Dissertation
How Children Translate Their Immigrant Families’ Social Networks into Community Connections
My dissertation focused on new immigrant Latino families in South Los Angeles and how children “broker” language, culture, and media for their families. I was primarily interested in how children influence their families’ integration into their communities, and how these responsibilities affect young people’s development.
Using quantitative survey analyses, participant observation, and in-depth interviews with parents, children, and English speaking service providers in the community, I found that the families who are most linguistically isolated still have rich interpersonal networks. However, there are important information resources lacking in their social networks, and children are often the link between their families and local resources like schools, health care, and social services. Some families manage these brokering interactions more successfully than others, and these families are most likely to be meaningfully connected to their communities.
Taking children seriously in immigration studies sheds light on the communication dynamics of immigrant families and provides important clues about optimal development of children who shoulder brokering responsibilities as part of their development.
