighborhood public schools for their
children’s education. Located in poor, urban communities and serving mainly
low-income minority children and recent immigrants, the schools were ill
equipped to provide either substantial academic support for the children or
bilingual assistance for immigrant parents. As a result, some poor and working-
class parents resorted to transferring their children to other schools in and
outside their neighborhood. Those schools, however, were similarly lacking
in resources, and because these children frequently changed schools, they often
ended up isolated and alone, devoid of institutional support and further alien-
ated from school. Lacking crucial structural resources, the parents of high
school dropouts found it difficult to leverage education as a long-term in-
vestment for their children. More often than not, their children’s after-school
activity of choice—or necessity—was going to work to supplement the
family’s income, usually at menial jobs in ethnic enclaves, thereby reproduc-
ing the low status of their immigrant parents.
As the findings in the following chapters illustrate, Korean American
parents and children are hardly a homogeneous group. Despite sharing the
Growing Up with Immigrant Parents 25

value of education, the parents experienced the U.S. education system quite
differently as a result of structural factors such as income, network orienta-
tion, and school resources. Such variability in accessing and accumulating
social capital had important implications, determining how and to what
extent the two groups could help their children bridge the gap between school-
ing aspirations and achievement.

C H A P T E R 2

Magnet High’s Korean American Students:

Parental and Co-Ethnic Support

My parents always talk about how important it is to do well in school. They

constantly push me to do the best that I can. That’s all they want from me,
really. They say that education will pay off in the long run.
—Jenny, age 17

PARENTAL EXPECTATIONS:
EDUCATION AS A LONG-TERM INVESTMENT

The high-achieving Korean American students at MH placed much faith in

education. Throughout the interview period at MH, the students consistently
related their parents’ educational expectations, while reiterating how edu-
cation was an effective, if not the only, way to achieve economic mobility.
They shared their parents’ educational aspirations and, like them, believed
in the significance of schooling as a long-term investment that would even-
tually pay dividends. This direct linkage between schooling and economic
mobility was consistently framed in these terms: Achieving academically in
high school leads to acceptance at an elite college, which in turn leads to
economic and career opportunities.
Kay was an eleventh grader who reiterated her parent’s educational
aspirations, believing that education was the main way to achieve success in
a competitive society. She suggested that one needs education not only to
“make it” but also to “survive.”

You know, this world is just getting more demanding. It’s like you
have to have the better qualification than the next guy. I mean, if you
don’t have education, you are just not going to make it. I think this
world is all a matter of Darwin’s theory. You know, only the strong
can survive, and so if you want to be something and go out there
and get something done, then you got to keep up and actually be
informed on top of all that.

27
28 Growing Up with Immigrant Parents

Such a firm belief in education was echoed by Esther, who was careful
to explain that her Korean and other Asian friends experienced similar pa-
rental expectations: “All of my friends who are Asian or Korean, their par-
ents are all strict. They all want their kids to get 99 average and go to good
college. . . . They definitely want above average.” She continued to outline
the direct and strong connection among high school, college, and economic
status. “Being successful means getting really good grades and getting into a
good college so you don’t have to struggle financially, you know. My mom
always says that if I study hard, I will have lots of opportunities in the future.”
Kay and Esther clearly wanted to excel. Listening closely to the reasons
behind their desire, however, we can sense another message, one framed by
structural barriers with which the students were all too familiar, having grown
up with immigrant parents. In relating their aspirations of education, the MH
students consistently referred to their parents’ struggles working in the eth-
nic economy, either as small-business owners or as menial laborers for other
entrepreneurs. The long hours, menial work, and unpredictable economic
conditions shaped both the parents’ and students’ outlook. By growing up
with immigrant parents who endure such hardships, the MH students learned
to view education as a means of gaining career opportunities outside the ethnic
economy.
For instance, Jennifer’s mother worked as a hairdresser for a Korean
business owner. Seeing how her mother worked long hours in menial labor
encouraged her to excel in school so that she can pursue career opportuni-
ties that yield more income and social status:

I want education because I don’t want to end up as a hairdresser, like

my mom, always working with her hands and, like, always tired
when I come home. So as long as you have education, you are fine. I
am going to work hard like my parents do, but I also want it sort of
easier. Since I have education here, it will be easier for me.

In addition to long hours and menial work, students spoke of the finan-
cial instability and stress that came with their parents’ business. Ted’s par-
ents owned a grocery store in Manhattan that was open 24 hours a day,
7 days a week. When he was not too busy with schoolwork, he helped his
parents at the store; he noted how hard his parents work. When I asked him
if he would ever take over his parents’ business, he looked at me in disbelief:
“Are you kidding, there is no way! It’s a lot of work, and you work all the
time. Sometimes business is good, but sometimes it’s not. Besides, my par-
ents are working this hard so that I don’t have to. And that’s why I have to
do well in school, so that I have other options.” Generally speaking, for Ted
and many other students, options meant a career that would afford them a
better quality of life, which included enjoying their work and having time to
Parental and Co-Ethnic Support 29

spend with their family and friends. His comment also spoke to the precari-
ous nature of owning a small family business that does not guarantee finan-
cial success. As Ted explained:

I want an easier life than they [his parents] had. I think success for
me would be having a job where I would not have to spend all my
time doing work, but I would have time to spend with my family.
Spend time doing activities that I like to do. Like, music was a big
part of my life, so I want that. They don’t want me to work as hard—
and without so much stress. They want me to give my best, and at the
same time enjoy it and have a lot less stress than they did.

The students’ accounts of their parents’ struggles illustrated the difficult

work conditions faced by Korean immigrant entrepreneurs and co-workers.
As illustrated, the second-generation Korean Americans at MH are likely to
reject such lifelong entrepreneurship and employment in the ethnic economy.
The combination of wider opportunities in the mainstream economy and the
disincentives to working in the ethnic economy account for this. The find-
ings support studies that show how many first-generation Korean Americans
have used entrepreneurship as a way to achieve economic mobility, but this
avenue has been largely rejected by middle-class second-generation Korean
Americans who are educated and raised in the United States (Abelmann &
Lie, 1995; E. Y. Kim, 1993; Kim, 2004; Min, 1998). That is, middle-class sec-
ond-generation Koreans are choosing career opportunities in the mainstream
economy and leaving the ethnic economy behind with their immigrant par-
ents. Although the co-ethnic economy may prove to be an important means of
economic mobility for first-generation Korean American immigrants, this
avenue may not necessarily be the case for their second-generation children,
especially for those who come from middle-class backgrounds.
More than any other Asian American communities, Korean Americans
have been noted for their “middle-class” entrepreneurial status and strong
co-ethnic networks. Although many were college-educated professionals in
Korea, a formidable language barrier restricted most from finding compa-
rable professional jobs in the United States (Light & Bonacich, 1988; Min,
1995, 1996; Park, 1997). As an alternative to blue-collar occupations, many
Korean immigrants turned to owning and operating small businesses.
According to a 1986 survey that Min (1995) conducted, approximately
45% of working Korean immigrants in Los Angeles were small-businesses
owners (while another 30% found employment in the Korean ethnic enclave).
In New York City, this pattern of Korean American entrepreneurship was
equally pronounced. In 1992, there were approximately 1,800 Korean-owned
green groceries in New York, accounting for some 60% of the total green
groceries in the metropolitan area. In addition, a Korean business district in
30 Growing Up with Immigrant Parents

New York City known as Hanin Sangga thrives. Like Los Angeles, New York
City has become an overseas Seoul, replete with growing international trade
and businesses. Min (1995) reported that in each of the major cities on the
eastern seaboard—Boston, New York, Newark, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and
Washington, D.C.—there exists a growing number of Korean ethnic busi-
nesses, community associations, and Christian churches.
While Korean American entrepreneurship and the ethnic economy have
proved beneficial to Korean Americans exploiting this niche, researchers are
careful to point out the significance of poverty, racism, and other institutional
barriers faced by Korean American communities (Abelmann & Lie, 1995; Hurh
& Kim, 1984, 1989; E. H. Kim, 1993; Kim, 1999; Kim, 2000; Kim & Yu,
1996; Min 1996). For one thing, small businesses in Korean ethnic enclaves
play the intermediary role of distributing goods produced by the ruling capi-
talist groups to poor inner-city residents, bridging the status gap between the
higher- and lower-class sectors (Light & Bonacich, 1988; Min, 1996). Coined
the “middleman minority” group, Korean entrepreneurs, by taking the inter-
mediary role between the producers and minority consumers, have also been
subjected to high levels of hostility and rejection, particularly from minority
customers (Min, 1996). These conflicts have occurred in all major Korean
communities in the United States but have been most severe in New York and
Los Angeles. At least five boycott movements have been staged against Korean
merchants in New York City since 1981 (Min, 1996). During the 1992 riot in
Los Angeles, about 2,300 Korean-owned stores located in South Central Los
Angeles and Koreatown were burned or looted. Property damage incurred by
Korean small-business owners during the riot was estimated at more than $350
million (Min, 1996). Used as scapegoats to downplay the racial conflict and
economic disparity between Blacks and Whites, Korean Americans became
targets of the tensions and inequities in the Los Angeles area (Abelmann &
Lie, 1995; E. H. Kim, 1993; Kim, 1999; Kim, 2000).
Because of the language barrier, racism, and other structural factors,
entrepreneurship for immigrants has historically provided an important al-
ternative to limited primary-sector labor-market opportunities and the daunt-
ing prospect of unemployment (Light & Gold, 2000). Korean Americans are
no exception: They have resorted to self-employment and strong ethnic net-
works as important strategies to achieve economic mobility (Kim, 1981; Light
& Bonacich, 1988; Min, 1996; Park, 1997; Portes & Rumbaut, 1996, 2001).
However, as this research shows, middle-class and socially mobile second-
generation Korean Americans are using education as a way to leave behind
immigrant parents’ family business in order to find economic and professional
opportunities outside the ethnic economy.
Despite their parents’ educational and professional background, many
first-generation Korean immigrants not only work long hours but do so in
menial jobs often situated in impoverished urban neighborhoods. Having
Parental and Co-Ethnic Support 31

grown up in this environment, the Korean American students at MH tended

to couch their parent’s struggles in terms of sacrifice. The time-honored notion
of immigrant parents working hard to provide opportunities for their American-
born and -raised children held true for the majority of MH students, many
of whom not only acknowledged their parents’ struggles but believed they
should end with them. In keeping with this, the students’ career decisions
were, in many ways, a practical means of achieving economic and social sta-
tus not only for themselves but also for their parents (Louie, 2001, 2004;
Suárez-Orozco & Suárez-Orozco, 2001).
Ellen was a tenth grader planning to major in economics in college. By
drawing a direct relationship among education, college, and economic mo-
bility, she explained the importance of financial security. Like her parents,
she believed that being economically stable is an important means of achiev-
ing “happiness.” When I asked her how she defined being successful, she
repeated the conversation she had had with her parents:

I guess money, because my parents say that if you want to be happy,

you need money, you know. A lot of people say that you can’t buy
happiness with money, and my parents don’t think otherwise, but if
you think about it, it’s partly true. I guess how much respect I get
from others, how much others look toward me depends on that.

At the same time, while students wanted to adhere to their parents’

wishes of obtaining financial security by becoming the next high-powered
lawyers, doctors, and corporate executives, they were also conflicted. Deci-
phering what they wanted to pursue as a career, versus what their parents
thought was best for them, proved difficult. For instance, as an eleventh
grader, Kay was preparing to apply to colleges and had thought much about
her career options. Although she wanted to be a teacher, her mother wanted
her to pursue medicine. Her comments revealed the conflict and confusion
that many students faced as they tried to navigate between parental expec-
tations and their own interests and dreams:

For a long time, I’ve listened to my mom. But now, I am trying to

figure out what I want. I am confused if it’s what she wants or what I
want. I want to teach, but my mom thinks that it doesn’t pay enough.
I try to avoid talking to her about this stuff. You know, I say, “OK,”
but then I go into my room. I feel like she puts a double standard. She
says she wants me to become a doctor but then at the same time tells
me to do what I want.

While such conflict arises for many students, it plays out as the reverse for
others. For instance, unlike Kay’s mother, Janice’s parents encouraged her
32 Growing Up with Immigrant Parents

to attend college and choose a career she would enjoy. Consequently, Janice
experienced less conflict from parental expectations:

Well, I know that doing well in school and going to a good college is
supposed to be for me, but I want them [her parents] to be proud of
me. It’s how much effort I put into it. They want me to go to college,
and they want me to have a good career . . . anything that I would
enjoy doing. They want me to have fun and have friends.

Because Janice’s parents did not use their sacrifice to influence her career
choice, Janice was free to appreciate her parents’ sacrifice more fully, to the
point where she wanted to actively please them. To be sure, both Janice and
Kay wanted to repay their parents’ sacrifice by making them proud, but the
autonomy given to Janice meant less inner conflict and turmoil for her.
Actual career choices aside, the MH students were clear about paren-
tal expectations and the effect a college education has on career options.
The students firmly believed that education would afford them career op-
portunities outside the ethnic economy, which would yield a higher salary,
status, and quality of life than what they had experienced growing up with
immigrant parents. From the students’ perspective, there was a clear link
among excelling in high school, attending a competitive college, and ob-
taining career opportunities, with academic achievement in high school
being an important step toward a long-term trajectory of economic and
social mobility.

PARENTAL STRATEGIES: CLASS, SOCIAL CAPITAL,

AND SCHOOLING RESOURCES

To help their children use education as a long-term investment and turn their
schooling aspirations into actual achievement, the MH parents had to pro-
vide them with important structural and educational resources. To this end,
the MH parents actively intervened in their children’s schooling and adopted
the following strategies: (1) using their kinship and co-ethnic networks at
church, work, and communities to reinforce the values of education, bilin-
gual skills, and ethnic ties; (2) using co-ethnic networks to gain important
schooling information necessary for navigating the public school system;
(3) sending their children to tuition-based after-school academies, located
predominately in Korean ethnic enclaves, in order to support their children
academically and prepare them for college; (4) hiring private bilingual tu-
tors and counselors to compensate for the parents’ limited English language
skills and knowledge of the U.S. education system as well as to intervene in
the children’s schooling and college admissions process.
Parental and Co-Ethnic Support 33

These strategies highlight the importance of structural resources and their

relationship to school achievement. While the Korean American MH students’
values—their belief in and faith in education—may explain why they strive
in school, they only partially account for why the children might succeed.
For these values to translate into school achievement, important structural
and institutional support from families, communities, and schools must be
present. Equipped with higher socioeconomic backgrounds and access to
social capital, the Korean parents at MH were more likely than their YCC
counterparts to assist their children in translating educational aspirations into
concrete academic achievement.

ROLE OF THE KOREAN CHURCH: REINFORCING VALUES

OF EDUCATION, LANGUAGE, AND ETHNIC TIES

When I first began my research at Magnet High, several teachers enthusias-

tically offered advice on how to identify and locate Korean American stu-
dents for the interviews: “If you find one Korean American student, she or
he will lead you to all the others.” Throughout the months at Magnet High,
I learned that, indeed, many Korean American students not only knew each
other from the school but had been friends before entering Magnet High,
usually because they belonged to the same co-ethnic churches or community
organizations. In some cases, the students sought out specific Korean Ameri-
can peers when they entered Magnet High because their parents and siblings
were members of the same Korean church.
Mary and Kim had been acquaintances at the same Korean church for
5 years. Now that they were in the same high school, they were becoming
even closer friends and spoke fondly about their church experiences. When
I asked them why their families went to Korean churches, Mary proudly spoke
of the social and religious support that the ethnic church provided for her
family. She explained that because she had been attending the same church
with her parents since she was a child, her parents’ church friends represented
an extended or surrogate family. She explained that her parents attended
church not only for religious reasons but also for the meaningful friendships
that develop there, connections akin to familial relations:

My dad is involved in choir and church. My parents look for not

somebody they can just gossip with and discuss the newest video or
what just happened in Korea, but basically bonding and being like a
family because we don’t really have family here. Well, we do, but
they are in Ohio and California and not near the area, so my parents
look to their friends for bonding and being sort of like a surrogate
family and being an extended family.
34 Growing Up with Immigrant Parents

The Korean American parents at MH gained many forms of economic

and social support from their co-ethnic networks, and the networks that
mattered most sprang from Korean church, where the Korean parents and
their children came together regularly. This is not surprising, given the large
number of Christians in Korean American communities. Although Christians
constitute only about 20% of the population in Korea, almost 75% of Korean
American adult immigrants attend Korean ethnic churches, most of them
Protestant (Kim, 1977; Kim, 1981; Kwon et al., 2001; Min, 1995, 1996). As
mentioned previously, a large segment of Korean émigrés to the United States
are Christian, and many who had no affiliation with Christianity prior to
emigrating attend ethnic churches here in order to maintain ties to other
Koreans, to take advantage of cultural and social service programs, and to
gain social and linguistic support. For a disproportionately large number of
Korean immigrant families, ethnically rooted churches not only serve as re-
ligious centers but also become social and cultural centers that provide valu-
able support (Kwon et al., 2001).
The Korean American students at MH corroborated this, reiterating that
their parents attended co-ethnic church with their children for religious and
cultural reasons, as a way to teach their American-born and -raised children
the significance of learning the Korean language, culture, and history. Many
students conveyed their experience of having attended the same Korean
church with their parents since childhood and of how adult members—
parents, friends, and ministers—upheld and reinforced the importance of ex-
celling in school, the importance of maintaining the Korean language and
ethnic consciousness, and the overall values of students’ immigrant parents.
Ultimately, the social capital found within Korean churches reinforced shared
norms and ties to ethnic networks at home, in communities, and in school.
Take the case of Samantha, a ninth grader born in the United States. Hav-
ing attended the same Korean church with her parents since she could remem-
ber, she explained the importance of learning the Korean language so that she
could better communicate with her parents and maintain close ties with her
Korean community. To that end, she actively participated in what she referred
to as a “Korean” youth group, run by first-generation church members speak-
ing Korean. Her church also had an “English” youth group run by second-
generation church members using English, but she chose the former so that she
could continue to practice and maintain her Korean language skill.

We are, like, devoted Christians. We always go to church and stuff,

and, like, if there is a festival during Thanksgiving, like, people from
Korea come, and we always go to those. I think they [her parents] go
because, partly, they want to show us more about our culture, since
we are in America. They go to Korean church because they don’t
speak very good English . . . well, in my church there is different
Parental and Co-Ethnic Support 35

youth groups. There’s a Korean youth group and an English youth

group, and it was my choice to go to Korean. Since I am Korean, I
think it’s better that you learn to speak Korean and could speak it
with parents and friends and stuff, so to enforce that, I kind of went
to the Korean youth group. And there were people that I knew who
went to Korean. English youth group is very Americanized. They
speak more English than Korean. Ours is all Korean, and since I
understand Korean, too, and I don’t want to, like, go away from my
culture and stuff, so I wanted to stick to it.

When I asked students “What messages do you get from your parents
and their friends in Korean churches?” they explained that Korean parents
expected not only academic achievement but for them to attend competitive
colleges and speak the Korean language. As one student commented, “A lot
of Korean parents want their kids to get good grades, go to Ivy League col-
leges, speak fluent Korean, and be proud of being Korean. Parents are simi-
lar in how they think. The parents want all the students to go to the best
colleges and after-school programs, and all the parents are traditional. A lot
of Korean parents expect these things from their kids.”
These comments support findings of earlier studies on post-1965 second-
generation children, which depict how strong social networks among immi-
grant communities reinforce the value of education and attitudes that are
conducive to academic success (Portes & Rumbaut, 1996, 2001; Waters,
1999; Zhou & Bankston, 1996, 1998). In her ethnographic study of Black
West Indian immigrants in New York, Waters (1999) found that ethnically
rooted churches provided important social support for the immigrant com-
munities. She argued that networks within ethnic church reinforced ties be-
tween immigrant parents and their children, while reinforcing certain values
such as hard work, family, and education. Second-generation children who
belonged to these ethnically rooted churches maintained close ties with their
immigrant parents and other ethnic adults. This reinforcement of ethnic ties
and identities not only helped second-generation children to achieve academi-
cally but also helped insulate them from the stratifying forces of poverty and
racism endemic to their impoverished neighborhoods.
By attending Korean churches with their parents and maintaining close
ties to their parental networks, the Korean American students at MH were
part of what Coleman and Hoffer (1987) referred to as a “closed functional
community,” one in which social networks provide children with access to
multiple sets of “parents” who reinforce the same values and attitudes that
are conducive to school success. In addition, resources that parents lack can
potentially be gained from other members of the community. Put another
way, closed functional communities merge the public and private spheres,
encouraging adult peers in both private and public spaces to sanction common
36 Growing Up with Immigrant Parents

norms that guide children’s behaviors and activities. What we come to under-
stand, ultimately, is that conformity to norms and expectations in a social
network is an important attribute of social capital. The high-achieving Korean
American students at MH understood this well, subject as they were to
multiple sources of social pressure to succeed in school. “The strengths of
these relations and the pressure they can exert on a young person are ex-
ceedingly great, which implies that they constitute an extraordinarily powerful
form of social capital” (Coleman & Hoffer, 1987, p. 236).
However, this social capital, in turn, produces ancillary effects. In fact,
the MH students’ accounts also reveal how social pressure to excel in school
results in fierce competition with and obligation to other members of the
ethnic community. This prompted marked emotional responses in the stu-
dents, especially when their parents compared their academic achievement
and placed the families in competition with one another. For instance, Mary
related her conflicted emotions about being embedded in a co-ethnic com-
munity, where those who achieve academically and speak fluent Korean are
most revered within their parents’ first-generation circle.

My father has many Korean friends. They would come over and
come to each other’s houses, and we talk, children are compared of
their smartness or something. “Oh, my son goes to Stuyvesant,” “Oh,
my daughter goes to Bronx Science,” “Oh, my son will be the captain
of the tennis team,” “My daughter is really well-rounded student; she
is on the debate team,” or something like that. I just sit there and,
like, OK. All I do is smile and nod.

Such competition over academic achievement continues beyond the students’

high school years. Many of them conveyed how their parents often compared
which colleges their children attended and which professional careers they
pursued. As one student commented:

Usually, if Korean parents see that you go to a good college, one

parent would say, “My child goes to Harvard,” and the other parent
would say, “My child goes to NYU” and “He is a doctor, lawyer, or
whatever.” It’s like they compare other people’s children.

When I asked my informants how they dealt with such competition, some
expressed resentment and anger toward their parents and co-ethnic adults.
One student confessed, “It makes me feel like an object, like something that
you show off.” Some also revealed that in their effort to please their par-
ents, they resorted to lying about their school grades. For instance, Laura
remarked how she had to lie to her parents about her grades because she
was unable to achieve the perfect score that her mother expected. When her
Parental and Co-Ethnic Support 37

mother’s pressure became too great for her to bear, Laura spoke openly about
her academic standing and resisted her mother’s expectations:

She [mother] wants me to get 100’s all the time. And grades, grades,
grades, that’s all she cares about. In freshman year, I did so bad, I
couldn’t even show her my report card. I lied and said that this year
they are not sending report cards, but then starting sophomore year, I
started showing it to her and said this is what I could do, so she
started accepting it. When she forced me in freshman year, I didn’t do
so well. I started doing better when she started letting me do it
myself. I know when I should study and not study. I know she cares,
but I don’t like being forced.

Adding to the students’ pressure was an awareness that school perfor-

mance and family reputation were linked. The Korean American students at
MH consistently conveyed that school achievement was important not only
for their personal gain but also for their parents and family. How parents were
perceived by their co-ethnic peers hinged, in part, on how their children per-
formed in school. Students firmly believed that their grades and test scores
became a litmus test for their parents child rearing. Samantha explained:

When I think of my parents, I think how much they want from me

and expect from me. It will be seen as a failure on my parents’ part
not to raise me properly if I don’t get that A.

These comments support other studies showing how children of immigrants

see academic success not only as an avenue of individual mobility but also
as a way to bring honor or success to their immigrant families (Gibson, 1988;
Hsu, 1971; Sung, 1987). Conversely, my informants’ responses revealed that
to fall short of these normative standards and expectations was to bring shame
upon their families and face the possibility of social exclusion.
It is also interesting to note that such social expectations and compari-
sons were not always unidirectional from parents to children. For instance,
as parents compared their children’s academic achievements, the Korean
students at MH also compared their parents’ child rearing and expectations,
including their curfews and disciplinary measures. In effect, by reenacting
this ritual and holding their parents’ performances up to scrutiny against
community norms, the students reversed roles with their parents. In the pro-
cess, they learned to gauge whether their parents’ expectations were reason-
able or worth contesting. Susan, a tenth grader at MH, explained:

As long as she [Susan’s mother] is like other mothers, the way that
other mothers are, I would listen, I would have no question about it,
38 Growing Up with Immigrant Parents

’cause I would know that other Korean parents are like that, so what
can I expect? How can I tell her not to tell me to do something that
other parents tell their kids? As long as she is like other parents and
all other typical parents, then I would listen to her. I would have no
question about her.

In this complex and multidimensional process, the MH parents and their

children mutually reinforced the values inherent in their social networks. In
other words, they both acted within the norms of the network, using them
as a barometer by which to judge each other’s behavior.
By including their children in their co-ethnic networks, ultimately the
MH parents were able to effectively sanction their values of education, fam-
ily, and the Korean language, which in turn reinforced their children’s eth-
nic and familial ties. The strength of these social relationships within the
network came from their degree of intensity, level of trust, frequency of in-
timacy, reciprocity, and acknowledged obligations (Granovetter, 1985; Lin,
2000). The stronger these relationships within networks, the more likely that
the sharing and exchanging of resources occur, where both collective and
individual actors invest in social relations to protect their existing resources
and to gain additional ones (Lin, 2000, p. 47).

SCHOOLING INFORMATION AND SUPPORT

Elite Public High Schools

One of the more important sets of resources to be gained from having access
to social capital is flow of information about choices and opportunities that
can be used for a purposeful action (Lin, 2000). For instance, by being em-
bedded in strong social networks in their communities, the parents at MH
learned how to navigate the public school system, gain information on pri-
vate after-school programs, and hire private bilingual tutors and counselors
for their children. These parental strategies, in part, compensated for their
limited English skills and knowledge of the U.S. education system. More-
over, these strategies, which included using their personal funds to provide
bilingual assistance, also compensated for the limited bilingual resources
available for parents at MH and in the school system in general.
When I first met John, he had only been at MH for a few months. As a
newly admitted freshman, he was trying to learn his way around the school
and get to classes on time. Although he may have been new to the school, he
had known about MH since he was in elementary school, when his parents
told him about it. He explained that his parents learned about MH, and how
to apply to other elite high schools, through their friends at work. After his
Parental and Co-Ethnic Support 39

arrival at MH, John’s parents also told his uncle about the application pro-
cess. John’s cousin eventually followed in his footsteps:

My parents expected me to apply to this high school since I was in

elementary school. They heard about it through their friends at work,
and then they told my uncle and aunt. Now my cousins are applying
this year.

The clear impetus for applying to MH and other elite public high schools
was the free tuition and their academic reputation. Conversely, the parents
believed that if their children did not make it to one of the specialized high
schools, they would have to attend one of the poor-quality public schools in
their neighborhood. Given the outstanding reputation of the elite magnet high
schools, the limited choice of quality public schools available to them in their
respective urban neighborhoods, and their inability to send their children to
an elite private high school because of limited funds, many MH parents felt
that it was extremely important for their children to gain admission to one
of the specialized public high schools.
When I met her, Kimberly was a 17-year-old junior preparing to apply
to college. She was admitted to MH as a freshman and had come there from
a middle school comprised of mostly poor, minority children. She explained
that had she not been admitted to MH, she would have had to resort to the
public high school in her neighborhood—a gloomy prospect for her and her
parents. Although she was relieved to have been accepted at MH, she re-
called the experience of her cousin, who was not so fortunate:

I learned about the specialized high schools through my cousin. She

went through it before me, so I learned through her experience. She
applied but didn’t make it. She went to her local high school but
eventually dropped out. My parents now think all local high schools
are terrible, and that they make you into gangsters. My other cousin
went to another public high school because he didn’t get in, and he
didn’t turn out that good. So, my parents think that specialized high
school is good and [are] glad that I got in.

In their research on second-generation children in New York City, Kasinitz,

Mollenkopf, Waters, Lopez, and Kim (1997) found that Chinese American
interviewees took advantage of the best that the New York public school
system afforded, despite their low socioeconomic status and limited English
skills. The study indicated that, while none of the Chinese interviewees had
attended private or parochial schools, many had attended elite magnet
schools. As a result of strong co-ethnic networks among the first-generation
parents, students were able to access important information about the elite
40 Growing Up with Immigrant Parents

public schools and gain entrance to them. The interviewees in the study bene-
fited from high degrees of economic concentration among their first-generation
parents as well as lower degrees of residential segregation. Ultimately,
strong first-generation co-ethnic networks helped the second-generation
interviewees learn about elite magnet high schools and take advantage of
the public school system. Furthermore, how the children of immigrants
learned to maneuver within the public school systems had enormous im-
pact on second-generation educational outcome.

Private After-School Academies and Bilingual Tutors and Counselors

In addition to elite public high schools, the Korean parents learned about
private after-school programs in Korean ethnic enclaves. These privately run,
tuition-based after-school academies, called hagwon, offer cram classes that
prepare students for standardized exams, learn Korean and English language
skills, and reinforce other academic disciplines. Many parents at MH sent
their children to hagwon to help them prepare for college entrance exams
and get ahead in their schoolwork (Kao, 1995; Schneider & Lee, 1990; Zhou,
1997).
During the summer, Alice attended hagwon in Flushing, Queens, to pre-
pare for the SAT I and II exams; she knew that when school started in the fall,
she would not have as much time to study. To illustrate why she attended this
private academy, she repeated her conversations with her parents. Noting their
parents’ portrayal of the Korean education system, Alice explained how high
school students in Korea attend hagwon in order to do well on a competitive
college entrance exam—reflecting a process that is more difficult and strenu-
ous than what she has to endure in the United States. Even though Alice was
born and raised in the United States and had never attended school in Korea,
she used the Korean education system as a point of reference:

My parents send me to hagwon so I can do better on SAT and stuff. I

go to hagwon during the summer, too, so that I can prepare for
school. I wouldn’t try as hard if my parents were not pushing me.
They say that it’s really hard in Korea, and students go to hagwon,
study really hard there. In Korea, it’s so strict . . . they expect me to
do the same.

According to the MH students, their parents often used the Korean

education system as a point of reference in educating their children in the
United States. For instance, in Korea it is common for, if not expected of,
students to attend hagwon as early as kindergarten. As in the United States,
these private, tuition-based after-school academies provide additional tutor-
ing to help children excel in school and prepare for competitive high school
Parental and Co-Ethnic Support 41

and college entrance exams. However, these private after-school academies,

both in Korea and the United States, usually emphasize rote memorization,
test-taking skills, and cram methods specifically geared toward improving
test scores. As profit-generating businesses designed primarily to improve
standardized test scores, these academies rarely provide enriching curricu-
lum for cognitive development based on progressive teaching methods and
pedagogy.
According to a recent survey conducted in Korea, it is estimated that an
overwhelming 83.1% of elementary school students, 75.3% of middle school
students, and 56.4% of high school students attend hagwon after school
(“Public Education Crisis,” 2003). A survey published by a state-run educa-
tion research institute highlighted the problem associated with this trend,
which includes staggering financial burdens on families, as well as parents’
lack of confidence in the public education system, which they claim is fail-
ing them. It is estimated that families spent 13.64 trillion won ($22.5 bil-
lion) on private tutoring in 2003. That amounts to 2.3% of the 2002 gross
domestic product, or 55% of the government education budget in 2003
(“Public Education Crisis,” 2003). It is reported that parents are putting
pressure on the government to reform its public school system so it is less
dependent on these private profit-seeking enterprises. Meanwhile, the num-
ber of private hagwon academies has been rapidly increasing throughout the
country, as students are expected to put in longer hours studying and par-
ents are expected to shoulder greater financial burden, often starting as soon
as their children reach kindergarten (“Public Education Crisis,” 2003).
The MH immigrant parents’ inclination to use the Korean education
system as a point of reference to educate their children in the United States
illustrates the significance of their pre- and post-immigration social status
(Hirschman & Wong, 1986; Kasinitz, Mollenkopf, & Waters, 2004; Portes
& Rumbaut, 1996, 2001). On the one hand, this tendency reflects a pattern
of amassing cultural capital derived from their status as college-educated
professionals in Korea. Witness their active intervention in their children’s
schooling by sending them to hagwon and by hiring private tutors and coun-
selors. On the other hand, their orientation reflects their relatively low sta-
tus as U.S. immigrants. With the exception of a few MH parents who attended
graduate school in the United States, they often had little understanding of
the workings and logistics of high school curricula or of the U.S. college
admission process, and they were at a disadvantage in directly assisting their
children with schoolwork, college counseling, and career opportunities out-
side of their ethnic economy.
Repeatedly, MH students described how their immigrant parents—given
their own lack of U.S. education, not to mention their language and cultural
barriers—were unable to directly offer concrete schooling support or advice
on college admissions. Most students explained that even though their parents
42 Growing Up with Immigrant Parents

recognized the names of elite schools and colleges, by and large they could not
provide concrete daily schooling support. In fact, many students noted that
teaching their parents about the U.S. education system usually falls to them.
Paul, a 16-year-old sophomore born in the United States, confirmed this
sense of simultaneous recognition and helplessness on the part of many
Korean immigrant parents, who push their children to study hard and to do
their best without being able to give them direct and concrete advice on how
to excel in school:

My parents could not help me in school because school and education

in high school today is too much for them. I mean, a lot of the kids
come into school with poor immigrant parents, and they don’t even
know what the hell their kids are doing. I think basically, like,
parents say do your work, try your best, that kind of thing . . . but it’s
difficult for most parents to help because they are not even sure what
or how they can help except by pushing them.

Some students were careful to point out that their parents’ English skills
were good enough to help them early in their school careers at the elemen-
tary level and shortly thereafter. However, since they had entered high
school, their parents’ English skills were not sophisticated enough to en-
able them to help their children with subjects like history, English, or biol-
ogy. As such, the students are often the ones to educate their parents on
school-related topics. Minnie was a 17-year-old junior in the midst of ap-
plying to colleges when I interviewed her. She described her frustration at
having to teach her parents about various college exams and the applica-
tion process:

In elementary and junior high school, my parents used to know every

test that I had, but now I told them I have to take SAT II, and they
say, “What is SAT II?” You know, they don’t know anything, so,
like, that’s probably why they don’t bother talking to me about
anything—that’s why they don’t push me to do anything like that,
because they are not familiar with, like, what kind of testing there
are, how we learn in school.

These comments illustrate how, unlike many middle-class White parents,

Korean American MH parents struggle with providing direct schooling support
to their children. Since the family members of White, middle-class students
often have connections to mainstream institutional resources and opportu-
nities, the parents themselves often act as valuable institutional gatekeepers
who negotiate the transmission of institutional resources and opportunities
Parental and Co-Ethnic Support 43

for their children (Boykin, 1986; Lareau, 1987, 2003; Phelan et al., 1993;
Stanton-Salazar, 1997, 2001).
In any case, another key strategy MH parents used to compensate for
their limited ability to directly assist their children was to spend personal funds
on private bilingual tutors and college counselors. Kay was a MH junior busily
preparing for college exams when I interviewed her. Although she could have
sought a college counselor at her public magnet high school, she preferred
to consult with a private Korean college counselor because of the personal
attention that she received. She explained how the Korean college counselor
hired by her parents helped her with the application process and provided
college counseling advice:

I have Ms. B [school counselor], but I’ve only seen her once, and
never again. My parents got me a Korean college counselor, and
we’ve been meeting with him. My parents’ friends knew of the
counselor, and a lot of people from this school go to him. He knows
what standards are for students to specific colleges. He does every-
thing . . . he does the college process, tells us what SAT scores I need,
which college is most suitable, financial aids, and deadlines. He will
proofread college essays.

In addition to providing students with personalized advice on college

exams and the application process, many of these private counselors proved
an invaluable bilingual and bicultural asset to the parents, helping them
compensate for MH’s limited bilingual outreach. The scope of the problem
was illustrated by Kay, who explained how the language barrier hampered
her parents as well as many of her MH friends’ parents—for instance, few
parents attended open-school nights or readily spoke to the children’s teach-
ers. What followed was a win–win scenario. The private bilingual counse-
lors mitigated the situation by helping Kay’s and other parents to be more
involved in their children’s schooling, and the students gained not only pri-
vate counseling but also a way to include their parents in their school and
college application process. Kay continued:

Teachers in the school and students should have a tighter relation-

ship, but it’s hard to find a teacher who will go out of the way to do
things for you. It helps that he [Korean counselor] is also Korean,
because he can understand what is good for me and my parents. He
meets with my parents and me separately, and then meets us to-
gether. He tells me what my parents want me to do, and then tells me
what he thinks I should do. And it’s good because he can communi-
cate with my parents better than a White person.
44 Growing Up with Immigrant Parents

Ultimately, the MH parents, by resorting to hagwon, compensated for

two limitations: their own and the magnet high school’s. They acquired
schooling assistance for their children that neither could provide, mainly by
leveraging strong social networks, sending their children to private after-
school programs, and hiring private tutors and counselors. Consequently,
the Korean American students at MH were better prepared than the Korean
American high school dropouts for the U.S. educational system, which places
a premium on standardized exams and high-stakes testing as a way of mea-
suring student achievement and potential. Furthermore, because many of the
private tutors and counselors were bilingual, with experiences of attending
schools in the United States and working in the mainstream economy, they
were able to act as key institutional agents to provide resources available
outside of the immigrant parents’ ethnic enclave, as will become more evi-
dent in Part II. Thus it is important to highlight the importance of schooling
resources available in and outside of immigrant networks when accounting
for educational achievement among children of immigrants.
The strategies employed by MH parents also afforded their children
assistance with important resources that students need in order to achieve
academically. What’s important to remember is that these parental strate-
gies were predicated on the parents’ social and economic resources. While
the MH parents held high educational expectations for their children, they
also had the financial capital necessary to translate aspirations into school
achievement and help the students pursue education as a long-term invest-
ment for economic mobility. The students, in turn, adopted their parents’
value of education, often predicated on pre- and post immigrant experience,
believing that by excelling in school they would gain higher occupational
status than that of their immigrant parents, many of whom could not pur-
sue careers in the United States on a par with their educational level because
of their limited English skills. From the perspective of the MH students and
parents, investment in education meant gaining career opportunities to move
away from menial labor in the ethnic economy and to leave their small fam-
ily businesses behind. The children internalized these values and aspired to
achieve academically as a way to fulfill this long-term goal, not only for
themselves but also for their families.

C H A P T E R 3

Korean American High School Dropouts:

Alone and Isolated

My parents are very hardworking people. My dad is a construction worker;

he works 13 hours a day and 7 days a week. My mom doesn’t work be-
cause she has to take care of all seven of us. She stays home, she cooks,
does laundry, gets important calls for my dad’s business. I know what my
dad does to put a roof over our heads and what my mom does to take
care of us. I know all this, and I still can’t do well in school. I always tried
but I couldn’t.
—Helen, age 18

PARENTAL EXPECTATIONS:
LIMITATIONS OF CO-ETHNIC SUPPORT

Helen was an 18-year-old Korean American who immigrated to the United

States with her parents when she was less than a year old. In an essay she
wrote for her GED class, she described her family’s economic struggles as
well as her own struggle in school despite her aspirations to achieve. At one
point, she explained how her father, who did not graduate from high school,
wanted her to excel in school in order to gain more career opportunities. “My
dad said that since he is a construction worker and he didn’t finish high school,
we got to become something better. His only dream is that all of us becom-
ing something that can make a difference in the world.” She concluded, “I
just hope that there are more good things waiting to happen in the future.”
Like their counterparts at Magnet High, the Korean American high
school dropouts in this study had been exposed to high parental educational
aspirations and knew that education was important. Yet consistently there
was a wide gap between parental aspirations and the children’s achievement,
because the latter were more likely than the MH students to face numerous
structural and institutional barriers to gaining important schooling support.
Unlike the MH students, who were embedded in strong social networks at
home and in their communities, the dropouts consistently spoke of being alone
and isolated at home and in school. They repeatedly mentioned having to

45
46 Growing Up with Immigrant Parents

“take care” of school, career, and financial decisions on their own. Com-
ments such as “There’s nobody I can turn to—I am by myself” were com-
mon among the students.
Born in the United States, Eugene was 18 years old at the time of this
study. Although his baseball cap covered his eyes and cast a dark shadow on
his small face, he beamed with a warm smile as I thanked him for agreeing
to the interview. Eugene and his widowed, still-single mother had moved to
New York City from the Midwest to be near her extended family for eco-
nomic support. His mother later left the city to look for work and no longer
resided in the same household, leaving Eugene to depend for support on his
aunt and uncle, with whom he lived. When I asked whether he spoke with
his aunt and uncle regarding schooling and career decisions, he explained
that he had no one to turn to. Eventually, Eugene decided to drop out of
high school, deliberating for some time before doing so. It was a decision
that he made mostly on his own, without much adult guidance:

It took me a month to decide, and it was really hard. Four years,

you know, down the drain. My uncle and aunt don’t even know I
dropped out of high school. . . . They asked me, “Aren’t you graduat-
ing this year?” And I said, “I will do what I have to do to graduate.
You will be satisfied with that, right?” And she said, “Yeah.” And so,
I decided to take the GED. I dropped out in January.

Eugene’s account was typical of the stories told by many of the Korean Ameri-
can high school dropouts, who faced myriad structural barriers to developing
networks and forming relationships with adults who could provide crucial
support toward their schooling achievement and career opportunities.
To be sure, a majority of the Korean American parents in both the MH
and dropout groups worked long hours in menial jobs in the ethnic economy.
Growing up with these immigrant parents, both groups of students were at
a loss for educational guidance at home and school. But the high school drop-
outs were more likely to come from households with lower socioeconomic
backgrounds, single mothers, and less parental supervision at home. The
single mothers, in particular, not only worked for co-ethnic entrepreneurs
as waitresses, manicurists, or hairdressers but often had to travel outside the
city to obtain work with them. This translated into longer commutes, and
they sometimes resorted to leaving their children with relatives as a result.
Moreover, because of limited family income, many Korean American high
school dropouts themselves had little option but to work after school. All of
these structural factors limited the amount of time and resources that the
working-class Korean parents, especially single mothers, could contribute to
their children’s schooling. They also cut into the time the students themselves
could devote to their studies.
Alone and Isolated 47

Ellen was a U.S.-born 18-year-old who had been out of high school for
more than a year when I met her. Since her parents’ divorce, her mother had
had to work 7 days a week as a manicurist for a Korean entrepreneur—
although, to be sure, the family had struggled financially ever since she could
remember. Ellen explained that while she was in high school, her mother was
never home because of her demanding work schedule. She rarely spoke to
her mother about schooling or problems she was having. After dropping out
of high school, she started working two jobs. “My relationship with my mom
is not good. When I dropped out, we fought every day. She wanted me to go
to high school. She would say that back in her day, it was really hard to go
to college, and she is suffering right now because she didn’t graduate col-
lege.” She continued, “I want to get my GED, but I also have to work to
make a living. Since I left school, I’ve been working full time as a manicurist
and a receptionist at an office.” She found that in contrast to school, where
she was failing and was “getting into trouble,” working afforded her finan-
cial independence and resulted in a “better use of time.”
An overwhelming number of studies have shown that high school drop-
outs in general are more likely to come from families of low socioeconomic
status (SES) headed by parents who are unable to be actively involved in their
children’s schooling because of long working hours and limited access to
structural resources (Dornbusch et al., 1985; Duncan & Hoffman, 1985;
Ekstrom, Goertz, Pollack, & Rock, 1986; Furstenberg, Gunn, & Morgan,
1987; Natriello, McDill, & Pallos, 1990; Rumberger, Ghatak, Poulos, Ritter,
& Dornbusch, 1990). In particular, children raised by single mothers are more
vulnerable to poverty because women typically earn lower wages than men
and have less job experience because of childbearing and child rearing
(Duncan & Hoffman, 1985; Pong & Ju, 2000). This precarious economic
status greatly diminishes these mothers’ ability to be actively involved in their
children’s schooling, thereby contributing to the likelihood of high dropout
rates among these students (Amato, 1987; Astone & McLananhan, 1991,
1994; Krein & Beller, 1988; McLanahan, 1985). Furthermore, as Pong and
Ju (2000) have found, divorce or separation increases the risk of children
dropping out, given the emotional, psychological, and economic hardships
placed on them. The deep emotional scars and strained relationships with
parents often result in alienation and disengagement from home and school.
One of my interviewees, Adam, immigrated to the United States at age
11. He compared his experience growing up in Korea with his experience in
the United States, explaining that his mother had been less involved in his
schooling here because of her full-time work schedule and limited English
skills. “In Korea, my father worked and mother stayed home. But here they
both have to work. When I see my Korean friends, I would say 80 to 90% of
mothers work. So, my mom was never home because of work, and because
they didn’t speak English, they were not as involved as they were in Korea.
48 Growing Up with Immigrant Parents

So they knew, but they couldn’t do much.” When I asked him how his par-
ents dealt with his dropping out of high school, he replied, “They were not
happy at all. They didn’t want me to appear less than others in society. They
wanted me to stay in school and pushed me a lot, but they were working
and busy, so it was difficult.”
Because their circumstances forced them to work weekends, many of
the dropout parents were also less likely to participate with their children in
shared activities such as Korean church, which otherwise might have pro-
vided them with important forms of social capital. Therefore, parental mes-
sages regarding value of education and the significance of a college degree
were not as effective as they were for MH students, who were embedded in
strong networks with parents and their adult friends.
Furthermore, as I will explain in the following section, when the drop-
outs did attend Korean church, they usually associated with Korean Ameri-
can youths also from low-income families, many of whom were high school
dropouts or bound for the military. Their association with other low-income
Korean Americans meant they gained access to the type of information tai-
lored to their specific needs—information on short-term jobs, GED programs,
and joining the military. Although this was certainly helpful for the drop-
outs, it was starkly different from what was passed on to the MH students,
ultimately preparing the former for lower-status positions in the mainstream
economy that they might one day move into. That is, the Korean American
high school dropouts adopted a different network orientation, operating from
a lower hierarchical position and network location.
It is important to point out that while the MH students spoke predomi-
nantly about sharing educational aspirations with their immigrant parents,
the dropouts spoke readily about the differences and cultural gaps they ex-
perienced with theirs. Consequently, instead of conforming to parental
expectations and community norms, the high school dropouts actively re-
sisted their parents’ educational aspirations as a way to adapt to structural
barriers they faced at school and society at large. They were far more likely
to adopt an oppositional cultural frame of reference from their peers at school
and in their community.
Myung was a 17-year-old who had dropped out of his neighborhood
high school the year before I interviewed him. I asked him whether he had
ever talked with his parents about schooling and career decisions. He took a
deep breath and looked away. After a few minutes, he looked down and began
to speak: “You know, we don’t really talk. We are very different.” He ex-
plained that his parents had rarely given him any concrete advice about
schooling or jobs but had expected him to do well in school. “All they say is
study. But they don’t know anything about the schools here, and they can’t
help me in schools anyways.” Then he looked up at me and continued, “But,
Alone and Isolated 49

then, I was really rebellious. Since I’ve dropped out of high school, they’ve
been better about trying to understand what a teenager goes through. They
learned that they can’t force me to do things.”
Myung’s comments illustrate how dropping out of school was both a
way to resist his parents’ unrealistic demands and an act of defiance that
would gain their attention—a call for help and a chance to be heard. Many
of the students I interviewed dropped out of high school despite knowing
that education was important, explaining repeatedly that their parents’ ex-
pectations of school success seemed unreasonable and unrealistic. They reit-
erated the contradiction that existed in their homes: Their parents expected
academic achievement but did not provide them with appropriate social and
economic support.
Additionally, given the strained relationship with their parents or adults
in their extended family, many of my informants were not able to give ready
examples of discussions they had had with their parents or guardians about
education, future plans, or the kinds of careers they aspired to. The students
failed to concretely bridge the gap between the benefits of education and the
perceived opportunity structure. When asked to name people they deemed
successful, either they could not point to people or, if they did, the individuals
were often engaged in menial or dead-end jobs.
During the summer of 2002, I met Alex at the community organization
where he was preparing to take the GED. He was a quiet and thoughtful
young man who had dropped out of an urban high school in Queens 2 years
earlier and was currently unemployed. When I asked him about his relation-
ship with his parents, he stressed the language and cultural barriers between
him and his parents and explained that he just stopped communicating with
them once he entered high school:

I don’t look up to my parents. I think they work hard, so I like that

about them, but we are very different. Our views are very different.
It’s like, there is nobody I can look up to. No peers, no friends, no
counselors or teachers.

Although most of the Korean American dropouts admitted that educa-

tion was important, they resisted their parents’ aspirations as a way to adapt
to academic failure and structural limitations. They argued that they dropped
out of high school not because they could’t achieve in school but because
they willingly chose not to. As one student, Chul Shin, explained,

Education is important. It’s what you want to do with it. It’s also
Korean culture, right? Korean parents, all they think about is educa-
tion. My son gots [sic] to graduate high school, college, you know. I
50 Growing Up with Immigrant Parents

didn’t want to go to high school, because they wanted me to. I

dropped out of high school, not because I couldn’t do it, but I didn’t
want to do it, you know.

If research has shown a strong correlation between family structure and

dropout rates, noting that high school dropouts are more likely to come from
low-SES families in which parents are less involved in their children’s educa-
tion and decision making, some studies are also careful to point out that
indicators of parental involvement vary widely across research. For instance,
Sui-Chu and Willms (1996) have argued that some of the emerging studies
fail to distinguish between various dimensions of parental involvement. They
specifically note that parents’ active discussion of school-related activities at
home had the strongest effect on their children’s school achievement. They
found little evidence that lower-SES parents are necessarily less involved in
their children’s schooling than are higher-SES parents. That is, it may be
important to also address the kinds of parental involvement and patterns of
strategies implemented in families of different social and economic back-
grounds, rather than degrees of parental involvement per se.
For instance, Lareau (2003) found that middle-class parents, given their
higher occupational status as well as greater access to important cultural
capital at home, work, and schools, engaged in a pattern of “concerted cul-
tivation” (p. 38) that provided important institutional support for their chil-
dren. She found that middle-class parents provided their children with highly
structured educational activities that helped them learn academic skills and
cultural discourses—a process that further helped them excel in and outside
of school. On the other hand, while the working-class parents also have
educational aspirations for their children, they did not readily provide such
structured educational activities, a result of time and economic limitations
and an inability to mobilize their cultural capital into institutional resources
for their children’s schooling. As such, working-class parents often resorted
to “free-play” (nonstructured) child rearing, while relying more on the teach-
ers and schools to take care of their children’s schooling (2003).

PARENTAL STRATEGIES: RELYING ON PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Although both groups of Korean parents tried to instill the value of educa-
tion in their children, they used different strategies—a process that greatly
depended on the economic and social resources available to them. As illus-
trated in the previous section, because they had access to social capital, the
magnet high school parents were more likely to reinforce the value of edu-
cation and to acquire important schooling information for their children. They
were also financially able to convert this information into concrete structural
Alone and Isolated 51

support for their children, such as sending them to private, tuition-based

educational programs in Korean ethnic enclaves.
By contrast, the working-class Korean American parents, with their low
SES and minimal access to social capital, were less likely to effectively rein-
force the value of education, acquire schooling information from co-ethnic
networks, and translate the information into concrete schooling support for
their children. Instead, they adopted different educational strategies, which
included (1) turning predominantly to the children’s public schools to take
care of their children’s education and (2) transferring their children from one
public high school to another for multiple reasons. In some cases, parents
simply wanted to provide their children with a better education. In others,
they sought a different schooling environment to remedy their failing grades.
Finally, financial circumstances forced some of the families to move to a
different school district. In the end, the result was high transfer rate among
the Korean high school dropouts that ultimately worked against them.
As resourceful as these parents were, their strategies fell far short of those
employed by the MH parents and left their children at a disadvantage when
it came to school achievement. For instance, the public high schools that the
working-class Korean American parents relied on faced many problems,
among them limited institutional resources such as teachers and counselors
who could adequately address the needs of the predominantly poor and
minority and immigrant population they served. In addition, on occasion
school counselors referred parents to Korean community-based programs that
helped compensate for the schools’ shortcomings with bilingual assistance;
by and large, though, these resources were not widely available, were un-
known to school staffs, and suffered from limited funding. Finally, when the
Korean parents transferred their children from one public school to another,
they were unable to escape the poverty, violence, and isolation endemic to
these urban schools, and with each additional school, the students were less
likely to put down roots and develop trusting and meaningful relationships.
Consequently, they continued to navigate schooling alone and isolated and
to grow increasingly alienated from the schooling process.

Neighborhood Public Schools

The working-class Korean parents were more likely to entrust the public
schools with taking care of their children’s education. Yet these schools, lo-
cated in isolated communities serving predominantly poor minorities and
immigrants, were faced with inadequate institutional resources and funding
to meet the needs of the Korean parents and their children. They failed to
provide the necessary bilingual assistance and accurate information regard-
ing their children’s schooling options, including a clear explanation of the
difference between graduating with a high school diploma versus a GED.
52 Growing Up with Immigrant Parents

Moreover, throughout the interviews, the Korean American dropouts

explained how their educational experiences were marked by mistrust and
poor relationships with teachers and school counselors. As I will illustrate
in the following section, the students’ schooling experience showed an over-
whelming lack of mutual trust and respect between them and their teach-
ers. Students consistently cited the lack of academic rigor, low expectations,
and limited academic and social support in school as some of the reasons
for dropping out. At the same time, their parents lacked the economic and
social resources necessary to compensate for these institutional shortcom-
ings. Their limited English skills, knowledge of the U.S. educational sys-
tem, and time to devote to their children’s schooling only added to the
problem.
For instance, students explained that their parents rarely came to parent–
teacher conferences although they often did meet with their children’s school
counselors after receiving numerous phone calls and letters—usually with-
out Korean translation—from school. Moreover, students explained that
when their parents came during school hours, it often meant that they would
have to miss a day of work without pay, so some students tried to “take care”
of the situation on their own without getting their parents involved. Some-
times this meant resorting to intercepting school mail and phone calls for
their parents. However, according to Jay, even if parents went to the high
school to meet with the school counselor, these meetings were often a “waste
of time” and rarely helpful:

It’s a waste of time. My mom sits there with me as the counselor

rattles things off to me in English so I can translate for my mom. I
know I messed up, too, and could’ve done better, but it’s not always
my fault that kids can’t learn in that school. The counselor thought
that I’d be better off taking the GED, since my records were so bad
. . . my mom eventually agreed and signed the papers.

Jay’s comment illustrates the disadvantages faced by many low-income im-

migrant parents when they turn to their children’s school for guidance. With-
out adequate English skills and knowledge of the U.S. education system,
the working-class Korean American parents were often at the mercy of the
schools themselves. Without adequate translation, the parents lacked accu-
rate information and were unable to ask school personnel important ques-
tions regarding their children’s schooling, legal rights, and other program
references—information that is pivotal for making sound decisions about their
children’s schooling.
According to Mike, the director of the GED program at YCC, lack of
bilingual counselors and translators is one of the biggest barriers facing
Korean and other immigrant parents in New York City urban schools:
Alone and Isolated 53

I think many of them make some kind of effort to go to the school.

Or they are forced to go because they have to sign papers or they are
called in by the vice principal. And then they struggle through some
sort of conversation, and basically they are directed by the guidance
counselor basically saying that “your child is not doing well enough,
or they are skipping too much and it would be better for your child to
get their GED” is what basically comes out of the conversation in
most cases. They go there, and some guidance counselors might tell
the parents there are some programs they can go to, and some will
just tell them to leave. I will either get calls from counselors . . . I get
it from all different sides, students, guidance counselor, and the
parents.

When I asked how New York City schools had been dealing with such lim-
ited bilingual assistance for parents, Theresa, another program administra-
tor at YCC, explained that despite parents’ legal rights and the educational
policy mandated by the board of education, it was difficult to enforce such
policy at the school level because of limited funds and resources. Theresa
recalled a conversation she had had with one of the high school counselors:

There aren’t any translators and even though legally they [Korean
parents] should be provided translators, when you mention that, they
[counselors] just scoff at you, “What, are you joking?” Even people
at the board of the education level will tell you this. But if you repeat
it to a counselor at a high school, “I’ve never heard of this. Is that a
joke?” I would tell them, “The board of ed told me,” and they would
say, “Well, that is obviously not going to happen.”

Theresa continued to explain that the language barrier faced by Korean

parents leads some of them to sign legal papers that release their children
from school prematurely—a process that many Korean parents are not even
aware of until they try to reenroll their children in school:

One thing about the counselor issue, the language barrier, is that a lot
of times the counselor will tell the parents to sign papers, and some-
times that’s the very paper that says they are allowing their student to
drop out of school. And the parent doesn’t even know what they are
signing. There have been numerous cases of that happening.

Mike agreed with Theresa and also commented on how the language barrier
prohibits the Korean American parents from asking important questions and
gaining information that could potentially help their children and keep them
in school:
54 Growing Up with Immigrant Parents

And they can’t ask appropriate questions because of the language

barrier. What does it really mean to get a GED? Or how does this
whole process take place? Are there any other options?

These are important questions that need to be addressed not only for
Korean American parents but also for the growing number of immigrant
parents who may find themselves in a similar predicament. The above sce-
narios illustrate how low-SES immigrant parents have little input in public
schools, where they are often marginalized by administrators, teachers, and
the schooling process itself (Fine, 1991; Noguera, 2003). In her study of high
school dropouts in New York City, Fine (1991) documented the significant
hurdles that urban schools face in providing their students and parents with
adequate schooling resources. Anyon (1997) also referred to the political
economy and larger structural forces at play, noting that the failure of urban
schools can be attributed to the economic and social isolation of the commu-
nities in which they are situated. As Noguera (2003) has argued, however,
public schools are becoming ever more critical sites for building and imple-
menting institutional reform, precisely because they serve as one of the most
reliable sources of social support for children. Especially for poor minorities
and children of immigrants, urban public schools continue to be one of the
few stable mainstream institutions to which they have access and a place that
has the potential for providing equal opportunities (Noguera, 2003).

Transferring Students from One School to Another

One of the effects of poverty is that parents have to change residence de-
pending on available jobs. For children, moving from one city to another
also means changing schools. Not surprisingly, the Korean American high
school dropouts in my study were more likely than the MH students to have
moved to a different state and city and transferred schools, further inhibit-
ing their ability to maintain strong ties to co-ethnic networks and to accu-
mulate social capital in their respective schools and communities.
As an infant, Jane emigrated from Korea to the United States with her
family. They moved frequently after arriving, mostly due to financial and
housing constraints. She explained:

When I moved from Korea to New York, every 2 years of my life I

moved to another house. When I was a little baby, I lived in a studio
in Brooklyn. We lived there because it was easy to find jobs for my
dad. Two years after, my mom had my little sister. The house was
too small, so we moved to Elmhurst . . . after living there for 2 years,
we moved to Forest Hills. We had to move out again because they
kicked us out of the house, due to too many kids.
Alone and Isolated 55

Jane said that as she neared age 14, “I didn’t get accepted to any high schools
I wanted to attend, and my zoned school was not that good.” So her parents
moved yet again, this time so she could attend a better school. According to
Jane, there were many students residing in urban neighborhoods with poor-
quality schools, and most were not fortunate enough to get into an academic
magnet high school. Consequently, their parents have to contend with mov-
ing from one school district to another in order to provide the best public
education possible for their children.
For some of my informants, searching for a better-quality public school
meant living apart from parents and moving in with relatives. For instance,
Adam originally resided with his single mom in a Bronx housing project and
went to his zoned public high school. But as he put it, “The school was in
bad shape, and I got into fights all the time.” So his mom sent him to live
with his aunt in Queens so that he could transfer to another public high school.
Meanwhile, she continued to live and work in the Bronx. Adam remarked,
“I tried there, too, but soon, there was nothing holding me there, you know.
I started to cut classes and hang out with friends.”
Although the new high school in Queens had a better reputation than
his old high school, it was nevertheless overcrowded; was populated mostly
by poor, minority students; and had inadequate schooling resources. More-
over, given Adam’s separation from his mother, her long working hours, and
the limited parental supervision he received, he began to cut school, then
stopped going altogether and eventually dropped out. As I will explain fur-
ther in the next section, this parental strategy of moving children from one
school to another with similar structural problems only increased the stu-
dents’ mobility rate, which in turn limited their access to social capital, in-
creased their alienation from school, and further perpetuated the likelihood
of their dropping out of high school.

LONG-TERM INVESTMENT IN EDUCATION VERSUS

SHORT-TERM INCOME FROM WORK: REPRODUCTION OF
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC INEQUALITY

As illustrated, the YCC Korean parents, compared to the MH parents, faced

myriad institutional barriers in gaining access to social capital and providing
schooling support for their children. The findings in this research answer some
important questions regarding class variance and social mobility within
Korean American communities that have yet to be critically examined: If
middle-class second-generation Korean Americans are more likely to leave their
immigrant parental ethnic economy, does this pattern of economic mobility
also hold true for working-class second-generation Korean Americans? What
economic opportunities are available for working-class second-generation
56 Growing Up with Immigrant Parents

Korean American children whose parents are not entrepreneurs, but instead
work for other Korean business owners? How do Korean immigrant par-
ents, in different social and economic contexts, adopt strategies to educate
their children? And how does this process affect their children’s investment
and academic performance in schools?
Unlike the MH students, who were economically and socially supported
by their parents to pursue education as a long-term investment that might
eventually lead to opportunities outside the ethnic economy, the poor high
school dropouts received limited economic and social support from their
parents and communities to do so. Instead, given their low-income status,
most of the high school dropouts had to earn a living and often had to choose
between school and work. Therefore, in contrast to the MH students, who
used education as a long-term investment to pursue career opportunities
outside of their parents’ ethnic economy, many of the high school dropouts
followed in their parents’ footsteps by working in menial positions for Korean
entrepreneurs.
If the MH students studied at a private hagwon after school in order to
gain entrance to a competitive college, the dropouts worked after school in
order to contribute to their family income. When I asked Korean American
high school dropouts whether their parents sent them to hagwon to help them
with schoolwork, their response indicated that their family’s low SES hin-
dered their ability to attend. One student commented, “I went once or twice
when I started high school, but my mom couldn’t afford it. I also have to
work after school, so who has the time?” His comment was typical of many
of the dropouts I interviewed, many of whom had to work after school and
believed that working for a salary, rather than paying to study, would be a
better use of time given their low socioeconomic status. However, without a
high school diploma, the dropouts were limited to low-status menial jobs in
ethnic enclaves and were more likely to reproduce their immigrant parents’
status in the ethnic economy.
According to the Korean American high school dropouts, because their
positions were menial service jobs—working mostly for Korean entrepreneurs
as manicurists, cashiers, valet parking attendants, nightclub bouncers, and the
like—they were able to find work with relative ease. They described how
employment with large corporate chains was harder to come by and how bi-
lingual skills—more than a high school or other education credential—helped
them find work with Korean entrepreneurs, since these business owners often
serviced an English-speaking clientele. Finally, although the dropouts admit-
ted that they did not necessarily “learn anything” at their menial jobs, they
stressed that they nevertheless “got paid.” As Amy explained:

After I dropped out, I stayed home and started working at a nail

salon and worked as a receptionist in office. The nail salon was
Alone and Isolated 57

through my mom. They want someone who can speak English for
office work. You don’t learn anything, you just get paid. I worked in
the Korean community ’cause it’s a lot harder to work for Gap or
Banana Republic. It’s a lot easier to get jobs in the Korean community.

Thus, the advantages of working in Korean ethnic enclaves were not

lost on the dropouts. The ethnic economy provided them with a chance to
financially support their family and themselves while in school, or it afforded
them an opportunity to continue working even without a high school di-
ploma, after dropping out. Although they understood that a college degree
would give them more opportunities, they also explained that they might not
necessarily need it to “make a living.” That is, for some of the Korean Ameri-
can high school dropouts, the initial ease of obtaining work in the Korean
ethnic economy also falsely misled them to believe that they might not nec-
essarily need a high school diploma.

I think even without a high school diploma, you can always get jobs.
Maybe not as much as college degree, but you can always get office
jobs everywhere. I think that my friends don’t believe that you need
education to make a living. The girls work in a nail salon, and the
guys work in stores, restaurants, or sell cell phones.

Other studies of high school dropouts also show that although work may be
seen as an important means of adolescent socialization, it may also perpetu-
ate students’ disengagement with schooling, depending on the kinds of jobs
and the reasons for employment (McNeal, 1997; Rumberger & Larson, 1998)
However, for the older high school dropouts who had been in the work-
force for a few years, the reality of trying to earn a living without a college
degree, let alone a high school diploma, hit home. Such experiences convinced
these kids to take the GED and go back to school. For instance, Ken had
dropped out of high school several years earlier. He found work in a small
startup Korean technology company without a high school diploma but
quickly learned that he could not climb the company ladder or earn a salary
comparable to those of college graduates. When the Korean company folded,
he attended a technical college and tried to obtain jobs in “American” com-
panies. He learned that most of these companies required at least a college
degree even to get an interview. Consequently, he decided to earn a GED so
that he could attend college. As he explained:

I used to do computer work and used to work for a Korean. But

because I don’t have a high school diploma, they paid me lower than
others, and because my English was bad, they would give the job to
someone else. So, you can get a job in the Korean company, but
58 Growing Up with Immigrant Parents

without a high school diploma, they pay you less. When I wanted to
apply to an American company, I couldn’t even get in the door
because the minimum requirement is a college diploma.

Like Ken, other Korean students who experienced such occupational

barriers tried to go back to school, pass the GED, and apply to vocational
schools, community colleges, and city and state universities. Certainly, the
availability of menial jobs in the ethnic economy provided the dropouts with
important source of economic resources that served as a potential stepping
stone to obtain higher education and social mobility. However, as the direc-
tor of the GED program at YCC explained, this path is neither guaranteed
nor obvious. “Some students drop out of high school, work for a while, then
realize they can’t make enough to earn a living or need a college degree to
get ahead. So, they come back to take their GED. Although some students
pass their exam and go on to college, others never come back to the GED
program after the first few sessions.”
However, during their high school years, Korean American high school
dropouts are less likely to see the direct link between schooling and economic
mobility, and they doubt that schooling is a worthwhile financial investment
that will “pay off.” To the contrary, most of the dropouts had to rely on
short-term work to get by, forced to choose between earning a living or con-
tinuing in school.
To summarize, although both groups of Korean American parents simi-
larly valued education, they used different educational strategies in their
children’s schooling. My findings indicate that the MH Korean parents had
an easier time than the Korean parents of dropouts when it came to sup-
porting their children in using education as a long-term investment. For the
MH parents, this meant enabling their children to leave the ethnic economy
for opportunities in the mainstream economy. To reach this goal, the par-
ents turned to their co-ethnic immigrant networks and adopted parental
strategies such as hiring private tutors and counselors and sending their chil-
dren to tuition-based after-school academies. Embedded in strong networks
such as those found in co-ethnic churches and equipped with socioeconomic
resources and college degrees, the middle-class parents were able to inter-
vene in their children’s education and provide them with important school-
ing resources, including bilingual support that was not readily available at
the school.
The Korean parents of dropouts adopted different educational strate-
gies premised on their limited economic and social resources. Most worked
long hours, and many were single mothers, both of which made it difficult
to provide adequate supervision at home or to intervene effectively, if at all,
in their children’s education. Unable to afford private, tuition-based schools
and private tutors, the working-class parents were forced to rely solely on
Alone and Isolated 59

neighborhood public schools to provide schooling for their children. How-

ever, located in poor neighborhoods and populated mainly by poor, minor-
ity students, these schools were resource-strained and incapable of providing
adequate support for either the children or the parents. Moreover, given their
low socioeconomic status, many of the high school dropouts had to take after-
school jobs, mostly as menial workers in the ethnic economy, where many
continued in these jobs after dropping out. That is, the MH Korean students
were more likely to use education as a means to leave the ethnic economy,
compared to the low-income Korean high school dropouts, who continued
to work in the ethnic economy as menial workers, thereby reproducing the
economic status of their low-status immigrant parents. Students’ comments
poignantly illustrate how co-ethnic networks may be both beneficial as well
as limited, depending on changing contexts. The myriad structural barriers
experienced by low-income parents, combined with their children’s own daily
experience within their limited opportunity structure and inadequate schools,
led many of the dropouts to resist education as a viable long-term invest-
ment. Their comments poignantly illustrate how their decision to drop out
of high school was also a form of adaptation and resistance to the limited
social and economic opportunities available to them (MacLeod, 1995; Willis,
1977).

P A R T I I

Gaining Schooling Resources and

Institutional Support: Peer Networks,
Social Capital, and Identities

As illustrated in Part I, strong ties to first-generation parents and co-ethnic

networks provide important economic and social resources for Korean Ameri-
can students. However, children of Asian immigrants are not raised exclusively
within the confines of their nuclear families and co-ethnic networks. They are
raised and socialized in a variety of social networks—including schools—that
represent disparate social spheres with different sets of cultural codes and social
actors (Boykin, 1986; Boykin & Toms, 1985; Gee, 1989; Phelan, Davidson,
& Yu, 1993). How they gain and accumulate important resources in main-
stream institutions such as schools depends not only on a variety of socioeco-
nomic factors but also on their ability to cross and bridge these disparate
networks and discourses (Stanton-Salazar, 1997, 2001). Both the economic
opportunities afforded by their families and communities, and the institutional
characteristics of schools themselves, play a major role in facilitating or ham-
pering students’ cross-cultural acculturation.
Regarding the schools, scholars have identified instrumental ties and
access to supportive teachers and counselors as valuable for children’s aca-
demic success and occupational mobility (Croninger & Lee, 2001; De Graaf
& Flap, 1988; Stanton-Salazar, 2001; Valenzuela, 1999). However, low-
income students living and attending schools in poor neighborhoods are at a
disadvantage compared to their middle-class counterparts in gaining access
to and building relationships with such institutional agents (Stanton-Salazar,
1997, 2001). Many low-income minority students are literally cut off from
the capital, social networks, and institutional gatekeepers needed to gain jobs,
college guidance, and career opportunities for economic mobility (Anyon,
1997; Fine, 1991; Wehlage & Rutter, 1986).
Therefore, it is important to examine how institutional characteristics
of schools may either inhibit or promote access to important gatekeepers and
other schooling resources. In doing so, educators can identify various ob-
stacles to accumulating social capital faced by poor communities, and they
can also identify structural factors and key institutional actors critical to

61
62 Asian Americans in Class

building social capital (Saegert et al., 2001). Such an examination of the

obstacles poor communities face reveals that the process of accumulating
social capital is far from neutral (Bernstein, 1975; Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977;
Lareau, 2003; Stanton-Salazar, 2001).
By comparing the experiences of Korean American students in two very
different schooling contexts, this part illustrates how academic achievement
greatly depends on the institutional characteristics of the school—that is, its
ability to foster trusting and caring relations between students and key
gatekeepers, such as teachers and counselors, and to reinforce the accumu-
lation of social capital among students and parents by providing adequate
schooling resources and college guidance for all students.
Although both groups of Korean American students in this study at-
tended New York City public high schools, the institutional characteristics
and cultures of the two schools could not have been more different. By pass-
ing a competitive entrance exam, the students at MH were admitted to one
of the most academically rigorous high schools in the city, one rooted in a
highly academic culture and a college-bound curriculum and populated
mostly by middle-class Asian American and White students. In this context,
the Korean American students received not only exemplary training but also
important schooling resources, including at least some support and guidance
from teachers and counselors. To some extent, these key gatekeepers helped
the Korean American students cross institutional borders between their home
and school as well as accumulate educational resources needed for achiev-
ing in school.
By contrast, the Korean American high school dropouts attended urban
high schools in poor neighborhood, schools that were populated predomi-
nantly by poor, minority, and immigrant children and that were poorly
funded, overcrowded, and marked by high levels of school violence and
daunting dropout rates. In order to avoid these schools, as well as their own
poor school records, the dropouts resorted to transferring from one school
to another, resulting in a high mobility rate that only alienated them further
from schooling. Faced with scarce support from teachers and counselors in
schools and lacking access to strong social capital at home and in their com-
munities, these students adopted behaviors at odds with academic achieve-
ment, disengaging from school through absenteeism, cutting classes, fighting,
and suspension, which further increased their likelihood of dropping out.
Unlike the MH students, who had at least some support from teachers and
counselors, the Korean American high school dropouts consistently referred
to being isolated and alone, navigating through the education system with-
out much adult guidance.
Equally notable is that because of their widely disparate schooling con-
texts, as well as the different social and economic resources embedded in their
kinship and peer networks, the two groups of students adopted very differ-
Gaining Schooling Resources and Institutional Support 63

ent educational strategies and very different peer network orientations—and

achieved very different results. In both cases, the Korean American students
themselves built peer networks that played an integral role in helping them
obtain what they needed. As active agents, rather than mere passive recipi-
ents, both groups of students learned to adapt, negotiate, and resist their
immigrant parents’ values and expectations, in effect constructing their own
peer networks to acquire resources or to address issues specific to them. These
included locating concrete schooling, college, or job and career guidance;
grappling with intergenerational conflicts; and negotiating their racial and
ethnic identities.
By now, it should be no surprise that the MH students found it much
easier than the dropouts to access key gatekeepers who were willing and able
to provide guidance with schooling, the college application process, and career
opportunities. Less obvious is that the MH students relied on their peer net-
works in school to increase both the pool of institutional agents from which
they could draw and their access to them. Because the gatekeepers and the
information they offered were of higher status, the MH students were able
to use these youth-based networks not only to compensate for the limita-
tions of their immigrant parents but also to advance their own educational
and career opportunities.
The Korean American dropouts, on the other hand, built kinship and
peer networks predominantly comprised of other low-income high school
dropouts who were employed in the ethnic economy or had joined the mili-
tary. Although they gained information that was important to them—about
menial service jobs in ethnic economy, joining the military, and publicly
funded GED programs—that information held lower value in, and was re-
warded less by, the mainstream economy. Therefore, compared to the Korean
American students at MH, the high school dropouts were more likely to use
their peer networks to overcome institutional obstacles.
What should not be lost in these findings is that both groups of Korean
American students faced racial discrimination and marginalization. How they
negotiated their racial and ethnic identities also was dictated, in no small
part, by their different school contexts and peer relations. Equipped with
strong social capital at home and at school, the MH students developed re-
silience in dealing with stratifying forces such as racism. Considered perpetual
foreigners despite having been born or raised in the United States, they firmly
believed that working harder in school was imperative to gaining opportu-
nities in society. That is, they used education as a strategy to compensate, in
part, for the stigma that accompanied their racial minority status.
By contrast, given the limited social and economic support they received
at home and at school, as well as their living in isolated urban neighborhoods,
the dropouts were more vulnerable to stratifying forces such as poverty and
racism. They were also more apt to adopt an oppositional cultural frame of
64 Asian Americans in Class

reference as a way to resist this racial and economic inequality. In effect, they
aligned their experiences with those of other poor racial minorities—Blacks,
Hispanics, and other Asians—while at the same time distinguishing them-
selves from “wealthy” and “educated” Korean and other Asian Americans,
whose attributes of “success” they associated with Whiteness. That is, in the
context of the model minority stereotype that often conflates Asians with
Whiteness, the low-status Korean American high school dropouts negotiated
their identities differently from other racial minorities, underscoring the in-
tegral relationship between race and class.
This part highlights the significance of race and class, as well as school-
ing context, in accounting for academic achievement among Asian American
children. It also illustrates how the co-ethnic economy and networks may be
both beneficial and limited, noting the significance of access to institutional
resources in and outside of co-ethnic networks to the success of second-
generation children in school. Thus it demonstrates how students’ success and
failure are integrally based on structural resources available at home, in the
community, and at school, and how students themselves negotiate and resist
the larger stratifying forces of poverty and racism.

C H A P T E R 4

Magnet High’s Korean American Students:

Advancing Educational Opportunities

I learn most of things from my Korean friends. I hang out with more studi-
ous people, so our topics are about college, tests, grades, and stuff like that.
I have this one friend who is really smart, and she is always doing better,
and then I would just be, like, “Ugh, I am slacking off, and she is doing so
much better.” And it motivates me that way. There isn’t an intense compe-
tition, but you know when your friends are doing better, and it’s not like
you hate them for it, but you feel a slight twinge of jealousy and, “Wow, I
wish I can get her grades.” You know, I ask about what classes I should be
taking, colleges, and stuff like what would be good for extracurricular ac-
tivities. You just learn this from friends.
—Sun Myung, age 17

ACADEMIC HIGH SCHOOL CONTEXT:

(RE)CONSTRUCTING SECOND-GENERATION
PEER NETWORKS

When I met Sun Myung, she was a junior at MH preparing to apply for
colleges. She was late for our interview, coming from lunch with her friends
at the cafeteria, where they had been deeply engrossed in a conversation
about colleges, test scores, and the GPAs they needed to get into the col-
leges of their choice. Taking a deep breath, she sat down and confided in
me how stressful the college application process was for her and her friends.
Despite the difficulty of the process, however, she explained that her friends
helped and supported one another. While Sun Myung and other Korean
American students at MH gained important schooling information from
teachers and counselors, their main source was Korean and other Asian
American peers at school, who themselves often learned about the college
application process from their kinship, community, and school ties. As
explained above, Sun Myung’s friends, in addition to motivating her to
compete and excel in school, also provided concrete information on school-
ing and colleges.

65
66 Gaining Schooling Resources and Institutional Support

At MH, one of the most competitive elite public high schools in New
York City, the students were steeped in a competitive college-bound curricu-
lum taught by teachers who are certified in their fields. Students were also
surrounded predominantly by middle-class White and Asian American peers
who were immersed in this school culture that fostered academic achieve-
ment and excellence; thus, the Korean American students at MH were likely
to associate with peers of similar socioeconomic status, education back-
ground, and academic expectations. Even for those Korean American stu-
dents at MH whose families were of lower socioeconomic status were more
likely to be exposed to and to associate with other students of higher socio-
economic backgrounds. Moreover, by attending a high school where second-
generation Asian Americans represented nearly half (46.5% percent) of
the student population, the Korean American students were likely to rein-
force old or establish new friendships with other Asian and Korean American
peers who also shared similar experiences growing up as children of immi-
grant parents. In this respect, institutional characteristics of the school
played an important role in strengthening peer relations and helping
second-generation youths achieve academically.
Students admitted that prior to coming to MH, they did not have a his-
tory of attending schools with such a large number of Asian Americans. While
some students had attended neighborhood elementary and middle schools
consisting predominantly of middle-class White students, others had attended
schools consisting mostly of poor Blacks and Hispanics. As mentioned ear-
lier, however, many of the Korean American students at MH had established
ties to other Korean Americans prior to entering high school—through church,
hagwon, tae kwon do, or other community organizations. Since, for most of
my informants, being in a school with such a large Asian American popula-
tion was a relatively new phenomenon, they had an increased likelihood of
reinforcing, or even expanding, their circle of Asian American friends on
arriving to MH. Furthermore, school now became an important mainstream
institution where children of immigrants could come together and further
exchange important information regarding schooling, colleges, and career
opportunities.
Kevin, a junior at MH, explained how his mostly second-generation
Korean American friends maintained a relatively close social network through
contacts at school, in community organizations, and in churches. He noted
that it was typical for Korean American youths to know each other from
various social settings, referring to his network as “one big circle”:

The Korean community of my age group, everyone knows everyone

in some way. Like, either you’re friends with someone that knows
this other person . . . it’s like everything is sort of related into one big
circle, if you know what I mean. Since I started out with Korean
Advancing Educational Opportunities 67

friends and they got to know more Korean friends and then when-
ever, I started hanging out with them, and then more other Korean
friends . . . church especially, tae kwon do, neighborhood, they are,
like, all causes.

According to the students I interviewed, this regular contact with Korean

Americans in myriad settings formed the basis for an important set of shared
experiences; namely, those derived from growing up as second-generation
children with immigrant parents. Connie remarked that her friends, most of
whom were Korean and other Asian American, also operated under an “in-
direct set of rules” that they adhered to as a result of growing up with immi-
grant parents. According to Connie, such rules and expectations brought her
and other Asian American friends closer together, at the same time setting
them apart from some of her Caucasian friends:

Most of my friends are Korean. I met a few of them here [in school]
and a few close friends at church. I’ve been at the church for nearly 5
to 6 years. I can relate to them ’cause Korean culture has a lot of
indirect set of rules. There is a certain amount of respect that you
have to give to elders. Just the way you obey your parents . . . even
the way you talk to your elders is different from the way Caucasians
talk to their parents. I guess there is a lot of strictness with them. It’s
easier to relate to Koreans or Asians as friends than other races. My
friends, from what they tell me, it seems to me similar between
Koreans and Chinese and other Asians. The standard of how they
want their child to do is the same. I know my parents are really
demanding. A lot of my Asian friends also have demanding parents.

As with the students in this study, other studies have also indicated that
second-generation Korean and Chinese college students increased their circle
of ethnic and pan-ethnic friends because of shared experiences and expecta-
tions growing up as children of Asian immigrants (Kibria, 2002; Louie, 2004).
And research on peer relations has also pointed out that students are more
likely to form friendships with those who have similar backgrounds, goals,
and values and who are perceived as being trustworthy (Hallinan & Sorensen,
1985; Hallinan & Williams, 1990; Stanton-Salazar & Spina, 2005).
However, if sharing similar parental expectations was one reason for
associating with other second-generation Korean and other Asian American
peers, another compelling reason was the shared limitations of their immi-
grant parents. As noted in the previous section, because of their limited En-
glish skills and knowledge of the U.S. education system, most MH parents
could not be relied on to directly provide schooling or homework assistance
to their children or personally to advise them on the college application
68 Gaining Schooling Resources and Institutional Support

process. And while they compensated for this with their higher socioeconomic
status, educational backgrounds, and social capital in their respective ethnic
communities, which gave them an advantage over the working-class parents
of Korean American high school dropouts, they were nevertheless at a dis-
advantage compared to native-born, White, middle-class parents.
Unlike children from middle-class White families, whose social network
is already integrally connected to mainstream institutional resources, minority
children from immigrant families have to negotiate the boundaries of their
own family and ethnic communities in order to access gatekeepers in main-
stream institutions such as schools. While most White middle-class students
could readily rely on their parents to act as institutional gatekeepers and help
them navigate school and the college application process, most of the
Korean American students at MH had to rely on individuals other than their
parents for schooling, college, and career guidance. That is, while White
middle-class parents act as institutional agents themselves, or engage with
institutional agents as status equals or even status superiors, low-income
minority and immigrant parents are more likely to operate from a subordi-
nate position, dependent on institutional gatekeepers to provide schooling
resources and support for their children (Stanton-Salazar, 1997, 2001).
Like so many Korean American students at MH, Paul explained that
although his parents had high academic expectations of him, their ability to
help him directly was hampered by their limited knowledge of how the school
and college system works in the United States. So, rather than turning to his
parents for schooling guidance, he resorted to his friends in school. In fact,
as far back as middle school he had learned about the specialized magnet
high schools through his friends. In high school he continued to rely on his
Korean American peers as the main source of schooling support. He reiter-
ated sentiments expressed by other Korean American students, who confessed
that although their parents harbored high expectations and provided eco-
nomic support, they were rarely in a position to directly provide useful guid-
ance on schooling and colleges. As a result, Paul rarely turned to his parents
regarding schooling. Instead, he relied mostly on his friends.

I heard about specialized high schools in seventh grade . . . junior

high school didn’t tell me anything about it . . . they didn’t really
motivate the kids to take it. Through my Korean friends, I heard
about it. I get most of my information now from friends. Friends
would ask each other how they are doing in school, and we would
find out how to sign up for SATs. If I need help, I would seek them. I
don’t go to my parents because they seem single-minded. They want
me to get 1,400 on SAT get into Harvard, Yale, Princeton. The first
three words they learn when they come to America are Harvard,
Advancing Educational Opportunities 69

Yale, Princeton. So I don’t really ask them for any information. If I

need books, they would surely buy [them] for me. They would
support me financially . . . that’s pretty much it.

These parental limitations became even more evident when Korean

American students needed to obtain internships and other career opportuni-
ties outside of the ethnic economy. For instance, Mia was an 18-year-old
senior who immigrated to the United States at age 6. She contrasted her Asian
American friends’ lack of access to mainstream institutions with the myriad
opportunities her Caucasian friends had. She recommended that Korean
American parents teach their children to develop institutional discourses, or
“social skills,” so that they learn how to communicate across economic and
social boundaries:

I see a lot of my Caucasian friends who have all these opportunities

’cause their parents know people from a company, and they get a job
there as an intern. And a lot of Asians lack those kind of connections, I
guess. Because all we ever do is grocery stores, nail salons, I think
parents should support them more and let them get social skills earlier.
I see 15- to 16-year-olds that can’t communicate with others. They are
in silence . . . [a] lot of young Korean students lack social skills. I think
the parents should support them to have a regular social teenage life
with internships and stuff, because they don’t have parental support.

Mia’s poignant response highlighted the disadvantages of growing up

with immigrant parents who are limited in their English-language proficiency,
knowledge of the U.S. education system, and access to resources in the main-
stream economy. She was keenly aware that growing up as a child of an
immigrant family meant having limited access and connections to institu-
tional resources that could help socialize and prepare her for a mainstream
job and career opportunities.
Consequently, she turned to her peers, who through their combined
networks pooled schooling information and provided access to gatekeepers
and institutional agents. These youth-based networks at school, or what I
refer to as a “second-generation peer networks,” formed the basis of the MH
students’ institutional knowledge. Embedded within these networks were
important gatekeepers such as teachers and counselors at their public high
school, private tutors and counselors, and teachers from after-school acad-
emies in Korean ethnic enclaves. However, the greatest number of gatekeepers
within their youth-based networks consisted of older second-generation
friends and mentors who had gone through the U.S. education system or had
experience working in the mainstream economy. Among these were siblings
70 Gaining Schooling Resources and Institutional Support

and cousins, older classmates or alumni from school, and family friends and
adults from church and neighborhood.
This form of bilingual and bicultural support was significant precisely
because it could help the Korean American students cross disparate social
and linguistic boundaries between home and school. For instance, research
on Hispanic students shows that those who are bilingual and have a bicul-
tural network have special advantages over their monolingual English-speak-
ing and Spanish-speaking counterparts in acquiring institutional support
(Stanton-Salazar & Dornbusch, 1995; Suárez-Orozco & Suárez-Orozco,
1995, 2001). English-language skills gave bilingual students the cultural
capital needed to access educational resources in mainstream institutions,
while the Spanish-language skills helped them maintain close ties to first-
generation parents and communities who protected them from succumbing
to the stratifying forces of poverty and racism and from adopting the oppo-
sitional cultural frame of reference so prevalent among those in poor urban
communities. In other words, they learned to develop resilience and culti-
vate support by remaining embedded in familial and communal support sys-
tems, while learning how to cross mainstream institutional borders to gain
access to key institutional actors—those individuals who have the capacity
and commitment to provide directly, or negotiate the transmission of, school-
ing resources and career opportunities (Stanton-Salazar, 1997, 2001).
The significance of kinship ties and familial support are historically
rooted in minority families who are marginalized from mainstream institu-
tional resources (Stack, 1974; Saegert et al., 2001). Ties to both kin and ethnic
networks (“strong” ties), as well as to institutional actors outside immedi-
ate kinship networks (“weak” ties), are important for building social capital
(Granovetter, 1985). In the case of Korean Americans at MH, their second-
generation peer networks increased their likelihood of accessing both strong
and weak ties, while reinforcing the bicultural network that proves so help-
ful for children of immigrants. It is also important to note that the MH stu-
dents had an advantage over Korean American high school dropouts in
accumulating social capital because individuals in their networks came from
higher socioeconomic and educational backgrounds—an important factor
that increases their likelihood of gaining access to resources of more value in
mainstream institutions such as school.
Furthermore, the findings illustrated that the children of immigrants were
not mere passive recipients who adopted parental messages wholesale: Instead,
as active agents they adapted, negotiated, and resisted parental messages and
expectations. By constructing their own second-generation peer networks, the
Korean American students at MH learned to gain important institutional and
emotional support that addressed experiences and satisfied needs specific to
them—anything from schooling information and college guidance to conflict
with parents to negotiation of race and ethnic identities (Lew, 2003b).
Advancing Educational Opportunities 71

ACCESSING SCHOOLING AND INSTITUTIONAL RESOURCES

THROUGH SECOND-GENERATION PEER NETWORKS

Teachers and Counselors

During their junior year at MH, every student was assigned a college ad-
viser who evaluated the students’ academic record, helped them choose ap-
propriate colleges to apply to based on their GPA and standardized test scores,
and helped them through the college application process. Some of my infor-
mants met with and sought help from their college counselors, while others
sought help from their teachers at MH. Tom, a senior preparing to gradu-
ate, did both. Throughout his high school years, he resorted to his history
teacher, Mr. Smith, and his guidance counselor for academic guidance and
did so again during his college application process. When I met him in the
spring semester of his senior year, Tom was thrilled to have just received an
acceptance letter from the college of his choice. He was planning to study
engineering there, with a minor in architecture, and was grateful for the
guidance and advice he had received from his teacher and counselor. He
indicated that his parents had never heard of the college but were pleased
that he had applied there and was now planning to study engineering. Fur-
thermore, given his family’s financial constraints, he was thrilled that his
parents would not have to pay for his college tuition:

She [my counselor] thought that I could get in and encouraged me to

apply early. It took a while to convince my parents, since they never
heard of the school. But now, they are really happy that I got in . . . the
free tuition helps a lot. Before applying there, I asked Mr. Smith, and
he thought I would be pretty happy there. I wanted to stay near New
York, you know. He has always been really helpful. He cares about his
students and is willing to help us out. Many of us go to him, since he’s
been doing this for a long time here. I learned a lot in his class, and he
helped me with school and recommendations for college.

Tom went on to say that as a senior getting ready to graduate, he advised his
friend Phillip, a junior at MH whom Tom knew from their Korean church
in Bayside, Queens, to seek a school counselor for advice on applying to
college; he referred him to Mr. Smith. Tom explained, “Phillip is a junior
now and getting ready to apply to college. I know how hard it was to go
through that process, so I try to help him out and give him some tips, you
know. I also told him to get help from his college adviser and Mr. Smith,
since they know a lot more about this stuff.”
Throughout my interviews, Korean American students at MH spoke not
only of helping one another directly but also of mentioning adults who could
72 Gaining Schooling Resources and Institutional Support

provide assistance. Many also spoke of giving and receiving referrals to pri-
vate tutors and college counselors in Korean ethnic enclaves—older second-
generation Korean Americans with experience in and knowledge of the U.S.
education and college system. As mentioned earlier, some Korean students
preferred these private tutors and counselors to public school counselors
because of the individual attention they offered as well as their bilingual skills,
which enabled students to include their monolingual parents in their college
application process. As Korean American parents at MH learned about tutors
and counselors through their friends and hired them for their children’s
schooling, their children also learned about tutors and counselors through
their peers in school, church, and community organizations, creating an ever-
expanding pool for them to draw on and refer others to.
For instance, Susan commented that her friend had referred her to a
Korean American teacher at hagwon. She noted that because the teacher had
been born in the United States and had graduated from U.C. Berkeley, he
was able to provide important schooling information and college guidance.
Her comments indicated how grateful she was to have found him during her
sophomore year, when she needed to prepare for college exams:

I don’t turn to my parents because they really don’t know much about
universities. I used to go to this after-school program in Queens, and
the [Korean] teacher who still teaches there used to give me all this
advice about colleges and universities and stuff. He went to Berkeley,
and he knows what it’s like to have a college life here and stuff. I
talked to him, and he gave me good advice . . . like my first year, I
didn’t know that my grade was going into my transcript. I didn’t even
know what a transcript was. And then I messed up. In my freshman
year, I failed a class and had to go to summer school, and I really
didn’t know the importance of studying until my sophomore year,
’cause that’s when I got to know the teacher at the academy. He is the
one who taught me about American colleges and universities and high
schools. So that’s when I really knew that I had to study, study, study.

Siblings, Older Mentors, and Peers

Besides resorting to teachers and counselors at the public high school and
private academies in Korean ethnic enclaves, many students went to their
older siblings for schooling guidance. Some students mentioned that because
their older siblings were more knowledgeable about school processes and
requirements, they often acted as a second set of parents. Luke fell into this
category. Since one of his older brothers was a senior at New York Univer-
sity who understood the U.S. school system, he was often more strict with
Luke than were his parents:
Advancing Educational Opportunities 73

I have four parents: my parents and two brothers. It’s mostly my

brothers who would look through my notes and say, “What are you
doing in school? How come you never show me your test grades?
Every time I ask how you are doing in school, you say you are doing
good, but then how come you have a C?” If I fail, I am dead. Some-
times, I don’t show my report card, but in a week I would show
them, ’cause I don’t want to get caught.

In the case of Kevin, it was his older sister who guided him in schooling and
the college application process. He noted that she gave him important and
concrete advice on exams, deadlines, and applications. He explained that
unlike his parents, who stressed only academic grades and test scores, his
sister advised him to be more involved in extracurricular activities in addi-
tion to doing well on college entrance exams. When I asked him whom he
turned to for schooling and college guidance, he replied:

Through my sister. She is 4 years ahead of me. Sometimes, she tries to

help me out, but in actuality, she often passes down her views of
what she wants me to do rather than what I want to do. My parents
want me to go to a good college, but they think that grades and SATs
are all that gets you in, when in actuality, it’s a lot of extracurricular
activities that you do.

In addition to turning to their siblings, the Korean American students

at MH tapped older second-generation Korean American mentors and friends
in their respective Korean churches. For instance, throughout most of her
years at Magnet High, Kim relied on older Korean American mentors at
her Korean church for school guidance. Recently, she had turned mostly
to her friend Jennette, whose older brother was attending Columbia Univer-
sity. Through him, they both learned about college and career opportuni-
ties. Kim recounted her experience as a sophomore, when she had little
knowledge about various college exams and applications—that is, until she
received assistance from her Korean American friends and mentors:

Most of the time, it’s [college information] from older people in

college that I met through friends. They told me what I should be
doing. Like, I didn’t know that I should be taking SAT II until
sophomore year and that was from older people from my church who
told me to take it.

Similarly, when I spoke to Harry, another junior at MH seeking school-

ing support from older Korean American peers, he remarked how older class-
mates and mentors, with their personal experiences and knowledge about
74 Gaining Schooling Resources and Institutional Support

standardized exams and the college application process, gave him concrete
advice to plan ahead. “Like, the seniors who already applied to colleges, they
tell me not to slack off junior year especially, and tell me to do certain things.
And since I have a little more time than they do, they say that I should do
better on achievements.”
When asked, “Who do you turn to for information on colleges and
schooling?” students consistently replied that they relied mostly on their
Korean American peers at school and co-ethnic communities. That is, most
of the Korean American students at MH used their youth-based networks to
access key institutional agents who provided concrete schooling and college
guidance. They also obtained concrete information directly from their peers.
Song Hee explained that through a “big network,” important schooling in-
formation was passed along from one friend to another:

Usually [Korean] friends. I ask them questions and they know. They
say, “Go over there and get those forms,” or whatever. Specifically, I
have one friend who is pretty active in school government and school
community, so he is the one who I go to for information, ’cause he
knows all the information and has access to all the forms and stuff. I
get my information from friends. It’s like a big network, where
information is passed from one person to another . . . mostly through
word of mouth.

The advantages of these social networks were readily apparent, but not
all of the Korean American MH students participated and benefited from
them. As a senior who had very little contact with Korean American com-
munities, both in and outside of the school, Vicki explained how exclusive
the Korean Americans could be at MH. She explained that while the Korean
American students in the school “support and protect” one another, they
could also act as “separatists.” Her comments highlighted how social net-
works could also have negative attributes, perpetuating exclusion and seg-
regation (Portes, 1988).

The Korean groups here [school], on a positive note, are very inter-
connected and tight with each other . . . it’s like a wolf-pack mental-
ity. If someone messes with one, everyone knows about it, and they
all support and protect each other. In the bad sense, they are very
egocentric: “If you are not one of us, you can’t join us.” That really
bothers me. I am not boastful about my race, and I don’t think I
should be judged by what I am but who I am. You shouldn’t be
exactly alike and conform. The group has too much structure, and I
never wanted to be a part of it . . . very separatist.
Advancing Educational Opportunities 75

When I asked Vicki how her parents influenced her perspective, she
explained that her father, who was educated in the United States, believed
that in order for her to succeed in society she had to “assimilate,” and that
by being bound to the Korean community, she might limit her ability to “suc-
ceed.” Born and raised in Westchester County, north of New York City, and
surrounded by predominantly White middle-class suburban families, Laura
never learned to speak Korean. And because her parents had been educated
in the United States and spoke fluent English, she turned to them for school
guidance and career advice:

My dad came here when he was very young to get a college degree,
and he knows that in order to succeed, you have to assimilate. So,
being too much involved with the Korean community may be bad.
My parents know that there is a brain child in school with a perfect
SAT score, but for my parents, they just want me to be a good kid—
not just have good grades, but a whole person—and they give me all
this freedom and options so that I am not forced into something.
They present the options, and then it’s up to me to choose . . . I want
to study law because I’ve always been interested in speaking my part.
It was presented to me by my parents, but it’s ultimately up to me.

Unlike Vicki, however, most of the Korean American students in the study
could not obtain schooling guidance directly from their immigrant parents.
Compared to Vicki, the majority of Korean American students at MH were at
a disadvantage in moving between home and a mainstream institution such as
high school. As we have seen, such movement and adaptation across institu-
tional borders often proves difficult. Most had to rely on someone other than
their immigrant parents to access institutional agents and gatekeepers who
could provide important schooling and college guidance.
By critically examining how Korean American students generate and
maintain second-generation peer networks in and outside of school, the re-
search revealed various structural and institutional barriers that many chil-
dren of Asian immigrants must overcome to achieve academically. At a
glance, it would be easy to assume that the students in this research were
passive “model minority” Asian American students who were admitted to a
competitive magnet high school, were academically successful, and ultimately
achieved social mobility purely because of the values of education and the
work ethic instilled by their first-generation parents and ethnic networks.
However, this research explicates the ways in which, as active agents, stu-
dents learned to reconstruct a second-generation youth-based network con-
sisting of key institutional resources they needed to achieve academically.
Their experiences illustrate the importance of peer networks and how the
76 Gaining Schooling Resources and Institutional Support

bilingual and bicultural orientation they foster helped the MH students gain
structural resources from both their first- and second-generation communi-
ties. Far from being passive, the students negotiate a complex set of vari-
ables in order to move between ethnic enclaves and mainstream institutions.
Thus, minority students’ ability to access institutional resources de-
pended upon effective participation in what Delpit (1988) called the domi-
nant “culture of power.” At the same time, Korean American students at
MH learned to engage in the academic process communally, rather than
individually. That is, while they learned to cross institutional borders, they
remained embedded in familial and communal support systems. The chal-
lenge of participating in the dominant “culture of power,” then, entails
learning the appropriate “codes” and gaining access to gatekeepers who
can provide institutional schooling resources, while reinforcing one’s own
ethnic and cultural backgrounds (Boykin, 1986; Boykin & Toms, 1985;
Gee, 1989; Neisser, 1986).
As Stanton-Salazar (1997) noted, “In sum, the development of social
ties to institutional agents is crucial to the social development and empower-
ment of ethnic minority children and youth precisely because these ties
represent consistent and reliable sources from which they can learn the ap-
propriate decoding skills and from which they can obtain other key forms
of institutional support” (p. 15). Therefore, social capital may be valuable
insofar as a member in the community is connected to mainstream institu-
tional agents and insofar as that individual is committed and able to pro-
vide the children with access to “funds of knowledge” that they need to
navigate through mainstream institutions such as school (Stanton-Salazar,
2001).
As such, in order to bridge the gap between educational aspirations and
achievement, the Korean American students at MH needed more than to
internalize the value their parents placed on education. They needed con-
crete schooling support and key institutional actors who could provide them
with structural resources for fulfilling their educational aspirations. That is,
school achievement for all children, including Asian Americans, has to be
placed in an institutional context, where success in school depends on access
to structural resources, such as key gatekeepers, social capital, and concrete
schooling support.

ROLE OF SECOND-GENERATION PEER NETWORKS

IN NEGOTIATING PARENTAL EXPECTATIONS
AND IDENTITIES

It is important to note that in addition to gaining schooling resources, the

Korean American students also acquired important emotional and moral
Advancing Educational Opportunities 77

support through their youth networks—usually for issues specific to second-

generation children such as managing conflict with immigrant parents, con-
fronting racism, and negotiating racial and ethnic identities.
Mia, who was in the process of taking college exams, turned to her
mostly Korean and Chinese American school friends for help in dealing with
school pressures. She also looked to them for important emotional support
when she had problems with her parents at home:

I talk to my friends about colleges—a lot of colleges, SATs, and stuff.

I am frustrated ’cause I don’t know what to do with college applica-
tion. It’s hard. There’s a lot to do, and you don’t know how to start,
so I talk to friends about the whole application thing. We also talk
about parents. If you have problems with parents, we talk about
family problems, fights with our parents. I find most of the Korean
parents to be strict, and they can’t really understand how American
high school works, so we kind of have troubles. Because I don’t think
they really understand what it’s like to be in American high school, so
I personally get into fights a lot with them. So, I talk about it with my
friends, and they are able to understand it better ’cause their parents
are like that, too.

Students noted how conflicts with parents involve complex negotiation

and how they struggle to achieve a delicate balance between respecting their
parents’ views and expressing their own opinions. Some students explained
that their parents often equated being “American” with loss of respect for
elders—that is, the opposite of what it means to be “Korean.” Gina reiter-
ated the term chon dae mal, a formal way of speaking to elders in Korean,
to illustrate this point:

You know how, in Korea, there are two ways of speaking, one to
your friends and the other way to older people, like chon dae mal.
My parents wouldn’t let me use anything but chon dae mal. In
America, there is no real set formal way to speak to older people. In
America, it’s being polite. In Korea, it’s being more than polite; it’s
being respectful.

Gina explained that her parents refer to chon dae mal as an important sign
of respecting her elders and maintaining ties to the Korean heritage and
ethnicity. When she asserted her own voice and disagreed with her parents,
it was often construed as talking back, and she was chastised of being too
“Americanized.” For Gina and others, such conflict with parents frequently
forced them to polarize their bicultural experience—a process that was dif-
ficult and fraught with anger and frustration. Gina elaborated:
78 Gaining Schooling Resources and Institutional Support

So, in that way, my parents don’t want me to be Americanized and

cultural things and values and concepts. They get mad when I don’t
follow their ways . . . when I try to talk back to my parents, they
really don’t like it. They say, “Oh, there is that American teenagers.”
“Oh,” they say, “that’s not going to work in this house.” I tried to
express my opinion, but they see it as talking back. I say, “This is
how I think.”

Once conflicts had occurred and discipline had been meted out, tension
between students and parents persisted. Janice explained that many Korean
parents, including her own, had high academic expectations but often resorted
to what she called unsupportive and unproductive disciplinary measures. She
also believed that her ability to speak Korean with her parents did not improve
her ability to communicate with them about her daily experience:

I think that pressure from parents could help out, but usually it turns
out to be something that motivates the kids to do something worse. A
lot of things that Korean parents do to discipline their kids are not
working, I guess. I find that what parents do sometimes are not
supportive at all—actually opposite—and it makes the kids want to
go out and have their fun and forget what their parents are saying.
Like, I don’t talk to my mom about school or stuff; I usually talk to
an older Korean person who could communicate with me. Usually if I
need help, I look for an older figure, but not my mother or uncle.
Like, even if I could speak fluent Korean, she could never understand
the cultural stuff.

Often the cultural gap between second-generation students and their immi-
grant parents translated into problems on multiple levels for the children, all
pointing to a sense of conflict that thrust them into the arms of their friends
and other mentors. Hence, the students’ peer-network support at school
provided not only important schooling information but also equally impor-
tant emotional support, helping the students to deal with parental conflicts
and academic pressures.

BECOMING AMERICAN: CLASS, RACE, AND ETHNICITY

Social constructs such as race and ethnic identity are subject to change, con-
tradiction, and variability within specific contexts. In different social con-
texts, the Korean American students in this study learned to redefine
and reconstruct their racial and ethnic identities as a way to organize their
needs, strategies, and interests. Moving away from an essentialist paradigm
Advancing Educational Opportunities 79

that positions immigrant experiences as a dichotomy between “original”

(nativism) and “American” (assimilation) culture, the Korean American stu-
dents at MH, with assistance from their peers, learned to negotiate and re-
construct distinct new cultures and subcultures, where their identities were
multiple, hybrid, and situational depending on given social and economic
contexts (Espiritu, 1994).
The students’ comments illustrated the changing and multiple meanings
associated with the term American. For instance, rather than view themselves
as either Korean or American, students often saw themselves as both, where
racial identities shifted with changing social context. Mary, a senior at MH,
described her experience in this way:

I was born here, so I am definitely American in some way, but I am,

of course, Korean. . . . Even if I am born here, I look definitely Asian
or Korean or whatever, and, like, the way my parents live and the
way we are, we are not Americanized. . . . If I compare myself to
some of my friends, I am more American. They were born there
[Korea] and raised there. . . . I would never consider myself just
American. Sometimes, if someone teased me or something, I just
wanted and would have been happier if I was American, if I looked
American. You know how Asians, they look totally different. So I
guess if I looked American, no one would tease me and stuff.

However, as evident in Mary’s comments, despite the fluidity of identi-

ties, as racial minorities, the Korean American students were also subject to
racism and categorization imposed on them, operating within a hierarchi-
cally racialized system that labeled them as “foreigners” and non-Americans,
where Whiteness continues to be the dominant and invisible norm for defin-
ing who is “American.”
As a way of pointing to their racial minority status, my informants often
argued that they did not “look American,” nor did they live with “Ameri-
can” parents, who typically represented White middle-class families in the
suburbs. Students’ experience with racial discrimination and name-calling
were often reminders of their racial minority status and lack of control over
the production of images about themselves. Some students, when faced with
racism, wished that they looked “American” so they did not have to address
the accompanying shame and anger.
Not surprisingly, in the magnet high school urban context, where approxi-
mately half the student population was Asian American, the students infre-
quently felt the stigma of being labeled as “Asian.” As one student explained,
“Now, since I am going to this school, and a lot of people are Asian, I think
being Asian is good. I would never want to be like someone else.” In fact, my
informants said they rarely faced racial discrimination or name-calling within
80 Gaining Schooling Resources and Institutional Support

the school—usually, it was on their way home from school (either on the
subway or in their neighborhood parks) or when they left their racially di-
verse urban environment and ventured into the White homogeneity of rural
or suburban areas. For instance, Lucy related her experience in a restaurant
in an all-White community in Rhode Island. She explained how restaurant
personnel refused to serve her and her cousins:

When I was in Rhode Island, it was all-White community; we never

saw Black people or Asian people. We wanted to get food at a
restaurant—I think it was me and my cousins—and, like, they
wouldn’t serve us. They said, “Oh, just hold on a minute.” And we
waited half an hour. All the people around us were getting food, and
when we were leaving, they were calling us chinks and stuff, and kind
of saying something like, “Get out of our town,” or something. “We
don’t need your kind,” and stuff. I just got so pissed off; we just left.
We were waiting, like, 45 minutes, and it’s a small restaurant. We
were sitting right there, and they wouldn’t serve us.

Being seen as a foreigner and non-American, despite having been born and
raised in the United States, was a painful and infuriating experience for Lucy:

My parents are always facing discrimination—like, people say, “This

is America, go back to your country,” you know, “We don’t need
you here.” I got really pissed off at the restaurant because . . . I really
don’t think the color of your skin matters, and I hate stereotypes
’cause they don’t really have anything to do with the real person. I
especially got pissed off when they were saying go back home and
stuff. I mean, I was born here. I am a part of America, too.

The students’ experiences illustrated how as a racially marginalized

group, Asian Americans are often seen as “foreigners” or “immigrants” by
outsiders, despite the long history of Asians living in the United States (Chan,
1991; Takaki, 1989). Throughout most of their history in the United States,
Asian Americans were consistently denied naturalization and citizenship
rights because of racism and fear of economic competition—this despite their
having been recruited as a cheap source of labor on an as-needed basis. The
way the U.S. mainstream views and treats Asian Americans today finds its
roots in this historical exclusion (i.e., denial of citizenship and civil rights).
Despite the “open-door” policy of the Immigration Act of 1965, vestiges of
this exclusion remain in the form of the historically rooted image of Asian
Americans as non-Americans and immigrants (Lowe, 1996).
In addition to feeling excluded, students commented on the tendency of
others to stereotype all Asians as “Chinese.” This emphasis on Asian homo-
Advancing Educational Opportunities 81

geneity only exacerbated the students’ alienation. Ellen described the frus-
tration that she felt when people automatically assumed she was Chinese:

I hate it when other people say, “Are you Chinese?” That’s the first
thing they ask. I hate it because it’s racist. It doesn’t feel right. They
think we all look alike. . . . Nobody would look at me and say I am
American, ’cause I just don’t look American. A typical American
person is Caucasian.

As Ellen’s comment illustrates, Asian Americans’ ethnicity often becomes

racialized, and that racialization serves to marginalize them. The assump-
tion that all Asians fall into one ethnic group reflects what Omi and Winant
(1986) called the process of “racial formation,” whereby various elements
of ethnic identity take on racial meaning and form, while any distinctiveness
of specific ethnic identities becomes lost or ignored.
Winnie, a sophomore at MH, described incidents in which strangers asked
her “what” she is, as a way of inquiring about her ethnic background. Her
comments exemplified the normative paradigm still operating in the United
States, in which Whites are spared from being considered a “racial group,”
while minorities, including Asian Americans, are consistently racialized:

When I am with my friends at a party or something, and people

would come up to me and say, “What are you?” I would be like, I am
Korean. And, of course, my friends, who are White—they leave them
alone. I feel annoyed ’cause, you know, I think it’s really not that
important and it’s, like, “What are you?” is really rude. ’Cause my
friends, you know, also have backgrounds, too, you know, not just
me. I think you could ask them, too.

Winnie’s experience underscored the salience of race and power operating in

the United States and how ethnicity for racial minorities takes on a different set
of meanings than it does for Whites. For instance, research shows that third-
and fourth-generation descendents of White European immigrants operate under
“symbolic ethnicity” (Alba, 1990; Gans, 1979; Waters, 1990) and are able to
choose their ethnic identities based on subjective attachments to ethnic sym-
bols—a process that is intermittent, voluntary, and noncommittal in charac-
ter. However, racial minorities do not always have the option of choosing their
ethnicity or highlighting particular elements of their ancestry as readily (Espiritu,
1994; Kibria, 2002; Tuan, 1998; Waters, 1990). Far from being “symbolic” or
“voluntary” in character, their ethnicity is often imposed on them as a result of
systemic racial discrimination and hierarchical power relations.
Interestingly, when I inquired about other racial minorities and their
experiences of racial discrimination, my MH informants believed that Blacks
82 Gaining Schooling Resources and Institutional Support

and Hispanics faced more egregious stereotyping than Asians, who are often
seen as a model minority. Gina explained:

Yeah, I think, particularly, Blacks and Hispanics. . . . I think they

have it more difficult than I do. I mean, there is always a huge
stereotype of them, which actually is a lot meaner than stereotypes
placed on Korean people . . . that they are not as intelligent and are
more violent and that they are not as hardworking. And that Koreans
are all perfectionists and smart and they try too hard.

At the same time, some students were careful to point out that as Asian
Americans, they often felt invisible—a racial minority absent altogether from
racial discourse. In the context of a polarized Black and White racial dis-
course, some students believed that the United States failed to address vari-
ous struggles and barriers faced by many Asian Americans. Kyung alluded
to media representation as a point of reference:

Everybody faces discrimination. Asians are total minorities . . . like, if

you watch the news, it’s either about the Blacks or the Whites, you
know. We are sort of outsiders . . . Blacks blame Whites for the bad
things that are happening to them. Whites blame the Blacks for their
neighborhoods.

As illustrated, the Korean students at MH were keenly aware of racial di-

visions and how discrimination affected various groups differently. They
were also aware of the racial and socioeconomic divide between their neigh-
borhood, punctuated by urban tenement buildings occupied by recent im-
migrants and racial minorities, and the world of “American” families,
marked by suburban houses owned by wealthy Whites beyond the Long
Island Expressway:

When you imagine American, it’s like that family with a good-
looking father and a good-looking wife and live in a good place. They
lead a very good life. Kids are very well off, they get good grades,
there is a baby. There is a guy, a girl, and a baby. They live in Long
Island or somewhere with their white picket fence. They really lead a
good life . . . the White people . . . the White family.

These divides cast a long shadow over the students’ lives, blunting even
their hard-earned success to some degree. Many of the students I interviewed
believed that even with economic and social support from their parents and
ethnic communities, and the prospect of good careers and long-term economic
success born of investment in education, they would never be considered
Advancing Educational Opportunities 83

“American” by the larger society because of their racial minority status. Suh
Na explained:

My parents want me to have a better life than they have now, ’cause
they work really hard to earn money, and they want me to have a better
and easier life where I could take days off during holidays and week-
ends, and work less and earn more money. I help them out on Satur-
days, and it’s hard work, and I feel it every time I work. So I think, I
should have a better life. . . . But I think that even if you are American-
ized, your appearance tells you that you are Asian, Korean, and
Chinese, or whatever, so I don’t think you will ever get over that wall.

EDUCATION AS A RACIAL STRATEGY

As illustrated, the Korean American students at MH were painfully aware

of how their racial minority status might be used to marginalize them as
foreigners or non-American, despite their having been born and raised in the
United States. However, embedded in strong social support at home, com-
munities, and school, the Korean students had learned to use education as a
means to, in part, withstand the stigma accompanying their racial minority
status. Underlying this process was a firm belief that to compensate for their
racial minority status, they had to work even harder and excel in school. In
other words, for the Korean American students at MH, education represented
what Kibria (2002) referred to as a “racial strategy.” She argued, “Their
parents suggested that academic achievement was a way of overcoming the
racial exclusion and barriers in the United States, of ‘making it’ in spite of
them” (p. 54). According to most of the Korean American students at MH,
their parents emphasized the importance of using education to compensate
for racial barriers facing Asian Americans in the United States. Yun Shin, a
junior at MH, repeated her mother’s advice:

My mom would want me to be Americanized and get education,

since there is so much racism against Asians and stuff, but she wants
me to keep my Korean culture. Being American never entered my
mind. It’s not that I don’t want to be, but it’s just that I’ve never been
accepted as one, never been considered one, so I never thought of
myself as one. Because I am always surrounded by Asians, being
American never entered my mind. You know, if I say, “I am Ameri-
can,” they would say, “No, you are not. You are Asian.”

By placing Asian American students’ educational aspirations in the con-

text of historical exclusion, Hirschman and Wong (1986), Mark and Chih
84 Gaining Schooling Resources and Institutional Support

(1982), and Sue and Okazaki (1990) have explained that exigencies of dis-
crimination in noneducational settings has led Asian Americans to view
education as a functional means of social and economic mobility. Similarly,
Suzuki (1980) has argued that because Asian Americans have been histori-
cally excluded from the mainstream labor market and forced into self-
employment, first-generation parents have emphasized using education to
achieve career opportunities in mainstream economy.
Moreover, many of the students explained how their parents warned
them of racial discrimination and made them aware of their racial minority
status. According to the students, their parents reiterated the significance of
learning skills necessary to achieve in school while maintaining strong eth-
nic ties. As Kim commented:

My parents think that it’s, like, going to be a White-populated

society, so, like, they keep telling me to try my best and stuff, and just
be aware that they are there and you are going to face some discrimi-
nation. Not try to fit into their society, but know about your sur-
rounding and stuff.

The students’ responses echo findings from earlier studies that have
shown how children of immigrants, particularly those residing in poor, iso-
lated neighborhoods, need close ties to their immigrant parents’ ethnic en-
claves and communities to withstand class and racial inequality (Caplan,
Choy, & Whitmore, 1991; Gibson, 1988; Portes & Rumbaut, 1996; Zhou
& Bankston, 1996, 1998). Gibson (1988) described this as a strategy of ac-
commodation or selective assimilation—a process whereby the children in
the Punjabi community learned skills necessary to be competitive in Ameri-
can society but resisted assimilating with the lower-SES White community
in which they resided. Additional studies on Southeast Asian refugee students
also indicate that their academic success was primarily attributable to their
close ties to their first-generation parental ethnic networks and their ability
to resist downward assimilation into their surrounding poor, minority com-
munities (Caplan et al., 1991; Zhou & Bankston, 1996, 1998).
The capacity to resist the alienating effects of class and racial discrimi-
nation depends on the embeddedness in family and community networks of
support (Gottlieb, 1991). Raising minority and immigrant children involves
strategies by which families and community members struggle to equip and
strengthen their children so they can negotiate conflicting relations and
worlds—and acquire a measure of resilience in the process (Boykin, 1986;
Boykin & Toms, 1985; Neisser, 1986; Phelan et al., 1993). In order to be-
lieve in and use education as an effective means of social mobility, minority
children need to learn to cross borders, overcome barriers, and resist the
effects of exclusionary forces. The Korean students at MH certainly illus-
Advancing Educational Opportunities 85

trated the importance of developing resilience through ties with protective

social networks within their home and community and at school.
To summarize, students negotiated their racial and ethnic identities ac-
cording to the social and economic context. At the same time, racial minority
students saw their racial identities ascribed to them in the form of exclusion-
ary stereotypes and false constructs of homogeneity. Protected with strong
social capital at home, communities, and school, however, the MH students
learned to use education as a racial strategy. That is, they firmly upheld the
belief that as racial minorities, they would have to work even harder in school
to obtain the economic parity with White Americans. As illustrated, the
Korean American students typically associated being “American” with
Whiteness; however, their comments also illustrate the changing and com-
plex meaning associated with being “American.” For the Korean American
students at MH, the belief that education would pave the way for obtaining
the economic status of middle-class Americans was strong; however, they
nevertheless were keenly aware that despite their middle-class economic sta-
tus, they might not necessarily be accepted racially as Americans. This pre-
dicament highlights the multiple and situational meanings associated with
being American, the salience of race, and the integral and complex relation-
ship between race and class in the United States.
86 Gaining Schooling Resources and Institutional Support

C H A P T E R 5

Korean American High School Dropouts:

Overcoming Institutional Barriers

I learned nothing. Nothing! Do you know how loud those kids are? I can’t
even listen to anyone. Teachers, they don’t teach you, like nothing. Usu-
ally if teachers teach you, students make a lot of noise, a lot of noise; they
will throw garbage and everything . . . Teachers can’t teach properly, and I
can’t hear anything because kids talk a lot in class . . . teachers don’t have
any control.
—John, age 18

POOR, ISOLATED URBAN HIGH SCHOOLS:

LIMITED SCHOOLING AND GUIDANCE SUPPORT

While Korean American students at MH were embedded in supportive net-

works at home, in their communities, and at school composed of individuals
who provided institutional support regarding schooling, the Korean Ameri-
can high school dropouts navigated through schooling alone, isolated and
disconnected from institutional agents who could provide important school-
ing support. In contrast to the Korean American students at MH, who at-
tended an academic school populated mostly by middle-class White and Asian
students, the dropouts attended low-performing public high schools with
academic standing below the city average, faced with limited resources, and
populated mostly by low-income Black, Hispanic, and Asian students. Con-
sequently, the dropouts faced myriad institutional obstacles to building re-
lationships with key gatekeepers and accumulating social capital toward
achieving in school.
Poor communities are at a disadvantage in gaining access to and build-
ing social capital. The more affluent communities not only have greater fi-
nancial and human capital resources, but they also have access to funded
public institutions, like schools, that reproduce, if not advance, their eco-
nomic position. On the other hand, the residents of poor communities may
have strong networks within their neighborhoods, but those neighbors are

86
Overcoming Institutional Barriers 87

not able to provide them with connections and references to high-paying jobs.
Moreover, their public institutions, such as schools, are poorly funded and
isolated. With these limited resources, they are more likely to focus on over-
coming institutional obstacles rather than advancing economic and political
opportunities (Saegert et al., 2001).
Throughout the interviews, my informants spoke of attending high
schools offering ineffective learning environments and few opportunities for
constructing relationships with teachers and counselors who could help stu-
dents with schooling. The Korean American high school dropouts explained
repeatedly that even when they tried to learn in school, classes were often
too loud and disorganized for any meaningful learning to take place. Rob-
ert, 17 at the time of this study and born in the United States, confided that
because the school environment was not conducive to learning, leaving school
would be a better use of his time and energy:

I would go to the classes, but then my patience would run thin, and I
would just get tired. Or I would go to class, but the kids are so rowdy
that I can’t learn, and the teacher won’t teach. If I don’t learn any-
thing, there is no point of me being there. And I eventually just left.
’Cause if I came to school, I wanted to do something, not just sit
there.

As earlier studies have shown, dropping out of school is but the final
stage in a cumulative process of school disengagement, where students’ edu-
cational engagement is associated with the extrinsic rewards of school-
work as well as the intrinsic rewards associated with the curriculum and
educational activities. Students’ school membership is also associated with
their commitment to and trust in the institution, belief in the legitimacy of
schooling, and social ties to other students, teachers, and counselors who
can guide them through schooling (Natriello et al., 1990; Newmann, Weh-
lage, & Lamborn, 1992; Rumberger & Larson, 1998, Wehlage & Rutter,
1986).
Given the limited structural resources available in these poorly funded
and overcrowded urban schools, teachers and counselors also face tremen-
dous obstacles in being able to provide schooling support for their students.
The students I interviewed felt firsthand the effects of these structural prob-
lems in the educational system. In such school environments, students con-
sistently mentioned the lack of academic rigor and limited academic and
social support from teachers and counselors. Jung Suh, 18 at the time of
the study and born in the United States, described his experience at a school
characterized by low expectations and mutual disrespect between teachers
and students:
88 Gaining Schooling Resources and Institutional Support

The thing about New York school, as to why I lost the passion to
learn, or whatever, is because first of all, I don’t like the teachers,
how they treat you . . . I mean, a good teacher can make a bad
subject worthwhile. And I came here, and it’s not like that. They all
think you are ignorant, and they talk to you like you are ignorant,
and honestly, it just pisses me off. I didn’t want to stay there, and
personally, I don’t like being looked down upon and seen as if I am
stupid. And that’s very offensive to me, so I just left. And it’s not just
seeing it happen to me, I don’t like it seeing it happen to others, too.

Although most of the Korean American dropouts spoke of schooling experi-

ences marked by uncaring relationships with teachers and counselors, some
spoke of adults at the school, including teachers, counselors, and even secu-
rity guards, who were in their corner urging them to stop cutting classes and
associating with friends at school who “bring people down.” Emily, who was
19 years old and born in the United States, recalled her experience:

Yeah, they [teachers and counselors] liked me and my dad, and they
tried to help me and my dad to see that staying in school would be
better for me. Like, setting up schedule to help me; and if I left
school, they would call my dad ’cause they didn’t want him to be
worried. My friends would cut, but then when I tried to cut, the
guards would stop me and say, “Go to class. Why are you doing this?
Why are you trying to ruin your life? You would be disappointing
your dad. I wouldn’t say this to everyone, but you should be around
much better people. These people bring themselves down, so they will
bring other people down.” So, people cared about me and wanted me
to do well.

Despite the existence of these caring adults in her school, Emily navigated
through schooling alone, failed to seek their help or guidance, and eventu-
ally stopped coming to school. Her experience illustrated that even though
low-income minority students may be embedded in networks of families,
peers, and school agents who care about them, they often fail to seek help
from others and are, to the contrary, likely to navigate through schooling
alone with little support (Stanton-Salazar, 2001). Those students who are
alienated from schools, in particular, face fear, anger, distrust, and loss of
confidence in the support process and, therefore, are less likely to seek help
from teachers and counselors (Phelan et al., 1993). Poor, minority students
face numerous institutional obstacles that prevent them from the construct-
ing kinds of relationships and social networks that provide access to impor-
tant forms of institutional support.
Overcoming Institutional Barriers 89

INSTITUTIONAL BARRIERS TO ACCESSING SCHOOLING

AND INSTITUTIONAL RESOURCES

Obstacles to Building Relationships with Teachers and Counselors

The overall poor relationships with teachers and counselors reiterated by my

informants, however, cannot be understood adequately without examining
the larger social forces that schools are subjected to. Schools are increasingly
facing pressure from federal and state agencies to improve their performance,
and assessment is based largely on standardized exams and graduation rates.
When such mandates are handed down without providing adequate struc-
tural resources to meet these standards, there is less incentive to help the most
needy students in the school system. Studies have shown that in the face of
such testing and assessment policies, schools have resorted to “pushing out”
students who are “at risk” in order to improve school performance. That is,
the panopoly of high-stakes testing could result in adverse outcomes, such
as increase in rates of high school dropouts and “push-outs” (Orfield, Losen,
Wald, & Swanson, 2004).
In line with this, numerous Korean American high school dropouts in-
terviewed spoke of their receiving inadequate counseling, and some confided
that they were advised to leave school and encouraged to take the GED exam
instead. According to some of the students, counselors advised that they had
a better chance of getting a high school diploma if they left school, given the
students’ lack of interest, excessive absences, low academic achievement, and
likelihood of not graduating on time (see also Fine, 1991). What is notable,
and unfortunate, in these cases is that students were neither adequately in-
formed about the range of choices afforded them nor fully cognizant of how
a GED might be different from a high school diploma. When I interviewed
Hee Kyung, he was 18 years old and had dropped out of high school more
than a year before. He explained:

When I met my counselor, she said I should take the GED and not go
back to school. I thought the GED and high school diploma were the
same. I wanted to leave the school, and when I left, I felt better.

Like Hee Kyung, other Korean high school dropouts said they were en-
couraged to drop out of high school and/or take the GED, instead of receiving
accurate information and the necessary resources to graduate from high school
(Bowdith, 1993; Fine, 1991; Rumberger & Larson, 1998). Unfortunately, these
systemic institutional problems caused many of the Korean American drop-
outs to see their counselors as authority figures who ultimately did not care
about their welfare. These hostilities and disincentives to graduate—partly as
90 Gaining Schooling Resources and Institutional Support

the result of misinformation—left students feeling bereft of advisers who could

guide them through a difficult process. Consequently, the students exhibited
anger, frustration, and mistrust toward their teachers and counselors. As Sam
explained:

The counselor was the one who kicked me out. First of all, I am not
supposed to get kicked out . . . a couple of my friends got her for
counseling, and she was really mean. All of them got kicked out. She
will give me attitude. She’ll say, “Oh, you again? Just leave the
school.” Just like that. That’s why I decided to leave. I don’t care.

Theresa, one of the program administrators of the GED program at YCC,

confirmed this trend, for the organization had witnessed it throughout the
New York City public schools. She explained that because the schools were
crowded and under pressure to increase graduation rates and test scores, many
teachers and counselers resorted to “pushing out” students who might need
their support the most:

It’s easier for the school system to say to these kids, “Leave the school
system, you’ll be better off.” Even though they are legally allowed to
stay in school till they are 21, no one ever wants to stay in school till
they are 21, and the schools don’t encourage it because they are
overcrowded, and the fewer students, the better for them. They want
to keep that graduation rate high. It affects the test scores. It affects the
way the school looks if they have students who are over the age of 18.

According to Mike, the program director of the GED program at YCC,

these problems had become even more acute since the New York City schools
implemented a requirement that all students take and pass Regents Exams in
order to graduate. This standard has in some cases encouraged recent immi-
grant students with language barriers to drop out of high school and take the
GED, all the while believing that this alternate route would be quicker and
easier than enduring 4 years of high school. Implementation of these higher
standards without adequate language assistance for recent immigrant children
is one of the biggest challenges faced by some schools. Mike continued:

You do have the more recent immigrants that do have serious lan-
guage problems, and that’s a big reason they drop out. And the
Regents is a very, very big reason—an obstacle that most of them
can’t overcome. I don’t know when, but year by year they added a
new section and new test as requirements. You need to pass it. Now
it’s almost all subjects. So for a recent immigrant who came let’s say
Overcoming Institutional Barriers 91

2, 3 years ago that tried to pass a very difficult English test, they
would realize that no matter how much I study, I am just not going
to be able to pass this test. So they go, “Oh, I heard GED is easier, so
I’ll take it that way.”

These comments from the Korean American high school dropouts have
important implications for the rise in the number of students taking the GED
in recent years. According to a recent report by the Urban Institute on the
GED (Chaplin, 1999), there has been a steady increase of students opting to
take the GED rather than graduate with a high school diploma. It is estimated
that in 1967, approximately 150,000 people received a GED in the United
States, but by 1998 this number had increased to almost 500,000, with about
200,000 of these recipients under the age of 20. The percent of GED recipi-
ents steadily rose from 2% in 1954 to over 14% by 1987 (Cameron & Heckman,
as cited in Chaplin, 1999). Moreover, an increasing number of GED recipi-
ents are as young as 16, further diverting teenagers away from obtaining a
traditional high school diploma. However, as Chaplin (1999) illustrated, there
is ample evidence showing the labor-market costs of obtaining a GED in-
stead of a high school diploma. That is, dropping out of high school to get a
GED results in substantially lower income and earning later in life. Teenag-
ers who are opting to take a GED instead of graduating from high school—
as well as their parents—should be well informed of these findings before
making the decision to drop out of high schools.

Transferring from One Ineffective School to Another

Because their schools failed to adequately serve the most needy Korean
American high school dropouts, and in some cases encouraged them to leave,
many dropouts corroborated their working-class parents’ strategy by trans-
ferring to different schools, often as a way of resisting difficult conditions
but also as a way of running from their own problems. In many cases, this
strategy was as self-defeating as it was self-fulfilling. Not only did the high
mobility rate create more problems than it solved, but some Korean Ameri-
can dropouts transferred so frequently that they struggled to remember the
long list of public schools they had attended. For instance, Rob attended a
different high school almost every semester for a span of 3½ years before
finally dropping out:

I dropped out of OH. I was a student there for half a year, or one
term. Before then, I was at FS for another half a year. And before I
got to FS, I was at NH for a little over half a year. Before that, I
started out at BS, where I was at the longest . . . 2½ years.
92 Gaining Schooling Resources and Institutional Support

Hoping ultimately to graduate, Rob nevertheless struggled with numerous

challenges at each high school. His long journey toward earning a diploma,
which never happened, illustrates how difficult it was for him to adjust to
and build relationships at each school. The process left him further isolated
and alienated from the schooling process:

After I got to NH, I was doing fine, and if I would have stayed there,
I would have graduated on time. But after being exposed to so many
people around you, after I got to NH, I was really isolated from the
group. It was hard to fit in as a new person. So I decided to take my
senior year to come back. You know, to study here. That was prob-
ably like the worst thing I ever did. After I got back to FS, I messed
up extremely bad.

With his haphazard school record and short a few credits to graduate, he
transferred yet again so that he could “get it over with” as quickly as pos-
sible and earn his diploma. But faced with escalating family problems and
alienated from the schooling process, he dropped out shortly thereafter:

So then, like, I transferred to OH because OH is supposed to be like a

Mickey Mouse course; get you credits and graduate. So I went to
OH, and it was so easy that I just wasn’t interested. So then I didn’t
go to OH. And then, like, I needed around seven, five credits after
NH, and when I got to FS I got one credit, and then I got two credits
from OH, so I needed two more credits to graduate. It was basically,
like, I just want to get it over with. I was dealing a lot of stuff from
home also. I didn’t want to really deal with it. So I just, like, tried to
get the easy way out of getting my credits.

As Rob’s experience illustrates, because of shifting environments, stan-

dards, and expectations, children who frequently transfer schools face a num-
ber of challenges in adjusting both socially and academically (Holland, Kaplan,
& Davis, 1974; Lee & Burkham, 1992). Students are less likely to put down
roots in their schools or communities and build the trusting relationships with
teachers and friends that are crucial for accumulating and building social capi-
tal. Additionally, measures of students’ social and academic disengagement,
such as low grades, misbehavior, high absenteeism, and dropout rates, have
all been associated with student mobility—the frequency with which students
changed schools. And school and residential mobility were significantly higher
among students of lower socioeconomic status than among students of higher
socioeconomic status (Rumberger & Larson, 1998).
As mentioned, the high transfer rate among many Korean American
dropouts I interviewed was often self-defeating, creating more problems than
Overcoming Institutional Barriers 93

it solved by ensnaring the students in a downward spiral, until transferring

schools gave way to dropping out as the strategy of choice to deal with poor
academic records fraught with a high rate of suspension, failing grades, ab-
sences, and class cutting (Natriello, 1986; Natriello et al., 1990). Students
explained that once they began cutting classes, they couldn’t quite make up
for their failing grades, which in turn discouraged them from attending classes.
When they tried going back to school, they were so far behind that they
couldn’t catch up with schoolwork. This further increased the likelihood of
their disengagement with school.
John dropped out of high school after having been in numerous schools
for 3 years. He explained that, although he aspired to do well in school, after
repeatedly cutting classes with his friends, he found it more difficult to go
back to school:

In the beginning, I enjoyed going to school. I am going to do well,

this and that. But after a while, I cut a few days and then I wouldn’t
want to go back to school, and I would cut even more. And then
when I go back, the teachers will be there, grill me this and that, or
whatever. But then after that, I will keep going and then, I will lose
the feel to go to school and don’t want to go anymore. You know,
nothing was really holding me in school, and I lost the will to stay.

Students admitted that after missing so many days of school, it became

difficult to go back to school and “catch up,” which made it increasingly
easier to drop out. As John explained, cutting classes gave him a chance to
avoid some of the problems he was facing in school:

You know, it’s the simplest way to get a little bit. You cut school,
and then you don’t have to think about it. The school really doesn’t
care whether you go or not. I didn’t care either. I thought, if I go to
school, I will get into fights or made fun of, or didn’t understand
what they were doing, so why bother going to school? That’s what I
thought. And after you cut 1 month, you can’t go back to school.
You don’t understand what they are talking about. If you want to
catch up, you have to work really hard.

When I asked John if he had reached out to teachers or counselors at school

for guidance, he reiterated the lack of caring relationships, mistrust, and
overall isolation in navigating through the schooling system:

I didn’t have a relationship with teachers. I didn’t really want their

help and wanted to do it on my own. Guidance counselors tried to
help, but I didn’t like the way they did it. Like, once I didn’t go to
94 Gaining Schooling Resources and Institutional Support

school for 2 months, and then I decided to go back to school. The

guidance counselor called, and she kind of put me down and didn’t
encourage me. Like, she would say, if I kept this up I would get
kicked out of school and not get a high school diploma. I don’t really
show them my feelings. I said, “OK.”

The lack of caring relationships between counselors and students is

clearly illustrated in the Korean students’ schooling experiences. Research-
ers have shown the significance of caring teachers, counselors, and peers in
schools, and how such relationships can initiate and build relationships that
convey acceptance and confirmation of the students’ investment in and con-
tribution to the school community (Noddings, 1992; Stanton-Salazar, 2001;
Valenzuela 1999). For instance, Valenzuela (1999) argued that the existence
of caring teachers in the school community played an important role in
Mexican American students’ ability to build social capital in schools.
Students’ comments also show that in the context of such limited re-
sources at home and in schools, the students find it difficult to connect their
academic aspirations and achievement. Providing students with institutional
and social support, such as access to caring teachers and counselors, is piv-
otal for bridging this gap and achieving academic success (Croninger & Lee,
2001; Stanton-Salazar, 2001; Valenzuela, 1999). However, according to
Korean dropouts in the study, they were not privy to such relationships. Given
their school contexts, the Korean high school dropouts did not have access
to important and caring relationships with teachers or counselors who might
have been able to help them complete and excel in high school.
The dropouts’ testimony also reveals, among other things, that school
violence and racial harassment contribute to school disengagement and, ul-
timately, to dropping out. In fact, racial harassment and school fights oc-
curred daily, and for the Korean American dropouts, the violence during or
after school only increased their likelihood of getting suspended and drop-
ping out. In the case of Jung Suh, fighting in and outside of school was a
typical affair throughout his junior high and high school years. When I asked
him whether he got into fights in school, he replied:

Nothing that I couldn’t take care of. I don’t know, usually stupid
kids, who try to act tough. They will be grillin’ [sic] me and when I
grill back, they say what are you staring at? So if they want to fight, I
fight. It’s not like I am looking for trouble, it’s like if they come to me
and like they are going to be retarded. If anything, I don’t like to
fight.

Even though Jung Suh would have preferred not to fight, he further explained
how important it was to stand up for himself in these situations because he
Overcoming Institutional Barriers 95

refused to be disrespected. These incidences, however, were not limited to

his peers but extended to his teachers:

People who think they are big shit, I am sorry but I can’t handle that.
I was suspended in junior high school for fighting with the teachers
. . . This one teacher, who wasn’t even my teacher, came into the
room and like one day, I didn’t have my binder, just my loose leaf,
and he was talking about kids who don’t bring binders and don’t
even come to school prepared, they are not going to make it in life.
And I am the only one who had that, and I know he was talking to
me. So, I just started cursin’ [sic] at him . . . I was just like, who is he
to tell me whether I am going to make it in life or not? And he don’t
even know me. It’s a total disrespect when he don’t even know me.
My guidance counselors, they didn’t care. They would just send me
out.

While many students, mostly my male informants, reiterated their ex-

periences of school violence related to racism, disrespect, and peer pressure,
other students, mostly my female informants, avoided school altogether for
fear of being subject to harassment. For instance, Tina was in tenth grade
when she dropped out of high school. She spoke of being in constant fear of
verbal and sometimes physical abuse, which a group of girls in her class
perpetrated. As the racial slurs and taunting escalated, Tina was left alone
to defend herself, without the aid of teachers or other students. She recalled
the day a group of girls in the class threw gum at her hair, stole her wallet
from her school bag, and followed her home after school. After this incident,
she began cutting school until she stopped going to school altogether. In-
stead of confiding in her parents or seeking help from school personnel, she
pretended to go to school for nearly 3 months, ducking into a public library
by herself and waiting out the schoolday until 3:00 P.M., when she headed
home. She explained the sense of helplessness she experienced, alone and iso-
lated, without support from friends or adults:

I hated school because all the kids used to tease me. It was better in
junior high school, where I had some friends. My first year at high
school was fine, but the next year was the worst year. A group of
girls in my class who hated me threw gum at my hair and stole my
wallet. When I told them to stop, they laughed and kept on calling
me names. I dreaded coming to school. Little by little, I stopped
coming, and the following year, I dropped out.

Although Tina did not reach out to teachers and counselors for help, the
school also failed to intervene against such racial harassment. Tina rarely
96 Gaining Schooling Resources and Institutional Support

received help from teachers or counselors when she was faced with such verbal
and physical harassment. Her experience serves as a reminder that, like other
racial minorities, Asian Americans face racism and discrimination at school
and in the workplace. Particularly in schools, teachers and administrators
should set zero-tolerance policies for any form of discrimination, whether
based on race, gender, disability, or sexual orientation. Moreover, teachers
and counselors must actively intervene when witnessing such acts of discrimi-
nation and harassment.

SECOND-GENERATION PEER NETWORKS:

RESISTING FAILING SCHOOLS THROUGH
AN ALTERNATE ROUTE

With limited access to institutional agents and social capital at home or in

school, the Korean American high school dropouts were often left alone to
defend themselves or to make crucial decisions. This is in contrast to the MH
students, who were embedded in networks providing strong social capital at
home, in their communities, and in school. In such a social context, the MH
students’ network revolved around obtaining information and learning skills
specifically related to achieving in school and advancing their economic
status—a strategy that used education as a long-term investment for obtain-
ing social mobility. However, as we have seen, the low-income Korean Ameri-
can high school dropouts’ network revolved around a strategy of “getting
by” and overcoming institutional barriers—gaining short-term jobs, joining
the military, and learning about GED programs as a way to address their
low socioeconomic status and limited opportunity structure.
Similar to the Korean American students at MH, the Korean American
high school dropouts also spoke of associating with Korean peers in school,
co-ethnic churches, and neighborhoods. However, unlike the MH students,
many of the high school dropouts had Korean friends who also came from
low-income families, were high school dropouts, or were in the military. For
instance, John dropped out of high school on the advice of an older Korean
friend whom he calls hyung, or “older brother.” He then followed in his
Korean friend’s footsteps and decided to join the marines:

A lot of hyungs, the older guys, told us about the marines. They are
like older brothers. All my friends from high school, we used to go to
same church, and then from there, we would meet friends and other
friends there. They went to the marines.

Similarly, Sam also learned about joining the army through his hyung.
He dropped out of high school during his senior year and hoped to join the
Overcoming Institutional Barriers 97

army shortly thereafter. Since he had no contact with his mother and his father
had passed away a few years earlier, he was living with his uncle and aunt
when I met him. His government assistance stopped when he turned 18 and
he felt the pressure to be financially independent. He was aware that living
with his relatives, who were also supporting their own children, might not
be an option in the near future. For him, the army provided the hope of get-
ting a free education:

So, I have this pressure, but it wouldn’t have been as great if I still got
money from the government. I used to get money from my aunt and
uncle to support me, but that doesn’t come anymore since I am 18
now, and so there is even more pressure put on me. It’s not just me.
There are my cousins, and there are six people in the house; so right
now, I am gonna have to start working soon. I am planning to go to
the marines this summer and then go to college after that. You know,
any military in the U.S., you get free education

The choice to drop out of high school and join the military to earn a
college degree was not an easy decision for the Korean high school drop-
outs. Sam confessed that his decision to drop out of high school in his senior
year and enter the army was one of the toughest choices that he had had to
make. When I asked him if he had talked to adults other than his Korean
“brothers” about his decision, he explained that his “brothers” understood
him and knew what was best for him. His aunt and uncle did not initially
agree with his decision to leave high school, but when Sam explained that he
would go on to college after his service in the army, they agreed. Since his
aunt and uncle, with their low socioeconomic status as well as limited English-
language skills and knowledge of the U.S. education system, could not be of
much help, Sam rarely approached them for guidance on schooling or ca-
reer opportunities. Sam’s experience, similar to that of many of the drop-
outs in this study, pointed to the consistent theme of students having to
navigate through the education system primarily on their own, without much
adult presence or guidance (Lew, 2004, in press).
In addition to the military option, many Korean American high school
dropouts learned about the GED program at YCC through fellow Korean
friends. For instance, Dave was 17 years old, had dropped out of high school
the year before I met him, and was enrolled in the GED program at YCC.
He explained that he had five close Korean friends but that none of them
had graduated from high school. He continued: “Because we always hung
out and didn’t go to school. If you don’t go to school once or twice, then it
gets harder. You don’t have much fun at school, grades are low, so you hang
out together. After lunch, we would just cut out and leave school.” When I
asked Dave whether his friends were also in the GED program, he explained
98 Gaining Schooling Resources and Institutional Support

that two of them were, but the others were either working full time or were
in the military:

My closest friends are from the Korean church I go to. I brought

them here to the GED program since they dropped out. One girl I
know, who is my best friend’s girlfriend, is out of school. So I told
her about this program and told her to come by. But it’s hard because
she works full time at a restaurant. Right now, because the owner
opened another store at New Jersey, she is running the store there, so
she has very little time for school.

Those who were enrolled in the GED program at YCC clearly saw this
as an alternate route to college and a chance to start over. Mark repeated a
pivotal conversation he had had with his Korean and Chinese friends who
had dropped out of high school years earlier. They carefully advised him to
take the GED and go on to college:

I learned about this GED program through my friends, who also

dropped out before me. A lot of older brothers, you know, both
Korean and Chinese. They were, like, “You dropped out, but do well
in GED.” They would tell me, like, “You can’t go back and change
the time or anything, life goes on, so do well in GED and continue to
go to college.” So, I am trying to start fresh, you know.

The Korean American dropouts who could take the GED route consis-
tently mentioned their belief that this exam was a cure-all—a silver bullet
that would erase their delinquent school records and give them a “second
chance.” Many students believed that the GED would be a quicker and easier
process than enduring the weight of academic failure, humiliation, and the
disrespect of teachers, counselors, and peers. Although my informants be-
lieved that they would need a college education to gain economic opportu-
nities, they were not convinced that 4 years of high school would necessarily
be the best means of getting there. In effect, the Korean American dropouts
also used the GED as a form of adaptation and resistance to the poor-quality
schools and limited economic opportunities they faced.

BECOMING THE “OTHER” KOREAN:

CLASS, RACE, AND ETHNICITY

When noting reasons for academic achievement among Korean American

students, it is also important to account for their level of trust and faith in
mainstream institutions, such as schools, as well as their expectations for
Overcoming Institutional Barriers 99

social mobility. Students are likely to be involved in the process of self-

elimination if there is a lack of access to institutional agents, combined with
a perception of discrimination and other societal barriers toward social mo-
bility (Fine, 1991; Fordham & Ogbu, 1986; Gibson & Ogbu, 1991; Ogbu,
1987; Stanton-Salazar, 1997, 2001). Ogbu’s research on race and school
achievement illustrated how students’ cultural frame of reference and their
interpretation of economic, social, and political barriers influences their in-
clination to use education as a means for social mobility. For poor, minority
students isolated in urban areas, poor school performance is also a form of
adaptation to their limited social and economic opportunity in adult life.
Students’ social consciousness is built on beliefs shared with significant others
and community members. The degree to which one is academically success-
ful depends on one’s network as well as one’s experience within the socio-
economic opportunity structure in school and society at large (Bourdieu &
Passeron, 1977; Ogbu, 1987; Stanton-Salazar, 1997, 2001).
Expanding on Ogbu’s (1987) theory of an oppositional cultural frame
of reference and “acting White,” an increasing number of studies have com-
plicated the dichotomy of voluntary and involuntary groups’ experiences by
illustrating how members of both groups learn to adopt oppositional cul-
tural frames of reference (Portes & Rumbaut, 1996, 2001; Waters, 1994,
1999). These studies show that children of immigrants who live in poor, iso-
lated neighborhoods without the protection of strong familial networks and
social capital are likely to assimilate the cultures and norms of their poor,
minority peers and adopt an oppositional cultural frame of reference that
may not be conducive to schooling success.
Absent from this scholarly discussion, however, is how low-income and
low-achieving children of Asian immigrants, without the protection of strong
social networks, may be negotiating their racial and ethnic identities, and
how this process may be similar to and different from that of other racial
groups. The following section will begin to examine some of these questions.
As illustrated, in addition to having limited access to social and economic
support from their immigrant parents and co-ethnic communities, the Korean
American dropouts received limited support in school—urban schools mostly
populated by poor minorities and recent immigrants and plagued by violence
and high dropout rates. In this school context, the low-income Korean
American dropouts rarely came into contact with wealthy Whites; instead,
most of their peers were Asians, Blacks, and Hispanics of low socioeconomic
status. The racial and economic isolation of these youngsters, therefore,
perpetuated their distrust of and alienation from wealthy Whites. Henry,
age 19 at the time of the study and born in Korea, explained that he and his
friends had very little contact with wealthy Whites, either in school or in their
neighborhoods, and that they saw Whites largely through an oppositional
lens:
100 Gaining Schooling Resources and Institutional Support

I feel closer to Blacks and Hispanics than Whites. I think most

Koreans are closer to Black culture. It’s not like I hate Whites, but I
don’t like them either. When I see a White person, I don’t see them as
just a person. I see them as a White person. When I see them, I think,
“I don’t know you, I don’t know what you do, and I don’t want to
get to know you.” My friends don’t like Whites either, ’cause we
sometimes get into fights with Whites and the way they talk about
White people. When I see a White person, the first thing I think about
is that they are rich and educated, and most of Koreans like me are
not educated and rich. So when I see them, I think they are from
another planet.

Other Korean American high school dropouts in this study also were
keenly aware of the stark difference between them and wealthier Whites and,
by extension, their own racial minority and low socioeconomic status. Their
daily experience was restricted to a particular community and neighborhood
that taught them many “facts of life”: that their family and friends, mostly
racial minorities of low-income backgrounds, lived in poor housing projects;
that adults worked in menial jobs or were unemployed; and that their friends
did not achieve in school.
In addition to distinguishing themselves from Whiteness, my informants
also distinguished themselves from the “wealthy” Korean and other Asian
Americans who grew up in middle-class homes and privileged neighborhoods.
Emily, 19 and born in the United States, explained how such “wealthy”
Korean Americans from better neighborhoods would not understand her
experience and struggles of growing up in housing projects populated largely
by poor Blacks and Hispanics:

This Korean girl I know at church was brought up in Bayside,

which is mostly White and Asian. If she was brought up in Philadel-
phia, it would be different. For me, where I lived, majority of the
people were Hispanics and Blacks. She doesn’t know the environ-
ment I grew up in. I know their culture and the way they work. She
only knows what she knows. It’s mixed, but they are wealthier, and
they live in houses. We struggled, and she grew up more comfort-
able. You know, where I grew up, everybody worked to make a
living, the houses were dirty, lived in one bedroom with four people
in it. You know, that’s how I lived. One bedroom with my mother,
father, brother, and me.

Emily continued to explain that her low social and economic status repre-
sented a kind of collective “minority” experience that distinguished her from
the wealthier and privileged Whites and Asians:
Overcoming Institutional Barriers 101

We went through a lot living in that environment. She [wealthy

Korean American friend] doesn’t know a lot about that. She is more
to the Whites and Asians, and I am more to the Blacks and Hispanics,
more toward the minority.

Similarly, in her study of second-generation Korean American adults in New

York City, Lee (2004) has shown that while middle-class Koreans touted their
ethnicity and model minority status as reasons for their achievement, working-
class Koreans interpreted their experiences as shaped largely by their class
position. In the context of an ethnic community that is predominantly middle
class and socially mobile, the working-class Korean Americans, in order to
“save face” from being “looked down” upon, tend to distance themselves
somewhat from Korean communities at large and downplay their ethnicity
(Lee, 2004).
This study further shows, however, that as the Korean American high
school dropouts distinguished themselves from their co-ethnic peers along class
lines, they also distinguished themselves from more educated or “studious”
Koreans. Ken, 18 and born in the United States, explained that he had many
Korean American friends whom he had met in Korean churches, clubs, or
schools. But he carefully distinguished himself from the “studious” Koreans
and explained that while his Korean American friends “hang out” after church,
the “studious” Koreans go home after school with their family:

I don’t hang out with anyone else but Koreans. I used to hang out at
the Elmhurst Park a lot. I used to play basketball there, and when
you play sports there you meet people, and then you meet their
friends. The basketball thing was always after the [church] service.
Those kinds of people, you know, the studious people who don’t go
out much, would leave right after the service. So, you know who
they are.

Moreover, Ken aligned “studious” and “wealthy” Koreans with Whiteness

because of the way they spoke, dressed, and succeeded in school:

They [studious Koreans] live a different world. Totally different.

When I look at them, I never had a friend like them, so I don’t know.
When I see them, it’s like I am seeing a White person. They never cut
school, they use a different language, they use proper language, and I
use slangs. They dress more simple; some try to show off, but they
don’t care what other people think. Their hairstyles are different.
Most of them are like Whites because they don’t know this kind of
life, and they hang out with Whites, and most of the time they don’t
hang out anyway.
102 Gaining Schooling Resources and Institutional Support

In effect, the findings here show that working-class Korean American

high school dropouts define the dominant society more broadly. In addition
to distinguishing themselves from wealthy Whites, the dropouts also distin-
guished themselves from socially mobile Koreans and other Asians whom
they deemed “wealthy and studious”—attributes of “success” they associ-
ated with Whiteness. In the process, most of the dropouts aligned their shared
experiences of racism and low socioeconomic status with those of their low-
income minority peers—Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians.
In this respect, the dropouts’ experiences illustrate how they both inter-
nalized and resisted the dominant ideology that attributes “success” to Whites
and Asians but “failure” to Blacks and Hispanics: While they de-racialized
“successful” and “wealthy” Koreans and Asians by associating them with
Whiteness, they also resisted Whiteness themselves by aligning their own
racial and economic status with other “minorities” of color. That is, while
they bought into the model minority stereotype by associating upwardly
mobile Koreans with Whiteness, they also resisted the dominant ideology by
disassociating themselves from these same upwardly mobile Koreans and
aligning with Blacks and Hispanics, whom they saw as monolithically poor
and disenfranchised.
In a society based on a polarized discourse of success and failure, rich
and poor, and Black and White, students struggled to make sense of their
distinctive experience, one marked by racial minority and low socioeconomic
status. Their comments also claimed a space within a polarized racial dis-
course that tolerates Asians as either “near-Whites” or invisible minorities
whose experiences are often de-racialized and de-contextualized. Okihiro
(1994), for instance, explained that within the Black-and-White racial para-
digm, Asians, American Indians, and Latinos are defined in relation to act-
ing either White or Black. The racial paradigm of being “near-Whites” or
“just like Blacks” is historically and socially constructed. Okihiro (1994)
stated, “The construct is historicized, within the progressive tradition of
American history, to show the evolution of Asians from minority to major-
ity status, or ‘from hardship and discrimination to become a model of self-
respect and achievement in today’s America’ ” (p. 33). Yet Okihiro (1994)
argued that Asian Americans have been marginalized throughout U.S. his-
tory, as the labels of “near-Blacks” in the past or “near-Whites” in the present
demonstrate.
Meanwhile, embedded in students’ comments is also the implicit mar-
ginalization they experience within the Korean community. To be poor and
uneducated within a community that is predominantly middle class, college
educated, and upwardly mobile also means being looked down on and being
excluded. As a means of developing survival strategies to endure and resist
such marginalization within their own co-ethnic communities, as well as of
withstanding institutional barriers such as inferior schooling, economic limi-
Overcoming Institutional Barriers 103

tation, and racial discrimination within the larger society, the working-class
Korean American high school dropouts formed cultural frames of reference
and social identities in opposition to the dominant society (Gibson & Ogbu,
1991; Matute-Bianchi, 1991; Ogbu, 1987; Waters, 1994, 1999).
This section illustrates how Korean American students’ educational at-
tainment and aspirations are fundamentally based on larger social forces:
the socioeconomic backgrounds of their families; access to social capital at
home, in their communities, and in school; and structural support and car-
ing relationships with teachers and counselors at school (Lew, 2004). In order
to understand how and why low-status Korean American high school drop-
outs are limited in accessing and accumulating resources embedded in social
networks, researchers may benefit from critically examining variability within
the co-ethnic communities in the form of social class, schooling resources,
and network orientation. In the context of limited social, economic, and
institutional resources, low-status Korean American high school dropouts
operated under a different network orientation than their MH counterparts.
That is, if social capital derives from social relationships, then different groups
of students have varying degrees of advantage and investment based on class,
race, and institutional resources within the network. Thus, social networks
are also implicated in the reproduction of inequality (Bourdieu & Passeron,
1977; Lareau, 1987, 2003; Lin, 2000; Stanton-Salazar, 1997, 2001; Willis,
1977). The findings point to the significance of institutional context when
accounting for the relative disadvantages and obstacles experienced by poor
communities in building social capital toward economic advancement. By
examining social capital using an institutional and process-oriented approach,
one can identify organizational forms and key actors critical to social capi-
tal building—a process that is deeply divided along class and racial lines
(Saegert et al., 2001).
In order to negotiate and resist such institutional barriers in their homes,
schools, and communities, these low-income Korean American students
dropped out of high school and adopted behaviors that were not conducive
to school achievement (Gibson & Ogbu, 1991; Lew, 2003a, 2004, in press;
Matute-Bianchi, 1986, 1991; Ogbu, 1987). That said, these findings also
complicate earlier understandings of oppositional cultural frames of refer-
ence and “acting White”: In the context of a binary Black-and-White racial
discourse, as well as the prevalent model minority stereotype that conflates
Asian Americans with Whiteness, working-class Korean American high school
dropouts’ experiences were profoundly revealing. While the students inter-
nalized the model minority stereotype by connecting “successful” Asians and
Koreans to Whiteness, they also resisted such a stereotype for themselves.
By distinguishing themselves from wealthy and educated Koreans and Asians
who symbolically represented Whiteness, they identified themselves with
other “minorities”—a collective term symbolizing downward mobility and
104 Gaining Schooling Resources and Institutional Support

struggles with racism and poverty. When addressing issues of Asian Ameri-
can children and education, race and class continue to matter: As the find-
ings of this research illustrate, it is important to distinguish the variability of
social class and network orientation, highlight the fluidity of multiple iden-
tities, and examine institutional factors and schooling resources among Asian
American children.

C H A P T E R 6

Conclusion: Lessons from Korean

American Communities

When accounting for Asian American academic achievement, class, race, and
schooling contexts do matter. Unfortunately, these structural factors are
rarely examined in educational research. Instead, a cultural discourse posit-
ing Asian Americans as a homogeneous model minority continues to pre-
vail: The values of education, the work ethic, and the nuclear family continue
to be the most common explanations for Asian American children’s educa-
tional achievement. That is, Asian American achievement has been basically
understood to be a result of this group’s purportedly inherent cultural values
and characteristics.
It is important to remember, however, that the model minority construct
was not created by Asian Americans themselves but was thrust upon them
in the form of this dominant cultural discourse. While presumed as positive,
the dominant “success story” image conceals disparities among Asian Ameri-
can children in their educational achievement and socioeconomic back-
grounds, and it obscures important structural barriers faced by many poor,
minority children. The model minority stereotype mythologizes the economic
and social success of Asian Americans; legitimates institutional racism and
poverty; sustains hope of the American Dream; displaces society’s failure
regarding other disadvantaged minorities; and negates social, economic, and
institutional barriers faced by underprivileged children. In the end, model
minority discourse, as a hegemonic device, attributes academic success and
failure to individual merit and cultural orientation, while underestimating
important structural and institutional resources that all children need in order
to achieve academically.
How we challenge the prevailing cultural discourse of individual meri-
tocracy in education is of utmost importance, particularly as schools are faced
with increasing racial segregation, high school dropouts, and standardized
exams. As this research shows, how Asian American students learn to con-
vert their aspirations and acceptance of the value of education into concrete
schooling support toward academic achievement has more to do with an
important set of structural resources that all students need—academic support
and school guidance, access to key institutional gatekeepers in and outside

105
106 Asian Americans in Class

of schools, and the family’s economic and social resources. To underestimate

these structural resources for Asian Americans in the name of model minor-
ity status would mean ignoring important social and economic contexts
within which to frame all students’ academic achievement. To that end, this
research may have some important implications for future education policy
and research. I turn to this discussion next.

IMPLICATIONS FOR EDUCATION POLICY

Parental Involvement

As illustrated in this research, the strategies adopted by Korean American

parents depended on their socioeconomic backgrounds, as well as access to
bilingual and educational resources. These patterns of parental strategies il-
lustrate how variability of class and network orientation affects the ways in
which two groups of parents provide educational support for their children
and, ultimately, help their children bridge the gap between their schooling
aspirations and achievement.
It is also worth noting, however, that despite these varying strategies
employed by Korean immigrant parents, they are both at a disadvantage
compared to middle-class White parents who are fluent in English and work
in the mainstream economy. Both groups of Korean immigrant parents are
limited in English-language skills and knowledge of the U.S. school system—
factors that greatly inhibited their ability to help their children daily with
schooling or with college preparation and counseling. To compensate for their
limitations, the middle-class Korean parents—with their educational back-
grounds, socioeconomic resources, and social capital—resorted to hiring
private tutors and counselors and to enrolling their children in after-school
academies in ethnic enclaves, which provide additional educational support
for their children. As mentioned, these private after-school options provide
direct schooling support and college guidance that Korean immigrant par-
ents otherwise may not be able to give directly to their children. To achieve
this end, the Korean immigrant parents in this research spend their personal
funds on these private, tuition-based schools—which means they need to
possess adequate economic and social resources in the first place. The Korean
dropouts, who are poor and often come from single-parent households, on
the other hand, cannot readily afford such private tuition and are more likely
to work after school in order to compensate for their limited family income.
They are also more likely to navigate schooling alone, without much adult
guidance at home or in their communities and schools.
Given that increasing number of Asian American parents in today’s
schools are first-generation immigrants with limited English proficiency and
Conclusion 107

knowledge of the U.S. education system, it is imperative that schools reach

out to parents and provide appropriate resources. As illustrated in this study,
bilingual support is especially important for poor immigrant parents who
may have limited access to such resources in their co-ethnic communities. It
is pivotal for schools to provide adequate bilingual assistance and translated
materials so that immigrant parents are equipped with resources that enable
them to be actively involved in schools. Moreover, Asian immigrant parents
need to be educated on their legal rights regarding bilingual assistance and
the tendency their children face of being “pushed” out of school systems;
such education is crucial if they are to advocate for and make truly informed
decisions on behalf of their children—and be full participants in their chil-
dren’s schools. The findings in this research challenge the popular sentiment
that Asian and other immigrant parents are more likely to be passive and
uninvolved in their children’s schools, citing these and the aforementioned
structural barriers as the real culprits.
This has been corroborated by other studies as well. For instance, in their
research on immigrant parents and children, Ruiz-de-Valasco and Fix (2000)
found that there were stark differences in how LEP/immigrant parents and
teachers viewed the parents’ involvement in their children’s schooling. “Edu-
cators tend to rely on parents to be informed about their children’s progress,
act as advocates for their children, and frame student planning and goal set-
ting” (p. 62). But instead, teachers often described immigrant parents, again,
as being passive and uninvolved, pointing to their lack of school involvement
and attributing this to their limited time and resources. However, when Ruiz-
de-Valasco and Fix (2000) asked immigrant parents about the key factors that
discouraged their participation in schools, parents told a different story. Al-
though time and economic constraints were factors, most parents cited lan-
guage barriers as the main obstacle to school participation. “Many parents
noted that their children’s English language ability was stronger than their own,
and that they did not feel competent speaking with monolingual teachers or
administrators about their children’s schooling. As a result, they depended on
their children to interpret for them and help them understand school norms
and expectations” (p. 63). Conversely, the most important reason cited for
immigrant parental involvement was bilingual outreach efforts by school staff
and encouragement from other parents who spoke their native language.

Community-Based Organizations

In addition to schools, nonprofit and community-based organizations can

also provide important resources for the growing number of immigrant par-
ents and their children. Nonprofit community organizations play a pivotal
role in Asian immigrant communities. Some of these groups provide human
service programs and legal aid to the most disenfranchised Asian communities
108 Asian Americans in Class

per their mission and specialization, as proven with the Korean high school
dropouts in this study. These organizations are equipped with important
bilingual assistance and in-depth cultural and historical knowledge of the
communities they serve.
At the same time, these nonprofit organizations are, for the most part,
poorly funded and find it difficult to collaborate effectively with large public
institutions such as the New York public school system. However, by work-
ing together with local community organizations, the public school system
would benefit greatly from their expertise, including their bilingual assistance
and in-depth knowledge of the various Asian American communities they serve.
This kind of effective collaboration is all the more important because of the
growing number and diversity of Asian American children, which is posing an
ever greater challenge to New York City schools to provide them with adequate
academic support. Likewise, the community-based organizations would also
benefit from working with the school systems, where they can learn how best
to work with teachers, counselors, and administrators in assisting Asian Ameri-
can children and their parents. Moreover, by being involved with the school
system, the community-based organizations can have a direct impact on policy
development and implementation of school reform efforts.

School Context

As we critically examine how parents and communities influence student

achievement, it is important not to lose sight of the significant role of schools
themselves. This research illustrates how Asian American children’s ability
to translate educational aspirations into academic achievement depends not
only on economic and social support from their parents and communities
but also on the institutional characteristics of the school—how it provides
schooling resources, reinforces accumulation of social capital, and fosters
trusting and caring relations between students and teachers. However, class-
rooms and schools, for the most part, are structurally organized to enhance
the type of socialization most associated with the transmission of privileged
knowledge and the development of White middle-class ideologies (Bowles
& Gintis, 1976). This has implications for the Korean American students in
the study, given that, generally speaking, working-class minority and immi-
grant children come to schools with different cultural resources. Conse-
quently, while they may be competent decoders in any number of cultural
domains within their communities, they usually face barriers within main-
stream institutions, such as schools and the workforce. In order for these
children to learn decoding skills for crossing disparate sociocultural borders—
say, between home and school—they need integral ties to institutional agents
and gatekeepers in their school and community who can provide access to
important schooling support. In short, children of Asian and other immigrants
Conclusion 109

need access to institutional agents both in and outside of their co-ethnic net-
works for them to achieve in schools.
In addition, Asian American students are also a diverse lot who actively
adapt to, negotiate, and resist the given structures around them. Conse-
quently, the second-generation Korean children learn to reconstruct their own
peer networks in order to gain many of the aforementioned resources, in-
cluding emotional support for issues specific to them as children of immi-
grants: schooling and college guidance, job opportunities, intergenerational
conflicts, and racial and ethnic identity issues. Through their own second-
generation youth networks, both groups of Korean American students ac-
quired resources that they could not readily get at home. However, given
the different resources embedded in their respective schools and networks,
the Korean students at MH were more likely than the Korean high school
dropouts to access key gatekeepers in and outside of schools to help them
achieve academically. In other words, while the Korean students at MH
mostly used their networks to advance their academic and socioeconomic
status, the Korean high school dropouts mostly used their networks to over-
come academic and socioeconomic barriers.

SALIENCE OF RACE, ETHNICITY, AND CLASS

Meanwhile, if schools and class matter for Asian American students, so does
race. Asian American students often face racial harassment and violence in
and outside of urban schools. As noted in this research, both groups of Korean
students faced racial harassment, but the Korean high school dropouts were
more likely to face violence and fear within their school contexts. Too often,
Asian American children are forced to navigate such racial harassment with-
out adequate support and intervention by teachers or counselors. We can
attribute this trend, in part, to the model minority discourse that paints Asian
American students as invisible entities who have few, if any, problems in
schools. We can also attribute it to schools failing to see how class and race
frame Asian American students’ experiences.
These findings can lend important insight, especially in the midst of the
emerging debate on post-1965 immigrants’ adaptation to and racial incor-
poration into the United States. For instance, both the middle- and working-
class Korean American students in this study were keenly aware of their racial
minority status and the resulting barriers they faced. Consequently, they
interpreted “becoming American” with Whiteness. But interestingly, the stu-
dents were also careful to point out the integral intersection of race and class
when referring to the term American, being careful to point out that becoming
American also meant achieving economically on a par with middle-class
White Americans. Not surprisingly, then, the ways in which the students
110 Asian Americans in Class

negotiate becoming “American” has much to do with how they interpret

racial barriers within their given opportunity structure. For the middle-class
Korean students at MH, who were equipped with strong social capital at
home, in their community, and in school, resisting racial barriers by using
education as a strategy to achieve economic mobility was a plausible option.
Meantime, the working-class Korean high school dropouts who had limited
social capital at home, in their communities, and at school were more vul-
nerable to stratifying forces and learned to adopt an oppositional cultural
frame of reference not conducive to schooling. Furthermore, they distin-
guished themselves not only from Whiteness but also from wealthy and stu-
dious Korean and other Asian Americans, signaling negative and exclusionary
forces of class and social status inherent in co-ethnic networks.
Although a majority of the Korean students in this study lived in Queens,
the dropouts were more likely to live in neighborhoods and attend schools
that were economically and racially isolated. In their study, Orfield and col-
leagues (2004) corroborated this finding by showing that concentrated ra-
cial and economic isolation is an important predictor of dropout rates. Their
data are supported by a Johns Hopkins University study on urban high
schools, which found that among those where 90% or more of the students
were of color, only 42% of all freshmen advanced to grade 12 (as cited in
Orfield et al., 2004). This is not surprising, given that almost 9 out of 10
intensely segregated minority schools also suffer the effects of concentrated
poverty, beset by less qualified and experienced teachers, remedial courses
rather than a college-preparatory curriculum, and rampant school violence.
Meanwhile, comparatively few Whites, including those who are poor, expe-
rience such problems in schools (Orfield et al., 2004).
Yet despite their location in poor, isolated, minority communities, po-
sitioned as they are to underserve the most needy of students, these inade-
quate schools are held to the same performance standards as better-equipped
schools in a nation that places undue emphasis on standardized testing.
Meanwhile, in the name of high expectations, much of the rhetoric around
achievement ignores and glosses over the important disparities of class and
race—and institutional resources—acutely affecting urban schools. As this
research illustrates, this trend has several consequences, foremost among them
being the increased likelihood that teachers and counselors will push out
“problem” children to boost their respective high school’s success rate, rather
than help the neediest of cases by providing them with the resources they
require to graduate. As educators and policy makers, we need to question
how these standardized exams are measuring accountability and whether they
are adequate indicators of school “success.” We must also address how they
are contributing to the likelihood of students dropping out, as students and
educators alike fail to receive the proper institutional support to meet these
expectations.
Conclusion 111

FUTURE RESEARCH

In the context of the rising number of post-1965 immigrants and their chil-
dren as well as their settlement in concentrated metropolitan areas, our urban
schools are faced with a new set of challenges. Education policy and research
should take into account the needs of our changing urban schools and the
students attending them, who are increasingly poor minorities, children of
recent immigrant parents, and residentially and linguistically isolated.
As far as Asian American children and families are concerned, there are
still glaring gaps in the research. During the last few decades, changing im-
migration patterns and demographics have been reshaping Asian American
populations and the school systems that serve them. There is increasing vari-
ability of ethnicity, class, generation, professional background, and immi-
grant history among Asian American communities, which greatly affects their
children’s academic achievement and social mobility. Moreover, the role of
gender, and its intersection with class and race, has not been adequately
addressed and warrants further examination. Despite these trends, the issue
of diversity across racial groups and within Asian American populations has
been largely ignored.
As Slaughter-Defoe, Nakagawa, Takanishi, and Johnson (1990) have
argued, societal stereotypes have historically influenced research design and
theory development in the field of education. For instance, they argue that
education research has typically examined schooling failure for Blacks, while
predicting schooling success for Asians. The cultural deficits of African
American children and families were often compared to the cultural merit
of Asian American children and families. In doing so, education research has
typically reinforced the stereotype of Blacks and Asians, while, over the years,
the underlying cultural assumptions regarding African Americans and Asian
Americans have changed little. It is important that researchers continue to
challenge the stereotypes attached to various ethnic and racial groups by
critically examining variability of school achievement across, as well as
within, such groups. I would also add that it is important to draw relation-
ships between racial and ethnic groups, taking note of both converging and
diverging social and cultural factors.
To that end, it is pivotal to disaggregate achievement data by race and
class as well as to accurately calculate graduation and dropout rates. Orfield
and colleagues (2004) argued that the current dropout statistics—mostly
based on the Center for Educational Statistics and the Current Population
Survey—do not provide a clear picture of who is actually dropping out.
Because states rarely disaggregate graduation rates by race or socioeconomic
status, the extremely low graduation rates for racial and ethnic minorities,
students with learning disabilities, low-income students, and students with
limited English proficiency are actually “masked” and rarely given the special
112 Asian Americans in Class

attention they need. Consequently, official dropout statistics can underesti-

mate the magnitude of the problems associated with increasing racial and
class stratification across the nation. According to Orfield and colleagues
(2004), the United States expends “considerably more funds gathering and
checking test data than we commit to accurately assessing whether students
graduate from high school.” They add that without sound policy implemen-
tation to generate such accurate data, “no state can say with precision what
percentage of students actually earn a bona fide diploma. Moreover, the
graduation and dropout estimates that most states have been accustomed to
reporting were often grossly inaccurate and therefore misleading” (p. 7).
In addition to improving upon the aggregate data now relied on to gauge
student achievement and dropout rates, researchers need to complement these
large-scale quantitative studies with in-depth, small-scale qualitative studies
so that educators can better understand the complex processes by which stu-
dents and families in changing contexts negotiate and gain educational oppor-
tunities available to them. By implementing better quantitative and qualitative
research methods, we can identity the structural and institutional processes
that may inhibit and promote achievement for various groups of students.
Through this combined method, educators can gain insight into the impor-
tant relationships among race, class, gender, and the complex ways in which
students negotiate and resist their given opportunity structure. We know that
race, class, and gender matter. But additional qualitative studies can reveal how
they might be important and demonstrate how these factors remain salient and
fluid across different contexts. Addressing these important issues has the po-
tential to positively impact the way schools educate our children.
Lastly, in order to critically examine as well as develop policy recom-
mendations for how family, community, and school impact Asian American
children, we have to situate these factors in the larger economic, social, and
historical context. On the one hand, the post-1965 Asian immigrants reap
the benefits of the civil rights movement and stand to gain opportunities
unavailable to earlier Asian Americans and many other marginalized groups.
On the other hand, they are also entering the United States at a time of de-
clining industrial economy with growing global and technical skill require-
ments, a growing service-sector economy that is also accompanied by the
gradual disappearance of middle-level job opportunities, and increasing ra-
cial and economic segregation of schools and neighborhoods. How the post-
1965 immigrants and their children negotiate and resist these forces to carve
out their American Dream is an important question to ask and warrants a
close examination by researchers and educators as we move forward to pro-
vide equal educational opportunities for all children.
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 Index

Abelmann, N., 29, 30 Bourdieu, P., 7, 9, 62, 99, 103

After-school academies, 8, 24, 32, 38, 40– Bowdith, C., 89
44, 56, 58, 66, 69, 72, 106 Bowles, S., 108
Alba, R., 11, 81 Boykin, A. W., 9, 43, 61, 76, 84
Amato, P. R., 47 Bronx Science High School (New York
Anyon, J., 7, 54, 61 City), 2
Asian American Federation of New York, Brooklyn Tech High School (New York
2, 3, 16 City), 3
Asian Americans Burkham, D. T., 92
exclusion of, 37, 74, 80, 83–84, 85, 102, Bushwall, S. J., 47
110 Butterfield, S. A., 11
as “foreigners,” 80
homogenization of, 3, 23, 80–81, 85, California, 1, 7–8, 15–16, 29, 30
105 Caplan, N., 84
as “model minority,” 2, 3–4, 12, 13–14, Careers. See Opportunities; Work/
21, 64, 75, 82, 101, 102, 103, 105, occupation
106, 109 Carlsmith, J. M., 47
post-1965 demographics of, 1–6, 111 Castle, G. P., 12
stereotyping of, 13–14, 21, 64, 80–81, Center for Educational Statistics, 111
82, 85, 102, 111 Chan, K., 4
structural analysis of achievement of, 1– Chan, S., 15, 80
21 Chaplin, D., 91
Assimilation, 75, 79, 84, 99 Cheng, L. L., 4
Astone, N. M., 47 Chih, G., 83–84
China, 20
Bankston, C. L. III, 5, 6, 35, 84 Chinese Americans, 39–40
Barringer, H. R., 4 Choy, M. H., 84
Becoming the “other” Korean, 98–104 Church
Being/becoming American, 10–13, 77–83, and dropouts, 48, 96, 98, 101
85, 109–10 and growing up with immigrant parents,
Beller, A. H., 47 24, 32
Bernstein, B., 62 and MH students, 33–38, 58, 66, 67, 70,
Blacks, 11, 12, 13–14, 30, 35, 64, 81–82, 71, 72, 73
100, 101, 102, 103, 111 and post-1965 demographics, 4, 15
Bonacich, E., 4, 6, 15, 29, 30 role of Korean, 33–38

123
124 Index

Class and educational policy, 21, 105, 108,

and becoming American, 10–13 111
and co-ethnicity, 6–7 and future research, 111
and dropouts, 21, 50, 55, 64, 98–104, 110 and gaining schooling resources and
and educational policy, 21, 105, 106, institutional support, 21, 61, 62,
109–10, 111, 112 63–64
and future research, 111, 112 and growing up with immigrant parents,
and gaining schooling resources and 23, 34, 41
institutional support, 61, 64, 78–83 and MH students, 21, 66, 70, 76, 77–78,
and growing up with immigrant parents, 79
29, 30, 32–33 and “model minority,” 3, 14
and MH students, 21, 32–33, 58, 68, of poverty, 13–14, 21
77–83, 84, 85 of power, 76
“middleman minority,” 30 and role of Korean church, 34
and “model minority,” 4, 13 of schools, 66
and parental strategies, 32–33 and structural factors, 3, 9, 10, 11–12,
and post-1965 demographics, 3, 5 13, 14, 21, 23
and research sites and methods, 18 Current Population Survey, 111
and structural factors, 6–7, 10–13, 14,
15 Davidson, A. L., 8–9, 43, 61, 84, 88
See also Socioeconomic status (SES) Davis, S. D., 92
Closed functional communities, 35–36 De Graaf, N. D., 61
Co-ethnic networks/support De Vos, G. A., 3, 12
and class, 6–7 Delpit, L., 76
and dropouts, 20, 21, 45–50, 51, 54, 59, Denton, N. A., 7
110 DeWind, J., 6
and educational policy, 109, 110 Division of Assessment and Accountability,
and gaining schooling resources and 3
institutional support, 64 Dornbusch, S. M., 9, 47, 70
and growing up with immigrant parents, Dropouts
23–25, 27–44 as alone and isolated, 45–59, 62, 86, 88,
limitations of, 45–50 93–94, 95, 96, 99, 106, 110
and MH students, 20, 21, 27–44, 58 and becoming the “other” Korean, 98–
and parental expectations/strategies, 20, 104
45–50 and growing up with immigrant parents,
and post–1965 demographics, 4 24, 44, 46
and role of Korean church, 34 and post-1965 demographics, 2, 3, 5
and social capital, 6–7 and reliance on public schools, 50–55
and structural factors, 4, 6–7, 8, 9, 21 and reproduction of inequality, 55–59
Coleman, J. S., 35, 36 and research sites and methods, 16, 18
Community-based organizations, 107–8. and structural factors, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10,
See also Church 12–13
Competition, 36–38, 80 See also specific topic
Cornelius, W. A., 5, 6 Duncan, G. J., 47
Counseling/counselors. See Tutors/
counselors Eaton, S., 7
Croninger, R. G., 7, 61, 94 Economic factors
Culture and dropouts, 20, 21, 46, 49, 50, 51, 52,
and becoming American, 11–12, 13 54, 55–59, 62–63, 64, 87, 97, 99,
of Blacks, 111 102–3, 106, 110
and dropouts, 21, 48, 49–50, 63–64, 99, and educational policy, 105, 106, 107,
103, 110 108, 109, 110
Index 125

and future research, 112 Expectations

and growing up with immigrant parents, and co-ethnic support, 45–50
24, 25, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34, 41, and dropouts, 45–50, 52, 63, 87, 92, 98–
44 99, 110
and MH students, 20, 21, 62–63, 68, 69, and educational policy, 107, 110
71, 82, 84, 85, 96, 110 and growing up with immigrant parents,
and post–1965 demographics, 4, 5, 16 27–32, 35, 37–38, 39, 44
and reproduction of inequality, 55–59, and MH students, 63, 66, 67, 68, 70,
103 76–78
and research sites and methods, 18 and peer networks, 76–78
and role of Korean church, 34 and role of Korean church, 35
and short-term income from work, 55–
59 Family, 3, 4, 37, 41, 70, 105, 106. See also
and structural factors, 4, 5, 10, 12, 16 Kinship networks/ties; Parental
See also Entrepreneurs; Ethnic economy; strategies; Parents
Poverty; Socioeconomic status (SES) Family reunification, 15
Education Fine, M., 7, 54, 61, 89, 99
in Korea, 40–41 Fix, M., 1, 2, 107
as long-term investment, 24, 27–32, 44, Flap, H. D., 61
55–59, 96 Foner, N., 11
and “model minority,” 13 Fong, T. P., 4
as racial strategy, 63, 83–85, 110 Fordham, S., 11, 99
See also Educational level; Policy, Furstenberg, F. Jr., 47
educational; Value of education Future research, 111–12
Educational level, of parents, 7, 15, 18, 30,
41, 45, 68, 75 Gans, H. J., 6, 11, 81
Ekstrom, R. B., 47 Gardiner, R. W., 4
Entrepreneurs, 4, 6, 18, 29–30, 46, 47, 56 GED program
Espiritu, Y. L., 11, 79, 81 and case study of Korean Americans in
Ethnic economy New York City, 6
and dropouts, 18, 46, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, and gaining schooling and institutional
63 resources, 63, 89, 90–91
and growing up with immigrant parents, and parental expectations, 46, 47, 48, 49
23, 29, 30, 44 and parental strategies, 51, 52–53, 54
and MH students, 18, 58, 59, 69 and peer networks, 96–98
and post-1965 demographics, 4 and reliance on public schools, 51, 52–
and research sites and methodology, 18 53, 54
Ethnic networks/ties, 4–5, 15, 30, 32, 33– and reproduction of inequality, 57–58
38, 70, 75, 84 and research sites and methods, 16, 19,
Ethnicity 20
and becoming American, 10–13 See also Dropouts
and dropouts, 21, 63, 98–104 Gee, J. P., 9, 61, 76
and educational policy, 21, 109–10, 111 Gender, 4, 7, 111, 112
and future research, 111 General Educational Development, 6. See
and MH students, 21, 63, 70, 76–83, 85 also GED program
and post-1965 Korean Americans, 15 Ghatak, R., 47
“symbolic,” 11, 81 Gibson, M. A., 11, 37, 84, 99, 103
See also Co-ethnic networks/support; Ginsberg, H. P., 3
Ethnic economy; Ethnic networks/ Gintis, H., 108
ties Glazer, N., 13
Exclusion, of Asian Americans, 37, 74, 80, Goertz, M. E., 47
83–84, 85, 102, 110 Gold, S. J., 30
126 Index

Goodwin, A. L., 4 significance of, 7–10

Gottlieb, B., 84 and structural factors, 6, 7–10, 14
Granovetter, M. S., 38, 70 See also Institutional factors
Gross, R. T., 47
Gunn, J. B., 47 Johns Hopkins University, 110
Johnson, D., 111
Hagwon. See After-school academies Ju, D. B., 47
Hallinan, M. T., 67
Hastorf, A. H., 47 Kao, G., 2, 40
High schools, 16, 38–40, 62, 86–88, 110, Kaplan, D. M., 92
111. See also Magnet High School Kaplan, J., 4
(MH) students; specific high school Kasinitz, P., 6, 39, 41
Hing, B. O., 14 Kiang, P., 4
Hirschman, C., 4, 6, 41, 83 Kibria, N., 11, 67, 81, 83
Hispanics, 12, 64, 70, 82, 100, 101, 102 Kim, C. J., 30
Hoffer, T., 35, 36 Kim, D. Y., 6, 29, 39
Hoffman, S. D., 47 Kim, E. H., 30
Holland, J. V., 92 Kim, E. Y., 29
Hsia, J., 2 Kim, H., 34
Hsu, F.L.K., 37 Kim, I., 15, 30, 34
Hune, S., 4 Kim, K. C., 4, 15, 30, 34
Hurh, W. H., 4, 15, 30 Kinship networks/ties, 8, 32, 62, 63, 70
Kinship preferences, 15
Identity, 12, 61–64, 70, 76–78, 85, 103–4, Korea
109 education system in, 40–41
Immigration history, 4, 15, 21, 111 growing up in, 47–48
Immigration Reform Act (1965), 14, 80 Korean Americans
Income. See Economic factors demographics of, 15–16
Individualism, 13, 14 and educational policy, 105–12
Inequality, reproduction of, 55–59, 103 migration of, 15
Institutional factors in post-1965 years, 14–16
and becoming American, 78–83 research sites and methods for case study
and dropouts, 21, 45, 50, 55, 61–64, 86– of, 16–20
104 as subject of case study, 5–6
and education as racial strategy, 83–85 wealthy, 64, 100–102, 103, 110
and educational policy, 105, 108, 110 See also specific topic
and future research, 112 Krein, S. F., 47
and gaining schooling resources and Kushner, G., 12
institutional support, 20–21, 61–112 Kwon, H. Y., 15, 34
and MH students, 21, 61–64, 70, 71–76 Kwong, P., 6
overview of, 61–64
and peer networks, 21, 71–76 Lamborn, S. D., 87
See also Institutional resources Language
Institutional resources and dropouts, 20, 47, 49, 51, 52–54, 56–
barriers to accessing, 21, 89–96 58, 90, 97
in California, 7–8 and educational policy, 21, 106–7, 108,
and dropouts, 21, 50, 51, 53, 103, 110 111–12
and educational policy, 105, 110 and future research, 111–12
and growing up with immigrant parents, and growing up with immigrant parents,
42–43, 44 20, 23, 24, 30, 32, 33–38, 40, 41,
and MH students, 21, 69, 70, 71–76 42, 43, 44
and “model minority,” 14 and Korean church, 33–38
Index 127

and MH students, 20, 33–38, 58, 67, 69, “Middleman minority” class, 30
70, 72, 76, 78 Military, 48, 63, 96–97
and post-1965 Korean Americans, 15, 16 Min, P. G., 15, 29, 30, 34
and research sites and methods, 19 “Model minority,” 2, 3–4, 12, 13–14, 64,
and structural factors, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16 75, 82, 101, 102, 103,
Lareau, A., 7, 43, 50, 62, 103 105, 106, 109
Larson, K. A., 57, 87, 89, 92 Mollenkopf, J. H., 6, 39, 41
Lee, S., 2, 6, 101 Mordkowitz, E. R., 3
Lee, S. J., 2, 4 Morgan, P., 47
Lee, V. E., 7, 61, 92, 94 Moynihan, D. P., 13
Lee, Y., 40
Leiderman, H., 47 Nakagawa, K., 111
Levin, M., 4 National Association of Korean American
Lew, J., 2, 4, 6, 9, 70, 97, 103 Service and Education Consortium, 16
Lie, J., 29, 30 Natriello, G., 7, 47, 87, 93
Light, I., 4, 6, 15, 29, 30 Nee, V., 6
Lin, N., 7, 38, 103 Neisser, U., 9, 76, 84
Lopez, N., 6, 39 Networks
Los Angeles, California, 15–16, 29, 30 and dropouts, 46, 48, 86–87, 88, 99,
Losen, D., 89, 110, 111, 112 103, 104
Louie, V. S., 2, 4, 31, 67 and educational policy, 106
Lowe, L., 80 and gaining schooling resources and
institutional support, 61, 64
MacLeod, J., 59 and growing up with immigrant parents,
Magnet High School (MH) students 25, 35, 44
and becoming the “other” Korean, 103 and MH students, 58, 84, 103, 109
and education as long-term investment, and post-1965 demographics, 5
27–32, 56, 58 and role of Korean church, 35
and educational policy, 109, 110 and structural factors, 10, 12
and growing up as children of immigrant See also Co-ethnic networks/support;
parents, 23–24, 27–44, 66, 67–69, Ethnic networks/ties; Kinship
84 networks/ties; Peer networks
overview of, 18–19 New York City
and post-1965 demographics, 2–3, 5–6 Black West Indians in, 35
reputation of, 39 case study of Korean Americans in, 5–6
and research sites and methods, 16, 17, Chinese Americans in, 39–40
18 dropout rates in, 3
and structural factors, 2–3, 5–6, 8, 10, and growing up with immigrant parents,
12 29–30
and values of education, 33–38 Korean Americans in, 14–16, 29–30
See also specific topic and “model minority,” 14
Marginalization, 12, 54, 63, 70, 80, 81, post-1965 Asian American demographics
83, 102–3 in, 1, 2–3, 5–6
Mark, D.M.L., 83–84 New York City Board of Assessment, 18,
Massey, D. S., 7 19
Matute-Bianchi, M. E., 11, 103 Newmann, F. M., 87
McDill, E. L., 7, 47, 87, 93 No Child Left Behind Act, 13
McLanahan, S. R., 47 Noddings, N., 94
McNeal, R. B. Jr., 57 Noguera, P., 7, 54
Mentors, 69–70, 72–76, 78
Meritocracy, 4, 13, 14, 105 Ogbu, J. U., 11, 12, 99, 103
Mexican Americans, 7–8, 94 Okazaki, S., 2, 84
128 Index

Okihiro, G., 11, 102 Park, C. C., 4

Omi, M., 11, 81 Park, K., 29, 30
Opportunities Passeron, J. C., 9, 62, 99, 103
advancing educational, 65–85 Peer networks
and dropouts, 20, 21, 45, 46, 49, 59, 96, accessing/gaining schooling and
98, 99 institutional resources through, 10,
and educational policy, 109, 110 21, 62, 63, 65–78
and future research, 112 and dropouts, 21, 62–63, 88, 94, 95, 96–
and gaining schooling resources and 98, 101
institutional support, 21, 63 and educational policy, 109
and MH students, 20, 21, 63, 65–85 and identity, 76–78
and post-1965 demographics, 4 and MH students, 21, 62–63, 65–78, 79,
and structural analysis of Asian 96
Americans, 4, 13 overview of, 21, 61–64
Orfield, G., 7, 89, 110, 111, 112 and parental expectations, 76–78
role of second-generation, 76–78, 96–98
Pallas, A. M., 7, 47, 87, 93 Phelan, P., 8–9, 43, 61, 84, 88
Pang, V. O., 4 Policy, educational, 21, 105–9, 111, 112
Parental strategies Pollack, J. M., 47
and class, 32–33 Pong, S. L., 47
and dropouts, 20, 50–55, 56, 58, 91 Portes, A., 2, 4, 5, 6, 15, 30, 35, 41, 74,
and educational policy, 106 84, 99
and growing up with immigrant parents, Poulos, G., 47
20, 23–60 Poverty
and MH students, 20, 27–44, 50–51, 58, culture of, 13–14, 21
84 and dropouts, 47, 51, 54, 63, 88, 100–
overview of, 23–25 101, 102, 104, 110
and post-1965 demographics, 5 and educational policy, 21, 105, 106,
and reliance on public schools, 50–55 110
and schooling resources, 20, 32–33 and gaining schooling resources and
and social capital, 32–33 institutional support, 63, 64
Parents and growing up with immigrant parents,
educational level of, 7, 15, 18, 30, 41, 30, 35
45, 68, 75 and MH students, 70
expectations of, 27–32, 35, 37–38, 39, and post-1965 demographics, 3, 16
44, 45–50, 63, 67, 68, 70, 76–78 and role of Korean church, 35
growing up as children of immigrant, and structural factors, 3, 12, 16
23–24, 27–44, 46, 66, 67–69, 84 “Public Education Crisis” (newspaper
involvement of, 45–50, 52–54, 58–59, article), 41
67–68, 106–7 Public schools
and post-1965 demographics, 5 Chinese Americans in, 39–40
relationships between children and, 31– and dropouts, 50–55, 59
32, 47, 48–49, 63, 70, 77–78, 109 elite, 38–44
and research sites and methods, 17, 18 and growing up with immigrant parents,
and role of Korean church, 33–38 24
sacrifices of, 31–32 neighborhood, 51–54, 59
and schooling information and support, and parental strategies, 50–55
38–44 and post-1965 demographics, 1–2
single, 17, 24, 46, 47, 55, 58, 106 reliance on, 50–55
and structural factors, 7, 9 and structural factors, 1–2, 8
See also Parental strategies urban, 21, 62, 86–88, 110, 111
Index 129

See also Dropouts; Magnet High School Rock, D. A., 47

(MH) students; specific city Ruiz-de-Valasco, J., 1, 2, 107
Rumbaut, R. G., 2, 4, 5, 6, 15, 30, 35, 41,
Queens, New York, 16, 17, 19–20, 40 84, 99
Rumberger, R. W., 47, 57, 87, 89, 92
Race/racism Rutter, R. A., 61, 87
and becoming American, 10–13
categorization by, 11 Saegert, S., 7, 62, 70, 87, 103
and dropouts, 21, 63, 64, 94, 95–96, 98– Sanders, J. M., 6
104, 109 Schneider, B., 40
and education as racial strategy, 63, 83– Schooling resources
85, 110 accessing, 20, 71–76, 89–96
and educational policy, 21, 105, 109–10, barriers to accessing, 21, 89–96
111, 112 and becoming American, 78–83
and future research, 111, 112 and dropouts, 20, 21, 54, 55, 59, 61–64,
and gaining schooling resources and 89–96, 103, 104
institutional support, 21, 63, 64, and education as racial strategy, 83–85
78–85 and educational policy, 21, 108
and growing up with immigrant parents, gaining, 20, 61–112
30, 35 and growing up with immigrant parents,
and MH students, 21, 63, 70, 76–85, 25, 32–33
110 and MH students, 20, 21, 32–33, 61–64,
and “model minority,” 4, 13 70, 71–76
and post-1965 demographics, 5 overview of, 61–64
and role of Korean church, 35 and parental strategies, 20, 32–33
and SES, 82 and peer networks, 71–76
and structural factors, 4, 5, 7, 10–13, 21 and structural factors, 4, 5, 21
See also Whites/Whiteness Schools/schooling
Research culture of, 66
background of, 16–20 and dropouts, 21, 45, 51, 55
future, 111–12 and implications for education policy,
methods and sites of, 16–20, 112 105, 108–9
Resources institutional character of, 20–21, 61–64
access to, 47 and MH students, 21, 38–44
community-based organizations as, 107–8 and “model minority,” 13
and dropouts, 47, 50, 52, 53, 58, 59, 86, and post-1965 demographics, 5
87, 89, 94, 103, 110 resisting failing, 96–98
and educational policy, 21, 105, 106, and significance of institutional
107–8, 109, 110 resources, 7–10
and growing up with immigrant parents, transferring among, 24, 51, 54–55, 91–
32, 33, 35, 38, 44 96
and MH students, 69, 70, 76 See also High schools; Magnet High
and “model minority,” 4 School (MH) students; Public
and parental strategies, 32–33 schools; Schooling resources
and post-1965 demographics, 4, 5 Shinagawa, L. H., 4
and role of Korean church, 35 Siblings, 69–70, 72–76
and structural factors, 4, 5, 6, 7–10 Slaughter-Defoe, D. T., 111
See also Institutional resources; Social capital
Schooling resources; Social Capital; co-ethnic, 6–7
specific resource and dropouts, 48, 50, 51, 54, 55, 62, 86,
Ritter, P. L., 47 92, 96, 99, 103, 110
130 Index

Social capital (continued) and MH students, 20, 21, 58, 66, 68, 70,
and educational policy, 106, 108, 110 84, 109
and gaining schooling resources and and race, 82
institutional support, 61, 62, 63 and research sites and methods, 17, 18,
and growing up with immigrant parents, 19, 20
24, 32–33, 34, 36, 38 and structural factors, 6, 7, 9, 10
of Mexican Americans, 7–8, 94 Sorensen, A. B., 67
and MH students, 32–33, 63, 68, 70, 76, Spicer, E. H., 12
85, 110 Spina, S. U., 67
overview of, 61–64 Stack, C., 70
and parental strategies, 32–33 Standardized/high-stakes testing, 13, 18,
and post-1965 demographics, 4 19, 44, 89, 90, 105, 110
and role of Korean church, 34, 36 Stanton-Salazar, R. D., 7, 8, 9, 43, 61, 62,
and structural factors, 4, 6–8, 10 67, 68, 70, 76, 88, 94, 99, 103
Social factors Stereotypes, 13–14, 21, 64, 80–81, 82, 85,
and dropouts, 20, 49, 50, 52, 54, 55–59, 102, 111
62–63, 87, 89, 92, 94, 99, 103 Structural factors
and education as racial strategy, 83 and culture, 21, 23
and educational policy, 105, 106, 108 and dropouts, 20, 21, 45, 46, 47, 48, 54,
and gaining schooling resources and 55, 59, 87, 89, 103
institutional support, 62–63 and educational policy, 21, 105, 106,
and growing up with immigrant parents, 107, 108, 112
20, 30, 31, 32, 34, 37, 41, 44 and future research, 112
and MH students, 20, 62–63, 70, 75, and gaining schooling resources and
78–83, 84, 96 institutional support, 20, 21, 61–62,
and post-1965 demographics, 3 64
and reproduction of inequality, 55–59, 103 and growing up with immigrant parents,
and role of Korean church, 34 20, 23, 24, 25, 28, 30, 32, 33
and structural factors, 7, 9, 12 and MH students, 20, 21, 50–51, 75, 76
See also Ethnicity; Identity; Race/racism; See also Class; Co-ethnic networks/
Social capital; Social networks; support; Economic factors; Gender;
Socioeconomic status; specific factor Immigration history; Opportunity;
Social networks Race/racism; Resources;
and dropouts, 45, 88, 99, 103 Socioeconomic status
and gaining schooling resources and Stuyvesant High School (New York City),
institutional support, 61 2
and growing up with immigrant parents, Suárez-Orozco, C., 2, 11, 31, 70
35, 36, 38, 44 Suárez-Orozco, M., 1, 2, 11, 31, 70
and MH students, 66–67, 68, 74, 85 Success, 31, 64, 102
negative attributes of, 74 Sue, S., 2, 84
and role of Korean church, 35, 36 Sui-Chu, E. H., 50
Socioeconomic status (SES) Sung, B. L., 3, 37
and dropouts, 20, 21, 46, 47, 50, 51, 54, Suzuki, R. H., 84
56, 59, 92, 96, 97, 99, 100, 102, 103 Swanson, C., 89, 110, 111, 112
and education as racial strategy, 84
and educational policy, 21, 105, 106, Takaki, R., 15, 80
109, 111 Takanishi, R., 111
and future research, 111 Teachers
and gaining schooling resources and and dropouts, 51, 52, 62, 87–88, 89–91,
institutional support, 20, 61, 84 92, 93–94, 95, 96, 98, 103, 110
and growing up with immigrant parents, and educational policy, 107, 108, 109,
20, 33 110
Index 131

and gaining schooling resources and Warren, M., 7, 62, 70, 87, 103
institutional support, 20, 61, 62 Waters, M. C., 6, 11, 35, 39, 41, 81, 99,
and MH students, 62, 65, 66, 69, 71–72 103
qualifications of, 19, 20, 66 Wehlage, G. G., 61, 87
and research sites and methods, 19, 20 Weinberg, M., 4
and structural factors, 10 Whites/Whiteness
Test of English as a Foreign Language “acting White,” 99, 103
(TOEFL), 19 and being/becoming American, 10–11,
Thompson, J. P., 7, 62, 70, 87, 103 12, 13, 85
Thompson, R. H., 12 and dropouts, 12, 13, 64, 99–101, 102,
Tienda, M., 2 103, 110
Toms, F., 61, 76, 84 and educational policy, 108, 109, 110
Transfers, 24, 51, 54–55, 91–96 and MH students, 85
Tuan, M., 11, 81 and “model minority” stereotype, 12,
Tutors/counselors 64
and dropouts, 51, 52–54, 58, 62, 87, 88, See also Race/racism
89–91, 93–94, 95, 96, 98, 103, 110 Whitmore, J. K., 84
and educational policy, 106, 108, 109, Williams, R. A., 67
110 Willis, P. E., 59, 103
and gaining schooling resources and Willms, J. D., 50
institutional support, 20, 61, 62, Winant, H., 11, 81
71–72 Wong, M. G., 4, 41, 83
and growing up with immigrant parents, Woo, D., 13, 14
24, 32, 38, 40–44 Work ethic, 3, 4, 35, 63, 75, 83, 85, 105
and MH students, 58, 62, 65, 69, 71–72 Work/occupation
and research sites and methods, 19 and dropouts, 46, 47–48, 55–59, 63, 96,
and structural factors, 8, 10 100, 106
and educational policy, 106, 109, 112
Urban Institute, 1, 91 and future research, 112
U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1, 2, 3, 14, 15 and gaining schooling resources and
institutional support, 61
Valenzuela, A., 61, 94 and growing up with immigrant parents,
Value of education 24, 28–29, 30, 31, 32, 36, 44
and dropouts, 48, 49–50, 51, 58 and MH students, 84
and educational policy, 105 and post-1965 Korean Americans, 15
and growing up with immigrant parents, and research sites and methods, 18
24, 25, 32, 33–38, 44 short-term income from, 55–59
and MH students, 50, 75, 76 and structural factors, 7, 14, 15
and “model minority,” 3, 4 See also Work ethic
and post-1965 demographics, 3
and role of Korean church, 33–38 Youth Community Center (YCC) (Queens),
Values, 24, 33–38. See also Value of 16, 17, 18, 19–20, 52–53, 90–91, 97–
education 98. See also GED program
Violence, 51, 62, 94–95, 99, 109, 110 Yu, E., 30
Yu, H. C., 8–9, 43, 61, 84, 88
Wald, J., 89, 110, 111, 112
Warner, R. S., 15, 34 Zhou, M., 4, 5, 6, 35, 40, 84
 About the Author

Jamie Lew is an assistant professor in the Department of Urban Education

at Rutgers University–Newark. Her research interests include race and eth-
nic relations, immigration and international migration, and urban schools
and policy. Her current research examines the changing race and ethnic re-
lations in urban and suburban schools in New York and New Jersey.

133