Latino youths struggle in foundering MD community
April 20, 2009
Langley Park, MD -- Class at the youth center had just let out, and a gaggle of teenagers moved toward the door, turning saggy pants and ring tones thrumming with reggaetón hits into adolescent statements of Latino cool.
Some had rap sheets, and some had babies. Some had gang tattoos. Most had immigrant parents with menial jobs who survived on sweat and worry. They were children of the Washington suburbs, but the poverty and violence around them rivaled that of urban cores. Jesselyn Bercian paused to rub the belly of a pregnant staff member.
'I'm not very happy with my job right now,' Jesselyn told her.
The New York Times
Langley Park, MD -- Growing up in this corner of immigrant America, Jesselyn Bercian saw herself as an ordinary Salvadoran-American kid. She dropped out of high school, hung out with gangs and identified with poor, streetwise blacks. To the extent she gave it any thought, she considered poverty a Latina's fate.
How representative is she?
Among children of immigrants as a whole, she is not representative at all. They are an eclectic group, clustered at both ends of the economic spectrum, but on average more educated and less poor than children of the native born. Populations doing especially well include children of Indians, Filipinos, Chinese, Koreans, Nigerians and Russians. But among those who study the children of the poorest immigrants, Jesselyn's downward path illustrates a major concern.
The New York Times
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