Immigration, Children, and America: The Dreams of Hispanic Youngsters

Beginning

In college, my friends and I started an after school pre-k literacy program for Hispanic children.  Because Hispanic children in the United States face major obstacles standing in between them and their own dreams.  Our current immigration laws refuse to give immigrant Hispanic children citizenship and continue to break up Hispanic families.  This economically (and arguably morally) jeopardizes our nation’s promise of opportunity--our American Dream--for any child who works hard.  Here’s why.

Introduction to Academic and Economic Issues Facing Hispanic Children

Compared to all other ethnicities in the US, hispanic children have the highest high school dropout rates in the country¹, and they academically underperform their white peers at every grade K-12².  Consequently, as adults these children can expect to be unemployed, earn low-incomes, and struggle as they straddle the lines between struggling and living^3,4. 

Source of Academic and Economic Gaps

These children’s gaps in academics and economics are the result of their cognitive and noncognitive skills deficits that began in and grew larger since their early childhood⁴.  Their mothers, who raise them and who, on average, come from disadvantaged backgrounds with little formal schooling, know they should invest in developing their children’s skills--but they don’t know how and their children’s skill deficits reflect that lack of knowledge⁶. 

Almost half, 46%, of all Hispanic children in 2010 had mothers who had not graduated from high school (8% for Whites)--and 20% of them had mothers with an education below the 8th grade; and among immigrant Hispanic families, the percent of a Hispanic children with a mother without a high school education rises to 54%; the percent with a mother’s education below 8th grade, up to 29%! 

Unfortunately, these mothers do not read to their children as frequently as more educated mothers do; do not use and expose their children to vibrant, expansive language and vocabularies as frequently; and they do not enroll their children into high quality preschool and early childhood programs that develop their children’s skills where they, the mothers, cannot^5,6.  These children lack these investments, and this lack of investment causes them to develop skills deficits that open up early in their lives, widen over time, and predict academic achievement gaps and adverse life outcomes according to their finances and health.

These children also largely live in immigrant homes where Spanish is the dominant language in the household.  This linguistic isolation makes learning in the American classroom all the more difficult, as English proficiency is a major predictor of academic success for Hispanic children⁵.

NOTE: 

1.  Child defined as child aged between 0 and 8 years of age.

2.  All percentages in following statistics are taken from footnotes 5 and 6

Why Do These Gaps Matter?  The Development of and Interaction Between Cognitive and Noncognitive Skills

The first 5 years of a child’s life are critical for their success as adults in the labor market.  Within these first few years of life (and even before birth), children develop most of their cognitive and noncognitive skills that determine the rate at which they learn and the size of the positive impact that schooling has on their lives.  Cognitive skills are the “smarts” of a child.  Being able to do math problems immediately and solve equations and puzzles.  The non-cognitive skills, also termed their social and emotional skills, are their “soft skills,” their ability to motivate themselves, to be patient, to persevere, and to sit down to study for long periods of time.

According to James Heckman, University Professor at the University of Chicago, children with larger amounts of non-cognitive skills develop their cognitive skills faster.  They learn faster.  When they realize this, they in turn invest more in their non-cognitive skills too because they realize the complementary benefits of investing in both skills. This is dynamic complementarity:  it is a virtuous cycle.  And the more a child already knows, the easier it is to learn new skills!  This is self-productivity.

Simply put, a child that can study for long periods of time and remain motivated to learn is going to learn faster than another child that does not.  And the more the child continues to learn, the more the child will be willing to study longer, making learn even easier over time.  Lastly, the more a child already knows, the easier it is to learn something new!

Most importantly, there is a critical window in time in a child’s life where these skills first develop and are easiest to develop.  These are the years from birth to age 5.

The Future if We Don’t Act

As Hispanic immigration trends remain constant for the foreseeable future, as largely  disadvantaged and uneducated Hispanic mothers and families immigrate from Mexico and Central America to raise their children in the US, these children will continue to drop-out of school at the nation’s highest rates; they will continue to academically underperform;  and they will continue to struggle economically in the labor market⁵. 

This means we’re going to have high rates of poverty, violence, incarceration, high school dropouts, and civil-strife—we’ll have a big chunk of the nation living in horrible conditions; and we’ll have increasing inequality across racial and class lines that will only fuel racial and class violence.

What this all means if we do nothing:

Simply put, Hispanic families tend to be, on average, poor, uneducated, and linguistically isolated.  Families expressing these characteristics, unfortunately, provide suboptimal early childhood environments for their children causing their skills deficits which lead to adverse life outcomes, including lower educational attainment and poverty.  It is also well documented that families expressing these characteristics also express higher fertility rates: this leads to a vicious cycle of intergenerational, adverse early childhood environments and therefore intergenerational poverty.

Immigration, Children, and America

These children have dreams.  They live in the United States; they grow up under the American flag; they make friends with American children--and they are American in every way except for their parents’ immigration status (or their own). 

And 70% of them end up in only 10% of our schools, and usually they’re the worst we have. 

Instead of giving them our immigrant Founding Fathers’ promise of opportunity, we stack the odds against them.  Instead of helping their mothers get an education, we send them back to their native countries--leaving their child to grow up without a parent, without an advocate, without someone to invest in their human capital--their cognitive and noncognitive skills.

We exacerbate their skills gaps and then deride them for their poor performance in our schools and their performance in our labor markets--even though they pick our vegetables, fruits, and crops at dirt-cheap wages so we can eat them at dirt-cheap prices.

We endanger our country’s promise of opportunity for the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

Why My Friends Decided to Teach

If we actually invested in our Hispanic children, kept their families together, provided education to their mothers, these children would go to college, earn higher incomes, raise their employment rates, and--instead of allegedly draining our economy--would make our economy and nation grow faster, grow more resilient, and grow closer to our Founding Fathers’ vision of our nation as the home of opportunity.

That’s why my Hispanic friends decided to teach.  Because everyday that we focused on investing in these children’s human capital--in their cognitive and noncognitive skills--the closer we get to tearing down one obstacle in front of them: their skills gap.  If we could at least tear this obstacle down, we have then gotten these children one step closer to their American Dream.  Whatever that may be for them.  To be a doctor, a mechanic, a teacher--anything. 

Because they deserve the same shot, like every child in America, at their own American Dream.

References

1.  United States. Institute of Education Sciences (IES), National Center for Education Statistics, US 

Department of Education. Fast Facts: Dropout Rates. US Department of Education, 

2013. Web. <http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=16>.

2.  Reardon, S. F., & Galindo, C. (2006). Patterns of Hispanic students’ math and English literacy test 

scores in the early elementary grades: A report to the National Task Force on Early 

Childhood Education for Hispanics. Tempe, AZ: National Task Force on Early Childhood 

Education for Hispanics. Retrieved November 28, 2007, from 

http://www.ecehispanic.org/work/patterns.pdf.

3.  United States. Bureau of Labor Statistics, US Department of Labor. Employment Projections:

Education and employment rates by educational attainment. Washington, DC: BLS, 2013. 

Web. <http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm>.

4.  Heckman, James (2008), “Schools, Skills, and Synapses,” Economic Inquiry, 46(3): 289-324.

5.  Understanding the language development and Early Education of Hispanic Children.  Eugene

Garcia and Erminda, 2012.

6.  Risley, Todd, and Betty Hart. Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young

American Children.  York, Pennsylvania: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co, 1995.

Family Income and the Health of Children: The Poor Get Sicker and Sicker

If there was any question whether income and education affect health outcomes...well, there isn't one now.  Or at least there shouldn't be, after the hallmark study "Economic Status and Health in Childhood: The Origins of the Gradient" by Case et al.

She and her team of researchers found:

Immediately apparent in the left panel of Figure 3.1 (graph shown below) is the inverse relationship between family income and children’s health status for children of all ages. The correlation becomes progressively more negative with age—a phenomenon that holds throughout childhood and adulthood (note the change in scale between the panels). This steepening of the gradient with age is observed until roughly age 65, a result consistent with the findings of other researchers. The results for the PSID [Panel Study of Income Dynamics] are similar to those for the NHIS [National Health Interview Survey].

...on average, children’s health becomes poorer with age and...the differences in the health of wealthier and poorer children become more pronounced with age. 

Family income is not only a strong predictor of a child's health status at any given age, but it also seems to determine whether children face negative health outcomes that increase in severity as they age.

Being poor means that as children grow older, not only do they experience higher percentages of worse health outcomes, but their health status worsen over time--meaning the health gap between wealthier and poorer children only grows over time.

Family income really determines a child's health from beginning to end.  Income's protective power over children's health cannot be underestimated.

As Case et al conclude:

...income is itself protective of children’s health, or is correlated with things that are protective of children’s health. Perhaps both.

But what about parental education?  That has to have some positive effect on children's health outcomes, considering that education tends to lead to higher incomes, right?

The addition of parents’ educational attainment to the set of controls has a large effect on the estimated income coefficients, reducing them by roughly a third for all ages relative to results using Controls 1. However, the gradients remain large and highly significant. Even with controls for parents’ educations, a doubling of household income is associated with an increase in the probability that a child is in excellent or very good health of 4.0 percent (for ages 0-3), 4.9 percent (ages 4-8), 5.9 percent (ages 9-12) and 7.2 percent (ages 13-17).

... 

Although adding controls for education does not eliminate the effects of income, the coefficients on parents’ educations are large and significant. Children living with a mother with a high school degree are reported to be in better health than those whose mothers have not finished high school (the omitted category here). Children whose mothers have more than a high school degree are reported to be in even better health. A similar pattern is seen with respect to fathers’educations.

So while parental education does improve the health of children, income still dominates when it comes to improving a child's health outcomes.

(Click to enlarge the graphs!)

I have more to expand upon.  The paper also covers children and chronic conditions.

Healthy Lifestyles in School: Investment in Human Capital

Healthy Living: A Student’s Key to Success

The physical and mental bodies of the human are inextricably combined.  If the physical body is neglected, the mental will lag; if the mental body is slow, so will be the physical.  Each relies upon one another and must function together in synergy for optimal output.  To perform at this optimal, mental level and simultaneously prevent mental decay, however, the body requires adequate nourishment and structured, routine exercise.

This is why it is critical that students in school—pre-school, high school, college, and further—maintain their physical and mental bodies healthy: eating balanced diets and exercising regularly.  Students who do this will excel academically, which in turn will lead them to success beyond school.  Exercise and good eating habits in school increase students’ mental ability and self-confidence.  In turn, these benefits increase their human capital, which will be critical in their abilities in finding great paying, less stressful careers, and avoid poverty and long-term health issues.  Therefore, exercise and good eating habits in school lead students to long and prosperous futures.  Conversely, students who are incapable or refuse to maintain their physical body and health risk sabotaging their futures.   

Let us look first at the benefits of exercise and healthy eating habits with respect to the human body and the brain.  Researchers have recently discovered that “exercise affects the function of thirty-three different genes in the hippocampus [region of the brain], which plays a key role in mood, memory, and learning” (Conniff, 2).   It actually produces “new brain cells, new and enhanced connections between existing cells, new blood vessel for energy supply, and increased production of enzymes for putting glucose and other nutrients to work” which consequently helps prevent Type 2 Diabetes, which currently, negatively affects an alarmingly high rate of children in the United States and their learning capabilities in the classroom (Conniff, 2).  Exercise essentially provides the brain an environment in which it can grow in its capability to absorb information and process it faster.  So, if students exercise, they will invariably think faster and better.  This means success in the classroom.  And that means success beyond it.

Maybe the most important, however, is exercise and healthy eating habits help students fight depression, obesity, and Type 2 diabetes—which all link together.  Currently, one in three children in the United States is overweight or obese, and Type 2 diabetes and depression is increasingly being reported among children and adolescents who are obese (Gavin, CDC: “Overweight and Obesity).  This is a major obstacle impeding these students’ abilities to succeed in school, because they—our obese and overweight students—experience “immediate health consequences” of which some are “psychosocial” becoming “targets of early and systematic social discrimination” (CDC: O and O).   This psychological “stress of social stigmatization can cause low self-esteem which, in turn, can hinder academic and social functioning” (CDC: O and O).  Overweight and obese students are more likely to be depressed, self-deprecating, and therefore more academically at risk because they are constantly stigmatized because of their weight and feel resentment towards their bodies becoming anti-social and consequently more inclined to miss and drop out of school (Basch).

More alarming is the recent discovery that “adolescents with Type 2 diabetes have diminished cognitive performance and brain Abnormalities” (Adolescents: NYU).  In fact, adolescents with type 2 diabetes not only “had significant reductions in performance on tests that measure overall intellectual functioning, memory, and spelling…but [they] also had clear abnormalities in the integrity of the white matter in their brains” (Adolescents: NYU).   The consequences of an unhealthy lifestyle are dire with respect to students’ abilities to perform in school and beyond.  Their brains are physically destroyed.  It's a bit  difficult to ask a student to succeed in the classroom when that student's brain is literally handicapped.

The main causes of obesity, which increases children’s’ chances of suffering from depression and Type 2 Diabetes, are bad eating habits and sedentary lifestyles.  Thankfully, exercise and a balanced diet provide an effective solution.  Exercise “helps prevent and alleviate depression,” working as well as “pharmaceutical anti-depressants” by releasing endorphins in the brain; the effects of this chemical release are also dose-dependent: “the more you exercise, the better you feel” (Conniff, 2).  And students who lead healthy lifestyles balanced with routine exercise and a mixed diet of vegetables, fruits, and lean meats significantly decrease their chances of developing diabetes.  In fact, lifting weights only three days a week “decreases blood-glucose levels and improves insulin sensitivity” (Health Bulletin, 36). 

They also maintain healthy weights and socially great looking bodies.   They are slimmer, fitter, and more attractive in the general social atmosphere.  This is a superficial, yet important, solution exercise and healthy dieting provides in the fight against the systematic social discrimination that overweight and obese students may face in school that negatively affect their educational achievement—and the fight against depression and dropout rates.  Essentially, exercise and balanced dieting not only promote smarter, more confident students, but they also help prevent students from becoming overweight, depressed, and keep students in school. 

Keeping students in school is a major component of living and maintaining a healthy lifestyle.  It raises their human capital, and “Human capital creates opportunities” (Wheelan 147).  Students who succeed throughout elementary, middle, and high school are more likely to attend college and become skilled workers—and this is critical.  “College graduates earned an average of 40 percent more than high school graduates at the beginning of the 1980s; now they earn 80 percent more” (Wheelan 142).  Skilled and educated workers with college degrees in the United States have always earned more than their high school graduate counterparts—especially compared against their un-graduated high school peers.  And this not changing anytime soon: “Our economy is evolving in ways that favor skilled workers” (Wheelan 142).  Technology has replaced low-skilled labor at an increasing rate, as we no longer need gas station attendants who repeat repetitive tasks that require little to no education at all and pay very little. 

In fact, with the global economy of the present and future, “international trade puts low-skilled [American] workers with other low-skilled workers around the globe” (Wheelan 142).  The economics is fundamental.  Enterprises prefer to hire cheaper labor in Vietnam and China that will do the same menial tasks for pennies on the dollar versus the minimum wage in the United States.  High-skilled, college educated workers are better off because they have the technical and skilled knowledge necessary to build “Boeing airplanes” while the unskilled do not.  Plus, low-skilled workers are in large supply, depressing wages; skilled works are in short supply and high demand in America’s technological and service economy, increasing wages.

With all this in mind, if a healthy lifestyle in school can help ensure students avoid poverty and live financially successful and stable lives in the future, then it must be a priority for America’s youth to maintain their health because it is an investment in their human capital--their human potential and opportunity for success.

And with final regards to documented proof of increased performance via healthy dieting, according to a study testing 4,589 fifth-graders in Nova Scotia, students who “ate an adequate amount of fruit, vegetables, protein, fiber and other components of a healthy diet were significantly less likely to fail a literacy test” (Healthy Diet: Reuters).  The study’s researchers adjusted for gender, parental education and income, and school—and the results were the same across the board: students who ate better consistently throughout the day performed better on the literacy test they administered.  The study also found that “eating plenty of fruit and vegetables, and getting fewer calories from fat, was also associated with a lower risk of failing the test” (Healthy Diet: Reuters).

Nourishing and exercising the body provides students the mental fortitude and adeptness to succeed in the classroom to succeed beyond.  An unhealthy body produces an unhealthy mind and sabotages students’ futures in school.  Overall, however, the main point is this: “healthier students are better learners” (Basch).  And it is well known that better learners tend to be well off in the long-term financially in the good economic times—and the bad.  Like now. 

But there are various obstacles our youth face impeding them from investing in their health.  These barriers are mainly socio-economic ones.  Household income; neighborhood education; health culture; geographical location (food desserts and food prices); and incentives within schools  either encouraging or discouraging healthy behavior; and neighborhood levels of violence/safety.  

So then what types of policies can we employ to help encourage and allow our students to live healthier lifestyles?

This is the leading question that will I will focus on as time continues.

Bibliography

"Adolescents With Type 2 Diabetes Have Diminished Cognitive Performance and Brain Abnormalities." New York University Langone Medical Center: Communications and Public Affairs. NYU Langone Medical Center, 2 August 2010. Web. 26 Dec 2010.  http://communications.med.nyu.edu/news/2010/adolescents-with-type-2-diabetes-have-diminished-cognitive-performance-and-brain-abnormali>.

Basch, Charles E. Healthier Students Are Better Learners: A Missing Link in School Reforms to Close the Achievement Gap. March 2010. Columbia University Press, Research Initiative of the Campaign for Educational Equity: Equity Matters: Research Review No.6. http://www.equitycampaign.org/i/a/document/12557_EquityMattersVol6_Web03082010.pdf

Conniff, Richard. "Yes, You Were Born to Run." Mens Health Magazine 16 April 2008: 2. Web. 26 Dec 2010. <http://www.menshealth.com/fitness/biology-running>.

"Diabetes Public Health Resource: Prevent Diabetes." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Division of Diabetes Translation, 4 June 2010. Web. 26 Dec 2010. <http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/consumer/prevent.htm>.

Gavin, L., MD, Mary. "KidsHealth from Nemours." Overweight and Obesity. The Nemours Foundation, February 2009. Web. 26 Dec 2010. 

"Health Bulletin: The end of the iron age?" Men's Health Magazine. August 2008: 36. Print.

"Healthy Diet Means Better School Performance." Reuters. Reuters Prints, 14 April 2008. Web. 26 Dec 2010. <http://www.reuters.com/assets/print?aid=USTON47353620080414>.

"Overweight and Obesity: Childhood Overweight and Obesity." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. N.p., 20 October 2009. Web. 26 Dec 2010. <http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/childhood/consequences.html>.

Wheelan, Charlie. Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science. 2nd. New York, N.Y.: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010. 354. Print.