The Immigrant Kids Are Not All Right
A new report by the Migration Policy Center reviews the lasting scars of growing up in an anti-immigrant environment.
All summer, presidential hopefuls have been stepping over each other to sayridiculous, demeaning things about immigrants. As ignorant and inaccurate as their perceptions are, this type of treatment isn’t new. Immigrants encounter offensive judgments probably every day. For their children, navigating this environment of insults, stereotypes, and low expectations can have long-lasting repercussions.
A new report by the Migration Policy Institute explores the psychological, social, and academic scars such ill-treatment leaves on immigrant kids. Here’s how the report summarizes its conclusions:
From the existing research, it is clear that immigrant children recognize discrimination from peers and teachers at least by middle childhood (around age 8), and at the institutional or societal level by adolescence. Discrimination affects the psychological well-being of immigrant children, their academic outcomes, and their social relationships.
Studies reviewed by the report’s author, Christina Spears Brown, present a grim picture of life at school for children of immigrants. Even in elementary school, kids report being insulted verbally, excluded from group activities, and being threatened and physically hurt by classmates because of their language, ethnicity, or immigrant status. The report quotes fourth graders in Los Angeles, for example, who describe frequent racial name-calling.
“In PE class, a lot of kids called me a beaner,” one young Mexican immigrant told researchers.
Adults don’t always know any better. In school, teachers sometimes add to the problem. Immigrant children report that their teachers often grade and punish them unfairly, discourage them from joining advanced-level classes, and don’t A New Report Outlines the Harmful Social and Psychological Effects of Discrimination on Immigrant Children - CityLab: