Getting to Know Your International Contacts

While I am still waiting to find a professional to discuss about poverty, I moved on the podcast format. Unfortunately, the Childhood Poverty Research and Policy Centre’s web site recommended for this assignment was unavailable. I found another page the podcast channel from Institute for Research on Poverty (http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/media/podcasts.htm). I listened one of the issue “The Prospects for Second-Generation Latino Young Men in the Inner City” by Maria Rendon, UC-Irvine discusses her study of second-generation Latino young men in urban poverty neighborhoods and their common attitudes about life. 

In 2007, Rendon interviewed a group of second generations of young Latino immigrants living in the poverty area in Los Angeles, who are either dropout of high school, completed high school or completed four-year universities about their perspective as second-generation immigrant minority. They all seems optimistic about life as they see their parents were working hard to migrate to this country and live better than where they are form. They tends to think if you work hard in this country, you will get something eventually, for example, you may able to purchase a house even it is in a rough area, which they may not able to do so in their home town. 

Rendon did follow up interviews in 5 years later with her interview subjects, she found that most of these young men are still optimistic about their life and future. They tend to hold a sense of responsibility to have a more advance life than what their parents provide to them or at least have similar life. For example, if their parents were able to purchase a house, they would think they should be able to as well. Two men in these subjects, who finished at least college level,were able to find a job as a bank teller. And most of the subjects were ending working and continue to stay in their neighborhood. Rendon found this sample links to the lack of social network as they were from minority and poor community.

These findings did not surprise me but enlighten me to reflect on why we do not see many administrators or higher ups people are minorities. Although we see an increasing amount of minorities and women in higher paid job or administrative job, without doubt that US-born group or middle class group has more advantage than the minority or people living in poverty. Think about the poor neighborhood, poverty seems to always link to violence, as people were not educated or do not know how to release their angry through language.  We should think about how could early childhood education supports children and families in poverty to overcome these situations. I always think that early childhood educators do not only teach children but also support families. Parents are the children’s priority supporter, if they were not able to provide children sufficient supports, it is challenging for other providers to support children. Therefore, supporting parents in the needs are essentials. Finding job-training resources for parents to such as English classes, office skills class to support the parent to obtain a job in the mainstream labor market. According to Rendon’s finding from the Latino’s family, if the parent were able to find a decent job, it may also motivate children to seek for better life in the future.