New study sheds light on the assimilation of immigrants
PHARR — Maria Leanos first arrived to this country as an 8-year-old immigrant who couldn’t speak or write English, but after almost 16 years of persistence, dedication and education, the now 23-year-old social worker is well on her way to achieving the American dream.
Like Leanos, many immigrants across the United States are assimilating at high rates and showing higher signs of advancement the longer they live here, concluded a new study released Wednesday by the Center for American Progress, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and educational institute.
The study focused on immigrants who arrived between 1985 and 1989. Researchers tracked their advancement for 18 years by using data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
They used six key social and economic indicators, including citizenship, homeownership, English-language proficiency, educational attainment and occupation, to measure the immigrants’ “assimilation,” which refers to the process of adapting to a new society.
The report concluded that the longer immigrants are in the United States, the more integrated they become — a fact, the researchers say, that remains consistent across the nation, regardless of whether the immigrant comes from Mexico, Central America or elsewhere.
THE LEANOS FAMILY
Leanos, who was born in Reynosa, moved with her entire family to the United States in 1994 after her grandparents, also from Mexico, were granted legal U.S. residency for themselves, Leanos’ mother and eight uncles and aunts. However, when Leanos’ grandparents first submitted the paperwork, her mother failed to mention she had a daughter, so the little girl wasn’t granted legal resident status.
Leanos said she was able to enter the country by using a border crossing card, which allowed her to visit the U.S. only for short visits.
“That card eventually expired and I couldn’t go back to Reynosa,” she said. “I didn’t go back for 10 years.”
Leanos, who resided in Pharr, remembers some of the hardships her family went through as they tried to adapt to a new way of life.
“Since we were new to the country, we didn’t know a lot,” she said. “We just knew how to get from our school to the house and from the house to the school. We didn’t even know where the grocery store was.”
At school, Leanos had a hard time communicating with her teachers and peers. She was supposed to enter school as a third-grader, but her language barrier resulted in her having to repeat the second grade.
The Center for American Progress report notes that adult immigrants from Mexico and Central America have the lowest educational attainment and lowest English-speaking skills compared to immigrants from other nations and regions. However, it goes on to say that those who immigrate as children, especially Latinos, ultimately have higher rates of attainment in education and occupation than their adult counterparts, who have fewer opportunities as newly arrived workers.
“When I was younger, I would see many people who didn’t want to go to school drop out or get pregnant,” Leanos said. “To me that was a waste of a life. They had all of these opportunities because they were born here, and I — that wanted to go to school, continue my education and was not getting in trouble — was restricted from all of those opportunities.”
Despite not being able to qualify for financial assistance for three of her four years in college because of her immigration status, Leanos received a bachelor’s degree in biology with a minor in chemistry and English from the University of Texas-Pan American last year.
Her mother, who didn’t finish her schooling in Mexico, received her general equivalency diploma nearly six years after their arrival to the U.S.
The study also concluded that integration was fastest in the areas of citizenship and homeownership. In 1990, less than five years after their arrival, only 9.3 percent of the Latino immigrants owned homes. By 2008, that number reached 58 percent, compared to the 66.6 percent homeownership rate for non-Hispanic native-born men.
Leanos’ mother, who works two jobs — as a health care provider and as a janitor for the city of Donna — owns a five-bedroom, two-bathroom home where she resides with her four other children, who were born in the U.S. after the family immigrated.
Income levels for immigrants continue to rise, the report also found. The number of foreign-born men earning above low-income levels rose from 35 percent in 1990, when the immigrants were recently arrived, to 66 percent in 2008.
Now a social worker for the state’s Child Protective Services division, Leanos said she was unable to secure employment until after she received her Social Security card at the age of 21. She now earns $32,000 a year.
Leanos is also in the final stages of becoming a legal U.S. resident. Last week, she had her final hearing with the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, which will make the ultimate decision on her immigration status.
“When I spoke to my lawyer, she said everything was fine and that if everything went according to plan, I should be hearing from them in about two weeks,” an excited Leanos said. “The opportunity is there for everybody — it’s just a matter of if they want to take it or not.”
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Naxiely Lopez covers PSJA and general assignments for The Monitor. She can be reached at (956) 683-4434.
